7c8efd2228
- MCP server with stdio transport for local use - Search episodes, transcripts, hosts, and series - 4,511 episodes with metadata and transcripts - Data loader with in-memory JSON storage 🤖 Generated with [Claude Code](https://claude.com/claude-code) Co-Authored-By: Claude <noreply@anthropic.com>
122 lines
7.0 KiB
Plaintext
122 lines
7.0 KiB
Plaintext
Episode: 4207
|
|
Title: HPR4207: Re: The Kindle/Kobo Open Reader (KOReader)
|
|
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4207/hpr4207.mp3
|
|
Transcribed: 2025-10-25 21:22:53
|
|
|
|
---
|
|
|
|
This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4200 and 7 for Tuesday the 17th of September 2024.
|
|
Today's show is entitled, Read the Kindle Kobo Open Reader, KO Reader.
|
|
It is hosted by DNT and is about 9 minutes long.
|
|
It carries a clean flag.
|
|
The summary is, a response to Hacker Public Radio 1949 about the KO Reader.
|
|
You are listening to a show from the Reserve Q. We are airing it now because we had free
|
|
slots that were not filled.
|
|
This is a community project that needs listeners to contribute shows in order to survive.
|
|
Please consider recording a show for Hacker Public Radio.
|
|
Hello my friends and welcome to another exciting episode of this Hacker Public Radio.
|
|
I'm your host DNT.
|
|
So today I'm posting a response show to a show by John Culp, which was posted.
|
|
A while back is kind of an old show.
|
|
I listened to it because I was searching to see if anyone had ever talked about KO Reader
|
|
and turns out John Culp has.
|
|
I have something to add to his show and that's why I figured I'd record a show.
|
|
First of all, excellent show by John Culp there.
|
|
I very much appreciate all the pains you have taken for the typography of the books
|
|
you're reading in your e-reader.
|
|
And yeah, I have appreciated KO Reader for many of the same reasons.
|
|
John Culp cited in his show, including how it uses more of the space on the screen.
|
|
It doesn't enforce such a thick border and also of course it's not the stock Kindle application.
|
|
And yeah, let me backtrack a little bit.
|
|
So I installed KO Reader on my Kindle touch, which is kind of an old one I've had
|
|
for a very long time.
|
|
The number one reason, I actually I first installed KO Reader on the Android.
|
|
And yeah, I was just pretty intrigued with the idea of replacing the stock Kindle firmware
|
|
software with something else that is free, right?
|
|
And something that can read EPUB also would be interesting.
|
|
So then yeah, I finally got around to doing that on my Kindle touch and I have really liked
|
|
it so far.
|
|
So the interface is a little bit different.
|
|
You have some more options about some things and you get to read EPUBs.
|
|
There's no ad at the bottom of the screen.
|
|
And even if you leave Wi-Fi on, there won't be ads in the lock screen.
|
|
Because they're usually are with a regular Kindle, right?
|
|
If you turn on Wi-Fi, Amazon starts sending you their crap and then it shows up on your
|
|
lock screen.
|
|
That's if you paid a little less when you bought your Kindle.
|
|
I don't know if that's still the case with current Kindles.
|
|
I've had this for a really long time.
|
|
So anyway, the thing that John Koch touched on quickly was the Calibre or Calibre.
|
|
I'm not sure how we pronounce that, but he actually let's sort that out first, right?
|
|
We want to take care of that kind of thing.
|
|
So let's see what it says on the Wikipedia article about this application.
|
|
It doesn't say anything.
|
|
So let's just do a duck, duck, go search.
|
|
Bear with me here for a moment.
|
|
Yeah, I don't think I might be able to do this while this here is rolling.
|
|
So let's get, let's forget about this.
|
|
So I'm going to say Calibre.
|
|
So, there's an option in KO reader that says Calibre and then it says connect, right?
|
|
And I was, I actually host a Calibre library on the computer here at home that I access
|
|
when I'm on the wire guard VPN.
|
|
So I first, at first I thought that would be what it would do.
|
|
So I tried that.
|
|
I put in the local network IP and it wouldn't connect.
|
|
So anyway, finally I figured out that it's, and you know, this is probably in their documentation
|
|
in the KO reader documentation, I would imagine.
|
|
So what it's actually talking about is not the, what's called the Calibre content server.
|
|
It's just the wireless device connection.
|
|
So if you go to your Calibre on the little kind of ribbon thing, right?
|
|
As they say in Microsoft application UI terminology, here in the ribbon you have connect slash
|
|
share.
|
|
And then if you open, if you click there, one of the options you'll see right below the
|
|
start content server, which is the one where you start an actual HTTP server to look at
|
|
your library, there's an option to start wireless device connection.
|
|
So you click there, then it'll show you what local IP address is you're connected to
|
|
or as or whatever.
|
|
You can enter an optional password.
|
|
You can also tell it to start this connection automatically when you start Calibre, which
|
|
is what I do.
|
|
It also shows you what port you're on.
|
|
So that's what you want to do.
|
|
So note those that IP address, then put that in as the IP address for your Calibre
|
|
on the KO reader.
|
|
And then when you click connect on the KO reader, you will see your computer will act like
|
|
you just plugged in your e-reader.
|
|
So maybe to some people who don't have a Kindle or have some other device, this is not
|
|
interesting, but yeah, I had never been able to do that before.
|
|
So basically now I can send books to my Kindle without having to plug it into my computer.
|
|
And I think that's nice.
|
|
So then, yeah, so that's that about that feature, about the Calibre feature that John
|
|
called briefly touched on, but he didn't know what it did.
|
|
So that's what I did, that's what I had to offer here.
|
|
I'll say a couple other things that are really good about the KO reader.
|
|
One of them is you can search Wikipedia pretty nicely, even when you're in the middle
|
|
of you're reading a book, you can just highlight some words and then do a search on Wikipedia.
|
|
And in KO reader itself, you can download dictionaries and there's a million options,
|
|
there's kind of too many options to be honest.
|
|
So I scrolled through until I found WordNet dictionary, which is the one used by an EMAX
|
|
package that I use for finding word definitions in buffers.
|
|
So I downloaded that one, it's pretty decent.
|
|
And honestly, you got any dictionary, whatever is not in the dictionary, you're very likely
|
|
to find it on Wikipedia.
|
|
So you pretty well covered there, right?
|
|
So anyway, that was KO reader, really good stuff.
|
|
If you have a candle, I beg you to jailbreak it and install this thing, because it's really
|
|
worth it and you will never have to look at Amazon's face again, all right?
|
|
So thanks for tuning into this one, get a microphone or something, a recorder, and then
|
|
record your own show.
|
|
Whatever has occurred to you today, whatever you've thought about, something you've learned,
|
|
something you've been doing for a long time, you can just get a recorder or something,
|
|
talk about it for a bit and post it, we'll be glad to listen to it, all right?
|
|
And come back tomorrow for another excellent episode of Hacker Public Radio.
|
|
Bye.
|
|
You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at HackerPublicRadio.org.
|
|
Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself.
|
|
If you ever thought of recording podcasts, then click on our contribute link to find out
|
|
how easy it really is.
|
|
Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an honesthost.com, the internet archive,
|
|
and our sync.net.
|
|
Along the Sadois status, today's show is released under Creative Commons, Attribution, 4.0
|
|
International License.
|