AI generated image of a person reading a book by a fireplace with plenty of other books on shelves

Setting Up AudioBookShelf

Byrichard
Reading Time: 3 minutes

I have been an audible member for years at this point and in that time I have “bought” hundreds of books. I write “bought” because I payed for a Platinum account for years and got credits and got the books with those credits. Over the years I have collected more books than I can read in a year.

That library lived in the cloud, rather than my devices, for years. I would download the books I was listening to but not those that I had finished, or would read later. That’s because laptops and mobile phones have smaller hard drives than I require for my books.

OpenAudible

The first step when backing up audible books is to download them. The second is to strip them of DRM, and before you tell me off for being like a pirate I will correct you. I bought an MP3 player but because it doesn’t support AAX files I had to find a way to make the content that I own, legally, playable on a cheap mp3 player. In the process I stripped the DRM because I had no way of playing the audio files otherwise.

It’s because Apple, Audible and Sandisk do not play nicely that I had to strip the DRM. If they played nicely I would not have stripped files of DRM.

AudioBookShelf

AudioBookShelf serves as a site/service that makes it easy to catalogue your books and listen to them from your phone, laptop, desktop tablet or other. An Android App exists, but the iOS app is only available via Testflight.

The app can be installed as a docker container within minutes, and then you can point it to the folder where you store all your audiobooks. I write audio books, rather than Audible, because you can download audio books or podcasts and add them to your instance of audiobookshelf, to listen to files, streamed, or downloaded.

Listen Tracking

As you listen to books with this app you get to see how many minutes you listened per session, as well as which book, and for how long. If you use the app for more than a year you get the summary of previous years of listening.

Cover Art

The app gives you the option of looking for book cover art from a number of different audible libraries, depending on language and country, but also from open library and other sources.

Multiple Accounts

You can add as many accounts as you like with this app. The admin account can also create libraries either for individuals or to make it easier to differentiate between open audio books, audible, or other providers.

If you have a spouse, or children, or both, or live with others you can share access to this library. You can choose whether people can read, download, upload and more. This enables people to add the books that they want to have available via this website.

Podcasts

The app supports podcasts. If you add the OPML file of your podcasts it will automatically retrieve the latest ones, for you to listen to. I have yet to test this feature.

And Finally

So far I have listened to an hour of audiobooks via this website/instance and it works well. I tested it via firefox on iOS and via the web browser on the laptop and it works very well. As you listen on the phone you can see the progress bar update on the laptop and vice versa. You can seamlessly switch between devices.

The advantage of such an app is that you can share books, without giving people the files. They can then listen to audio books and their progress is kept between devices.

One of the key nuissances with audio players is that they do not usually keep track of progress. With this app you do, so you can switch between books and it will remember where you are.

The other advantage is that each listener is independent so you get listening stats for yourself, but not others.

So far I am happy with my experience.

Similar Posts

On Mastodon Niches

On Mastodon Niches

Byrichard

Mastodon is a federated social network where people can join a server, based on their interests in tech and more. Most people join the servers that are open and easy to join but in doing so we have communities that grow, without becoming communal. I am on at least three different Mastodon servers.


Instances


I am on Mastodon.social, Techhub.social and Calckey.social and so far my favourite is Calckey.social because that’s where I got the strongest sense of community. In the process it also showed me one of the unique features of Mastodon, compared to reddit, twitter, facebook and other social networks. That feature is scale. I don’t mean that it’s huge and growing. I don’t mean that it has a million users.
I mean that if I wanted to create a Mastodon instance for hikers in the Canton De Vaud I could. I could create a niche mastodon instance that is centered around hiking in Switzerland, and encourage people I hike with to join, as well as to attract a larger community of people who enjoy the outdooors.


The Big Four


At the moment Social media is about Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and TikTok, where everyone is thrown into a gigantic melting pot. The issue is that this melting pot is driven by algorithms and influencers rather than human scale social interactions. On Twitter, Facebook and the two others we are fighting to be heard. On Mastodon, if we find the right instance, we are heard without having to become unsociable.
Instead of asking “Which server should I join?”, we can ask “Which community do I want to be part of?”. This is healthier. This is on a more human level.


And Finally


Mastodon is not Twitter or Facebook. It is more like Wordpress. If you don’t like one community then you don’t have to stay on that server. You can hop to another that is more in line with your way of thinking. In a community where you feel positive you do not need to hide your name. I would encourage people to flit from server to server until they find the instance that they like. Mastodon is more like a web forum. There are hundreds of servers, the aim is to find the server that you like being a part of.

Day 52 Of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – More Cows, and Cascading Style Sheets
|

Day 52 Of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – More Cows, and Cascading Style Sheets

Byrichard

While some of us have gone fifty-two days without being within two meters of another person due to the pandemic others walk side by side down country lanes, forcing those walking alone to make the decision of whether to risk infecting the vulnerable couple or stepping off the road and waiting under an electricity pylon while the selfish people clear the way.


Untitled


In the image above we can clearly see two couples walking side by side. If these couples could walk single file then single people would be able to move around more freely. That’s why I went for walks in the rain, why I walked through muddy fields and paths that became streams. It’s the only way to avoid these people. Solitary confinement may be the reason this behaviour bothers me so much. It’s hard to see people that are not alone, when we are.


If I was walking in open fields at the moment I would have been charged at least two or three times by cows protecting their young. The reason for this is that they’re with calves that are just a week or three old. You can see them stand defensively and that they’re ready to charge you if you get too close.


Now would be a very bad time to walk into an enclosure. Now is a good time to be careful when hiking.


@richardazia

##switzerland ##calve ##veau ##jeune ##suisse

? Barden Bellas – joealbanese

Taking a Break From The Apple Watch

Taking a Break From The Apple Watch

Byrichard

Yesterday I decided to take a break from the Apple watch for up to a week. I am tired of two behaviours. The first of these is the watch’s habit of saying that I did not stand for two or three hours in a row. I know that I have. I need to stand to cook, or to brush my teeth and other tasks. It also annoys me that if you bend your arm it counts that you sat down. Bend your arm to check if you have been standing for at least one minute and it resets the counter.


The second flaw comes from the monthly challenge. The challenge for this month is to do 4900 minutes of exercise if I remember and this is absurd. It will always push you to strive more, to reach further and to work out harder. It lacks flexibility.


If the workout goal is 4900 minutes, then that’s over two hours per day. In theory that’s a nice challenge, but in the long run it leads to exhaustion. Last year, I would let the app tell me to do up to 600 calories or more of exercise a day. That goal led to me exhausting and fatiguing myself because there are no breaks. It pushes, and pushes. It doesn’t think “You need to rest” or “you did sport A rather than sport B so we will adjust the monthly goal. It’s AI, without fatigue built in.


The other challenge, having three watches with three ecosystems. There is little to no interoperability. The steps aren’t transferred from Suunto to Apple from Apple to Suunto. Garmin wants other data than the other two. To feed all three databases you need to wear three watches. It would be nice to sync the data between the three without thought. This would give us the freedom to slide between platforms. This would give us the opportunity to wear a single watch.


Running Up Four Floors at a time, Walking Two Hours A Day


I almost never walk up the stairs, especially a single step at a time. I always run up them. I run up at least two steps at a time and I sprint three or four floors without getting winded. I also walk from one and a half to two hours a day. The Apple watch tells me that I didn’t stand for two hours in a row. If I don’t stand for one or two hours it is because I am studying or working. By telling me to stand the watch is telling me to procrastinate.


For clarity, the watch doesn’t tell me anything. I turn off notifications. I check the fitness app to see how the day is going, and that’s when I see that it says I haven’t stood for two hours. That little light blue bar annoys me. I have a compulsion to have a perfect collection of filled bars, every hour.


That’s why I need to take a break from the watch. It makes me care about something that doesn’t matter at all. Standing is a recommendation, for people who need to get into the habit of working out. I don’t have that problem. I can ignore it.


Turning It Off


I looked for an option to turn off the standing trend but can’t. I can cut it down to six hours a day, but the issue is not standing six or twelve hours a day. It’s wanting to have a “perfect” day, and keeping the trend in the fitness app increasing. This benefits my life in no way, so turning it off would be the ideal solution.

A Skateboarding Journey

A Skateboarding Journey

Byrichard

When I was younger I switched from skiing to snowboarding and I loved the sensations. I loved how quickly I adapted my skiing knowledge to snowboarding. Within hours I felt okay. I often feel that I could have progressed faster if I had been in a group with people who were just experiencing winter sports for the first time.

When I was a child I sometimes played with a skateboard but I just went up and down a street. We played as children do.

For a while I thought that I would take off rollerblading instead of walking or cycling. Within a short amount of time I came up against the fact that I live in a hilly place with cars that do not respect pedestrians, cyclists or other slow moving people. As a result of this I lost interest in skating, but was attracted by the notion of skateboarding.

Two Shoes

The beauty of the skateboard is that you have four wheels, that allow you to go faster, when the surface is right, but when it isn’t you just step, or stumble, off of the board, and you walk until it is friendly for the skateboard again. It allows you to go faster than a walker, when the conditions are right, and walk when they’re not. It gives you the best of both worlds.

Finding Balance

For the first two or three hundred meters I really struggled with giving the board direction, but also with balancing. It would veer to the right when I wanted to go to the left. Eventually I found a slight decline and that’s when I practiced riding the board, and reacquainting myself with the feel of skateboarding. Eventually balancing switched back from the front of my focus, to instinct, and that’s when I could begin to control the board, and get it to do what I wanted again. I was a little surprised by how quickly I remembered the right habits.

Switching from Snoarboading to Skating

Taking snowboarding knowledge and applying it to skating is easy. I was surprised that within an eleven kilometre loop I felt more comfortable. I carried the board more than I rode it but that’s because the slopes are steep and I’m not used to the sensations yet, but also because the steep slopes are roads, with cars. By pushing my ability too fast I could endanger myself, especially near roads. I practiced on agricultural roads where traffic is at a minimum. If bikes or pedestrians were walking I reverted to walking. It’s about being safe, and in control.

Purpose

I was going to say that I want to learn to skateboard again because it’s faster than walking. It is faster than walking but that’s not the only benefit. Skateboarding is exertional. It requires the use of different leg muscles and it’s a proper workout, rather than just walking. For up hill bits, downhills, and rough terrain I will continue to walk, but where the terrain is flat enough, and traffic is low enough, I can skate. By mixing the two I will be practicing interval training, without it being called interval training. With experience going to the train station and back, and going to the shops and back, will be faster.

And Finally

Skateboards are easy to transport, whether by car, by train, or even by foot. Theoretically you can always have it with you, for when opportunities present themselves. I’m happy that I felt comfortable within an hour or two of riding, even if most of that time was walking to a comfortable location.

They say that things are like riding a bike. I think that skateboarding is like snowboarding. It doesn’t take long to remember how to do it.

A Walk at the Snow Line

A Walk at the Snow Line

Byrichard

The most striking thing about a winter with little to no snow is that there is no noise. Normally ski lifts clank, people talk and there is a lot of noise



When there has been very little snow the ski lifts are turned off and the mountains are quiet. This is when you realise the impact of winter sports.


In summer you hear cowbells.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.