Tag: Kindle

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz books by L. Frank Baum

On By Michel McDonaldIn BooksLeave a comment

Let me just start off by saying I am 55 years old. I have never read The Wizard of Oz books in my whole life. As a child, I struggled with reading because I have dyslexia and I have a learning disability and later in life I discovered that I have attention deficit disorder. So I have many factors working against me when it comes to reading books. So this was never on the reading list for me as a child or teenager or any age. It was this year in 2025 that I made a New Year’s resolution to start reading The Wizard of Oz books, and today I’ve finally finished reading them.

There are 14 books in this collection, and many years ago when I first got my Kindle I had bought all 14 books in one single Kindle ebook. Since I’m doing the reading challenge with Goodreads, I decided that instead of reading the one with all of the books included, that I would buy every book on my Kindle because if I just read the one book, then it would count as one book instead of 14, so I bought all 14 books. Thank goodness it wasn’t that costly because most of them were a dollar, but some of them were free because they are in the public domain.

I was a bit surprised to read so many different characters that I’d never heard about in the original movie based on the first book. But of course they only did a movie based on one book. In the 1980s they had a movie called Return to Oz and that story included the second and third books combined. They altered the story a bit, but that’s pretty much what Hollywood does anyway. But in return to Oz they introduced some characters that nobody has ever heard of, so when I saw that movie many years ago, I didn’t realize that those were actual characters from the books. I thought it was just Hollywood being creative. It wasn’t until I actually started reading the books that I realized those are actual characters that L. Frank Baum wrote about. Silly me.

We just recently had a movie come out called Wicked based on the wicked witch and Glinda the good witch, which is based on a play. Look, I don’t know much about this because I’ve never seen the play and I still have yet to see Wicked, but when it’s on digital I will watch it. But I wanted to read the books before I saw Wicked because I want to get to know the world of Oz before I watch any more about it. It is interesting that the movie and play Wicked is based on Glinda meeting the wicked witch for the first time and what, they’re going to college? I’m a little confused, but I will be up to date I’m sure when I see the movie lol.

All I’m going to say is that if you have not read these books yet, read them because these books have added more to the magical wonderful world of Oz to my brain than I could have ever imagined. It’s an interesting story and it’s an interesting world and all of the characters are very, I hate to be redundant, but I’m just going to say interesting again.

Now that I have finally fulfilled my New Year’s resolution, I’m going to go back to reading all the other stuff that I like to read with vampires and other supernatural things LOL.

Another year…

On By Michel McDonaldIn Blog, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Well, another year has passed. I can’t believe time seems to be moving a bit faster every year for me. It seems like 2024 would still have another 6 months left, but no, it’s almost finished. 1 more day.

What have I accomplished in a year? Well, my Etsy shop was very busy this year, busier every month this year since I started. Mainly due to a single item though. A simple friendship bracelet.

I added a listing for lesbian friendship bracelets with the same designs I have for my rainbow friendship bracelets, but I used the lesbian pride flag colors. I also did the bear flag colors and that wasn’t as popular as the lesbian. So this is the bracelet that someone wanted. They sent me a message asking me if I could make this bracelet and they took a screenshot from the Disney+ show Agatha All Along. I said let me see if I can do it and I opened up my friendship bracelet designer program on my computer and figured it out. Of course I did have to Google the design and I found it right away. I just had to change the colors to these specific colors which are the lesbian pride flag colors.

After I sent this bracelet off to this person, I decided to add it to my lesbian pride flag friendship bracelet listing and wouldn’t you know it? Some other people did a search for Agatha all along friendship bracelet and they found it and they bought it and so many people wanted this bracelet. I added three sizes so that it could accommodate small, medium and large.

Two people from Germany bought one (each) and someone in Norway bought one and someone in Ireland wanted to buy it, but they couldn’t afford the shipping from the United States. I got sales on this bracelet in many states and after making it so many times, sometimes everyday, I had to remove the item from my listing because I was in agony. These bracelets take time to make and they take a toll on my hands and my back.

I will eventually make up a whole bunch of bracelets for that listing and I’ll make a whole bunch of the Agatha bracelet as well because I know people will want it again. And I’ve already bought the string for it and have cut it and it’s all ready to go, I just have to start working on them. But I need a break because I’ve been working my fingers to the bone on crafts this whole year, and my hands are about ready to fall off. Not really, but you know, jokingly.

So other things that I’ve been working on are Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas box cards as well as a Christmas Advent calendar and also I’ve been knitting Christmas stockings.

The Advent calendar went to my cousin for his son and of course the whole family could enjoy it because I filled it with so much candy LOL. The Advent calendar is from SVGcuts and the fireplace box card that you see on the left side is actually from simply crafty svgs. And then there are two Christmas friendship bracelets in the front that come from an Etsy shop called The One Eyed Artist.

The Norwegian Christmas stockings are from Arne and Carlos. I posted about the stockings a couple of months ago when I made them. I’m making more because I bought so much yarn that I don’t know what else I’m going to do with it other than make a ton more stockings LOL. I’ll probably be working on these until it gets too hot to work with wool yarn.

I’ve also been reading a lot more. I made it a mission to read everyday no matter what. Even if I just read one or two chapters a day, at least I’m reading. I did the Goodreads challenge this year and challenged myself to read 30 books and I exceeded that by reading 48 books. I’m still reading a book and was hoping to finish it to make my Goodreads challenge 49 books, but I don’t think I’m going to make it.

There is one book that I have that I would like to read. That is the entire Wizard of Oz story, but it’s all one book which means there are 15 books that will count as one book unless I decide to add the books individually on Goodreads as I read them. It will most likely take me forever to read it because this one collection in one book is over 2,000 pages and I think I’m going to need to read it in stages lol. So I will add each individual book to Goodreads as I read them.

I have a lot of other books in my Kindle library to read, so I have no shortage of books to keep myself busy with. I also have a lot of books in my Nook that I can read as well.

I’m not doing the New Year’s resolution thing because I think that’s stupid. Especially when a lot of times people never follow through with it. They always say I’m going to start losing weight and I’m going to go to the gym and then they never do and they end up gaining weight. I’d rather just do it if I’m going to do it. I did lose 75 lb in 2023 with ozempic, and then it stopped on Thanksgiving Day and 15lbs have come back on gradually, but I’m still doing ozempic and I’m still trying and I’m doing my best despite the constant junk food being put in my face and constantly being asked if I want to go to fast food places. I have the ability to say no, but I don’t seem to be doing that very well. So that’s something I have to work on.

I am having heart issues because apparently my pulse is too slow. It was 41 the other day at the doctor’s office and they’re sending me to a cardiologist. I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about. I checked my Fitbit watch and my pulse seems to be around 100, but then I checked my pulse on my blood pressure machine and it’s around 40 something to 50 something.  So, I guess my fitbit is not really telling me my true pulse rate. I’ll see what happens.

Well, Happy New Year and let’s hope that this year is a good year.

The Librarian book series

On By Michel McDonaldIn Books, eBook, KindleLeave a comment

I have another book recommendation for anyone who likes to read, and is into the supernatural. This is a recommendation, not a review.

The Librarian book series by Brian Yansky is actually called The Strangely Scary Funny book series.

I actually found this series when I was in the Kindle store looking for books to read and I liked the image of the first book because I thought the look of the house was kind of cool and all the colors. All of the covers for each of these books are pretty much the same, except they have one thing different in the bottom Left of the image which shows basically the person or thing that is the focus of the story. They always say don’t judge a book by its cover, but I actually thought it was a cool cover and that’s why I clicked onto it and read the description and decided that I wanted to read it.

After I read the first book, I knew that I loved the series and wanted to buy all of the rest of the books. Actually, I read maybe two or three chapters and decided immediately that I loved the story and then bought the rest of the books. There are nine books total, but the ninth one comes out in October 2024.

So this story is about this guy who has some Supernatural abilities and gets lost after being thrown out of a car by a clown and finds himself in a haunted forest and then finds himself in a town called Eden which just so happens to be the original Garden of Eden. He somehow ends up becoming the librarian who somehow is also the cop or the sheriff in the town and has to solve crimes.

I don’t want to give too much of it away, but it is a fun story. The books are not that expensive and are totally worth every penny. If you prefer paperback, then get a paperback, but I prefer ebooks because of my eyes. It’s just easier for me to see when I can change the text size and I can make this screen dark.

So check out the first book if you want to read the story and find out if you like it or not. I believe the first Kindle book is only a dollar, which is not that much money.

The Fated Chronicles by Humphrey Quinn

On By Michel McDonaldIn eBookLeave a comment

I bought two books in the “We Witches Three” series (image below) because there was something in there that said that it was like “Charmed”. I was very intrigued and I wanted to read it. Well, I started reading the first one, and I saw where it said that it was part of a series of books from Humphrey Quinn, so I looked at the first one and decided, okay, I’ll just buy the first book and read that first so that I’ll be caught up and I won’t be lost, once of course I finish that series up until the “We Witches Three” series.  The fated Chronicles volume 1 was actually free. I guess that’s where they get you hooked.


I discovered at the end of “The Fated Chronicles: Volume 1” that the “We Witches Three” series is a stand-alone series, so I didn’t have to do that, but I really enjoyed reading “The Fated Chronicles Volume 1”.

These two kids who are twins that are turning 13 are living in a trailer with their Uncle Arnon and are constantly on the run. They go to their usual summer camping spot, and they run into a group of people who are very secretive and don’t like outsiders.

I don’t want to spoil anything, so I’m just going to leave it at that. There’s magic and that’s pretty much enough reason for me to read.

I bought volume 2 to start reading tomorrow because I don’t want to be left on a cliffhanger LOL.

If you are wondering why I’m even posting this, I like to post books that I like to read. Nobody asked me to, I just wanted to let other people know there are good books out there to read. This book is not difficult to read at all, so a child or teenager could read it with no problem.

If you decide that you want to read it, let me know and let me know how you liked it. The volume 1 book, as I said before, is free, so you don’t really have anything to lose. These are the Kindle version of the books, by the way. I rarely ever buy paperback books because of my bad eyes. Ebooks are just easier and they don’t collect dust.

Thank you for reading my ramblings.

Ward Parker Supernatural Novels

On By Michel McDonaldIn eBook, ReadingLeave a comment

Some time in the year 2020, I was scrolling through Facebook when I started seeing these ads for a book called Snowbirds of Prey by Ward Parker, and this is what the book cover looks like.

I kept thinking that this looks just like Ellen DeGeneres, but a vampire Ellen 😂.

Ok, so here’s the deal with me. I am typically only interested in watching TV shows and reading books based on the supernatural. I don’t know why, but I’ve always been this way. I didn’t buy the ebook right away, in fact, it took maybe a week or so of seeing this Facebook ad before I finally decided to buy it.

After reading this first book, I was hooked and bought the new books as they were released. In fact, I pre-ordered them and read them as they showed up in my Kindle library.

The books aren’t serious. If I remember correctly, they are advertised as being a comedy series of books, which I’m also into.

Here are all of the books in this series called Freaky Florida. There are only 7, but that last one with the blood bag on the cover is a short story which pretty much introduced the series. I don’t know why it’s listed as book 9, but it’s the first one you should read.

These books are based on a middle aged home health nurse named Missy Mindle who takes care of retired vampires and werewolves who live in condos next to each other. The vampires live in a building called Squid Tower and the werewolves live in a building called Seaweed Manor. Oh, and Missy is a witch and they all live in Jellyfish Beach in Florida. Missy ends up helping to solve crimes with her reporter friend Matt.

At some point in the books, a new character is introduced named Darla Chesswick, who happens to be Missy’s cousin. Darla eventually gets her own series called Memory Guild.

So the Freaky Florida series ended after book 7, but Missy’s adventures don’t end there. A new series was introduced in June 2023 called Monsters of Jellyfish Beach with Missy Mindle as the main character, and she is still a nurse, but she has retired from working for the home health nurse company. Now she runs an occult shop with her business partner Luisa.

The 10th Memory Guild book is the last one, but there is a new series coming soon.

These books are fun and pretty easy to read. I say that because I have issues reading. I have a combination of ADHD, dyslexia and a learning disability, which makes reading a little difficult lol. So these books are really nice to read because I have very little difficulty reading them.

If you are into vampires, werewolves, witches, and other supernatural beings, these are the books for you. So check them out and tell me what you think.

My Goodreads 2020 Reading Challenge

On By Michel McDonaldIn Books, eBook, Kindle, Nook, Paranormal, ReadingLeave a comment

I haven’t been reading books at all lately. Last year I don’t even think I picked up one book at all. I am always getting emails from Goodreads with updates from other people, and I usually delete them because I’m typically just not in the mood to read, but I got to thinking, I really should. I’ve spent way too much time watching YouTube and not doing anything. I need to start reading again.

The first book that I thought to read was actually a book I had bought and added to my Goodreads account on September 3rd, 2012 called “If It’s a Choice, My Zygote Chose Balls” by Jeremy Hooper. I had also bought the audio version because they offered it at a really good price and I couldn’t pass it up. But I don’t know why it took me this long to read it. I read it in 2 days with the help of the audio book of course. I finished reading it on August 27th, according to my Goodreads account.

My next 3 books were from the same author named Daniel Sugar and they were about a witch in the Salem trial days. “Salem Burning”, “The Witch and the Guillotine” and “The Witch and the Revolution”. I read those really fast because they were all so easy to read. I pretty much read them each in a day. I love stories about witches and the supernatural.

Before I finished the Daniel Sugar books, I saw an ad on Facebook for another series by an author named Ward Parker and the series is the “Freaky Florida” series that consisted of 4 books. “Snowbirds of Prey”, “Invasive Species”, “Fate is a Witch” and “Gnome Coming”. I bought all 4 books without even thinking maybe I might just want to stick to the first book and see how that goes. I don’t know, I just had a feeling I would read and like them. Then before I even started reading the first one I saw there was a fifth book coming soon called “Going Batty”, so I bought that and he has a sixth book coming out early in 2021 called “Dirty Old Manatee”. It already sounds hilarious.

The Freaky Florida series follows a home health nurse named Missy who happens to be a witch and her patients are Werewolves and Vampires and really any other supernatural beings that need her medical skills. She also has a friend named Matt who is a reporter and they go on many adventures together in the series. They are kind of cute in my mind. I don’t know why, but my brain has assigned them the voices of Samantha (Elizabeth Montgomery) and Darrin Stephens (Dick York). I can even see their facial expressions and hear the expressions in their voices during certain scenes.

So I read the first one, loved it, second one, loved it, third one, guess how I felt about that one? I loved it. I’m reading the fourth one called Gnome Coming and I’m also loving it. Going Batty is my next one.

All of these are on the Kindle because for some reason there are some authors who only publish to Kindle. I normally buy Nook books, but I don’t know, I just thought I would give my Kindle account some attention this year, and not a moment too soon because the Nook hasn’t been operational since Sunday, and it’s still not working. I don’t know for sure what happened, but you can’t buy any books and if you had any books that weren’t installed that were in the cloud, you pretty much can kiss them goodbye until they fix the problem. If you were fortunate to save your books to SD card then you still have them. I wasn’t fortunate to have them all downloaded to the SD card. And it really sucks because I already bought the first book for my next series from an author named Michael Buckley called the Sister’s Grimm on the Nook and I won’t get the ebook until they fix the problem. So I’m pretty bummed out.

But I do have other books I have bought years ago that I want to read. For example I still have a ton of Xanth novels to read and the rest of the Sookie Stackhouse novels. I have plenty of reading to do, and I’m so glad I started reading again. My goal is set to 10, but when I get to 10 I will change it to 12 and just keep going until the end of the year. I am curious to find out how many more books I can read this year.

A bad month for electronics

On By Michel McDonaldIn Cell Phone, CR-48, Kindle, NookLeave a comment

This has been a bad month for me with electronics. Just a warning, I’m going to do a lot of complaining here lol.

Batteries: So my life partner mentioned something about his phone and he handed it to me and I was like good lord, why is it so thick? His battery had expanded or puffed up I guess you would say. This is the second time this happened to him too. The first time it was the battery that came with his phone, which he has had for a very long time, so in December of last year we bought him a new battery on Amazon that was 3 times as thick because it gave him, I don’t know what the normal batteries are, 4380mAh? Well, the new battery was 6800mAh, which was why it was so thick. Since it was too thick for the back of his phone to be able to hold, they gave him a new plastic one that holds the battery in place. Well, since he only bought this battery in December, I contacted the seller on Amazon because they offer a 2 year warranty, so they sent him a new battery. He had to wait a week for it, and in the meantime I was going to give him my old CR-48 Chromebook to use, and that battery had also puffed up, so that’s no good. Then the battery on my cell phone started acting up. It wasn’t charging, and when it did, it was very slow, also the speaker was not very loud anymore, so Verizon sent me a new phone.

Bluetooth Earbuds: I bought 2 pairs of JLab Audio Go Air True Wireless Bluetooth Earbuds + Charging Case for us. After only a couple of days, the left earbud stopped working properly. I went through all of the steps to reset it to factory settings and nothing worked. Finally after a frustrating week of being told to reset it to factory, I just sent it back to Amazon and they sent me a new one. Then one thing I noticed is a green light on the charging case on my new one. The other one only had a blue light when it was charging. I even had it plugged into the wall for several hours, which was plenty time for it to charge completely. This new pair doesn’t seem to give me any problems. My life partners left earbud also stopped working, but resetting it to factory worked on his pair, so I think I just got a bad one.

Barnes & Noble Nook: So I’ve had a Nook from Barnes & Noble for more than 10 years. I got their original e-reader with the e-ink screen and that little color screen at the bottom of the device. Then I got a Nook HD+ and now I have a Samsung Galaxy Tab A6 Nook tablet. Yesterday I was talking with an author on Twitter about his books which are about the Grimm stories. In fact, his books are called The Fairy-Tale Detectives The Sisters Grimm Series. So it got me thinking about Grimm’s Fairy Tales, which I own on my Nook. So I went to download it because it was only in the cloud, but it wouldn’t download. It kept telling me that something is wrong and to try again later. I kept trying, and trying, and trying. I did some research and on their website they said you need the most current version of the NOOK App for NOOK Devices, which I did, and the most recent Android version for your tablet, which I did. So I thought my Nook was the problem and I reset it to factory settings since it had been acting up lately and was starting to get slow. But apparently that wasn’t the issue because it’s on the Nook servers end. According to Good E Reader, ” The entire system has crashed and it won’t be fixed for a couple of days.”

It’s been a very frustrating month for me. I hope the electronics world gets their shit together because humanity seems to be helpless now without something that has only been in our existence for a very short amount of time. I need a e-reader so I can adjust the size of the text because I am losing my sight and I need bigger text. The text in regular books is too small for my eyes now.

I have the Amazon Kindle app installed on my Nook tablet, so at least I will be able to read Kindle ebooks until the Nook gives me all of my ebooks back.

Ok. Enough complaining from me today lol.

The Lives of Lilly Parris

On By Michel McDonaldIn Books, eBook, ParanormalLeave a comment

I was sitting in my desk chair watching Twitter using Tweetdeck, and if you use that website, you know that you don’t have to scroll through the tweets, you just sit there and watch the home column and all the tweets just magically appear and disappear, sometimes in a flash. I was fortunate enough to see a tweet that was an advertisement for these Kindle ebooks from Daniel Sugar called The Lives of Lilly Parris. Images above.

I love witches and anything supernatural in fact, so it wasn’t a difficult decision to click the link and go check it out. It was on Amazon for the Kindle and there were 3 books for .99 cents each. At a buck each, what do I have to lose? Right? So I bought them and I do not regret that at all.

These books are very fast paced, also the chapters are very short. Some are a single page, some are 2 pages, some are several pages, but they are short enough that if you need to take a break, you don’t have to worry about the bookmark being in the middle of a chapter, because they aren’t very long.

I’m not all about any spoilers, so I’m just going to say the books main characters are Grandmother Rose, Lilly and friends and enemies. They are living in 1692 in Salem, Massachusetts during a cruel time in history with slaves and witch hunters who also like to torture and murder Native Americans because they are assholes. It’s too much already! I don’t want to spoil anything for you. Just trust me, it’s a good story.

I would like to note that I am terrible at reading because of my Dyslexia and ADHD, so it usually takes me forever and a day to read a book, but I quite literally read Salem Burning one day, and The Witch and the Guillotine the next day. To be TMI, I was reading another book that I finished reading after lunch, then I started reading Salem Burning after Judge Judy at 5pm, read until just before midnight, got 50% of the book done, then read the rest before lunch the next day. Started The Witch and the Guillotine after Judge Judy, got 50% before midnight, then finished that before lunch the next day. I then started The Witch and the Revolution, but have had too many distractions, and I am 30% in the book.

So to summarize, it’s a great series, you should read them. Go on then, what are you waiting for? They are on Amazon! I’ve given you links, click them.

The Sims FreePlay January 22 Update

On By Michel McDonaldIn Android, App, Games, Nook, The SimsLeave a comment

The Sims FreePlay

The Sims FreePlay has finally given us an update and not everyone is happy about it. Well, I should say they aren’t happy because EA still has not addressed some of the issues that some of us are having with the game.

There are really only two issues that I am having, like not being able to log in to Facebook in the game which would allow me to access the party boat to claim daily prizes based on how many Facebook friends I have who also play the game. It also allows me to visit those friend’s neighborhoods and interact with their Sims characters. They have tasks that you have to perform to earn a special currency called SP’s to spend on specific items in the store. If I cannot earn that currency then I will not be able to buy those items.

The other issue that I am having is that I cannot play the game on my new Nook HD+ that I got for Christmas. I have been playing this game on my Android phone since last year and I’m perfectly okay with playing it on there because that is mainly the only reason I even use my phone anymore. Ever since I got my Nook, I’ve uninstalled most of the apps that I used to use on a daily basis because they were causing The Sims FreePlay to constantly crash. Since I can use those apps on my new Nook, I don’t need them on my phone anymore.

Some people are reporting problems that they are having that I don’t seem to be having. They are also really irate that EA has not addressed their complaints.  Here are just 2 comments. I blurred out their names for their own protection.  The first one is negative, the 2nd one, well, if you can understand what that person is saying then you decide lol.  That person is having issues that I am not having.

sims freeplay comments

You know, I am just as miffed as the next person, but let us all have a little perspective here. This is a free game. You don’t pay for it, you get to play it for as long as you want for free. There are premium items you can buy with real life money, but you don’t have to buy them if you don’t want to. Be lucky they are giving us all of these updates because their other game The Sims 3 which is also available for your Android device will cost you $6.99 and from what I have read in the comments there, that game doesn’t have nearly as many cool features and items as the FreePlay game has.

Also, you should be so lucky to have your Android phone or tablet because there are many people in this world who don’t have such luxuries. There are children who are being abused by their parents, some even murdered. There are entire families who are starving and sleeping in the streets because they aren’t as lucky as you. There are people in this world who are being molested, raped and murdered.

There are teenagers who are kicked out of the house and end up living on the streets for years simply because they came out of the closet to their parents. There are gay kids being targeted, beat up, some even raped and then murdered in Russia because Vladimir Putin gave them the okay by making being gay illegal. There are gay people living in Uganda who are being murdered or raped, or both. And finally, there are people being stoned to death in the Arab countries for the same reason, because they are gay. So chill out, it’s just a silly little game. Count your lucky stars that you even have the money to play the game on your expensive little toy.

I am just as miffed at EA because the Facebook issue started when they put out the Halloween update and I have waited all this time and was let down yesterday when I couldn’t log in with the new update. I understand how frustrating it is. I was also let down when I couldn’t play it on my Nook, but even if I could play it on my Nook, if I can’t log in to Facebook to upload my progress, then how will I be able to continue from where I left off on my phone when I try to play it on my Nook?

Someone told me to just buy a Kindle. Um… I have a Nook. I can’t just go out and say “hey take my Nook and give me a Kindle.” It doesn’t work that way. My Nook is a Nook HD+ with 32 GB which only cost $150. The Kindle Fire equivalent is $444 (see below). So yeah, I will not be buying a new Kindle just so I can play The Sims FreePlay. Even if I did, I still have the Facebook issue. If I can’t back up my game, then what point is getting a Kindle Fire to play it on?

kindle fire hdx

One person even said to just go out and buy the cheap Kindle Fire. Again, even at the low price of $139, I still have the Facebook issue to deal with. Besides, why do these people think I have money lying around that I can just go out and buy all these new things? I just cancelled HBO and Showtime because I needed that extra $30 a month. How am I supposed to go out and buy a second tablet that I will only use to play The Sims with? I put $20 into savings and had to take it back out just to buy groceries. Come on, think it through people.

At any rate, I will continue to wait and hope that EA will fix these issues and I will continue not complaining because there is more to life than just a silly little game. I will continue playing it on my phone and be happy that I even have that luxury. How happy you ask? This happy…

sims freeplay shirt

Nook HD+ from Barnes & Noble

On By Michel McDonaldIn Android, Books, Christmas, eBook, Facebook, Gadgets, Google, Google Chrome, Kindle, Nook, Pictures, Products I Like, Reading, Social Network, TVLeave a comment

Nook HD+ from Barnes & Noble

I love my Nook HD+.  I have been having so much fun with it since I got it for Christmas, actually the week before Christmas.  Yeah we don’t conform to the traditions of opening your presents on Christmas day, or even on birthdays.  We open presents the day we get them.  Screw tradition lol.

My Nook HD+ has a 9” screen, so it’s bigger than the Nook HD in the sense that it has 2 more inches, but I’m telling you that because there are certain apps that work with 7 inches, but don’t work with 9 inches.  Like The Sims FreePlay and Viggle for example.  The Sims FreePlay is downloadable, you just can’t play it because you get this warning when you try.

The Sims FreePlay

I am not sure if The Sims FreePlay will even work with a Nook HD 7” tablet.  I know it works with the Kindle Fire because I’ve seen people taking pictures and video of it on that device.  I’m pretty sure it was the 7”, so if it runs on the Kindle Fire 7”, then it probably runs on the Nook HD 7”.  If so or not, please let me know.

Viggle on the other hand doesn’t even show up in the Google Play Store, so they don’t even give you the option.  I know it works on 7” tablets because I installed it on my partner’s tablet to see if I could do trivia when trivia wasn’t giving me any points with my phone.  It installed and looked great too, but the trivia was not working on his tablet any better than it was on my phone.  Although, just because it installed on his tablet doesn’t mean I know if it will install on a Nook HD 7” tablet.

Facebook isn’t great on the Nook HD+ when you use the app.  Using the browser is so much better because you get the full website that you get on the computer, but the only problem I have is when I use another tab to visit another website, or even if I use an app, like if I go check my email, when I come back to the Facebook tab, it goes straight to the mobile version.  If I wanted to use Facebook mobile, I would just use the Facebook app.

The Twitter app that comes with the Nook HD+ from the Nook store isn’t updated, so it’s better to let Google Play update it.  It’s easy to use and if you have multiple twitter accounts, you can switch back and forth very easily.  It’s actually better on the Nook HD+ than it is on my phone.  When I am using @xanapus on my phone, then try to switch over to another twitter name, for some odd reason it switches me back to @xanapus.  It doesn’t do that on my Nook HD+.

I didn’t like the Google+ app on my phone and I rarely ever use it on my computer, but it is great on the Nook HD+.  That’s one of the social media websites that I wanted to start using more often.  It has a much better look than Facebook does in my opinion.  Google+ doesn’t force you to look at ads or suggested posts.

One annoying thing that I noticed is that when I am in my library, I scroll down to My Files and see there are 564 files.  How the heck am I supposed to weed through all of those files to get to the ebooks I have downloaded?  Well, I discovered that if you click the words My Files, it brings up a new window which shows folders.  They are in the Download folder.  I have 6 ebooks that I downloaded from the EverQuest Next website that are fiction based books based on EverQuest the game, but they are all in PDF format.  Ebooks that I’ve downloaded in ePub format will show up with my Nook books, but the PDF files don’t.  I did download an app called File Manager HD which allowed me to create a new folder in my download folder so I could keep the EQN ebooks in there to keep that folder more organized.

PicsArt Photo Studio is a good app that I use on my phone to add stickers and frames and text to my pictures, but it’s such a small screen that sometimes it’s difficult to see what I’m doing.  My Nook HD+ doesn’t have a camera, but I can use Google Drive to retrieve my files.  What I really like most is that I can write on the screen with this.  I can do that on my phone, but it’s too small.

Happy New Year 2014

Okay, so my handwriting isn’t the best, it’s even worse on paper lol.

ChromecastSome useful apps that come with the Nook HD+ include Netflix and Hulu+ and if you have a Google Chromecast, you can watch them on your TV.  You don’t even need to have the Google Chromecast app installed to use it.  I know this because I bought it for my partner and I couldn’t get it to connect to his tablet.  I connected it with my CR-48 aka Chromebook, then was able to connect it to his tablet.  I don’t have the app installed on my Nook HD+ or my phone, but the icon is visible on YouTube, Netflix and Hulu+.  I guess any Android or Apple device that is connected to my network will have that ability.

Of course, other good uses for the Nook HD+ is actually reading a book lol.  You aren’t limited to Nook books either, you can read your Kindle books plus your Google Play books.  In fact, if there is a service that sells ebooks, you can read the books you bought from them, including pdf files and ebooks.  Some writers only publish their ebook with Amazon KDP Select because they get more advertising, and if they chose KDP Select, they can only publish with Amazon for 3 months.  That’s why it’s good to use the Kindle on my Nook, because some ebooks aren’t available on the Nook.

One of the features that I do like is the Nook app “Your Highlights and Notes.”  If you do a lot of highlighting and like to add notes, this is a good thing.  It had all the highlights from the Nook for PC when I got it, but it didn’t show any text.  When I add new highlights, it shows the page number and the first couple of sentences that I highlighted, and if I left a note, it shows my note.  That makes it so much easier to find every highlight and every note on every ebook you own whether it’s downloaded or in the cloud.  Highlighting and leaving notes on my Nook WiFi was so difficult and as soon as I started reading another ebook, all of the highlights and notes disappeared, which was very frustrating.

There is also a Nook app called “Your Lookups” that shows you every word you ever had to find the definition for.  That does come in handy if you ever want to find that specific word again.  The list of words you looked up are on the left, and the word, the book you found it in, the page and the date and time you looked it up are on the right along with the definition of the word.  WOW!  Now you have a record of the date and time you learned a new word.

Anyway, these are some of my thoughts on the Nook HD+.  I like it a lot and I will get a ton of use out of it.  I still have my Nook WiFi and I don’t think I will use it as often for reading ebooks, but if the occasion ever arises when I go outside to read, I will be able to use it.