Nook HD+ from Barnes & Noble

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.

Premium M&M’s

mandm-premium-box-mocha-216x300I’m not a rich man, not by any means so when I buy M&M’s I have to buy them when they are on sale.  So when I was at the grocery store looking for the cheap candy I noticed that the premium M&M’s had a clearance on the Mocha flavor for $1.79.

They are kind of strange looking.  It’s kind of like a bronze color with brown flecks.  Normally when I eat M&M’s if they are the plain I suck on it until it dissolves completely.  That way I get the taste for a lot longer.  These are different.  The shell has no flavor at all.  It’s kind of like sucking on a marble.  So my instinct is to just bite down and chew it.

It tastes good.  I love anything that is coffee flavored and this is Mocha so it works for me.  But like I said, it had a clearance tag on it.  What does that mean?  It means they no longer make it and they are on sale to get rid of them.  I know this for a fact because I went to the M&M’s website and they don’t even have this flavor listed anymore.  I had to do a search just for the photo to add to this blog post.

So after this bag is finished (give me 5 minutes lol) I’m never going to buy them again because they are about $4 at the store at their regular price and that’s a bit too rich for my blood for candy.

Proof of Ownership

Ok.  You are going to laugh.  I went to Albertson’s on my bike and I have one of those locks that is like telephone cord that is curly and it has a 4 number combination that you can set the numbers for and when I got to the store I went to lock it and as I was pushing the lock together I felt and heard a clicking sound and as I was pushing it in I knew I messed up big time.  I immediately tried pulling it out and it wouldn’t budge.  I started freaking out.  I started trying different combinations because I thought that I turned the dial to set it then accidentally turned a number as I was pushing it in, which I have done before.  I had no luck.

I went into the store and told the lady at the information counter (she sells lottery tickets, cigarettes, electronics and does the photo stuff) and told her what happened and she called Jim to call her and told him what happened.  This other lady came up and I told her what happened and she said that she knows I come in here a lot but how do they know it’s my bike.  Luckily, I have the paper work with the serial number and the manual with the model of the bike on it as well as the receipt and I even took a picture of it.  WHEW!

So Jim finally came to the front with bolt cutters and I showed him my paper work which he didn’t actually look at because I think he figured if I took the time to get someone to bring it to me and I was showing it to him then he believed that it was indeed my bike.  So, he tried cutting it and it was really hard for him to cut it but eventually he did get it off.  It made me feel good that he couldn’t get it off because I knew I had a good lock.  But on the other hand…  I wanted my bike back lol.

He told me that if I didn’t have this proof of ownership then it would’ve sat there until someone tried to claim it and then eventually they would’ve had to call a company out to get it and auction it or something.  So I’m very glad I bought my bike at a store and not at a thrift store with no manual and no receipt.  And I’m especially glad that I took a picture of it too.

Here are some pictures of the lock.  The first one is where he tried to cut but it just wouldn’t cut then the 2nd one is where he finally got it cut.