Sean Davis

Books & Games & Calculators! Oh, My!

Today, I am excited to share that I have finally fixed the audiobook sync issue, which we will go over the How-To. I also have a fun game to entice you with and did you know that the IPad does NOT come with an installed calculator like the phone. Let’s dive in, shall we?

1. Ipad & Audiobook Sync!

So, finally! I have fixed the audiobook sync issue. I had to connect both my phone and iPad up to my computer and set sync to wireless in the summary page. Then I had to manually add audiobooks that were synced across both devices in both directions. That should have been a much easier process. If you can add it to your devices and just pay to store it in iCloud. I shouldn’t have to do anything for any device with my account to sync it. Just goes to show you everything has room for improvement.

But, with a renewed sense of success I decided to try importing my favorite comic book series, Walking Dead into iTunes and watch the magic but alas I discovered this was not going to be so simple. First, the CBR/CBZ format is not a supported format by iBook, so a simple drag and drop did not suffice. And after an embarrassing amount of time researching how to import and trying out several online and offline services I came to the realization, there is no direct format to format and went in search of how to read my comics. If I wasn’t going to go native iBooks for books I needed something that would get as close to the native app experience with as many of the following needs being met:

1. Support The Broadest Range of Formats Possible – With PDF, EPUB, and CBR/CBZ at the minimum
2. Support AudioBooks (Want, Not Need)
3. Support Multi-Device Syncing – At least shared folder at minimum
4. Support Syncing to iCloud (I pay for a monthly allotment so might as well use it)

I started with getting together some of my eBooks and Comics and do conversions on them. Alas, none of them did a great job at converting comic books and all had very technical nuances. Perhaps I’m jaded by 3.5 hours of work and still no viable results. I then take a break and go research format and see if I can’t construct one myself and migrate books I have to it, after all, how hard can it be, a CBZ/CBR is just a zip of images.

Heads up, it’s not easy at all for a Windows user, but if you have a make and can use iBooks Author software it’s not too terrible but still a ton of work. After a very exhaustive night and a lot of research and a talk with my wife I came to the conclusion that based on the number of comic ebooks I have and the time already invested and considering that I travel a fair bit and love to read anything I can get my hands on, it would be better to buy them in iBooks. After a little more looking I discovered everything I had and everything I was looking for was right there all along. The experience was on par with a comic book reader and would auto sync to all my devices as native purchases do. But don’t fret I still have gold to share with you, here are some options based on research and your preferences:

1. iComic ($1.99) – Great eBook Reader, Covers All Formats But Audio Books, Syncs With iCloud And Several Other Providers
2. Marvin 3 – Personal Favorite, Same features as above with added bonus it’s free, you can pay for a companion app to read two books at a time if your into referencing stuff and this software has so many features it’s insane but doesn’t do audiobooks.
3. Libby – Now this was a new and interesting concept, scan a library card and bam you can check out books on your iPad, very cool app.
4. or Convert your eBooks to EPUB
   1. Epubor – Helped me remove DRM from my Kindle and others eBooks and convert to ePUB so I could put into iTunes.
   2. Calibre – Book server with a ton of cool features and built-in reader, will also let you convert from several formats to several formats.
   3. ComicToEPUB – (Open Source) Doesn’t work with Big eBooks as it runs out of memory. Was going to convert form .NET 1.1 to .NET 4.7.2, but because of my decision, this will be done at a later time.

2. A Game for You

I love games as you probably have guessed by now and puzzle games are one of my favorites. I enjoy anything with a challenge. So I downloaded a game called “The Room”. This is a great interactive puzzle game with a storyline. This game is a series and it has rave reviews! GO TRY IT OUT! I have included 4 links to a few of the different ones in the series. You can download here from your iPad or iPhone. —–>

1. The Room Pocket by Fireproof Games

2. The Room: Old Sins by Fireproof Games

3. The Room Two by Fireproof Games

4. The Room Three by Fireproof Games

3. The Calculator App

Ok, so one last thing before I go, not sure if others notice this, but Apple does not provide a default Calculator for the iPad like the phone. I researched this and discovered the reason why and I also discovered a little secret basic calculator, it’s located in the “spotlight app”. Basically, drag down on the screen and enter your formula into the search bar and it’ll do the math. If your more the kind that needs a solid calculator app, I’d suggest one of the below:

1. Trendy Calculator – MyScript Calculator
2. Basic Calculator – The Calculator
2. Calculator That Graduated High School – Calculator #
3. Calculator with a Ph.D. – Wolfram Alpha

That’s all for today, talk to you soon!

Click Here for the Next Installment in this Series —>