An ERA Update

 

Back in March, I began my journey with the Pocketbook ERA (A New ERA Begins). There were the typical problems of learning a new piece of tech and figuring out how to work with or around its idiosyncrasies.

My main two issues were with managing collections (series/authors/etc) on the ERA itself and with the buttons, which were a much harder press, almost a snap, than the gentle press I was used to on my old Oasis.

The button issue is still an issue. I suspect it will stay an issue for as long as I own the ERA. What I have done to mitigate the stress created on my thumb from being forced to press so hard is to switch hands more often. It is not an ideal solution, but it is one that works and one that I can deal with. Plus, given the Era's shape and weight, switching hands more often has the added benefit of giving that particular wrist a break too. For someone with as small hands as mine, the ERA is just a tad too big.

The second issue, managing collections on the ERA via Calibre has been solved. When I got the ERA I knew there was a plugin for Calibre to do just this. However, trying to deal with the ERA and the new plugin all at the same time was simply too much for me. Once I was used to the ERA, I began working on the plugin (PB Collections Plugin). The first thing I had to do was just install it. I didn't try to configure it or mess around with it or anything. I just installed it and let it sit for about a week. Then I began meticulously reading through the plugin thread and following the steps exactly. Once the plugin was setup correctly and I had the correct column created in Calibre, I began creating new collections in Calibre. I put my ERA on the arm of the couch and began typing in collections in Calibre that were on the ERA. Then I began assigning books in Calibre to the various collections. At this point, I still hadn't plugged the ERA back in to Calibre to get everything transferred. I wanted to get used to doing all the scutwork ahead of time and to become familiar with the process. Once I had all the collections on my ERA created in Calibre and all the books assigned to the various collections (this was about a week later, again), I plugged in my ERA and let Calibre and the ERA do their thing. Once everything was transferred, I had several instances of double collections of my ERA from my manually created collections (when I first used the ERA) being slightly different from the Calibre created collections (usually upper/lower case letter differences). I just went through and deleted the manual collections and all that was left were the Calibre managed collections, with all the books in them that were supposed to be.

That is a snapshot of my Calibre library. The PB Collection column is the one that applies to the ERA. Whenever I want a book in Calibre to be in a collection on the ERA, I simply assign it to a collection or create a new collection and when I send the book to the ERA all the info goes along with it. Much, much, much simpler than doing it book by book on the ERA itself.

Now that I have the plugin working, my time with my ERA is going much smoother. Just like a computer, data management is half the battle when it comes to an ereader and I've got that half of the battled licked. The other half of the battle is actually reading the books I put on it. But have no fear, I feel like I've got that part of the battle licked too. GI Joe's got nothing on me!

I suspect this will be the last post I do specifically on the ERA. Obviously, feel free to ask questions about it or Calibre and I'll do my best to answer. Or I'll just do the ol' razzle dazzle jazz hands thing and pretend I answered your question ;-)