Nook Color: sneaky Android tablet

Hextall

New Member
Mar 5, 2010
189
EDIT: Also, I'm also having the Market issue where it only lists 11 results. Not sure why that is.
It is a weird bug... Hold the nook in landscape and you be able to scroll through the apps in the market.

I think the modified 1.1 on XDA is just the stock rom but with root built in. so flashing that is mucheasier than going back to stock then rerooting. But I am not 100% sure.

If you have a spare uSD card, you can burn froyo or honeycomb and boot into it to check it out. I actually prefer the stock rom because the read to me function for childrens books only works on that rom and not the nook app available in the market... and I fear my daughter would slit my throat in the night if it didn't have that. She is a very evil 3.5.

The stock rom had worked fine for what I use it for, so I haven't felt any need to install another to the internal memory.

I think foulkey's widgets are simi clock. I prefer beautiful widgets as there are dozens of skins. It is not free though.
 

EddieYost

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I did reboot it and was still having problems and it was connected to wifi, I actually have two access points and tried both but had no success. I am not computer illiterate, far from it as I test it for a living but I literally put this down thinking I was going to have un-root it and either start over or give up and about an hour later I decided to try again and it immediately started working. So far I have installed launcher pro, angry birds, angry birds seasons, a battery widget, facebook and some other stuff. I have not had a repeat of the issue since. it is weird though.
I am happy for you, but was hoping you'd figure out the issue I was having. :rolleyes: I played with the thing for hours trying to get the market to work. I did end up setting it back to stock, twice, which is where it sits now.
 

InstantKarmma

Boomer Sympathizer
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Wife got me NC for me birthday, fully expecting me to root it (which I did within first hour)... So she definitely understands me. Questions:

1) At some point, can you list all the apps you have installed? That clock/weather thing on your lockscreen is pretty.
2) I rooted from 1.0.1. Is there any appreciable benefit to 1.1? If so, should I go back to stock, upgrade, and then root; or should I do the hacked 1.1 update from XDA? If it's all the same, I'd prefer to go back to stock, upgrade, then root.
3) Is there a consensus ROM preference here, or should I stick with stock ROM?

Woot!

EDIT: Also, I'm also having the Market issue where it only lists 11 results. Not sure why that is.
I rooted from 1.1. Since I never played with 1.0.1, I don't know what the benefit is, but the procedure I used (using autonooter) recommended the 1.1 upgrade before rooting, so I blindly followed that advice and downloaded the b&n 1.1 upgrade and did that first.

I'm also having the "10 items" returned issue with the market. I'm using the stock ROM. I'm waiting for a stable Honeycomb ROM to come out before I move off the stock ROM.
 

Foulkey Reese

foulkiavelli
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Apr 12, 2006
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Wife got me NC for me birthday, fully expecting me to root it (which I did within first hour)... So she definitely understands me. Questions:

1) At some point, can you list all the apps you have installed? That clock/weather thing on your lockscreen is pretty.
2) I rooted from 1.0.1. Is there any appreciable benefit to 1.1? If so, should I go back to stock, upgrade, and then root; or should I do the hacked 1.1 update from XDA? If it's all the same, I'd prefer to go back to stock, upgrade, then root.
3) Is there a consensus ROM preference here, or should I stick with stock ROM?

Woot!

EDIT: Also, I'm also having the Market issue where it only lists 11 results. Not sure why that is.
These are all of the apps that I have on my Droid/Nook. Not everything is on the Nook, but a good chunk of them are.

http://www.appbrain.com/user/rev1619/

You can also download the Appbrain App to replace the market on your Nook so you don't have to deal with the 11 apps showing at a time thing.

Romwise I'm still on stock, but I know there are some fairly decent ones out there that are a pain to install. I'm going to wait to see what they do with Honeycomb before I change roms. Right now stock is good enough for me.
 

zenter

indian sweet
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Oct 11, 2005
5,641
Astoria, NY
These are all of the apps that I have on my Droid/Nook. Not everything is on the Nook, but a good chunk of them are.

http://www.appbrain.com/user/rev1619/

You can also download the Appbrain App to replace the market on your Nook so you don't have to deal with the 11 apps showing at a time thing.

Romwise I'm still on stock, but I know there are some fairly decent ones out there that are a pain to install. I'm going to wait to see what they do with Honeycomb before I change roms. Right now stock is good enough for me.
Using LauncherPro on Nook, or is that only on Droid? I had to fall back on ADW for things to work a little better - LP is buggy. My main things though are missing Swype and Flash. It's surprising how many short videos I watch while web browsing. Can't wait for a semi-stable HC ROM either.

As for voltage/OC, what did you set your Nook to?
 

Foulkey Reese

foulkiavelli
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Apr 12, 2006
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For Droid I actually use Zeam launcher which doesn't show up on Appbrain for some reason.

I use LP for the Droid. I agree that it's a big buggy on the NC. Zeam seems pretty fast and clean and I liked it better than ADW.

Yea Flash is a big one, but it's only a matter of time until somebody makes a nice simple Honeycomb rom that can be installed through Rom Manager like one does on any Android phone.

I have it overclocked to 1100mhz. I'm sure you can find the Kernel online somewhere, but I can host it or send it to you tonight if you would like. Installing it is a breeze if you download and use Rom Manager.
 

EddieYost

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gmail works...youtube does not....tried 5 or 6 apps...none download so I am assuming that none will
If the gmail account is not linked to a youtube account, could that cause my problem?
 

EddieYost

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I did register the nook with that gmail addy. do you know why youtube matters?
 

Hextall

New Member
Mar 5, 2010
189
I did register the nook with that gmail addy. do you know why youtube matters?
I can only guess that logging into youtube might be the portal to get root access. But that's a 100% guess as I have no idea what the pathway to getting root access is.


aside:
I just went through my first borrowed e-book (from NH library system). I borrowed a book a few weeks ago, uploaded via adobe digital editions, and it was available on the Nook through library --> my files. I didn't read the book, but when I clicked it today, it was after my 14 day borrowing period, and a message came up that it expired. I only checked on it, because I just got an email from the NH library saying another book I put on hold was available. I believe they'll hold it a couple of days, and if I don't download it, then it'll go to the next person. so I downloaded it, opened up ade on my computer, plugged in the nook, dragged the new book to the nook icon in ade and it's now on my nook. Some people were curious about borrowing books... just wanted to throw this out there in case anyone was interested in the procedure.




 

EddieYost

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Jul 15, 2005
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I can only guess that logging into youtube might be the portal to get root access. But that's a 100% guess as I have no idea what the pathway to getting root access is.
I linked the youtube account, and the process went more smoothly this time (no errors in youtube). But that didn't fix the download problem. Turns out that there is an issue with Nook Colors downloading over PEAP/MSCHAP wifi. I read about it on XDA. I had only tried over this one wifi network because I am doing it all at work. Today I installed wifi tether on my Droid and hooked up the NC to it and it downloaded apps no problem. Mystery solved. :)
 

Dead Balls

New Member
Jul 18, 2005
103
Just so you know, this thread convinced me to get a Nook Color over the weekend. I tried several ROMS and settled on "Nookie Froyo 0.6.8". It has working flash and a working market, is fast and everything seems to just work. After several days, I'm sticking with this.

If anyone wants to try it, the posts over as XDA-Developers that I followed are below:

--Instructions to install Froyo (Andorid 2.2) on the internal storage of the Nook Color
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=938200

--Mentions a good applicatin to write the bootable SD image
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=11899117&postcount=577

--Fix market issue
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=11919187&postcount=595

--Get Flash working
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=11885057&postcount=567
 

Foulkey Reese

foulkiavelli
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Apr 12, 2006
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Just so you know, this thread convinced me to get a Nook Color over the weekend. I tried several ROMS and settled on "Nookie Froyo 0.6.8". It has working flash and a working market, is fast and everything seems to just work. After several days, I'm sticking with this.

If anyone wants to try it, the posts over as XDA-Developers that I followed are below:

--Instructions to install Froyo (Andorid 2.2) on the internal storage of the Nook Color
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=938200

--Mentions a good applicatin to write the bootable SD image
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=11899117&postcount=577

--Fix market issue
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=11919187&postcount=595

--Get Flash working
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=11885057&postcount=567
Can't read the links at work. Did you have to use auto debugging for this?
 

Dead Balls

New Member
Jul 18, 2005
103
No, not at all.

This is the extent of the process:

Instructions:

Download the zip file

Unzip the image file

Burn the image to sdcard

Shutoff your nook and insert the sdcard you just created

Boot your nook to sdcard

Choose "install zip from sdcard"

Choose "choose zip from sdcard"

Choose the zip file

Under the "mounts and storage" menu, choose "format cache"

Press the power button to go back to the main menu

After it is complete, remove the sdcard

Press the power button to go back to the main menu

Choose "reboot system now"

After the nook has reboot, configure the wireless, setup your google account

Install Flash and YouTube
 

Foulkey Reese

foulkiavelli
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Apr 12, 2006
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Doing it now and so far it's going very well.

I coulnd't figure out the market issue until I stumbled accross this video that walked me through it.

Edits:

Flash works perfectly. So far this is a big improvement from 2.1. Night and day better actually. Now it's JUST like a giant Android phone.
 

Bucknahs Bum Ankle

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Oct 31, 2003
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Awesome. So is there likely to be some even easier step by step instructions (froyo for dummies) coming? Something similar to the link in the first post? I hope so, because I really want flash but just perusing the link that Dead Balls posted, it seems a bit complicated.
 

sonsoftrotnixon

Member
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Jul 13, 2005
700
Western NY
Doing it now and so far it's going very well.

I coulnd't figure out the market issue until I stumbled accross this video that walked me through it.

Edits:

Flash works perfectly. So far this is a big improvement from 2.1. Night and day better actually. Now it's JUST like a giant Android phone.
I agree, I finally resorted to this method and it's working fine. The drawback is you have to partition your SD card for storage and you can no longer drag and drop files onto the nook via the USB connection. I downloaded an app that allows you to do it via the web but for big files it's not convenient. I had to use ADB programming to push a few files to it and that worked however.
 

Foulkey Reese

foulkiavelli
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Apr 12, 2006
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I agree, I finally resorted to this method and it's working fine. The drawback is you have to partition your SD card for storage and you can no longer drag and drop files onto the nook via the USB connection.
Yes you can. You just have to enable "drag and drop" on the Nook when you plug it into the PC. It doesn't to it automatically anymore, but you can easily enable it. When the Nook is plugged in there is an option in the top pull down menu. It's just like how it works on the phones.

I really couldn't be happier with it though. All of the little things that annoyed me are gone now. And now I can finally tether it with my Droid and use it at work. Plus all the market issues are gone now.

Awesome. So is there likely to be some even easier step by step instructions (froyo for dummies) coming? Something similar to the link in the first post? I hope so, because I really want flash but just perusing the link that Dead Balls posted, it seems a bit complicated.
It's really easy. If you were able to root it in the first place than this is a piece of cake. I needed that video I posted to fix the market, but otherwise it was cake.
 

Bucknahs Bum Ankle

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Oct 31, 2003
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Hmm, maybe I'll give it a shot over the weekend. Will any books or other files that you have in the internal storage remain after doing this, or does all that stuff have to be reloaded?
 

Foulkey Reese

foulkiavelli
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Apr 12, 2006
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Hmm, maybe I'll give it a shot over the weekend. Will any books or other files that you have in the internal storage remain after doing this, or does all that stuff have to be reloaded?
I wiped the SC card first so I had to reload everything.

FYI this totally removed the stock Nook Reader software but included the Nook Android app. I actually prefer the app to the stock version. That software getting removed seems to speed the device up a bit too. It's pretty much as responsive as my phone is now.

I hated the stock keyboard and was able to replace it with "Better Keyboard" which is a $2 app that I had previously purchased. I have the iPad keyboard skin on it and it types like a dream. Very clean.
 

sonsoftrotnixon

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Jul 13, 2005
700
Western NY
Yes you can. You just have to enable "drag and drop" on the Nook when you plug it into the PC. It doesn't to it automatically anymore, but you can easily enable it. When the Nook is plugged in there is an option in the top pull down menu. It's just like how it works on the phones.
I realize that but only the partition with the operating files shows up (and it's only a few hundred MB). I used EASUS to make the "SDCARD" partition larger but it's not viewable. Maybe I'm missing something (or just plain stupid). I do find much more use for it now with Nookie Froyo. I even downloaded the nook app from the market and use it to read the books so it's a win win at this point.
 

Hextall

New Member
Mar 5, 2010
189
Maybe it's beyond the risk level of the SOSH Nook owners... but has anybody set up the Nook to dual boot with the stock rom and froyo? I use the stock reader a lot on my nook, and really don't want to lose the "read to me" function in the kids books i have.

For now, when I want to use froyo or honeycomb, I have a bootable sd cards with each. it's a bit of a pain though.
 

Bucknahs Bum Ankle

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Oct 31, 2003
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One thing I've really been enjoying is that you can pop in and out of a book with ease. Say you are reading and an email notification comes in. If you want to, you can go read the email and then just push the book icon at the bottom of the screen to get right back to where you left off in the book. Is that functionality still there when using the nook app without the stock reader?
 

Foulkey Reese

foulkiavelli
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Apr 12, 2006
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One thing I've really been enjoying is that you can pop in and out of a book with ease. Say you are reading and an email notification comes in. If you want to, you can go read the email and then just push the book icon at the bottom of the screen to get right back to where you left off in the book. Is that functionality still there when using the nook app without the stock reader?
I just tested it.

You can pull the down bar down to see who the email if from and get a little preview. But if you open the email you do have to go back to the Nook app and open the particular book again. It saves your place though so it's not that bad. Takes 3 "clicks" to get back to it. Didn't bother me.

I realize that but only the partition with the operating files shows up (and it's only a few hundred MB). I used EASUS to make the "SDCARD" partition larger but it's not viewable. Maybe I'm missing something (or just plain stupid). I do find much more use for it now with Nookie Froyo. I even downloaded the nook app from the market and use it to read the books so it's a win win at this point.
Hmmm I'm not sure why it's doing that.
 

Dead Balls

New Member
Jul 18, 2005
103
sonsoftrotnixon, your SD card is partitioned to a small size when you flashed the boot image to it. Use a program like the free version of http://partitionwizard.com/ to get your SD card back to its full available size.
 

Foulkey Reese

foulkiavelli
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Apr 12, 2006
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FYI for Froyo users.

Using Rom Manager to install this zip makes Froyo even better. Love the buttons on the top menu bar.

Basically you:

DL Rom Manager
Flash Clockwork Recovery
Reboot into Recovery
Install zip from SD card
Reboot.

It took me 5 minutes tops. Big improvement imo seeing as we aren't stuck using Softkeys anymore.

 

OrlandoMerced

Member
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Jul 23, 2005
198
Closer than you'd like
I just threw the latest CM7 on this thing. A little gingerbread is nice. The battery life is great. I think its because CM now includes setting the cpu governer similar to running SetCPU, so it burns very little battery until needed. Has the back and menu buttons on the nav bar (similar to foulkey's pic, but both are on the top right), and has all the cyanogenmod tweaks (navbar power widget, themes, battery pct, etc.).

I'm also thinking of picking up a bt headset and trying this.
 

OrlandoMerced

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Jul 23, 2005
198
Closer than you'd like
I'm really digging the lock screen gestures, which I never found much use for on my phone. I've got one directly to gmail, one directly to the browser, and of course one directly to the nook app.
 

Hextall

New Member
Mar 5, 2010
189
OrlandoMerced said:
I'm really digging the lock screen gestures, which I never found much use for on my phone. I've got one directly to gmail, one directly to the browser, and of course one directly to the nook app.
Someone made an image file for a bootable sd card on XDA... so I loaded CM7 on it this weekend, installed the google apps, and it ran really well. Things are still broken on it (like youtube), but otherwise it ran really well. I switched back to the stock os because the children's books wouldn't download via the nook app, and my adobe digital editions didn't want to let me download the borrowed library e-book I was reading.

From what I've read, the development of the gingerbread based CM will make it easier to develop the honeycomb versions when that source code is released.

re: lock screen stuff... I use lock screen widgets on my phone with widgetlocker, things like shortcuts to make new notes or open up my camera without having to unlock the phone are pretty useful. Plus, I like tinkering with the look, and installing a custom sliders is really easy.




 

ddeveau

New Member
Apr 5, 2006
36
Thanks to all of you for all this great info. In terms of android, I'm a noob and I have a question about Market. I bought a used NC that had already been rooted (yeah I know, but it seemed to make sense at the time). I followed some of the links here and loaded Froyo and it works great ... except it fails anytime I try to download apps from Market. Wifi is fine and not protected. Based on previous posts, it sounds like I need to have the device registered through B&N before this will work - is that true? Any ideas of how to register a used, rooted NC? Or, is there any way to get apps through another device and install them on the NC?
 

Joshv02

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Jul 15, 2005
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Thanks to all of you for all this great info. In terms of android, I'm a noob and I have a question about Market. I bought a used NC that had already been rooted (yeah I know, but it seemed to make sense at the time). I followed some of the links here and loaded Froyo and it works great ... except it fails anytime I try to download apps from Market. Wifi is fine and not protected. Based on previous posts, it sounds like I need to have the device registered through B&N before this will work - is that true? Any ideas of how to register a used, rooted NC? Or, is there any way to get apps through another device and install them on the NC?
Others, no doubt, know more, but: I'm pretty sure that yes, you must register the device through B&N and the email address must be the same as the gmail and youtube addresses (those were the instructions when I rooted). Assuming that is so, unroot your NC (follow the instructions on xda), and start over.
 

Hextall

New Member
Mar 5, 2010
189
Before rerooting, go to settings (through nook color tools), manage applications, find the market and clear data and cache. Reboot and try logging in and downloading an app again.

I think there are some solutions to market problems on xda and the nookdev site. I would try all those before returning it to stock and rerooting.
 

Three10toLeft

New Member
Oct 2, 2008
1,560
Asheville, NC
After poking around in this thread for a little bit, I decided I should go ahead and root/rom my Nook since I hadn't really been paying it much attention lately. I gotta say it's pretty cool.

I do have a question though, I'd like to overclock the NC a little bit, nothing too dangerous. I was wondering if I would be able to do so through the set cpu app or is it a whole other process that I have to go through to enable that feature? If I have to be bothered flashing a different kernel or whatever, I won't waste my time.
 

Hextall

New Member
Mar 5, 2010
189
After poking around in this thread for a little bit, I decided I should go ahead and root/rom my Nook since I hadn't really been paying it much attention lately. I gotta say it's pretty cool.

I do have a question though, I'd like to overclock the NC a little bit, nothing too dangerous. I was wondering if I would be able to do so through the set cpu app or is it a whole other process that I have to go through to enable that feature? If I have to be bothered flashing a different kernel or whatever, I won't waste my time.
You have to flash a kernal that can be overclocked, the stock kernal doesn't have this function. You need to install a custom overclock-able kernal (here: http://goo.gl/2X3vJ ).

First you need to install clockworkmod recovery (it's an option in Rom manager). If you flash recovery from within the rom manager, after you do that, don't boot into recovery, but do a normal reboot. If you install then boot right into recovery, you'll get into a boot loop that keeps you in recovery. just reboot normally after installing the recovery, then you should be ok.

To install the kernal, boot into recovery (via rom manager is the easiest way), then find install zip from sd card. reboot back into stock, and open setCPU and you should be able to see that your nook is running at 1.1 GHz, which is very stable.
 

EddieYost

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Jul 15, 2005
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Does anyone use a stylus with their NC? My friend is liking hers, but sucks at the touch screen. Any recommendations?
 

jercra

No longer respects DeChambeau
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Jul 31, 2006
3,147
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Does anyone use a stylus with their NC? My friend is liking hers, but sucks at the touch screen. Any recommendations?
A quick Google search reveals that there are several companies making a stylus for capacitive screens. I have never used a stylus on a capacitive screen before so can't vouch for how well it works myself but I would just read a bunch of reviews to see what the world in general thinks of the idea.
 

jayhoz

Ronald Bartel
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Jul 19, 2005
17,367
I've tested 3-4 stylusl. They do what they are supposed to. I personally find them too cumbersome, but they work just like your finger does.
 

Hextall

New Member
Mar 5, 2010
189
So I did a lot of playing around with my Nook this past weekend. Set it up to give the option to go into a boot menu on startup where I can select to boot from the internal memory (stock rom, overclocked) or the sdcard (cm7). Changed some of the internal files (vold.conf specifically) so that both roms use the same partition of the sdcard as the sdcard (specifically... the internal memory needs to start the sdcard as partition 4). So now, when I start up, if I hit a button within 5 seconds, I can select which rom to run, if I don't hit a button, it'll run the internal memory one.

I also decided to use desktop visualizer to change around the homescreen. I kind of like the big buttons there's no reason to not use that space on a tablet by limiting myself to the dock's shortcuts. I also used an app called Wallpaper Save and Set to set the wallpapers as I was having the wallpapers end up very fuzzy otherwise. I found the wallpaper at http://interfacelift.com


 

Foulkey Reese

foulkiavelli
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Apr 12, 2006
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That's pretty sweet Hex.

Anybody use their Android phone as a wireless hotspot for their Nook?

I get mine to connect, but it's just so incredibly slow. I get better speeds when I connect my laptop. Any ideas?

Edit: For wallpapers I've found that they only look decent when I'm setting them from the web.

These Honeycomb wallpapers look great if you just long press on the picture and set as wallpaper.
 

Hextall

New Member
Mar 5, 2010
189
That's pretty sweet Hex.

Anybody use their Android phone as a wireless hotspot for their Nook?

I get mine to connect, but it's just so incredibly slow. I get better speeds when I connect my laptop. Any ideas?
I have to check this out this week, as I'm heading out of town next week and want to be able to use the nook. There's something about most phone's wireless tethering being an ad hoc network (I don't know what that means) and the nook has to be modified to be able to stably use those. That was my Nook task for the week... get wifi tethering to work with my phone. I'll let you know what I find out.
 

Foulkey Reese

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Apr 12, 2006
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I have to check this out this week, as I'm heading out of town next week and want to be able to use the nook. There's something about most phone's wireless tethering being an ad hoc network (I don't know what that means) and the nook has to be modified to be able to stably use those. That was my Nook task for the week... get wifi tethering to work with my phone. I'll let you know what I find out.
Sounds good.

When I was running 2.1 it wouldn't work at all, but after I loaded 2.2 it started recognizing the Android Tether and connecting, but it runs a lot slower than it should.