How To - Full Mobipocket On The Tablet! (via Mowser)

How To - Full Mobipocket On The Tablet!

By Dotsisx on February 21st, 2008

How To - Full Mobipocket On The Tablet!

So you got an N810 or an N800? You want to read all those fancy ebooks that you have bought? Yet FBReader doesn’t give you the satisfaction that Mobireader does? Well, join the club. Mobireader is an application for reading .prc ebooks, many of which can be found free on the web, but also bought from the Mobipocket Store. I have been a fan for 2 reasons: first they have the most extensive list of medical ebooks I have seen, which for a long time was the only way we could get medical info on S60, and second their reader programs are free which means that whatever device I might buy in the future, I don’t need to buy the ebooks again but just get the free reader for it.

Problem is that when I received the N810 to trial, I looked on the website and found no reader for it. Each and every platform is supported except Maemo (and iPhone). Needless to say I felt “naked” without my medical references and my Arsene Lupin stories. After 3 hours of trying and trying, I finally managed to make it work, I felt like a genius, especially that I got my DRM’d ebooks to open, something FBReader will NEVER be able to do, just to discover 30 minutes later that it has been done before! But here is a tutorial so that each and everyone of you can do it. And no, you don’t need to be a Linux genius to pull it through.

First let me explain what we are going to do. There’s an application called Garnet VM for the tablet. Garnet allows you to install and run Palm applications on your tablet. There is a version of Mobireader for Palm, so if Garnet is on, we will use it to run the palm version of Mobireader. Then we will make the ebooks available for Garnet and open them. Now here is the step-by-step guide:

Installing Mobipocket

Go to Access Garnet VM site. On the right side, you will see “Download Garnet VM for” with 3 blue icons. Click the one that suits your current OS (or the line below to see which OS you are running). Fill in the form. Go to your email inbox, you will find the email from Garnet, download the application. Send the garnet-vm_xxx.deb file to your IT (internet tablet), either via bluetooth or USB. If you’re doing this on the IT, no need to do that, of course. Open File Manager on the IT, browse to the .deb file that you just sent and double click it. This will take you to the Application Manager and install the Garnet VM. It will install in the Extras pane on the IT. On the IT, go to Extras, Garnet VM. This will launch the application. To the lower right, click on “Settings”. In the “Storage Heap” pane, up the size to 64MBytes, then click “Save”. It will ask you to reformat the memory, just say yes. It won’t format your IT memory, just Garnet’s virtual memory. This step is ESSENTIAL if you want to get a couple of ebooks on, as they will use this allowed memory. Now you need to download these 3 files from Mobipocket: bluepalm.pdb , mathlib.prc and mobipocket.prc. Do the same as in Step 3 to send them to the IT. (Files taken from here, no science fiction *wink*) On the IT, in Garnet VM, on the right, there’s an “Install” icon. Click it. Now browse to the folder where you sent the 3 files you just downloaded. Select the bluepalm.pdb file and click “Select”. It will give you an “Application successfully installed” notice, say Ok. At this step, nothing will change in the Garnet VM. Do the same for the mathlib.prc and the mobipocket.prc file. It is important that you install these files IN THIS ORDER. I tried doing it otherwise, doesn’t seem to work *confused* When you have finished installing these files, you will see that a Mobipocket icon appears with the other 5 icons in Garnet. You’re ready to roll!

Getting eBooks on
In order to get ebooks, you have to send the ebooks as .prc files to the IT. Once the files are sent, open Garnet VM. Don’t try to open them immediately in Mobipocket as this will NOT work. You have to install them. Basically, you click on “Install”, browse to the ebook, and click “Select”. The ebook will be installed meaning that it will be available in Garnet’s virtual memory.
Now select the Mobipocket icon in Garnet VM, and select “Launch”. You will find yourself in known territory with the Mobipocket Library and the ebook(s) that you just installed. Neat! Click to launch them.

How About ‘dem DRM Books?
If you have bought ebooks from Mobipocket store, you would know that they are tied by something called PID (or Personal ID). You need to get the PID of your IT. Launch Mobipocket in Garnet, click on”Library” on the upper left, select “Options” on the upper right, then “About Mobipocket”. You will see your device’s PID.
You should know where to go from here, but here’s a recap: Go to your Device List on the Mobipocket website, add the IT with it’s PID, download your ebooks, send them to IT, install them in Garnet (like explained above), Launch Mobipocket and there they are!
I have previously bought 7 medical ebooks from Mobipocket, and yes they work! Only one of them couldn’t be installed :s

Notes

Mobipocket works like a charm, all functions from settings, to highlights, lookup, bookmarks, annotations, reading lists… WORKS like on a regular device. Garnet VM is compatible with the N810’s keyboard so if you need to type something (for example in dictionary ebooks) it works. The small size of the screen is due to the Garnet VM and not to Mobipocket. I hope Access will be able to pull a fullscreen, rotated version of Garnet, that would be AWESOME! Sometimes, Garnet just freezes and you need to close it either by shutting down the IT or by terminating the process. Downside is that all installed applications need to be reinstalled. From ZERO. This is such a PIA!

Screenshots

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Categories: How-Tos
Tags: , Ebooks, FBReader, Features, Garnet VM, Mobipocket, Mobireader, n810

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7 Responses to &#8220How To - Full Mobipocket On The Tablet!”

RC on Feb 22nd, 2008 at 10:10 am

I was under the impression that apps that required mathlib.prc didn’t work in Garnet VM. Do you know if this was something that was fixed?

Dotsisx on Feb 22nd, 2008 at 10:47 am

Well, all I can say is that Mobipocket works. I have downloaded another application that needs Mathlib, it’s called MedCalc and it doesn’t seem to calculate, so i’m confused :s

Blur on Feb 22nd, 2008 at 11:36 am

Thanks Dotsisx! I have previously installed Garnet VM to carry around old eBooks I’d purchased back in the day on eReader and MobiPocket. Of course, the first book I ever tried to install for MobiPocket (Pullman’s The Subtle Knife, sequel to The Golden Compass) didn’t and still won’t install. So naturally, I just assumed that it wouldn’t work or I needed to HotSync it in somehow. After reading this article, I tried again and could install all of my DRM’d Mobi books EXCEPT that one (and that includes both The Golden Compass and The Amber Spyglass, so books #1 and #3, but not #2!). Still a little baffled by that one.

Dotsisx on Feb 22nd, 2008 at 12:03 pm

@ Blur,
Apparently the first ebook you try to install doesn’t work, because for me too the first one I tried installing didn’t work. Hehe. Weird. There should always be a guinea pig!

Blur on Feb 25th, 2008 at 2:57 pm

That’s totally bizarre. I guess the only way to really test that is to nuke my Garnet VM image and start over, install MobiPocket Reader, install a dummy book (which should thus fail), install books I know to work, then install the original book it failed on?

Something to try when I get home.

KMullen on Jun 11th, 2008 at 7:35 pm

I followed your directions. Mobipocket does run. But my drm books that I paid for will not install from my sd card. Is there anything that I can do? I get this message failed to install
err=0×30060209. I get it on all of the drm books. Non drm books do install.

Trackback: Using The N810 - The Book Reader
Feb 27th, 2008 at 4:05 pm

[…] huge! I can’t wait to use it as an ebook reader!” You already know how much it took me to get my mobipocket ebooks to work on it. But I’m happy to see that they finally worked, although they don’t make use of the […]

How To - Full Mobipocket On The Tablet!

7 Responses to &#8220How To - Full Mobipocket On The Tablet!”

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