Santa Maria is a Swedish company owned by Paulig, a Finnish company.
https://prep.santamariaworld.com/uk/about-santa-maria/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulig
E: Added info that Santa Maria is Swedish.
ClassyHatter
joined 2 years ago
- Install Calibre and DeDRM. No need to worry about serial number
- Locate your Kindle books on your drive, and delete them (or move to other location)
- Install Kindle for PC 2.4.0. You need to search the internet for this. Be careful with malware.
- Launch it, and disable automatic updates somewhere in the settings of it
- Download all your books using it
- Locate the books again
- Drag each book to Calibre. Use the search field of Explorer to make this part easier (*.azw, *.azw3, *.kfx)
- Confirm that they were DeDRM'd successfully. For example, by converting all of them to EPUB.
E: Updated the Kindle for PC version. Also: Don't use epubor.
DeDRM removes the DRM when a book is added to the library. It should show error, if it fails to remove it. But, it's a good idea to convert files, as that makes sure there are no DRM protected files in your library (you can't convert or open DRM protected files), and you need to convert them eventually anyway. I do recommend keeping the original file in case the conversion ends up creating somehow broken result. It's easier to fix them by starting from the original and changing some settings, instead of trying to fix a poorly converted file.
The Amazon address for most Europeans is https://www.amazon.com/mycd. If you have bought your e-books from your "local" Amazon, just replace "com" with the correct letters (de, es, ...).
Standard Ebooks provides better versions of public domain books, but their selection is more limited than Project Gutenberg's.
Libby is used by many libraries around the world. The great thing about Libby is that many devices, such as some e-readers, supports it. So, you can check out e-books from your library, and they will appear on your e-ink device, or what ever device you want to read them on.
Another neat thing I recently discovered is, that libraries here in Finland use video streaming services. I can loan 4 movies per month and just watch them on my computer. No scratched DVDs needed. And library membership is free here in Finland.
One way to discover free video streaming services, such as possible library services, is to use JustWatch. It's a free, European search engine that indexes the contents of video streaming services. For this, you will need an account, but it's free. Once you are logged in, click the settings button (dude and cog) in the upper right corner, make sure your region is set correctly and select "Services". Select "Free" and go through the list. You'll need to search the internet for each of the services listed to find out what they are. This is how I discovered those library services.
EU has forced Apple to open some limits on iOS devices. Developers are now allowed to use alternative browser engines, and also alternative app stores are now possible within the EU. Apple is of course being extremely strict with all the requirements. I don't know if browsers with alternative engines have yet been released, but I do recall some browser maker saying they are working on such a version of their browser.
FaberCastell
You have their USA site's link. Might want to change it to this one: https://www.faber-castell.com/
The link doesn't seem to work properly, at least not for me.
Thomann is a German company and, I believe, Europe's largest seller of music equipments (instruments, speakers, etc.). Here's a link to their German site (it's in English): https://www.thomann.de/intl/search_dir.html?sw=gerband
force price hikes for consumers in some countries
How many countries are we talking about, and what would happen to the price in the rest of the countries?
One thing to consider is market share. While one user switching from Windows to Linux won't affect it one bit, but if, say, half of European Windows users would do the switch, that would cause a meaningful dent to Windows' market share. So, while you won't directly affect that number, you do belong to some circles of people. By making the switch, you would act as an example for others and bring some knowledge and expertise on the topic (like, how easy it was, what are the downsides/upsides...). If your example leads to other people do the switch, those people also belong to some circles of peoples, and so on. It might be enough to start a small avalanche that could grow bigger and bigger.
Santa Maria indeed is a Swedish company, and they are owned by a Finnish company.
E: This is probably the spice you mentioned. They ship worldwide.