Author Archives: Brian

Kindle ereader case with clear window so you can see the book cover


Someone on Reddit asked if this existed. As far as I can tell, it doesn’t (didn’t).

Here are my two proof of concepts. The brown one has a magnet and will turn the screen on/off when it’s opened/closed. The black one does not have a magnet. They both use a piece of plexiglass as the “window”. The brown one has the plexi embedded in the case (the cardboard), where the black one has it attached to the inside cover. I like the black one better because it was WAY easier to make so I’ll create more that look like the black one (though not all black) and add in the magnet. I also have an idea to make the inside left look cleaner (where the plexi is attached).

Pocketbook Touch HD 2 (PB631) – using book covers for the sleep image

I REALLY disliked the ZZZ sleep image on myPocketbook Touch HD 2 (PB631) ereader. On my hacked Kindle, KOReader will show the cover image. I wanted the same thing on the Pocketbook. I googled and searched all over and couldn’t find an answer, but I found clues in a couple places. One was how to replace the boot and startup logos. Another was a tutorial showing how to change the sleep (ZZZ) image to something else (translated to English).

So, here is how to show your book cover instead of the sleep image on a Pocketbook. This should work on some other Pocketbook models, but this is the only one I have so no guarantees.

  • plug in your Pocketbook via USB and in the root directory, create system/resources/Line (you will create resources and Line)
  • in system/resources/Line create an empty file named taskmgr_lock_background.bmp
  • safely disconnect your pocketbook
  • on your pocketbook, open KOReader and go to the cog wheel (3rd from left) in the main settings menu. Choose “screen->cover image” then check “save cover image”. Choose “set image path” and choose the location you just created: system/resources/Line/taskmgr_lock_background.bmp. Under “Size, background and format, choose “BMP file format (grayscale) and choose if you want to fit to screen and what background you want. Optionally, change the stretch ratio to threshold. I set mine to 20% so it would fill the screen even if it stretched it.
  • now to make this work well, go to the Pocketbook settings-Saving Power and turn on “auto screen lock” and turn off “power off after” so that it will go to sleep but not turn off completely.

One caveat – it appears that the Pocketbook caches in memory the sleep image, so if you change books in KOReader, it will write the cover properly but the Pocketbook won’t use it until you power off and power back on. So, when you start a new book in KOReader, open it, power off, power back on then your cover will be shown. Luckily the Pocketbook restarts pretty quickly and you only have to do it when you start a new book.

Trader Joe’s Kindle/ereader cases

I made these two from scratch yesterday using cardboard and Trader Joe’s brown paper bags. One is reuse/recycle themed and the other is just Trader Joe’s themed. Full photo gallery with more pictures

Full photo gallery with more pictures

Materials required:

Total cost was probably less than 50 cents each. Someday I’ll create a tutorial.