Thing One and Thing Two

[neadods]

THING ONE:
AOL is not passing on LJ comments (Surprise! People are responding to my last post! And silverotter really did announce a meet time and place for Frankenstein!)

So if you've said something I should know about in anything later than the last post, ping me here...

*sigh*


THING TWO:
Getting a nook or kindle *specifically* to serve as my personal cookbook, holding books and uploaded recipes. Great idea or dumb idea?

Comments

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

Thing Two: great idea as long as the reader in question has a nicely sturdy carrying-case. (I have been known to take my netbook into the kitchen to have the recipe on hand from the internet.)

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Which suggests that a limited amount of browsing capability might be useful as well. (Because if this idea is a go, the next question is: Nook or Kindle?)

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

Nook Color. You can root it and, if you want, overclock it, and it becomes a decent Android tablet (onto which, if you want, you can install ebook reading software, including both Nook and Kindle -- though I recommend FBReader and CoolReader instead).

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Root? Overclock?

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

The Nook Color is really a tablet running Android, with a custom user interface laid over it that the average user is locked into. "Rooting" an Android device is, essentially, gaining the equivalent of Administrator rights on a Windows machine. If you do that with the Nook Color, you can then get past the B&N UI, and install any Android app you want.

Overclocking is a process that speeds up the processor in a computer (or phone, or tablet). It tends to generate more heat, and use battery faster, than otherwise, but it can make a sluggish device respond snappily (IIRC, the Nook Color can be overclocked to 1.1GHz, which is approximately four times the standard 250MHz clock speed). You'd probably want to read about it thoroughly before actually doing it, but it's certainly something I'd consider if I were involved in your decision.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Huh. I think B&N is already looking into ways of getting more apps onto the Nook Color - they've twigged that they're looking at an ipad-buster if they play their cards right.

[msp-hacker.livejournal.com]

Yes. As I have taken my kindle to the grocery store, forgotten what the recipe called for, and just looked it up online.

[98.livejournal.com]

Perhaps we are just too sloppy as cooks but our cookbooks tend to acquire stains. I would regard the kitchen as a hostile environment for an e-reader. Otherwise it is a fine idea.

We chose kindle over nook for reasons I do not clearly recall but then we were looking for a general read-in-bed device not a reference-in-kitchen device. And that reminds me that quality of display was a major factor. Much easier to look at kindle for long amounts of time, which may not be a factor if simply used to look up recipes while cooking. On the other tentacle, once things are simmering or roasting or whatever for the next hour you may wish to use it to peruse some non-cookbook.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

I've got the ipad, which is my "perusal" machine. It's just that I've got TONS of recipes and cookbooks and it's getting overwhelming, and since I plan on typing up my favorites to have in a printed book... well, why not type 'em up and have 'em in a virtual library that would be very easy for me to schlep around?

Whatever e-device I acquire, if I acquire it for the kitchen, will also get one of those clear lucite cookbook holders so it can be held upright *behind* a shield!

[98.livejournal.com]

I wonder if anyone yet makes kindle condoms?

I am not an Apple fan so I know little of matters iPad but I have seen it described as a good browser on which one may read e-books if one must and the kindle a good e-reader on which one may browse the web if one must. Depending which sort of thing you like to peruse your device loyalties may shift.

I wish you joy of whichever device you eventually get.

[fyrdrakken]

There are definitely waterproof sleeves for Kindles, for users who want to read in the bath or whatever -- I ran across a few last week while looking into available case options.

[98.livejournal.com]

Indeed, my beloved anisoptera reminded me of that when I told her of this discussion. She has one for her kindle and has taken it to tub a few times with satisfactory results. It looks as if it would withstand complete immersion although I do not think she put it to that test and I will be quite happy if she never does.

[fyrdrakken]

Now, some time ago I spotted waterproof gadget cases that also serve as flotation devices for if you drop something important overboard. They don't offer a Kindle size (yet), though. But this reminds me -- I should make sure my fisheries friend knows they exist...

[fyrdrakken]

Browsing Kindle specs yesterday or the day before, I noted they say you can get 3500 books on there. So I guess the question is whether you'll have so very many cookbooks (or so very many non-cookbooks) that you think you'll need a separate device instead of just a "Cooking" category. (No, wait, you don't have a Kindle at all, you just use the apps on other devices. So this is basically the reason you're thinking in terms of shifting from app-based reading to an actual e-reader?)

[neadods.livejournal.com]

I want a device that will allow me to upload recipes as well as read/annotate cookbooks (both the Kindle and Nook will let me add notes) yet comes with a lower price tag and fewer unwanted unremovable add-ons than an ipad or a Tab.

The Kindle is light and relatively cheap; the color Nook is basically ipad light.

[fyrdrakken]

I've decided I need to go ahead and get a Kindle because I stuck so much fic onto the Blackberry that it's gotten cranky about loading and running the Mobipocket Reader. I'm getting tired of having to do a battery pull to reboot the phone so often. Added bonus, I can get a hard shell case with a stand so I can prop the Kindle up and knit while reading -- I was doing that last night using my netbook and ran into a few issues with jumping back and forth between devices on the same book, which I blame on the Blackberry again because it kept losing the last page read when I closed the program a day or two ago, before I'd even downloaded the books in question to the netbook.

Oh, and forgot to mention: I don't think it's AOL, I think it's LJ, because people have been complaining about not getting comment notifications since the beginning of the month, and I've been noticing delayed notifications myself. And I don't have AOL mail.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

The thing with a Kindle is it may be the cheapest option and have the most access to books... but a color Nook is an experience very close to using the ipad, meaning a much shorter learning curve.

On the other hand, the state of B&N suggests that the Nook may become orphan technology rather quickly.

PS - LJ's been listed as a spammer, which means a lot of the big email accounts have stopped accepting their notifications. It's a pain in the ass, but I'm learning to lean on my LJ inbox for notifications.

[fyrdrakken]

I don't have an iPad, and found it very cantankerous and non-intuitive when I tried using someone else's a few times, so not a selling point for me. And agreed on the orphan technology.

Yahoo! was still accepting the notifications, but some of them were just coming in very late. My LJ inbox only shows me comments on my own entries, and that's very little of what I'm actually following.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

If you click on "settings" you can change the inbox to tell you about replies to comments you make anywhere. But it's not going to help if you (like me) have settings to send you email when people make new posts or a comment comes in on a post that isn't in response to you.

I'm finding this blackout just annoying as anything!

There was a learning curve on the ipad... but now I've learned it, I prefer something that acts like it rather than sending me through yet *another* learning curve.

PS on orphan tech - more research says that the Nook acts like a flash drive, and it can read .txt, doc, docx, & pdf files. Which means that it doesn't require special software to connect to a computer and can read a fair number of different text files... which means that it won't "orphan" quickly for my purposes even if it loses the ability to download commercial books.

[fyrdrakken]

It's certainly one more reason to make a point of dropping my comments on the DW versions of mirrored posts -- the notifications are more likely to arrive in a timely fashion.

Yeah, I haven't used Mac computers since high school college and have avoided getting i-anything -- I think my last couple of MP3 players have been Creative Zen products -- so the whole setup is kind of alien to me. If it works like what you're used to using, that's a good reason to use it, especially if you have the option to convert it into a more general Android tablet.

Kindle pretty much squelched any possibility of me building a library on other services because of their breadth of offerings (and the way the one time I tried buying an e-book from either Borders or B&N, I forget which, the damned purchase refused to go through). Mind you, while one of the major advantages of the platform has been being able to buy a title and download it to any of my Kindle-running devices, I'm thinking I need to buy an e-reader specifically for installing and keeping available the non-Amazon purchases (mainly Baen books, at this point) and the fanfic I haven't read yet or like well enough to keep handy for rereads.