Tag: nook

All-New Nook – The Simple Touch Reader

On By Michel McDonaldIn NookLeave a comment

Ok now I’m really jealous.  I bought the 2nd generation of the first Nook with the color display at the bottom.  Then a few months later they came out with the Nook Color and now this.

This Nook seems a lot cooler than my Nook because it is e-ink that is touch screen with a battery life of 2 months.  My nook is supposed to be 2 weeks but I’m lucky if I get 1 week.  This new Nook is cheaper at $139, mine was $150 and the Nook color was a whopping $250 which is also what the first gen of the original Nook was so if you waited this long then good for you, you saved a buttload of money.

Edit: The price went down to $99.  They also have the Simple Touch with GlowLight for $119.

If only I had waited a little bit longer.  But that’s ok, I’m very happy with my Nook so I will just wait for it to burn out and hopefully by that time when they come out with their 10th generation of Nook it will be $25 so I can buy as many as I need lol.

The newer features that this Nook has that mine doesn’t which really makes me jealous are the NOOK Friends and the Borrow Library Books feature.  Although, that really doesn’t affect me anyway because your local library has to have that feature available which ours doesn’t so it doesn’t matter for me anyway.  My Nook doesn’t have the Nook Friends feature which upsets my friend Sue because she is unable to add me to her friends list for some reason.  All I can do is add her as a contact but I have yet to use the lend feature anyway.

Check out the Nook Color and the newer Nook Simple Touch at the Barnes and Noble Nook website for all of the other dimensions and features.

Kitrics Nutritional Label Scale

On By Michel McDonaldIn Diet, Gadgets, Products I LikeLeave a comment

I remember reading about this scale last year and thinking how cool it was and how it’s a shame I will never be able to buy one because of the $50 asking price. Well, that is no longer a worry because a friend of mine found one in a shop in St. Louis, MO for less than $10, bought it and mailed it to me.

The problem was, there was no manual or food list but luckily they had one and made copies for me. Unfortunately I can’t read them so I found them online in pdf format so it’s a win win. I’d love to turn them into epub format one of these days to make it easier to read on my Nook. Maybe one of these days I’ll get around to it.

This is the description and info from the Kitrics website:

A scale and a calculator all in one, this essential dieting tool calculates portion weight, and displays all the information the way you’re used to seeing it on food packaging labels: an at-a-glance breakdown of calories, fats, carbs, proteins, fiber, sodium, cholesterol and sugars. You can also total your daily nutritional intake, and store up to 99 of your own food entries into a database of nearly 1000 others. So the experience is always customized to you, your goals and your lifestyle. Ideal for: portion control, medical requirements, type A personalities.

Bottom line:
Not just the weight, but the total breakdown. Calculates calories, carbs, fat and more.

– Weighs in grams and ounces
– Maximum weight: 72 oz/2 kg
– High precision: +/- .05 oz/1 g
– Automatic power off
– Requires 2 AA batteries, included

What’s great about this is that you can weigh your food and it tells you all the information you need so you can make sure you either go under the recommended or stay within the range, you’re choice. Personally, I don’t know if I want to know all of this information and so far I’ve only used it to weigh chicken so I have exactly 1lb for the chicken helper which I’m sure trumps the diet lol.

When I start my diet back up, I will start taking it seriously again. In fact, I will probably take it so seriously that I will be storing my own food entries in there for some of the diet recipes that I have so I can weigh my plate as I’m putting the food on it. That will make counting calories so much easier because I know how much food I’m eating by the exact weight.

I have a regular food scale that isn’t digital, it just has a bowl on the top and I’ve been balancing plates on it for the last few years and not knowing the exact measurement so this is much better.

So thanks Sue for sending me this scale.

If My Nook Has Skin, Is It Alive?

On By Michel McDonaldIn NookLeave a comment

I bought a Skin for my Nook from DecalGirl.com last weekend and it came today.  When I heard the mail drop into the slot earlier I got all excited and ran to the door but the large envelope wasn’t out there so I figured I’d get it tomorrow.  Then the doorbell rang and it was the mail carrier saying she saw it in the back of the truck and drove all the way back over here to deliver it.  I’m so glad she did.

Last night I was getting antsy and went on YouTube to see how easy or difficult putting the skin on a Nook would be and the person who posted a video showed how easy it was, how it’s not sticky at all and it doesn’t stick until you press on it so I had hope that I wouldn’t screw it up.  Well, mine was sticky, so sticky that the backs touched as I was taking it off the sheet it was printed on.  I almost ripped it while trying to take the pieces apart.

Putting it on was really difficult, in fact you can see some white on the sides of the front here and there where there isn’t supposed to be white but I couldn’t help that.  It stretched in some places and there is a crease at the bottom which I’m afraid to fix out of fear that I’m going to stretch it out even more.

The back on the other hand was as easy as apple pie.  Maybe because it was one solid piece or maybe because the back of the Nook is less shiny and more rubbery than the front of the Nook.  I don’t know, I just know it looks so awesome.  I was getting so sick of looking at the beige color of the Nook, I wanted something that was colorful, although this is really dark it still has color in it.  And it has a library which makes it even cooler to me.  I’ve been wanting to buy this skin for my Nook for such a long time and I thought why not, just do it and I did and I’m so happy I did.

The only downside that I see is when I’m holding it I can feel the edges of the skin on the back since it doesn’t go all the way around.  I made a stand to have it sit on so I don’t have to hold it so I can use that when I’m reading at the desk.  I also made a case for it so I will put it in there when I want to hold it.  Either way it’s a win for me.

Ok now I’m off to read more of this book I’m reading before shows come on.  Later!

Indigo Adults – eBook

On By Michel McDonaldIn IndigoLeave a comment

Where to start… I found out about a month or two ago from talking with a childhood friend of mine that I am an Indigo Adult.  He was telling me about how he is overly aware of things, you know like his soul, his mortality and just everything.  You know when someone tells you to stop and smell the roses every once in awhile?  Well, he smells the roses every second, not just once in awhile, all the time.  Well, I’m overly aware too.  I always have been.  He’s telling me all of these other things and I’m just sitting there thinking oh my god, me too.

Everything he is telling me is just ringing true with me and the more we talk, the more information and I just start feeling a little overwhelmed and need to take a step back.  I understand it all but my brain can only process so much information at one time, especially at the beginning.

So I found this eBook in the B&N Nook store called Indigo Adults for $9.99 but I couldn’t afford it right away, I finally bought it on January 20th but I didn’t actually start reading it until the 4th because it just so happened that my blog bought the farm right around the same time I bought this book.  I tried reading it but I couldn’t focus on it because I was too busy thinking about my corrupt blog database.

I started reading it on February 4th and I finally finished reading it today and my mind is completely blown away.  There were so many things in there that just had me thinking OMG ME TOO!  It talked about children with ADD and I was diagnosed with that in my 20’s but I was also diagnosed with a learning disability when I was a child in elementary school so I’m thinking that because they didn’t have ADD back then, I should’ve been diagnosed with that instead.  Although I guess it’s both but still, it helped me to learn something about myself in that respect.

I wanted to discuss some things that I highlighted but when I went to look for an example, all of my highlights were completely gone.  They disappeared from my Nook for some reason, that bugs me because I spent so much of my time highlighting instead of reading.  So I have nothing to offer as an example besides the ADD thing.  I guess the only thing there is left for me to do is read the book again.  I’m going to read it again anyway because I think that my mind was so blown away that I didn’t learn a few things so I want to go over it again.

Do this test, if you can relate to most or all of those then there is a good chance you are an Indigo Adult too.  I relate to everything in that bullet list.  Knowing that there is a name for it helps me in regard to helping me understand myself a lot more than I did before.  I would suggest that if you relate to those things in that list then this book will blow your friggin mind.

I am interested in hearing from some Indigo adults to compare notes with.  If you are an Indigo Adult, please, leave a comment and I will definitely get back to you.

Lite-On Smart Erase Technology

On By Michel McDonaldIn Computer, TechLeave a comment

Yesterday I bought a brand new dvd burner to replace the one in my tower that doesn’t work anymore. I was looking at it at the Tiger Direct website and I noticed something that slipped by before. Smart Erase.

I guess I’m behind the times once again because this is not something I’ve ever heard of. I don’t have to explain what it means for you folk that are current with technology but for those of us who have been hiding in a shell for god knows how long, I will try to explain it as best as I can.

Say you have burned some highly classified information onto a disc and you are afraid that someone might find it and use it against you. Well, if that is the case then you live a very dangerous life my friend. For those of you who just want to delete files that are obsolete and you don’t want to keep the discs but you don’t want anyone else to access them either then this is for you.

You put the disc into the drive, select quick or full erase and it makes the disc totally unreadable. Quick erase is fast and it makes the disc unreadable but it doesn’t eradicate 100% of the data. If you are that paranoid then use Full erase. It takes a lot longer to completely erase a disc but for you it’s worth the time.

How it will work for me is when I do my dvd backups for reformatting my hard drive, when I’ve put all the backups back on my computer then I can erase the discs and toss them out. I’ve made backups for reformatting in the past but ended up either keeping the discs out of fear that someone might find them or breaking them and risk cutting myself. This will make it easier to just toss them afterwards.

I’m glad that I found that in the description for my new DVD burner. I just wish I were more informed than I am about new technology. I guess since I stopped reading PC World magazine years ago I stopped learning about all the cool new things available. But, I have PC Magazine now on my Nook so that will keep me better informed. Maybe.

UPDATE: When I wrote this I was under the impression it worked on DVD+/-r’s but it doesn’t.  So if you use a RW disc then there is no reason to “toss it out” as I said 2 paragraphs ago.

Nook Color with Touch Screen

On By Michel McDonaldIn Books, eBook, Nook, Products I Like, TechLeave a comment

I think I’m going to have a heart attack and die right now.  I just got an email from Barnes & Noble with this subject:

“Introducing NOOKcolor — The Amazing Sequel to the NOOK You Love.”

Oh really?  Are you joking me?  If they could’ve told me this in September BEFORE I spent $150 on the Nook Wifi, I would’ve had an incentive to wait a little bit longer.  This new NOOKcolor is $249 and has many more features than my current Nook doesn’t have.  Such as it’s a color touch screen, you can see magazines and newspaper in color, kids books come alive at the touch of a finger (like I care) and one thing I saw in the video when I clicked the link in the email is that you can have it read to you and it’s NOT a robot voice like the Kindle.

This one is way better than mine because it can do portrait and landscape which the Kindle can do but the Nook I have can’t.  It has an 8GB card along with the ability to add another.  Mine only has 1GB but I can still add to it.  Although, I don’t see that I would ever need to but with the NOOKcolor I can see needing a bigger card because I’m sure the books with audio are bigger files.

Another cool feature is videos in your books…  In the video they showed a cookbook and you can read the recipe but then the image for it is a video where you can see how to make the recipe.  That would be so cool.  What would be even cooler is newspapers where the image for the article is an actual video of what happened.  The newspaper could set up a news station type set with anchors who read the articles with video of what happened at the scene, just like the news on tv has.  Or a magazine could have a video of the interview with the stars and their ads could be a video commercial.

I see in the Barnes & Noble website a new newsstand which is “coming soon” so I think they are going to add more magazines finally.  Right now they only have a few.  I subscribe to PC Magazine for $1.49 per month (or per magazine) but I was hoping they would have a broader choice.  With the NOOKcolor they might have more magazines and I think that would be great for Darrin who loves to get the magazines from the grocery store.  I think if he had a subscription to them then he would save so much money.  But that means he has to get the new NOOKcolor, or he can use Nook for PC.

Well, it’s obvious that I can’t afford to buy it, I can barely buy groceries right now but who knows, maybe by this time next year they will have a NOOKcolor 2 for $149 that I can save up for.  Hey it could happen.  Last year the Nook was $249 and then it came down to $149 this year and that’s the one I have.  So maybe I’ll bide my time for another year and save money so I can get the NOOKcolor for Darrin for his birthday, that is if they go down.

I don’t have to have color, I really like my Nook.  I think that the new NOOKcolor is an LCD screen, it looks lit up like the little LCD screen at the bottom of mine.  I don’t think I can read from an LCD screen.  It’s too much for my eyes.  Darrin would like that I think, last night he went to read a book on my Nook and he asked me when the screen was going to light up for him to read it.  I had to tell him that it doesn’t light up, it’s e-ink, not LCD.

My New Leg Injury

On By Michel McDonaldIn Doctor, Exercise, Health, HumorLeave a comment

I’m sitting here in my room reading “Official Book Club Selection, a Memoir According to Kathy Griffin” on my Nook and I hear the ice cream truck. Darrin hears it too and he tells me to go stop him. I opened the door and saw he’s already across the street, he says run to stop him.

I’m in my bare feet and I’m running and waving like a maniac. They aren’t looking in the rear view mirror either. I think they get off on that.

I pass about 6 houses and figure they aren’t going to look in the mirror and they are driving the same speed that I am running which means, I have to pick up speed to catch up.

That’s when it goes horribly wrong. I pick up speed and just then “POP” my left calf makes this popping sound and I can feel the pop too. Crack one of your knuckles, that’s the popping sound that I heard.

I immediately had to stop because my calf tightened up, sort of like a Charley horse. Not only could I not continue running but I can’t even walk, heck, I couldn’t even stand up straight. My left leg hurts like hell when I have it straight like my right leg. The only way my leg is comfortable is if it’s lifted up in the back, like I’m on crutches. The tendon is tightened so that it hurts when I straighten my leg out.

I look towards our house to see if Darrin has come out of the house to come to me as if I had stopped the truck and he sees me bent over and I used a sort of sign language, as if I’m mimeing like I’m driving a car but rocking the wheel too far to the left and right. That was my way of saying, get in the car and come get me.

He’s not coming and I’m standing there with my leg bent back, I can’t go anywhere but I start hobbling towards the house. I saw the white car coming around the corner and he stops at where I’m at and opens the door and I painfully got in.

He drove to where the Ice Cream truck is because I’ll be damned if I hurt myself in vain. He gets our “Mama Flip” ice creams which is soft serve in a cup with chocolate syrup and sprinkles.

We come home and I’m not only about ready to throw up but I’m also about ready to pass out. He goes in the house to get the crutches that we have had since his mother broke her leg in 2000 and I go in the house with the intentions of laying down with some ice on it with hopes it will get better. It’s not getting better.

I went to WebMD.com and looked it up and it tells me to immediately go seek medical help so we went to the E.R. where I sat for about 3 1/2 hours waiting for them to call me. After 1/2 hour I told Darrin to go home, I’d call him. No sense in both of us being bored and losing internet time lol.

The doctor couldn’t do an emergency MRI or even x-rays but he bends my leg back and forth and moves my foot and he gives me his diagnosis which I couldn’t remember (remember that I have a learning disorder?) but all I can say is he thinks I must have torn a muscle which is what I figured out right when it happened.

He tells me to rest and put ice on it for 15-20 minutes several times per day for the first 3-4 days then after that replace the ice with heat. He also gave me a prescription for Motrin and a muscle relaxer. I can’t say the name of it because I can’t read his writing lol. I have some ibuprofen from when I had the neck and shoulder pain so I can take that until we can get to the pharmacy tomorrow (followed by Subway or Panda, you know, while we’re there lol).

I have to report to my doctor in the next 1-2 weeks to let him know what happened and maybe perhaps get an x-ray or MRI done if it’s still hurting by then. Oh and I get to be on crutches for a while too which in a way is a good thing because now I don’t have to take the dog out, I can’t if I’m on crutches (wicked evil grin).

Unfortunately, I can’t count on Darrin to do the dishes for me and when I make dinner he’ll have to bring it to me. If I leave dinner up to him we’ll be eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for a while. Or soup, he loves making soup lol.

I was afraid I would miss my shows but when I got home it was some hometown sports show plus the Closer is on tonight instead of my Sunday night Fox cartoons. Oh well, I’m glad I didn’t miss them but it would’ve been nice to know they weren’t going to be on so I wouldn’t have been stressing about miss them during my 3 1/2 hour wait time lol.

Anyway, so I’m off to go rest and ice my leg.

Autobiography Research

On By Michel McDonaldIn Books, eBook, Gay, NookLeave a comment

I went looking on the Rainbow ebooks website for an autobiography and they don’t have that category so I searched in biography which is empty. So I went to the borders website to find a gay autobiography in e-book format but unfortunately there are 34,537 biographies. They have many categories so you can narrow down your search but there were none in the “gay” category so I thought…. GOOGLE!

Note: I searched Borders because I have $15 borders bucks from doing surveys with e-rewards.com and I’m tired of only being able to get $25 Game Stop cards. I was never really interested in the other rewards they offer but now that I have a Nook I figure I might as well get some ebooks out of it.

So I went to the Google search engine and typed “Autobiography of a gay person” and this is what came up.

glbtq >> literature >> Autobiography, Gay MaleIn its first century of existence, gay male autobiography has become increasingly more open, frank, and unapologetic…

Edward Carpenter’s “My Days and Dreams” was published in 1890. Like other early gay male autobiographies, the book was reticent about its author’s intimate relationships.

This is the very first autobiography of a gay person and it was published in 1890. You know what first came to mind? A book that was published in 1890 is now out of print which means… It’s FREE!

I turned my Nook on, went to the shop menu, chose e-books then typed in the name of this book and it was the 2nd thing in the list and it said it was from Google and it was free!

So now I get to do my research from a pioneer. Although, his experience is going to be totally different from mine given the fact that they were from BLOODY 1890… but still. It will help me anyway.

Resting Eyes Today

On By Michel McDonaldIn Books, eBook, NookLeave a comment

I’ve been reading every day this month and even though I feel like I’m in a race to read as many books as I possibly can, I think I need to give my eyes the day off today.

Ok so it’s not a race but I just feel like I’m on vacation when I’m reading. Vacation from the problems of the world, of my world. It’s an escape. But for today I need to rest.

If I go blind from over reading then what point will I have made by spending $160 on a Nook?

Earlier in the week I posted a poll asking how long it takes people to read and because only 5 people took the poll (thanks a lot) I didn’t get a definitive answer.

It’s interesting though that a friend of mine who got me wanting to read told me that she reads funny. She will be reading many books simultaneously. Like she’s reading 13 books right now. She has finished 9 of those 13 books but what she does is she reads a chapter in 1 book then goes and reads 1 chapter in another book and so on and so forth. And that’s all in 1 month too.

It takes me 4 days to read 1 book and I can usually read 4 books per month because after I finish reading a book I take a few days before going to the next one. I can’t imagine how fast she must read that she can go through 13 books in 1 day by reading 1 chapter each. That would take me the whole entire day and by the end of the day I would be too blind to do anything else.

I have astigmatism, I have trouble focusing my eyes after looking at a book so close for a certain amount of time. It’s like when I play video games on my PSP, after playing for so long, when I look away from it everything is blurry. That’s usually when I know it’s time to stop. Or when I’m sitting there with my PSP so close to my face that I can’t see anything in my peripheral vision. That’s why I like to play with the PSP hooked up to the TV.

It’s too bad I can’t hook the Nook up to the TV to read it lol. Then again what would be the point of e-ink if I’m reading from the tv.

I do use the large print when I read. I should probably use the biggest print which is extra extra large. Maybe that would be a lot easier on my eyes but that only means more page turns which means more battery usage. I’ve been using large only because of the time it takes to turn the page, it’s not too long but it’s long enough that I don’t want to have to turn it as much.

So from now on, I will use extra extra large as if I’m in my 80′s lol. What happens when I am in my 80′s? I will need a magnifying glass to go with it or maybe the Nook of the future will be as big as the wall with a remote control for turning the page. I’d still need to use extra extra-large though lol. I can see me in my 80′s with coke bottle glasses like Professor Farnsworth from Futurama.

Or maybe by then (if I’m still alive) I will be totally blind but hopefully voice recognition will be a lot better. I can grab my future nook like gadget, push the button on top and hear a sound like I turned on the computer then hear a voice greeting me. “Hello Mr. McDonald. What would you like to read today?” then I say “I’d like to continue reading the last book” then it starts reading to me in a calming voice, not electronic like the Kindle. That would be ideal for my blind 80-year-old ass in the year 2050 lol.

I said I was going to give my eyes a break today, what the heck am I doing blogging? Sheesh!

Information OVERLOAD

On By Michel McDonaldIn Books, eBook, NookLeave a comment

I have been reading a lot of books lately, I’ve made it a point to read every day.  When I finish 1 book then I start another the next day. It can take me 4-5 days to read a book depending on the difficulty and/or length of the book.

The last 2 months I’ve been reading an average of 4 books per month and this month since I bought my Nook I’ve already read 3 books. Although 1 of those isn’t available in e-book format so I had to read it from the actual book but still. We’re somewhere in the middle of the month and I’ve already read 3 and I can see myself reading 2-3 more.

I wonder if I read so many books if they might blend together in my brain and then I won’t remember what I read from which book.  I might think that what happened in the David Eddings novel might have really happened in the Piers Anthony novel and vice versa.

Just as long as I don’t think what happened in the Marguerite Labbe novel happened in the Xanth novel, then I’ll be fine because that would really confuse me lol.

Tomorrow I start reading “Crewel Lye: A Caustic Yarn” by Piers Anthony. By the way, if you have not read any Xanth novels by now based on my past recommendations, you should.  They are so good.  There are 35 in the series although only 33 available for sale and only 17 available in e-book format.

And if you haven’t read any of the Rainbow eBooks yet you should start with “My Heart is Within You” by Marguerite Labbe.  Next month I will be on the final book of the Triquetra Trilogy which is sad because I kinda wanted that series to be longer but that’s ok, she has written other books.

Maybe since I’ve become such a Nook worm (get it? cause I have a Nook… no?) I should dress up as a worm with glasses for Halloween, although instead of reading a book, I’d be reading a Nook lol.