http://www.linuxfordevices.com/c/a/News/Nook-rooted-by-NookDevs/
:lulz:
Sweet, I preordered a nook a few weeks ago!
Though the high chance of bricking it does put me off modding it...
I bought a Nook yesterday. Or rather, Mrs Mang' ordered one for my (Feb) birthday. They told us that her card wouldn't be charged until February. However, in checking her bank, the money ($350ish) was about to leave her account tomorrow. So I aborted the order.
Aside from the money leaving her account at an inopportune time, I had a rather rude awakening this afternoon. I downloaded the B&N e-reader program and decided to see what free books were available to me. To my delight, I discovered that a lot of dusty, old, Victorian, occult-related shit that no one has cared about for years was available for free. Nerd that I am, this made me happy.
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.
Now someone explain this to me - with all the motherfucking technology that exists in this world, how is it that Google spent many dollars to replicate what are basically 1st century scribal errors? :argh!:
The much vaunted 'democratization of knowledge' has lead to many books being released on the public which have all the refinement of a semi-literate teenager submitting their English homework assignment as a text message.
The Mang' is not amused. :evilmad:
Quote from: Mangrove on December 21, 2009, 03:13:55 AM
I bought a Nook yesterday. Or rather, Mrs Mang' ordered one for my (Feb) birthday. They told us that her card wouldn't be charged until February. However, in checking her bank, the money ($350ish) was about to leave her account tomorrow. So I aborted the order.
Aside from the money leaving her account at an inopportune time, I had a rather rude awakening this afternoon. I downloaded the B&N e-reader program and decided to see what free books were available to me. To my delight, I discovered that a lot of dusty, old, Victorian, occult-related shit that no one has cared about for years was available for free. Nerd that I am, this made me happy.
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.
Now someone explain this to me - with all the motherfucking technology that exists in this world, how is it that Google spent many dollars to replicate what are basically 1st century scribal errors? :argh!:
The much vaunted 'democratization of knowledge' has lead to many books being released on the public which have all the refinement of a semi-literate teenager submitting their English homework assignment as a text message.
The Mang' is not amused. :evilmad:
Which is why I plan on pirating vast amounts of books for my nook. I mean sure, some of the free books will have sub-shit quality, but the vast majority of my pdf books are top notch.
I have 4 gigs ready and waiting. Now the only question is which will make the cut?
I have a few PDFs that I think will translate well and a number of ones that are probably going to be crappy.
I certainly don't have 4gigs of stuff. Not by a long long chalk.
Mang,
My guess is that they calculated that the bottom line would be served by having the early adopters act as the proofreaders...
I'm sure that free editing in the form of angry emails come in every day. they will all become perfect eventually that way, and they didn't have to pay anyone...
I dunno, I cant get into reading a book from PDF. It just isnt the same for me. I find myself losing concentration more often than if I have an actual book in my hands. My mind will just start wandering. They sound super convenient and everything, e-readers, I mean, but just not the same. Now if someone could invent an e-reader that functions like a book, with pages and everything, and you could just pick a book and then thats whats on the pages, and then change it whenever you wanted to a different book. That would be fucking cool.
Quote from: Hangshai on December 21, 2009, 06:35:02 AM
I dunno, I cant get into reading a book from PDF. It just isnt the same for me. I find myself losing concentration more often than if I have an actual book in my hands. My mind will just start wandering. They sound super convenient and everything, e-readers, I mean, but just not the same. Now if someone could invent an e-reader that functions like a book, with pages and everything, and you could just pick a book and then thats whats on the pages, and then change it whenever you wanted to a different book. That would be fucking cool.
I have the same problem with pdfs
on computer screens. Have you ever tried a pdf on an actual e-reader? Because it is a dramatically different experience IMO.
Quote from: Mangrove on December 21, 2009, 04:33:08 AM
I have a few PDFs that I think will translate well and a number of ones that are probably going to be crappy.
I certainly don't have 4gigs of stuff. Not by a long long chalk.
I am also a huge archiver and a reading FANATIC.
I love reading more than any activity I can think of, besides MAYBE playing really old video games, hence the large collection.
Quote from: Iptuous on December 21, 2009, 05:08:19 AM
Mang,
My guess is that they calculated that the bottom line would be served by having the early adopters act as the proofreaders...
I'm sure that free editing in the form of angry emails come in every day. they will all become perfect eventually that way, and they didn't have to pay anyone...
Funny you should mention that. I was contemplating angry e-mails at Google and Barnes & Noble. Not that I want to proof read & edit every free book I download, but if the format allows me to change the text in some way, then that'll be a start.
Small reprieve for Google books. If I go directly to their site and search their PDFs, they are direct scans of the original books and not 'digitized' versions full of mistakes.
I'm reconsidering my Nook-rage.
Has anyone tried hacking their nook for free interwebs?
I would if I had the slightest clue. Is a nook a particular phone?
I thought a nook is a place for hiding your crannies? :?
No, the nook is the cousin of the cranny. It is also a euphemism for girly nether regions.
I am wondering about the same for Sony Reader. This is kind of the make / break factor for the devices in my mind.
Just got my nook today and I love it!
Still waiting for mine.
I wouldn't mind getting some nook... oh, wait. You mean a text reader.
Quote from: Mangrove on December 21, 2009, 03:13:55 AM
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.
When I'm done at work, I will serenade the forum with my Nook tale of woe. :argh!:
Quote from: Mangrove on January 21, 2010, 04:00:29 PM
When I'm done at work, I will serenade the forum with my Nook tale of woe. :argh!:
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.
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.
Quote from: Soylent Green on January 22, 2010, 03:50:25 AM
Quote from: Mangrove on January 21, 2010, 04:00:29 PM
When I'm done at work, I will serenade the forum with my Nook tale of woe. :argh!:
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.
I remember part one of that story. That is all kinds of retarded, Mang.
I'M A CHARGIN' MAH N00KX0rZ!11!
Quote from: Mangrove on January 28, 2010, 10:27:39 PM
I'M A CHARGIN' MAH N00KX0rZ!11!
SHOOP DA KINDLE!!!111!
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 :sad:
They need some type of software upgrade that'll work like a typical Adobe reader.
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.
Quote from: LMNO on February 01, 2010, 07:50:07 PM
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?
TBH, I wasn't paying attention. I don't buy the first generation of any product these days. Let the geekbois be the beta testers.
It's not the units or the geekbois, this the publishers.
Amazon had a deal with MacMillans. Apple now have a deal with MacMillans which breaks Amazon's monoply and their ability to fix prices for $9.99
Cue books being mysteriously 'deleted' from people's Kindles...(again).
First MacMillan and now....Murdoch!
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100203/tc_nm/us_newscorp_amazon
Solution to Google-books:
http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page
I am SO happy I remembered this site.
Finally a damn update!
The nook has a new version, and adds things like games, faster page turning, A FUCKING WEB BROWSER, free shit while in a store, etc.
Now I have renewed hope that B&N won't leave us with a never updated and slow piece of crap!
They also found a way to stream Pandora radio from the Nook (I believe through the 3G signal). This is a hack and not supported by B&N though.
I got the new software upgrade on Friday.
After the initial problems I had getting the damn thing, the Nook has been a really good thing to have. I still wish that Google books didn't suck as much as it does but I'm otherwise pretty content.
Imposting on the. Nook drinkin coffeee where is scrid
Holy Crap! It's OB!
Howya doing, you anthropomorphic personification of a wave function collapse?
Quote from: LMNO on April 30, 2010, 03:35:07 PM
Holy Crap! It's OB!
Howya doing, you anthropomorphic personification of a wave function collapse?
I think typing & caffeine is not a good combo for OB.