Nook Partitioning Update

[raindog89]

Originally Posted by aronchav

I noticed on this thread there is a newer beta 48.3.20, but I don't see a link for it. How do I find the newest betas?

That's at:
http://su.barnesandnoble.com/nook/pi....20/update.zip

Don't think there's been any since.

[Calenorn]

Originally Posted by aronchav

One user mentioned leaving it connected for half an hour to be safe, but I've found that leaving it connected for a few minutes is safe. But the screen never does go away, so it's a guessing game.

This. We shouldn't have to guess.

Does the new release fix this?

[barryem]

I got my new Nook. All seems well. I really like the feel of it and the screen is excellent.

I sideloaded a book to the root and I couldn't find it so I (shudder) read the manual and it said to put books in the My Files folder, or something like that. I didn't find a folder like that but I tried the Nook folder and that worked.

I had some trouble getting the beta update to install and I have a feeling that I know why and it's probably worth mentioning it so others can avoid it. I copied the update file to the root and put the Nook to sleep. Nothing happened. I waited quite a little while and then I tried to find some way to trigger the update but didn't. However, I did tap Check for Updates and it said one was downloading. I reconnected to my PC and the update file was gone. That made me suspicious so I tried it again about 3 times, once with the Wifi off. The results were the same.

So I left it charging for a while with the Wifi on and finally it updated itself. No increase in partition and it looked like a downloaded update. Then I turned off Wifi and connected it and put the update back in the root, disconnected it and put it to sleep and in a while it updated again.

I'm fairly sure the downloading update kept deleting the beta update. Anyway it did finally work and I have a 5.36 gig partition. All is well.

I really like this thing. It feels great. The text is very dark and sharp. I tried setting it to the thicker font but I found it was really bold enough without that. Or with it. I like it about as much either way.

Compared to my 3G Kindles this is a pretty primitive device but I like it. When they fix the dictionary it just might become my favorite reader. Even as it is the dictionary text isn't quite as light as my Glowlight Plus. It's still hard to read though.

Barry

[tiltowait]

Originally Posted by barryem

Compared to my 3G Kindles this is a pretty primitive device but I like it.

Do you mean that it feels primitive for not having 3G, or is there something else?

My Nook is still sitting in its box inside its shipping box, a late Christmas present to myself, I suppose (not opening it until Tuesday at the earliest—assuming I decide to keep it).

[barryem]

Originally Posted by tiltowait

Do you mean that it feels primitive for not having 3G, or is there something else?

The Glowlight 3 lacks quite a few features of the Kindle. Access to Wikipedia, X-Ray, Word-Wise, the ability to sync, getting sideloaded books wirelessly via email and Send to Kindle and a few others I can't think of off the top of my head.

I don't use most of those features so that's not really a major complaint on my part. I do sync but I can do that manually as easily, having learned to do that when using Moon+ on my phone and reading on my Kindle. Send to Kindle is something I use occasionally and I'd miss that but it's not something I use a lot. The one I'll miss most is access to Wikipedia. It's really nice when I encounter something while reading that I want to know more about to look it up easily on Wikipedia.

And 3G is pretty nice to have at times although I don't really need it that often. I'll miss it occasionally although a lot of my use for it is to access Wikipedia when I'm away from home. In the past year, though, I've been reading more on my phone when not at home, so that's not really much of an issue for me.

So yeah, I think primitive kind of fits it. Kindle provides the richest feature set that I'm aware of for readers and the rest are all a bit primitive. This Nook may be just a little more so.

The important thing is reading and it's excellent for that.

Barry

[barryem]

I've run into a couple of bugs in my Glowlight 3 that I don't think have been mentioned here before. They're related problems and I've only been reading one book so far so they might have something to do with this book, although these problems don't occur with this book on my Kindle, Kobo or Glowlight Plus.

The first is that the double tap to jump to the next chapter works sometimes and fails other times. It usually fails when going back to a previous chapter. More often than not it'll go back 2 and sometimes 3 chapters. I found a couple of chapters I can't get to at all this way.

The other is that I can't reliably go to a chapter via the table of contents. Usually that works but on some chapters it consistently fails. There's one chapter in my book that I simply can't get to using either the TOC or the double press of the page button in either direction. But I have tried it on my Glowlight Plus and on my Kobo and the book's navigation works perfectly on them, as it does on my Kindle, although that's the original version from Amazon.

This likely has something to do with the book since it seems to happen in the same places. I've looked at the book in Calibre and I can't see any difference in the chapter headings and styles, although I don't know that much about epub or HTML so I may not know what to look for. Each chapter is in it's own file and each file begins with identical markup, at least to my eyes. I tried quickly jumping from one chapter to another but couldn't see anything changing from the beginning to the chapter numbers. I suspect this is a bug in the Glowlight 3.

Hopefully it'll be fixed in a later firmware. I'm using the most recent beta firmware posted in here.

Barry

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by barryem

The Glowlight 3 lacks quite a few features of the Kindle. ... the ability to sync, ...

It still syncs with other Nooks and the Nook App, doesn't it? (I'm hoping, anyhow.)

[downeaster59]

Originally Posted by rcentros

It still syncs with other Nooks and the Nook App, doesn't it? (I'm hoping, anyhow.)

Yes, it does. I tested the NG3 and the Nook app on my iPad. They do sync. You may have to wait a moment or two, but sync works.

[Pajamaman]

I know it can be rooted and run apps. Ill install Relaunch and Alreader. It seems B&N is leaving it pretty much open to people who want customize it

[aronchav]

Originally Posted by Calenorn

This. We shouldn't have to guess.

Does the new release fix this?

I just installed 48.3.20 and as raindog reported, no change to the USB issue.

[tiltowait]

Originally Posted by barryem

The Glowlight 3 lacks quite a few features of the Kindle. [...]

Something I've thought for a while now is that Amazon has the best services *surrounding* their eReaders, while other readers have superior reading experiences.

[downeaster59]

Originally Posted by Pajamaman

I know it can be rooted and run apps. Ill install Relaunch and Alreader. It seems B&N is leaving it pretty much open to people who want customize it

Yes. You don't have to root it to install a launcher and apps, though. I rooted mine so that I could use Button Savior. That little app makes navigation in the NG3 so much better... (Yes, there is a non-root Button Savior. But the rooted version is more customizable.)

[plainbriny]

I use Smart Touch instead of Button Savior, because I can easily add apps to be launched and virtually any actions to it. Very handy.

[barryem]

Originally Posted by rcentros

It still syncs with other Nooks and the Nook App, doesn't it? (I'm hoping, anyhow.)

Actually I assumed it doesn't sync. I see nothing in either Nook to cause it to sync. But I only read sideloaded books on my Nooks so I could be wrong.

Barry

[barryem]

Originally Posted by downeaster59

Yes, it does. I tested the NG3 and the Nook app on my iPad. They do sync. You may have to wait a moment or two, but sync works.

Will they sync side loaded books or just books from B&N?

Barry