Nook wtfpwn-l33th4x0r3d for free web browsing on AT&T's networks

[Richter]

I am wondering about the same for Sony Reader.  This is kind of the make / break factor for the devices in my mind.

[Soylent Green]

Just got my nook today and I love it!

[Mangrove]

Still waiting for mine.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I wouldn't mind getting some nook... oh, wait. You mean a text reader.

[Soylent Green]

So I downloaded a few books to my PC to get a sense of how to use the software and what my Nook life might be like. Well, the Free books are free for a reason. Because they've been digitally converted WITHOUT ANY FUCKING PROOFREADING OR EDITING.

They are full of errors where the scanning technology has failed to read characters properly. Many of the free e-books are provided by Google.

By the way this.


It is annoying as fuck.

Especially when something screws up for a few pages, like !s being read as 1s.

[Mangrove]

When I'm done at work, I will serenade the forum with my Nook tale of woe. 

[Soylent Green]

When I'm done at work, I will serenade the forum with my Nook tale of woe. 

The only major problems i have with it is the short battery life. (It says ~10 days. I get one, WAT (note, yes I disabled wi-fi)), slow boot up times, and shitteh google translations.

[Mangrove]

Once upon a time, Mrs Mang thought buying me a Nook(tm) would be a nice present for my upcoming (36th) birthday.

Soo...we pre-order on Dec 19th. We're told that her card won't be charged until the unit ships which, was a good thing, because it was right before Xmas and having the better part of $300 disappear from her account would've been less than helpful.

About a day or so later, she had the good sense to check with her online banking to see where we were vis a vis not going broke over the holidays. Lo and behold, what does she find? That the money was about to leave her account. Fuck!

Being the thoughtful guy that I am, I ran upstairs, jumped onto the computer and CANCELLED the Nook order so we didn't end up with an empty checking account. Figured that we could wait until we're done with Spagmas and pre-order later.

Dec 26th we go back to B&N and order my Nook (attempt number 2). They were like 'Uhh....yeah....we said that your card wouldn't be charged but it turns out that doesn't apply to debit cards.' No problem I said, we'll put the order on my CREDIT card.

They took all the info, ran my card and said 'you can't use that card here because it's a UK credit card.' I explained that every year, B&N take $25 membership from that card, so why not? Apparently they wouldn't let my buy a Nook with it because they're not allowed to sell them outside the US (even though I live here, have a green card and all that other stuff.)

The nice woman at customer services called the head office and they told her to tell us that we can buy a gift card and then use the gift card to pay for the Nook thus, bypassing the 'no Nooks to Brits' rule. So I bought a gift card. Everything's good now, right? RIGHT??

Last week I had an e-mail that said my Nook was ready to ship. Then I got another saying it had shipped and on MLK day, Mrs Mang stopped by my office (for she had the day off) and told me that the damn thing had arrived.....but that her bank account still got charged. Huh?

We go back to B&N. They give us the customer services phone number for their corporate HQ. Mrs Mang (bless her) called B&NHQ and spoke to somebody who said that they had recieved notification of our cancellation but, for some reason that was never explained, they didn't act on it. The Nook they sent was the original one that we ordered on Dec 19th. Don't worry they said, just send it back and we'll credit your account and then you'll get your other Nook when it ships. Poor Mrs Mang spent 90 mins on the phone listening to shitty smooth jazz before speaking to another operative in the returns dept.

Returns said 'open the box and find the shipping label, then send it back to us or hand it in to a B&N store'. After wasting and hour and a half of her life on the phone, Mrs Mang opened the box to discover? That's right no fucking shipping label.

She takes the blasted object back to our local B&N who now look all pasty and scared every time we walk in. The customer services girl (a different one) said that she would send the unit back and credit the account in a day or so.

On Friday, the missing money went back into Mrs Mang's account. I'm still waiting for the other Nook to ship.

The end.

[Mangrove]

When I'm done at work, I will serenade the forum with my Nook tale of woe. 

The only major problems i have with it is the short battery life. (It says ~10 days. I get one, WAT (note, yes I disabled wi-fi)), slow boot up times, and shitteh google translations.

To bypass shitteh google. Go directly to Google books. Download the PDF books direct. Do NOT click on the link that turns it into plain text for that is what effs everything up.

Of course, getting the free books this way means that B&N won't know you've downloaded them, thus they won't be credited to your account. If there's any loss, then they won't be able to replace it. However, my plan is to get free books directly from Google, read them as PDF scans minus textual errors and buy some flashdrives as a back up in case the unit is stolen or dies or explodes or whatever.

[Freeky]

I remember part one of that story. That is all kinds of retarded, Mang.

[Mangrove]

I'M A CHARGIN' MAH N00KX0rZ!11!

[Soylent Green]

I'M A CHARGIN' MAH N00KX0rZ!11!

SHOOP DA KINDLE!!!111!

[Mangrove]

To bypass shitteh google. Go directly to Google books. Download the PDF books direct. Do NOT click on the link that turns it into plain text for that is what effs everything up.

Of course, getting the free books this way means that B&N won't know you've downloaded them, thus they won't be credited to your account. If there's any loss, then they won't be able to replace it. However, my plan is to get free books directly from Google, read them as PDF scans minus textual errors and buy some flashdrives as a back up in case the unit is stolen or dies or explodes or whatever.


Well, turns out I'm not as clever as I had hoped. You can certainly download and read PDF scans on your reader. But the text can be really really headache inducingly small and isn't adjustable. Poop 

They need some type of software upgrade that'll work like a typical Adobe reader.

[LMNO]

I don't know if it's been coded yet, but try the free Stanza program from Lexcycle. It's what I use to turn PDFs into Kindle-readable files.  The formatting still sucks, but you get used to it.

[Mangrove]

I don't know if it's been coded yet, but try the free Stanza program from Lexcycle. It's what I use to turn PDFs into Kindle-readable files.  The formatting still sucks, but you get used to it.

Thanks LMNO - I'll look into that.

Did you see the Amazon vs i-Pad shitstorm?