DeDRM your Nookbooks for Dummies

So, you’ve bought an ebook from Barnes & Noble. You’d like to read it on your phone using FBReader – the Nook app is too big and slow and causes eyestrain, while FBReader is a much more comfortable reading experience. But there’s just one problem – your nookbook is DRM’d. Here’s how to fix that problem.

Please note that removing DRM should be done only on books that you legally own for your own private use. Don’t be a pirate.

The below instructions are based on Aric Renzo’s post, rewritten for Windows 10 users who are not software developers and don’t spend their entire lives in terminal screens. (My experience with software development consists largely of managing the people who do it.) I can verify that these steps work on nookbooks as of 5/25/2021, using the exact software versions listed below; I have not (yet) verified that they work with the latest versions of Calibre and DeDRM.

To begin with, some background. The Nook DRM scheme is currently based on a unique 28-character key that is tied to your account. It is password-independent (I verified this by changing my password to see if the key changed, which it did not). There is a plugin for Calibre, an ebook management software tool, called DeDRM, provided by the helpful folks at Apprentice Alf. DeDRM provides the means of removing DRM – again, on your legally obtained books for your private use only – for a variety of DRM schemes. In order to remove DRM from nookbooks using Calibre and DeDRM, you need that unique 28-character key.

There are a few different ways to get this key. If you are not at all tech-savvy, you could give epubor, a Chinese company, your email address and Barnes & Noble password, whereupon they will send you a keyfile to use with their software. You could then pay $25 to get your books converted. (From what I can find online, this company actually is legit, but I haven’t verified it myself. Since the key is password-independent, if you want to take the risk, you could change your account password to “T3mpPa55w0rd” or something and then change it back after you’ve gotten the key.) If you are extremely tech-savvy, you could root your Nook and pull the key from it. Or, if you are tech-savvy enough to follow instructions, but not tech-savvy enough to be willing to risk rooting your Nook, you could create a virtual device and root that.

That last option was the path I chose. Since it took me a good 3-4 hours to decipher Aric Renzo’s instructions (although I might have been distracted by the Monaco GP…), I decided to write them out in a simpler, easier-to-follow form for Windows users. Here we go…

Hilton Family 2010-2019 In Review

I am one of those people who insists there wasn’t a year zero, and ergo, a decade goes from 1-10.  However, it was recently pointed out to me that there also wasn’t a year one.  We don’t know exactly when Christ was born, and our calendars have changed several times since then.  So, we might as well just agree that a decade is any group of ten years and go from there.

KonMari: Komono: Electric Boogaloo

And now for the final – yes, FINAL – category of komono – “Other”!

KonMari: Komono: The Kitchen

I mentioned back in December that I had actually made a lot of progress in the kitchen.  Shall we explore?

KonMari: Komono: The Revenge

I did a variety of things since the last post/over the Labor Day weekend [yes I know it is now almost October early December.  Shush], including some miscellaneous KonMari’ing.

KonMari: Yet More Komono

And yes, I still think having a category of “miscellany” is a copout.

So yeah, it’s been a while since I posted anything at all, and almost a year (last November) since I updated on the KonMari stuff.  KonMari’s program is really supposed to be executed over the course of a few months, maybe six months max, but she doesn’t account for the confounding factor of children, especially when combined with a demanding job and various other stuff taking over one’s “free time” (if indeed such a thing exists).  I have been working on it whenever I roll a 3 on the d4, but that’s not that frequent.  (I swear those damn dice are weighted.  I frequently roll a 1 on the d4, which represents cleaning/tidying, followed by a 1 on the d8, which represents the kitchen.  On the bright side, if I ever play D&D again, the 1s have definitely been pre-rolled out of those dice for sure.)

Conversations with the Sugar Demon

Or, Why I Don’t Drink

So after my second surgery and subsequent starchy setback (I had nausea afterwards, so I ate only bland, starchy food for about a week), I’ve gone on another “sugar fast” in an effort to continue to fit into the Good Jeans (not to mention the Good Dresses).

This is an insanely effective “diet” I discovered by accident during Lent in 2014.  I had given up on losing the 8-10 pounds of baby fat that had lingered after having Aaron.  For unrelated health reasons, I decided to give up sugar for Lent.  By the end of Lent, I had accidentally lost all of said baby fat.  And the health reasons that had led me to give up the sugar were better.  Jackpot!

The rules for the sugar fast are simple:

• No cookies, candy, ice cream, cake, or any other sugary baked/processed goods Monday through Saturday.
  • Fruit is allowed for “sweet”.
  • Graham crackers are allowed for “crunchy”.  (Graham crackers are great for this because they are just sweet enough to shut up the Sugar Demon but not so good that I want more than a small piece once in a while.)
• Sunday is cheat day.

As always in life, though, “simple” doesn’t mean “easy”.  Sugar, particularly refined sugar, is, in fact, chemically addictive.  So this is what happens in my brain.

F1 2018: New Liveries

The new F1 cars have all been rolled out at this point (except for upgrades coming throughout the season – Red Bull has already said they are bringing some aero upgrades in Melbourne, and Honda has hinted that they will have multiple engine upgrades for Toro Rosso this season), so it’s time to comment on them.  But I don’t know anything about aero, and what I do know about (what we call avionics on a spacecraft.  I don’t know what you call it on a race car) isn’t visible, so all I’m going to comment on is the livery.

2017 Report: December

I’ll try to keep these reports going in 2018.  I’m hoping that as the kids get older, their health and abilities to entertain themselves will improve, which will result in more free time for me, which in turn will result in more writing in general and more blog posts in particular.  Although there is also work to consider – we are supposed to be delivering a hefty chunk of our hardware in the last two weeks of next month (the rest of the hardware is due on various staggered dates from April through July, plus a few more items that aren’t needed until early 2019).  This delivery will not actually occur, at least not in toto, and certainly, the items that are ready on time will have paperwork still open.  So we have a very busy six months or so ahead of us.

Anyway, on to the report.

KonMari: Yet More Komono

I really am still working on this, despite the small children frustrating my every attempt to do something other than cater to their wishes.  (Aaron, watching me play FFXII:  “Mommy!  Put Basch first!”)