Please follow this tutorial to transfer books from your Mac to BookZ.
Network setup: Your Mac and your iPhone/iPod Touch connects to the same WIFI network
0. Turn on “Web Sharing” in System Preferences->Sharing
1. Find out your computer’s address from System Preferences->Network (In my case 172.19.169.138)
2. Create a new folder called “bookz” under “~/Sites” and drop some text files into that folder (~ stands for your home directory)
3. In BookZ, use Utilities->Surf and Download, type in the address found in step 1 followed by “~username/bookz”.
E.g. my username is “steven”, my ip address is 172.19.169.138. Hence the address typed into BookZ is “172.19.169.138/~steven/bookz”.
Tip: you can bookmark this address to avoid typing it again
4. Download books by clicking on the filenames
In case “403 Error” happens instead of the page shown above, please refer Apple’s official solution.
If you are unable to get things working, feel free to use support and drop me a message describing any problem you encounter.
October 12th, 2008 at 12:02 am
[...] your mac connects to the Internet via a WIFI router, click here for a simpler version of this [...]
October 12th, 2008 at 6:34 am
You mean “Hence the address typed into BookZ is “172.19.169.138/~steven”, w/out the suffix bookz? Nope; I still get a “forbidden, unauthorized” error in BookZ.
Now what?
October 14th, 2008 at 9:17 am
i have done as you say here, but when i enter the address, nothing happens, no directory appears. theres no error. any ideas?
October 14th, 2008 at 9:26 am
James,
Could you try using your Mac to browse the same address?
If it works on your computer, can you try browsing that address using the iPhone’s Safari browser?
Most of the time this is a firewall-related issue and the solution is to allow new connections in the firewall.
October 14th, 2008 at 9:27 am
woodrackets,
I’ve updated the tutorial, adding the link to Apple’s solution regarding this issue.
October 14th, 2008 at 10:16 am
i got it now.
I didn’t have websharing turned on. and then i got a 403 error, and had to fix that.
October 14th, 2008 at 10:23 am
James:
Glad you got it working : )
October 16th, 2008 at 7:48 pm
James,
You fixed that authorization error? How’d you do that?
October 16th, 2008 at 9:57 pm
*Please check your email for a reply with picture illustrations*
My apologies for the inconvenience caused. This is a Leopard related problem. Since I don’t have access to your computer, all I can do is to try to explain things as clear as possible.
As mentioned in the Apple document, “403 Error” mostly happens to users who upgraded from Tiger to Leopard.
I got this error when I upgraded to Leopard and it was solved by following Apple’s solution (which is why I put it on the website for everyone’s reference).
Just for your information, Leopard seemed to slow down in my Macbook after the upgrade, so I used the Leopard disk, did an “Archive and Install” and everything worked flawlessly ever since.
Now I’m using 10.5.5 and the everything is fine, including “Web Sharing”.
Since this is an issue in Apple’s operating system, the best way to solve it is look for Apple customer service.
If you have AppleCare or your Apple Telephone Support is still valid, it will be much easier–just dial the toll-free number of AppleCare (found in Apple homepage->Support), explain that “Web Sharing” does not work for you and they will troubleshoot the problem, step by step.
If not, I will try my best to help you find out the cause.
May I know what the error message is after you followed the Apple document? Still getting “403 Permission denied”?
What is the permission for your home directory? Right click->Get Info and make sure “unknown” and “everyone” have “Read only” access.
What is your permission for your “~/Sites” directory? “unknown” and “everyone” should have “Read only” access as well.
December 6th, 2008 at 3:32 am
I followed your instructions to transfer a text file using Personal Web Sharing. iPhone apparently connects to my computer, but I see only a Web page, headed OS X, about web sharing. What’s wrong?
December 6th, 2008 at 8:59 am
Ralph:
If this happens, you can create a new folder called “bookz” under “~/Sites” and drop your text files into that folder.
On the iPhone, append “bookz” to the URL address, e.g. “10.0.2.1/~steve/bookz” and the files should show up correctly.
December 17th, 2008 at 5:45 pm
[...] The same people responsible for the iPhone & iPod Touch app BookZ have posted up a run-through detailing how to get eBooks and documents off the desktop onto an iPhone / iPod Touchnd into an app such as Stanza or BookZ. It uses a similar technique to one one I described here (the idea of which I might have originally spotted here as well – I can’t remember). I don’t have a Mac at the moment so I can’t vouch for this technique myself. I’m sure it should be quite simple, plus it doesn’t require third party software to be installed, which is always a bonus. Here’s the link. [...]
December 27th, 2008 at 8:08 pm
Can I transfer my own txt files to Bookz if I use windows os?
December 27th, 2008 at 9:47 pm
Jacob:
Please refer to http://www.iphonesg.org/BookZ/2008/08/12/windows-transfer-txt-to-bookz-with-hfs/
for a tutorial on importing files with Windows. In STEP 3, you can try your setup with iPhone’s Safari browser to see if it works.
Theoretically, if you have a WIFI environment everything should work fine.
March 20th, 2009 at 8:53 pm
You mean “Hence the address typed into BookZ is “172.19.169.138/~steven”, w/out the suffix bookz? Nope;
I still get a “forbidden, unauthorized” error in BookZ.
how can i get the book from my mac??
thanks
May 28th, 2009 at 8:32 pm
Hi,
Attempting to use the “Download All” button to download a large number (4000) .txt files to my iPhone 3G. Everything works fine – I can connect to the ‘bookz” folder, see all the files, press the “Download All” button and am taken to the “Download” screen with all files listed with a tick next to each name. But when I press the “Download” button, the program crashes and I am sent back to the Home screen of my iPhone – no error messages or anything. Is there a limit to how many files can be downloaded at one time?
June 6th, 2009 at 9:01 pm
Further to my last post regarding the “Download All” button – have tried this with 130 files in the BookZ folder, then 23 files and finally with only 5 files in the folder. In every case the app simply crashes and sends me back to my Home screen. Yet using the Surf and Download function and simply clicking on the individual files hyperlink and downloading them one at a time works fine. Any help would be greatly appreciated as having to manually upload one file at a time is kind of impractical.
In spite of this, I love the app and consider it the best reader available. I especially love the “Sorted” button on the library screen. Giving me the option to quickly jump to any letter in the alphabet is genius!!!