Getting the No out of Nook

In only minutes my mind was made and up I knew, the color Nook is not as cool as it sounds. If only e-ink screens could come in color. How is it possible that in all this time color hasn't been incorporated with non-backlit e-readers? (See examples of e-ink technology here.)

My experience with the color Nook confirmed my thoughts that any e-reader with apps and backlit screen is just not for me. To me and many others reading is almost sacred experience. What we read becomes a part of our lives one way or another. Having "extras" are simply distractions. Well, truly, they are further ways to get us to spend more money with our device. Additions such as games and email access interrupt my reading flow and strongly deduct from my reading experience.

Frankly, I don't see the appeal of e-reader magazines. It seems like on big, inconvenient way of looking at what would be better off as just a regular webpage. Let's face it, dragging the mouse to turn a page doesn't match up and I cannot stand the constant need to zoom in and drag entire content around.

I am a nighttime reader and I cannot see myself ever falling asleep reading with a brightly lit screen. I am not opposed to using e-readers and the new Kindle Touch is more along the lines of what I would purchase for myself and recommend to others.

"The Life of Samuel Johnson" on eBooks

As demonstrated in class last night eBook conversions are not perfect.
Whether it is the mentality of "it's not my job" or "I'm not a fish" the proofing step should not be overlooked. The name Penguin Classics implies top-notch publishing integrity and editorial quality, and "The Life of Samuel Johnson" by James Boswell did not receive it.

The Kindle eBook edition of Boswell's work costs $12.24. So I opted for the free sample, which gives you approximately 10-15% of the book (usually Front Matter and beginning of a first chapter). Even from this small sample I detected multiple format and content issues such as: "principles'ofwhich, asBoswellrecords, Johnsonhad'Muchexperience'. Boswell's famousimage" or "He was from the beginning '$$$$, a king of men."
I can only imagine it continues throughout the Kindle version.

The Nook eBook edition is free. And although it's not the same edition as the Kindle, format and content was horrible, one such example is:
"Ovre reus e7riavecrTaTai9 7rpa£eo-i ttolvtus tvecrTi S^Awcris dper^s rj Ka/aas, aXka 7rpay/xa fipayy ttoAAcckis, kcli pv)fJ"
This happened throughout the text, in large batches as above and in hidden in words or short sentences.

The best way to proof eBook conversions is looking off a hard copy of the text to see how the content is suppose to be presented - borders, indentations, spacing, grammar, spelling, font, size, etc. - and making the correct adjustments for the eBook to appropriately represent the original text on a different platform. Not having a hard copy of Boswell's book, I could only detect the obvious errors (as noted above) - but there could have been more had I been comparing eBook to book.

Since these errors (format, missing content, special characters) appear in some way on three different devices (Nook, Kindle, iPad) it leads me to believe that Penguin sent a corrupted InDesign or PDF file to get converted to ePUB. Penguin then did not thoroughly proof the final ePUB version but instead sent the final file for submission to Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Apple, and possibly other vendors, who accepted the file for resale.

"The Life of Samuel Johnson" on eBooks is broken.