For those are you are unfamiliar with the Google Nexus line, it is traditionally a flagship Google device that sports top-of-the-line technology and contains a vanilla build of the Android OS. If you aren’t familiar with Android cell phones, then you may be a little confused by the “vanilla Android” statement. There are a lot of Android phones out there and they are made by a lot of different companies. Motorola, Samsung and HTC – just to name a few and to differentiate themselves from each other they tweak the Android OS with skins.

HTC calls their skin HTC Sense. Motorola called their skin MOTOBLUR but has since decided to shift development focus away from it. These skins, while in some cases pretty, would slow updates to the devices since Google would release the update and then the companies would have to update their version of the operating system. As you can imagine, it doesn’t make much financial sense to keep updating old phones and so ultimately customers would be left behind. Not so with the Google Nexus line. Nexus phones are stock vanilla Android so there is no having to reengineer anything, the updates are made available very quickly.

So the whole point of that sidebar was to tell you that a Google Nexus tablet means you can expect timely updates from Google with great hardware. If the latest rumors can be believed then we can expect one more great thing and that is the price tag. Google was originally rumored to release their tablet at a $250 price point. And that is a good price for a 7-inch Android tablet. However, Google is rumored to have delayed their tablet until they can deliver it a little closer to the $199 asking price of the Kindle Fire. A Nexus Tablet at $250 is hard to pass up for those in the market for one. A Nexus Tablet at $199 may actually force people who weren’t necessarily in the tablet market to take notice.

For example, if you were thinking of getting a Kindle Fire because you wanted a full color eReader then the Google Nexus may actually be a better fit because you have full access to the Google App Market (Google Play) and you can download the mobile apps from Amazon (Kindle), Barnes & Noble (NOOK) and Kobo. You can buy your ebooks from anywhere instead of limiting yourself to a single storefront. You can hunt for the cheapest price and buy there. You keep your options open. So a Google Nexus Tablet at $199 is exciting. But it may not be the most exciting rumor out there.

What is the most popular tablet on the market today? Has anyone heard of the Apple iPad? Yeah, Apple has also entered the rumor arena. Apple is rumored to be introducing a 7-inch tablet in the fall. The “iPad Mini” is expected to have 8GB of storage and have the same beautiful Retina display the iPhone and new iPad currently enjoy today. This tablet is expected to hit the market at $200-$250. At that price point and at that 7-inch size, Apple is very clearly firing a shot at Google who until lately has had the eReader market locked up thanks to Android’s presence in the Kindle Fire, NOOKcolor and NOOK Tablet.

Come this fall, especially if the Apple rumor is true, you can expect a LOT of tablet holdouts to finally choose a side in the tablet wars. The question is whether their tablet of choice will be sporting a little green robot or a shiny bitten Apple.

So what do you think? If these devices make it to market, will you be buying one?

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What is it? What does it do and why in the world would I want it?

DRM is meant to protect unlawful copy of copyrighted material. It is meant to insure that the copy of 50 Shades of Grey that you bought for your NOOK doesn’t get sent to your 20 best girlfriends. It is meant to protect the publisher and I guess author’s ability to collect money from an increasingly portable medium.

This protection is considered important because it is a lot easier to copy a digital file today than it was in the analog days. When you had to walk to the Xerox machine and copy a physical book one page at a time. Although that method had protection too, it was called laziness and .25 a sheet copies. Although that didn’t stop my High School Biology teacher from Xeroxing the entire contents of Richard Preston’s “The Hot Zone” for us to read in class. That being said, he probably had a school copier and use a student aide to overcome the archaic copy protections of the 90’s.

In any case, I often get asked my opinions on DRM thanks to my helping moderate a NOOK fan page on Facebook. When I say I’m often asked my opinion, I mean I’m asked “What’s your problem, man? You on some kind of power trip? You suck!” In their sincere appeal for clarity I’ve decided to share with you my own two cents on the issue.

There seem to be two schools of thought when it comes to DRM, or more accurately, the removal of it. The first school of thought is: It’s Illegal! The second school of thought is: It is NOT Illegal. My take on the matter is: I’m not a lawyer. And either are you. Or maybe you are and I’m grossly out of touch with my demographic. Which until now I thought consisted of my wife and mom occasionally. – Love you both!

But I digress. My official stance on DRM is that it is a pain in the ass. Furthermore it is annoyingly easy to remove, which means that it’s really more of a deterrent to honest, good folks who weren’t likely to rob you blind anyhow. What are authors and publishers really afraid of you may ask and the answer is piracy. The author and publisher are concerned that you’ll buy The Hunger Games and send a copy of it to every person you know with an eReader. It’s a legitimate concern, but DRM isn’t the fix and they know it.

Great, so what’s it mean?

Barnes & Noble actually uses a combination of your full name and your credit card number to generate your DRM key. With that information the NOOK or NOOK software is able to unlock the file and you can view it. However, without the key – your file is useless. So long as the NOOK DRM servers are standing you should never have a concern with your DRM protected files. You are who you say you are and the files will unlock every time. However, if B&N decides to shut down the server, that leaves a lot of us with books up on their server, in their cloud, out of our reach.

It is very unlikely that we would be taken in such a fashion but the concept itself isn’t unthinkable. You really need look no further than a Microsoft developed DRM called PlaysForSure. Microsoft closed their MSN Music store and shut down the DRM approval servers. Prior to doing so they let everyone know so they could generate a local key to keep their purchased music playing. But what if you don’t back up your machine properly and lose that key? All of the music you purchased is now useless. Further claims made against PlaysForSure is that that key was married to the PC you owned, so you couldn’t copy it to a new computer if you purchased new. That, my friends, is why DRM is bad, m’kay?

So what do we do about it?

Well, that’s the million dollar question isn’t it? There are a number of ways to remove DRM from your digital files. Google is your best friend is this regard. As for the legality – remember, I’m not a lawyer. The major legal battle field seems to be between fair use and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Fair use allows you to backup software, music, etc. you own, while DRM prevents it in most cases. Cracking DRM can be considered illegal depending on your intention. If you break DRM to make a backup, the law would seem to say you are alright to do so. If you do it to share your book with a friend, then you are committing an illegal act.

Now here is where the law gets a little foggy. That Digital Millennium Copyright Act makes it a criminal act to develop a piece of software that removes DRM as well as distribute it. So it’s a chicken and egg kind of deal. Someone has to break the law, so you can make non-DRM protected copies. Someone has to break the DRM. Illegal. Someone has to write an application that can do it en masse. Illegal. Someone has to distribute that method. Illegal. So you can backup your books without fear of losing them someday. Which may or may not be legal.

Are you thoroughly confused? I know I am.

So what do you personally do?

That, my friends, is a question that I am not going to answer. Again, because I’m not a lawyer. No one should be able to sue me for removing DRM, but you shouldn’t be able to be held indefinitely without trial in this country either but apparently our current administration thinks that’s alright now. So I’ll plead the 5^th, while I’m still able to do so but I’ll drop a few opinions.

In my opinion, I should be able to whatever I like with the books I own as long as it is for my own use. So if I want to buy an ebook from B&N and read it on my NOOK, cool. If I want to read it on my phone, cool. If I want to read it on my iPad in iBooks since their book sync technology is so much further along than the NOOK, then I should be able to. If I want to serve up my personal library in Calibre via the Content Server, I should be free to do that as well.

It is my opinion, that if you are removing DRM for your own use, and not to the detriment of the copyright holder, then you should be free to do so.

In my opinion, DRM is like securing your bike to a tree with a piece of rope. Honest folks are going to understand the bike is being held for its legitimate owner and will leave well enough alone. Criminals are going to cut your rope and take your bike. DRM is just as easy to remove in the case of ebooks. That means that DRM is only inconveniencing the honest customers since it isn’t working against the real threat.

It seems you dislike DRM, so why do you get your panties in a bunch on Facebook?

The answer to that is an easy one. Because I’m asked to. I’m not the creator of our group. I’m just asked to enforce the rules that the groups owner set.

But also because I don’t think we have any lawyers. IF ripping DRM is illegal, I don’t think you should necessarily run around in a public forum like Facebook talking about doing it. Unless you’re N.W.A., I would leave the whole “F*** the Police” shtick out of the public eye.

God, this is so long. Would you wrap this up already?

Fine. In summary, I can condense all of this into the following: DRM is idiotic but protecting our authors and the publishers’ investment in them is a good cause. DRM is just simply not the way to go about protecting that investment.

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I’ve been on both sides of the fence – or walled garden, if you want to be like that. I think both platforms have their virtues. I love the widgets and customization that Android provides. I love the beauty and simplicity that iPhone provides. They have different things working for and against them. Yet, people are so convinced of their platform of choice’s superiority that they have absolutely no shame in their attempts to shame other people who don’t share their opinion.

I’m a member of a Facebook group that discussed books, the nook ereader, etc. We go off-topic so it’s not uncommon for technology to come up from time to time. God help the person who mentions owning an Apple product. People come out of the woodwork to bash the product and the owner of the product by proxy. Let me provide an example.

Someone posted a comment yesterday about how she has an iPhone 4S and loves it but she has to vent. She mentions that for the past couple of days it has really been acting up and she’s frustrated. We’ve established that she has a product that she loves that she’s having issues with. Someone pops into the thread to comment:

may be thats why there stock is dropping. junk

Seriously? Would this person feel right commenting on a complete stranger’s relationship status when it changed to “it’s complicated”? This is openly announced as a vent. She is having issues with something she loves. She wants two things. First, she wants to get it off her chest so she doesn’t feel alone. Second, she wants to find out if anyone knows how to resolve the issues she’s having.

Another voice enters the conversation, once the issue has been resolved, with a light hearted:

Sounds like instead of an Apple you got a lemon.

This comment doesn’t irk me as much because this individual is very friendly, jokes with everyone and the issue is already resolved. I may have found it out of place if the problem still existed, since it would still be source of frustration, but the issue is resolved and it’s easier to laugh at the situation now that it’s no longer an issue.

I don’t know. It just bothered me that someone would dare to call someone else’s decision “junk”. I caught all kinds of hell, particularly from that last commenter, when I switched from my OG Droid to the iPhone. I started to get articles posted on my Facebook wall about how horrible Apple was as a company. How they used child labor. Or how they forced 24-hour shifts. Or just any negative press that could be dug up. It bordered on bullying.

Now that isn’t saying I think that person is a bully. I know better. That person is a kind soul who only did it as a good natured jab. He knows I can take the ribbing. I know if it legitimately bothered me that I could ask him to stop and he would. Truth is it doesn’t bother me. I’ve got my big boy pants on and the only opinion that will sway my decision making is my own. I don’t mind swimming against popular opinion from time to time. I don’t mind “joining the dark side”. They have cookies. Internet joke – sorry.

In any event, I just had to vent myself before I popped into that thread and let my own opinion be known. I feel better now. Thanks for being there for me. I’m going to go make a call on my iPhone and browse Flipboard on my iPad.

And if you don’t like that?

iDon’t Care.

(Image courtesy of Norebbo)

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I wasn’t always that heavy, but I’ve never been fit. I HATED gym in high school. I especially hated when we ran track because I could get to just about half way through that first quarter mile turn and my chest was ready to explode. Did I mention I wasn’t fit?

Today I planned on taking a walk because I had a 14 calorie deficit but Mother Nature had other plans.

It started to rain and I decided I wasn’t going to let that stop me. I laced up my sneaks – that’s what the cool kids call them, right? I laced up and hit the treadmill. Since I had been going to the gym, I wondered how much had changed since high school. I wondered if I would falter before that 1/16th of a mile or if I could go further.

Our treadmill has a little quarter mile track graphic and in my head I’m standing on my high school track. Bleachers to the right. Football field to my left. I walk my first quarter mile at 3.0 mph and decide to see how far I can jog into the next quarter mile. I hit .25 miles and press 4.0 mph. The treadmill speeds up and I begin to jog. Surprisingly I get to that first turn that was always the bane of my existence and breeze right through it. I round the second turn and it’s starting to burn a little and as I’m midway through the third corner I’m thinking “holy crap, I think I can do this.” And I do.

I punch 3.0 on the treadmill and it slows. I pump a fist in the air because I did it and because it wasn’t overly difficult. I decide that I’m going to alternate walking and jogging in 1/4 mile intervals. But as I get closer to the start of the third 1/4 mile I decide to kick it up a notch. When I cross that line I punch 5.0 mph and wonder if I’ll make it the full 1/4 mile. I do. Again. I’m really celebrating now.

I punch 3.0 mph walk the next quarter mile. I don’t want to push my luck and try 6.0 mph because my knees were aching with 5.0 mph. I circle the track and set out on my next 5.0 mph 1/4 mile. I jog the 1/4 mile and then keep going. It’s just out of that first turn that I decide to go back to walking. That was 5/16th of a mile.

I’m blown away. And proud. First, I did something I couldn’t do in high school. I may not be the weight or size I was in high school but I can definitely say that I’m stronger and fitter than I was. And for now that’s enough for me. Before long I’ll be down to my high school weight and then beyond that to my goal. So while I understand that this is nothing to joggers or even most people it’s a big deal to me. So yeah, I’m probably sitting hear bragging to an artist that I mixed blue and yellow and made green. But dammit I’m proud of the green.

And I’m proud of that 5/16th’s of a mile too.

Update: This post sat in my Draft inbox for almost a month. I guess I was waiting to upload that Homer picture. Since I wrote this I’ve hit the milestone of running a mile and a quarter. I’m extremely proud of that.

-

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I have been missing Dad, naturally, but that didn’t play into my decision to read Duma Key at all. I had no idea it was set in Florida. In fact, it is set in Florida not too far from where my Dad lived. The first time the book mentioned Tamiami Trail, I smiled ear to ear and a tear may have crept up on me. Later in the book Bradenton is mentioned. My Dad had a doctor in Bradenton that he would visit.

This isn’t the best segue but this past weekend I took the kids up to the elementary school to play. It was the first time since last summer. The weather has been unseasonably warm, just how Dad would have liked it, and when we arrived at the school a white Malibu was sitting on the curb, just how Dad used to park when he’d come to see the kids on the playground. Dad drove a white Malibu. My heart broke a little when I saw that.

And there have been a lot of reminders of Dad lately. His birthday was March 4th, his car was up at the park where we used to watch the kids play and now his old stomping grounds are showing up in my Fiction. Him creeping into areas I wasn’t expecting him in has been a difficult. I’ve used these occurrences as a reminder to beat myself up or mourn but mostly it’s been a 50/50 split.

As I was relating the story to Cynthia she told me something that is usually such an empty platitude, at least to me, but for some reason it rang with truth. She said, “maybe you should think of it as a reminder that he’s still here with you.” I hadn’t thought of it that way. I only saw these instances as painful reminders of what was lost. I hadn’t thought of them as opportunities for growth. I didn’t allow them to bring me happiness. I only allowed them to bring me pain.

As I read Duma Key, and particularly as I was finishing it, I was thinking about how I wouldn’t be hearing anymore stories of Sun City, the Gulf of Mexico, or Bradenton. No more complaints of Tampa traffic or gripes about the snow birds – The snow bird complaints particularly ironic given the fact that he had become a snow bird himself, in his final years – but the fact that those stories are done will be missed more than they were ever appreciated in life.

I’m still learning what that fact means to me. Mostly it makes me heartsick. More broken than I would ever have expected, but the fact that I could see a ray or two of hope makes me believe that better days are ahead. And honestly, I knew they would be. I’m not some crazy depressive person who believes the best is behind him. But there have been a great many more grey days that I would have guessed there would be.

So I guess I find myself at the same place: at the end of two different stories. One fiction. One non-fiction. And I’ll miss them both. But I know too, that time has a way of working at the memory. Much like sandstorms work at old abandoned desert towns, eventually teaming with sun and wind to take them apart a piece at a time. Each story will fade. Thankfully though, never entirely.

But already time is at work.

—

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Now I understand that mobile technology is moving at a very brisk clip right now but it’s like the PC industry in late 90’s, speed was doubling/quadrupling by the year. 100mhz processor, then 200mhz, then 400mhz. And now it’s the race to see how many cores we can fit onto a piece of silicon. My point is this trend is going to slow. And do these people really think that manufacturers are going to stop making products while waiting for the next big thing? No. They are going to repackage the same thing. It worked for Nintendo. How many different colors of Gameboy and DS are there?

But the real crux of this argument is that Apple ISN’T repackage the same technology. The iPad 3/HD is expected to have an upgraded dual core processor or a quad core processor. It’s expected to have 1GB of Memory, up from iPad 2’s 512mb. It is also expected to have Apple’s beautiful Retina (or Retina-like) display. How is this the same old iPad?

Let me ask you this. How do you interface with a tablet? Its touchscreen. How do you consume the information? Your eyeballs on its screen? If the internal specs are significantly better, and the screen resolution and clarity is MUCH improved, how is this a minor upgrade? What would it take to be a major upgrade? Would the quad core do it? Obviously doubling the memory and resolution doesn’t count.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with having a preferred mobile OS. There is absolutely nothing wrong with liking Android over iOS or liking iOS over Android. But when you make statements like the iPad 3/HD is just the same old hardware with a new label on the box you end up looking like an idiotic fanboy. This isn’t the video game industry releasing the Gameboy Color.

Ridiculous.

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My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I’ll be honest. I bought this book out of charity. Shawn Speakman is the webmaster/great guy who helps Terry Brooks maintain his web presence. When Shawn found out he had cancer he found himself in the unenviable position of being without health insurance. This book was released, in part, to help pay for his medical treatments and perhaps as a result I wasn’t expecting much when I started reading The Dark Thorn.

Into the first or second chapter I found myself shaking my head and wondering if Shawn was going to rip Brooks off and create a semi-“Word and the Void” semi-“Shannara” hybrid. But I continued to give it a chance because despite my initial suspicions that it would pale in comparison to Brooks, I found myself really starting to enjoy the lore. I found it darker than Brooks which, in my opinion, is a good thing.

It’s unfair to compare Speakman to Brooks given one is a perennial best seller and one is new to publishing his own work but I have to believe he knew those comparisons would inevitably come. But what surprised me, is that I found it every bit on par with a Brooks novel. For this being a self-published novel it surpasses some of traditionally published work I’ve read. If Speakman isn’t careful Brooks is going to find himself out a webmaster and up against a brand new (friendly) competitor.

But back to The Dark Thorn, this book deals with religion rather heavily, in particular, the Catholic Church. That said, as a Christian, I didn’t find any of it offensive. The main character is a knight of sorts, entrusted with protecting a portal that leads to another world in which the fairy tale creatures of our world escaped as Christianity and Catholicism grew and expanded in influence. There are other portals around the world, each with their own knight protecting it. These nights are granted a legendary weapon from King Arthur’s court. Richard, our central character, carries Lancelot’s Arondight. Another character possesses Prydwen, King Arthur’s shield. Other legendary weapons make appearances and it’s fascinating how they almost become secondary characters themselves. Or at least guest stars.

I’ll keep this spoiler free, but there are so many interesting aspects to this novel that it becomes literally one of my favorites ever. And this is coming from a guy who loves the Terry Brooks, loves Stephen King, and loves Michael Connelly. When you consider that Speakman will likely be compared to his long-time friend and mentor it should be a massive compliment when I tell you, without hesitation, that Speakman doesn’t aspire to be in the same company, he IS in the same company. The fantasy genre has a new player. I can absolutely recommend The Dark Thorn and not just to fans of Terry Brooks. I can recommend The Dark Thorn to fans of fantasy in general. It’s a great book.

View all my reviews

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My NOOK Tablet

I just got the NOOK Tablet and I’ve rooted it per the process I outlined on my blog here. You can click on any one of the images and it’ll enlarge so you can more easily search for something embarrassing.

The NOOK Tablet is pretty bare. I just downloaded the stuff I immediately figured I’d use. Or fit my use. You can see along the bottom, I have the Kindle app, ezPDF Reader, Kobo and Google Books. I also have Aldiko on there for my older books that have outdated formats. I also have Pandora on there for listening.

Finally, yes. I still have access to all of my B&N content. When I press the ∩ button, I get my usual NOOK shelf.

So that was the NOOK Tablet. The kids use my NOOK Color and it’s a complete disaster. But it’ll again show you the options you have for your NOOK.

The NOOK Color

This NOOK Color is dual booted using the process detailed here.

As you can see, there is a lot of content on the NOOK Color. Mostly because it’s the oldest and has been gathering apps for about a year now. But also because the Amazon AppStore makes a TON of apps available for free over the course of a year.

The kids are obviously more interested in gaming than anything else and that’s fine too. I have some stuff on there that is going to go away now that I have the NOOK Tablet, like Facebook and Gmail. And I also need to toss a purchase password on the Markets.

The NOOK Color is dual booting so there is no NOOK software integration on this side but you can see in the first screenshot here that I have the NOOK app installed instead. It works, and I have all of these other FREE games and options that I just couldn’t get through the NOOK App Store.

So there you have it. That’s what the kids and I use our NOOK’s for.

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Last modified: Mar 2nd, 2012. This tutorial is meant to be as simple to follow as possible. That said, rooting a device is not no-brainer stuff. It is especially not for the unwilling to read and research. I will present this all as simply as I know how but I am not responsible for anything that happens as a result of not following directions or even following them perfectly. The same things apply that did in rooting the NOOK color. I’ve not heard of anyone bricking their device, there are plenty of tutorials on how to restore your NOOK Tablet back to its stock state. So proceed with confidence if you are willing to tread the XDA forums in search of answers. I’ll will certainly help with any issues I’ve encountered, or little lessons learned, but in-depth help will probably require help from the geniuses at XDA.

So now that you have been giving the worst case scenario, let’s go about making that NOOK Tablet more useful.

Prerequisites:

- microSD card (probably any one will do, the process creates a 70mb partition)
- microSD card reader
- 16GB NOOK Tablet (*that you’ve already registered to your NOOK.com account)

* Registered isn’t required, but is recommended. You’ll need to perform extra steps if it isn’t registered. I don’t cover that in my tutorial, but I understand the directions that contain that information can be found in video form here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQfOswBrXIg

Step 1: Download a File

Download SD_ROOT_NTV16gbV4_6.zip from mediafire.com (MD5: bfd2c4167f4811e6d986a9ca04d48b54).

Credit: albertwertz Source: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1439630

Note: Albert asked that folks not host his file so it is only available via mediafire.com.

If you are more visual, here is a link to a YouTube video by Albert that covers this content in detail: http://youtu.be/UCET91ElYmc

Step 2: Extract that file

Since the SD_ROOT_NTV16gbV4_6.zip is a .ZIP file you can use whatever you want to extract it. Windows has built in ZIP handling. I use an app called 7-ZIP. WinRAR is another popular compression utility. Basically extract the file however you want. I’d probably just start by double clicking on the file and whatever app opens is probably fine for you.

I created a new folder called NTRoot to extract them to. You can do whatever you please. My folder looks like this after I extracted the files.

Step 3: Image your microSD card

Put a microSD card into your PC. All data on this card will be destroyed. So back it up. You won’t need to keep the card in the NOOK Tablet, so you can copy stuff back when you’re done with it.

Launch the Win32DiskImager.exe from wherever you extracted the file to in Step 2.

Click the Blue Folder icon.

A new dialog box will pop up titled Select a disk image. Click the NT16gbV4_6 image file.img.

Click Save.

The Win32 Disk Imager should now look similar to this.

The Device dropdown option should be pointing to the microSD card that you intend to use for this rooting process. It’s different on everyone’s computer, so you’ll have to determine the proper drive on your own. The easiest way, I suppose is to open My Computer on your desktop and see what drive shows up when you plug the microSD card in. On my PC, it’s the H: drive.

Click Write.

Step 4: Root your NOOK Tablet

Turn your NOOK Tablet on.

Put in the ROOT microSD card you created in Step 3 into the NOOK Tablet.

Turn the Tablet off.

When it’s completely off, hold the power button and the N button at the same time. Keep holding it.

This is the N button:

You should see the usual NOOK boot screen with the grey N in the middle of the screen. Keep holding the power and N button. When that grey N flashes off the screen you can let go. The NOOK Tablet should be off again because you were holding the power button.

Turn the NOOK Tablet on.

After a moment you should see a white screen with a cardboard box on it. When it finishes you’ll see a screen that says CWM-based Recovery.

If you don’t see that white screen with a cardboard box, turn off your NOOK Tablet. Hold the Power button and the N button to turn the NOOK Tablet on. Don’t let go. Keep holding it. You want to hold both buttons until the NOOK Tablet shuts itself off again. Instead of turning it on by hand, this time plug one end of your NOOK USB cable into your PC and then the other end into your NOOK Tablet. This will turn the device on and you should see that white screen with a cardboard box on it.

If you still don’t see that white screen with a cardboard box, try powering the NOOK Tablet down. Then plug your USB charging cable into your computer. Plug the other end into your NOOK Tablet. This will trigger a power up. You should now see that white screen and the cardboard box.

When you see the screen that says CWM-based Recovery, you’ll use the Volume Up and Volume Down arrows on the right side of your NOOK Tablet to navigate the menu.

You’ll want to go down to the install zip from sdcard option by pressing Volume Down once. Press the N button to select that option.

The next menu is titled Apply update from .zip file on SD card. You’ll chose the top option of choose zip from sdcard. You’ll select this option by pressing the N button again.

The next menu is titled Choose a zip to apply. You’ll navigate down to the Root_Zip_NTV4_6.zip. Hit the N button again to select it.

The next menu is titled Confirm install?. You’ll need to press Volume Down several times to get down to the – Yes Install Root_Zip_NTV4_6.zip. Confirm that you’d like to do the installation by pressing the N button again.

You’ll see a few things running along the screen and before too long you’ll see the message Install from sdcard complete.

Press the Power button on the NOOK Tablet. It should return you to a previous menu. The first option should be – reboot system now. Hit the N button to select that option and when that screen goes black, take the microSD card out. Or at least eject it so the NOOK Tablet doesn’t boot back into CWM Recovery.

Step 5: Configure your rooted tablet

When the NOOK Tablet boots for the first time you are going to see a white prompt box says Complete action using that gives you two options. Your options are ADW.Launcher or Home. Check the little box that says “Use by default” and select ADW.Launcher.

Your ADW Launcher will now launch. Now press your NOOK Tablet’s N button twice. This will generate another white screen message that says Complete action using. Check the little box that says “Use by default” and select the top option, which is Home Catcher, even if there is no text next to it. The icon looks like this:

Now what happens is if you press the N button once, your B&N menu pops up.

If you press the N button twice, your ADW Launcher appears.

Next bit of business is an annoying error at the top of your ADW Launcher that says Problem loading widget. Just press that message and hold it until a red bar appears at the top of the screen with a trashcan. Drag the widget up to there and let it go over the trashcan. Annoying error message gone.

Step 6: Make it yours

You now have access to the Android Market via the Market shortcut in the AppDrawer (the middle on-screen button, between kindle and web). You can sideload the Amazon AppStore to get free paid apps every day. You can install the kindle app to read your kindle library on your NOOK Tablet. Netflix and Hulu Plus are already installed because they are on the NOOK Side. So go crazy. Have fun.

Step 7 (optional): Restore the space on your microSD card

You can keep the card you used for this process for restore purposes, or you can simply reformat it within the NOOK Tablet software. If you prefer formatting from your PC, The HP Format Tool is available [ here ].

Step 8 (optional): Block B&N Over The Air Updates (OTA)

This process will stop B&N from pushing a new update to your NOOK Tablet which would likely break your root. This will lock you into whatever version you currently have. That’s a good thing for folks who like what they’ve got and want to wait and see what B&N offers before just blindly accepting an update that may serve of no use to them. Instead of writing another tutorial, there is a guy who I think is doing great videos. He has a tutorial for this process. It can be found [ here ]. If you decide not to block OTA’s then B&N could automatically update your NOOK Tablet at any time and your root will be broken. You’ll still have access to your ereader and probably most of your apps but some may give you errors or not work at all. So blocking OTA’s is highly recommended.

More Resources

The card I linked to was created by Albert Wertz who stood on the shoulders of giants and came up with this nice packaging for us. He also create a YouTube library of fantastic videos that show much of this content and more. One of my favorite videos of his is the demo of this card where he walks through most of this process and more. So check him out on YouTube or XDA and feel free to send him a donation. He’s done a fantastic job of putting this content together into a single package.

YouTube Demo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSfeJwMxsRs

Tutorials inspiration: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1439630

If this helped you, or if I’ve helped you in the past, I’d like to ask you to consider making a donation. If you’re not interested, no biggie. Forget I mentioned it. =)

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