Self-Hosted Problem

Self-Hosted Problem

Byrichard

Yesterday I was already out when I noticed that I forgot to restart the audiobookshelf instance on my server before the run. I could either go home, start the server, and run, or I could just go for my run and use the normal app instead.

By normal app I mean using Audible’s app rather than Audiobookshelf. Luckily I have books that I am reading on both apps so I can listen to either one or the other, without having to sync the player to the right place.

One of the issues that I come across, after installing the apps on so many instances is that I do some things so that it boots with every boot on one system but not the next. The result is that if I reboot to move the Pi from one place to another I need to restart the services. If I had not moved the app I would have no issue. Starting audiobookshelf takes a few seconds. It’s just a matter of remembering.

On the other side of things I was worried that playing books or podcasts via Audiobookshelf would be complicated by the lack of a car app but this isn’t the case. If you’re parked somewhere with a phone or wifi signal you can queue the podcast or book you want to listen to, press play and it will play through the sound system. It’s more fiddly than using a car play app, but not by much.

And Finally

Audiobookshelf is a great app that I like to use daily, for podcasts and audiobooks. Once it is set up it works very well. It’s great that it keeps track of what we have listened to and downloads recent podcasts. It doesn’t have a way to automate the importing of books but that will come with time.

Playing with OpenAudible and Audiobookshelf
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Playing with OpenAudible and Audiobookshelf

Byrichard

Last night I finished converting all my audiobooks to a DRM free format. In the process I learned that the m4b format renders much faster than mp3. I spent weeks trying to convert AAX files to mp3 and then by accident I agreed to convert files to m4b and it took the time it took for me to walk on my daily walk to be done.

Migrated to Audiobookshelf

Now that all the files have been converted to mp3 and m4b I have uploaded them to Audiobookshelf. Some files failed to import. The rest imported with ease. The advantage that I now have is that I can browse through my audiobook collection faster than if I use either Audible’s phone app and their website. The other advantage is that my files are self-hosted locally so unless my hard drives fail I have my own copy, as I would if I had bought physical books.

Fiddly

When you’re listening to Audiobooks on a laptop the website works well. When you’re listening on an iOS device the epxerience is slightly more complicated. You need to navigate to the website in a browser, find the book, and then start listening. If you use it for podcasts then it plays one podcast and then you need to select the next. On a computer podcasts play one after another.

Create Users

Audiobookshelf allows you to create users. You can have one that has admin privilieges that is used just to add podcasts and create libraries etc and a second one to use as a user. By seperating the two there is less chance of making a mistake.

You can create multiple libraries for multiple users, so in theory you can create a library per person, for them to upload their own books. You cannot restrict library A to user A, library B to user B etc. You can control whether people can upload, download and more. You can give people access to listen, via the site, but restrict who can download to keep.

And Finally

OpenAudible and Audiobookshelf give us a way to keep the content that we spent money buying for our own personal use. If Amazon or Audible go bankrupt then we do not end up with nothing, after spending 100+ usd per year for content. I like both OpenAudible and Audiobookshelf

Waiting

Waiting

Byrichard

As I write this I am waiting for my Apple Laptop to complete two tasks. The first task is to convert all my audible books from AAX to MP3 format. This is taking days to complete because I have over 500 books and my mac book pro is slow, due to it being from 2016.

Very Slow Time Machine

I’m also waiting for my mac book pro to backup to a one terabyte external HD, before repurposing a one terabyte SSD. It’s a waste to have an SSD working as a time machine backup when it could be used for more interesting tasks.

Flickr Backup

I recently downloaded all of my photos from flickr. I want to consolidate my photos from iPhoto, now Photos, with Picasa photos, Now also Photos (but by Google), as well as by flickr, which is still just flickr. I checked and PhotoPrism is written so that it can get metadata from Flickr export files and populate PhotoPrism.

Unzipping

At some point I need to spend several hours unzipping over one hundred and fourty files. I want to use a Linux system because with Linux images are unzipped into a single folder structure, whereas with MacOS each zip file becomes an individual folder, and when you have 140 zips you don’t want to go through 140 folders to reconcile all the files into the structure they should be in.

This is important, because exported image files are organised by folders, but their creation date and modified date correspond to when the zip was created, rather than the files. This means that I need Photoprism to see the photo files and find the JSON data that goes with them. I wanted to reorganise my files manually, by date, but I can’t.

PhotoPrism Duplicate Detection

there is a silver lining. PhotoPrism is designed not only so that it can see the photos and read the json files with exif information but it can also detect duplicates. I was going to do it manually because I thought it would be faster, but it isn’t faster, and could become very messy later, if I mess around with photo files. JSON files will no longer have the right information to go with the photo files.

Replacing Time Machine and Google Backup with NextCloud

In theory I don’t need to wait for Time Machine to backup to an external hard drive because I could setup Nextcloud to take care of backing up for me. I will do that, once this backup is over.

Ubuntu From Target Drive

In the past I have run Linux on a mac using the Target Drive mode but the issue is that you need to shut down the machine if you want to move it. With an SSD I could theoretically move the computer whilst it’s hibernating or sleeping. It would give me the flexibility of having a Linux system, without having to wipe MacOS.

I want to wipe MacOS from that drive anyway, but first I want to ensure that Ubuntu or another version of Linux runs well before taking the plunge.

And Finally

Time Machine

Time Machine is demonstrating why it makes sense to replace it with a self-hosted instance of Next Cloud. It shouldn’t take a day and a half or more to backup a laptop. With Next Cloud I will have an always on backup of files from the laptop.

AudioBookShelf

Yesterday I moved audiobooks and podcasts from the Pi SD card to an external hard drive and it worked flawlessly so I know that this migration is easy, as long as I update the docker-compose file.

PhotoPrism

At the moment I have a photoprism library, that I will need to reconcile with my flickr and local versions of photos. I know that some duplicates remain so the question is whether to place flickr in one folder within import, and the local versions of photos in another folder, and import both at once, or should I import local files first, and then move the flickr files?

Time Consuming

I have been collecting files for at least two decades. By experimenting with self hosted versions of PhotoPrism, Nextcloud and more I was pushed to clear the chaos in my drive collection. It has taken a lot of time but the result is that I will soon have a few drives free to re-use for smaller projects.

A Good Feeling

It takes hours to move files from smaller drives to larger drives, and to detect and remove duplicates. It can feel overwhelming and tedious but in the end you get something worthwhile. I now have all my photos in one place organised chronologically, all my videos across two drives, organised chronologically and soon all my audiobooks and favourite podcasts organised.

When all your files are across several drives you lose track of where things are. Now, I might spend hours waiting for files to move from drive to drive, and for photoprism or openaudible to convert files but the result is that I regain access to files that were lost in a chaos of drives and duplicates.

I also regain several terabytes of space on hard drives, providing space to store and work on new projects.

The Unedited Podcast

The Unedited Podcast

Byrichard

There was a time when I wanted to listen to hours of podcasts a day, and I did. I would listen on my walks, on my commutes to work, while driving and more. I would love listening to podcasts so much that I would wish I had more time to spend on listening to podcasts. That, unfortunately changed, as podcasts became livestreams, and thus unedited.


Too Long For Casual Listening


It’s not that I don’t like listening to people talk, but that when a podcast goes from being fourty five minutes to an hour long, to being one and a half to two hours long then it becomes too long for a walk, and too time consuming to listen to more than one podcast a day. It gets worse. The problem with This Week in Tech, and that entire network of podcasts is that by being unedited they waste our time. Instead of getting tech news we get personal stories. Instead of analysis and context we get opinion and sidetracked. They used to joke about rat holes. By being live and unedited, when shared as podcasts, they become irrelevant.
Hiking podcasts, programming podcasts and others all make this mistake. The result is that listening to podcasts is less engaging than it was. What makes this worse is that podcasts are sponsored and funded, so as they become profitable they become less engaging for the listener.


Using A Running Order


I was thinking about this yesterday, when listening to a French podcast by France Culture. The podcast was organised, with a running order, various sound bytes. It kept on track and it was about something specific. Podcasts have value because they are specific, because they offer information efficiently. When podcasts get sidetracked they become a waste of time.


What Changed


The first thing that changed is the pandemic. It made listening to normal people have normal conversations, whilst in self-isolation deeply unpleasant. I couldn’t listen to people living “normally” when I felt so isolated due to the pandemic still going on.
The second reason is advertising and promotional messages. When a podcast is young people are talking about the topic they’re about. Eventually, with time, they become about self-promotion and advertising. If you listen to one podcast a week, then that’s fine. I don’t. I would listen to a podcast episode or more every day for weeks. Eventually I burned out on adverts and self-promotion. I have the same complaint about YouTube content. They’re breaking the fourth wall.


Audio Books


Paradoxically the fact that podcasts have become so time consuming and long winded has encouraged me to do two things. The first is to listen to more audio books once again. If I’m going to spend hours listening to something it might as well be a book. I have been listening to The Practicing Stoic, Eye of the Beholder, Journey (by Tony Blair) and The Cult of the Amateur. I find it hard to stick to just one book at a time.


Nature


I also listen to nature. I listen to the sound of traffic, and I walk without earphones for up to an hour at a time. Somehow by podcasters losing focus, I have found the time to walk more mindfully, to day dream, to think and just to be in the moment, in space and time.


And Finally


I am looking for podcasts that are worth my time, that are 45 minutes to an hour long at most, that are worth listening to. Walking without distraction is a good thing, anyway. Walking, in the moment is good.

Audible For Dummies

Audible For Dummies

Byrichard

Recently I noticed that Audible is great for dummies. To be more specific I noticed that if you are an Audible paying subscriber you have access to dozens of Audible For Dummies books available within the subscription. 


They have books on goat keeping, bee keeping, ham radio and more available for us to listen to for “free” within the subscriptions that we have. This is great, not because we ever finish For Dummies books, but because we can read them for cheaper than usual. 


Usually, at least in Switzerland, For Dummies books cost 20-30 CHF each, unless you find them in lending libraries in villages, for free, but that’s a matter of luck, rather than reliably. 


In the past when we bought books we would go to a library and we would thumb through the book, and see whether the content engaged us. With digital books, whether audio or e-book we can’t do that so easily. We can read a sample but the sample doesn’t give the same “try before you buy experience” as leafing through a book. 


With Audible having so many For Dummies books to choose from we can listen to bit and pieces of books, and see whether we want to buy the book, after all, or not. 


I was curious to read “Blogging for Dummies” but because the book is old, and because I’ve been blogging longer than the writer of that book I thought “The book is a waste of money”. By getting the book included with my Audible plan I can read it for “free” and see whether it is as much as a waste of time as I thought it was. I have listened to some of the book but haven’t formed an opinion yet. 


If I was producing a For Dummies book I would remove the introduction about the symbols and what they mean, as well as remove the part about “you can read it in any order you like”. With an audiobook we usually read them from beginning to end, without skipping around like in a printed book. 


And Finally


Not all for Dummies books are included within the Audible subscription so you might be lucky and find the book you’re curious about, or not. I share this as a curiousity. This is an opportunity to learn about new topics whilst walking, cooking driving, etc. 

The 2023 Reading Challenge

The 2023 Reading Challenge

Byrichard

We are one month into 2023 and so far I have read four books in four weeks. The aim of reading one book a week, so far is going well. I have read Last Book to Woodstock, A Man Called Trent and Riders of the Dawn as well as The Hunt for Red Octobre and The Cold Killer.


I have a tendency to buy and collect books faster than I read them. Having a love of books is good, because it shows that we want to read/hear stories and that we want to learn about a diversity of topics. As I read in one article “a library is a catalogue of the things that we would like to learn more about. I like this idea. I like the idea that books are about what we would like to learn.


As I have said more than once, collecting books is easy, it takes seconds to pick one up. The challenge is to devote seven or more hours per book, once you own them.


Three out of four of the books I finished this year areaudible books. Audio books are more expensive than normal books in many circumstances but I find them easier to finish. If I read a book it’s usually at night, until my eyes are too tired to stay open. With audiobooks I read when I am walking, cooking or driving. I walk and hike a lot so that gives me an hour and a half to read, per walk/hike. That gives time to read one book a week.


Now is a good time to think about taking the time to read because people are getting excited by the prospect of having AI write instead of humans. At a time when people no longer take the time to read, getting AI to generate more material to read seems a step in the wrong direction. I like to read. I like to be taken on a journey by writers. I don’t want to read something written by chatGPT. I want to read something written by a human being. I want to listen to books read by human beings. Apple is using AI to read books aloud, instead of Humans.


And Finally


I think reading challenges are negative because they encourage us to choose short books that we can read quickly, rather than longer books. Having said that they encourage us to listen to books rather than podcasts. I used to love podcasts but this pandemic has changed that. Now I like books. With any luck I will eventually read books faster than I collect them. I left the Inspector Morse book I read as a physical book, in a lending library. If I read physical books I can start leaving them in the villages I walk through.



The DI Barton Series

The DI Barton Series

Byrichard

Recently I have read three out of four DI Barton books and I enjoy them. One of the things that I enjoyed about these books is that I’m interested in both sides of the story, rather than reading about character A but being frustrated when reading about character B. With these books I like both.


The first book is about a seasonal killer, and it moves on from there. I could give more information but I don’t want to spoil the books for you. These books are available via Audible’s Premium plus package, for the first three books, and you need to spend one credit per book for the last three books.


I don’t like writing book reviews. I think that the speed with which I read books tells you whether these books are good or not. I read the first three within two or three weeks and I enjoyed them all, hence the purchase of the fourth. The books are presented from the DI’s perspective and the serial killer’s point of view in turn. As you read you learn more, until the final dénouement.


We should spend more time listening to audiobooks and discussing them. It is easy to find articles and news about films and more, but less so about audible.com among other projects. We could see every book as a series, especially since they last about seven hours. I like reading books with my eyes but I also enjoy listening, whilst walking, driving etc.


Long drives are one of the most enjoyable moments for listening to audiobooks. As you read them you imagine the stories you’re reading, but you also associate one book with a bit of motorway, or a season. I used to enjoy listening to podcasts but I think that with their minutes of adverts per episode they have become too much like the television shows and radio programs we got into the habit of avoiding.


With audiobooks there are no adverts, just stories that help you stay focused on long drives, especially if you’re driving alone. Don’t be tricked. Most of my reading is done either while cooking or while walking. With books a solitary walk becomes an excuse to “read”, uninterrupted, for a period of time.


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YouTube and the Million Follower type

Byrichard

I used to really like YouTube. It was a place where normal people could share videos of their normal lives, for normal people to enjoy, and to discover organically. Today YouTube is a way of forcing people to watch adverts before watching content that has been seen half a million to a million times by people with a million subscribers who keep saying “i have a million subscribers” and showing off. This makes most YouTube content unpleasant.


Don’t boast about your audience, or about your community. Give me good quality video content that I want to keep watching. Give me content, not boasting about how you got awards, got a big audience etc. I am not on YouTube to flatter your ego. I am on YouTube to watch content that is interesting as I eat dinner. If you don’t fill this niche then I can slide towards another content creator, or video network.


Content viewing, at this point in the pandemic has become hard. If the content is about friends and family then this is a long distant memory, in the middle of the pandemic, with no hope of an end.


Documentaries would be fun, if they weren’t edited by a hyperactive bumblebee. If I watch a documentary, speak, give me information, and don’t sensationalise it. If you do I will tune out within minutes, or even seconds in some cases.


I would watch films but either modern story writing makes them so dull that I lose interest within a few minutes, or they make me long for pre-pandemic, or post pandemic life.


Content is not made for single people living in solitude during a pandemic but it should. Good documentaries, good films, good series.


I enjoyed watching people play computer games for a while, but then eventually I grew tired of the content. I felt that at least one or two people were playing towards a stereotype, rather than being genuine, Eventually I stopped watching.


I often listen to audible books as I cook. Recently I thought about listening to audiobooks as I ate, or even in the evening, rather than watch video content. The beauty of audio books is that they’re 3-20hours long. Find a good book and you will be entertained for a week to 20 days.


Recently I have been listening to Louis L’amour books and I find them fun. They’re not the genre I used to listen to. I am in the right frame of mind. I like these books because they’re light, easy reading. They’re not like Gulag, or other books. It’s a trip back in time to frontier America, when bison were plentiful, land was being taken away by the Whites, and more.


As I read Louis L’Amour I know that some topics may anger or frustrate people who feel that the writing is from another age, and it is. Listening to such books is a cultural trip to see what life was hypothetically like, and to explore a different genre. I usually read factual books.

The Walking Paradox
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The Walking Paradox

Byrichard

Today I noticed how quiet the world, or at least the area in which I was walking, was. I saw very few cars, very few people walking, and very little noise from other people.


This doesn’t mean that people weren’t out and about. Although my route was for the most part deserted of people I did encounter crowds at two or three points. I think a man said “hello” but I ignored him for the cardinal sin of not walking single file, down a path, with his companion during the closing days of a pandemic.


“What does it matter?”, you may ask. I would love to do a group hike or a group Ferrata but I can’t because from a scientific point of view Switzerland is not yet clear of the virus. Meeting in groups of more than five is currently still forbidden. The groups I usually go with could be up to twelve people or more. I don’t know how long I will have to wait for the opportunity to do social activities once again.


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Audible books and Kindle Unlimited

Byrichard

This year I have set myself the goal of reading 30 books. I am currently on track to reaching that goal. Most of my reading material comes from two sources. Audible.com and amazon.de. What I like about reading books via Audible.com is the freedom it gives me to do something at the same time as people are telling me stories.

This habit was born from listening to podcasts while I went for hour long walks. Over time podcasts went down in quality and my time was taken up by other activities. As a result of the scarcity of time I moved towards audible books. Audible books provide me with an opportunity to listen to stories and learn whilst I do other things. I can listen to them while I commute, while I go for hikes or while I mow the lawn. As a result of this ability to multitask I have finished many more books than I would finish if I was only reading.

I am an audible platinum member and I pay in advance. This gives me the option to buy 23 books a year. Audio books are not cheap when you buy them individually so buying a subscription makes sense. Below a certain price I buy the books and use credit when the value justifies it. For at least two years I have felt justified in keeping the subscription.

I am lucky because I like to read on electronic devices. I have used iphones, android phones, iPads, iPad Mini, Tablets and a kindle for reading. As a result of this I always have several books with me at all times. I have a tendency to buy many more books than I have the time to read. This is especially true of books when they cost less than an airport coke. Eventually I will get to read them.

Today I took a step which may make conventional book readers envious. I will test Kindle Unlimited for the next month. I can “borrow” up to ten books simultaneously per month. I can be as uncommitted as ever with books. I am working through the James Bond Collection and reading three history volumes at the same time.  I “read” the history volumes as audio books and this allows me to enjoy the nice weather we have had. When I am in a fixed location I can read James Bon books on the kindle.

At the end of the trial month we will see whether I keep using Kindle unlimited.