*Update*: You may visit the Nook project page that has additional screensavers. Nook Projects

I decided to throw together a pack of authors and their quotes.

Nook Screensavers19 picturesJan 5, 2010

You may download the entire pack here.

To load this onto your nook, just plug it into your computer and open the drive labeled nook, then extract the folder to the my screensavers folder.

You may have to reboot your nook in order for it to detect the new folder. To reboot your nook just hold down the power button for about 5-10 seconds until the screen turns off completely. Once its powered off, go ahead and hold down the power button for a few seconds. It will take about 2 minutes to start up.

You may skip this step however if your nook does detect the files, you can check this by going to the home screen, and then to the settings folder. Once you’re there go to display and then screen savers. Choose the one called Quotes.

If you have more suggestions for additional authors you’d like to see let me know and I’ll be sure to add them to the collection, just either send me an email at m...@exstatica.net or leave a comment with the author you’d like to see. It doesn’t have to be a new one, or an old one, it could be any author.

If you have any other ideas for additional screensavers or backgrounds feel free to let me know, I’d be happy to throw some together.

Thanks.

Not sure what to make of this…

but really? hmmm, I think I’ll pick the more expensive less data one.

I thought it would be a good idea to post a review of the first few days of using the Nook, that way I not only have a history of what bugs me and got fixed, but also things that I got used to.

I’m a new e-reader. I’ve never owned one, I used to read on a cell phone 4 or 5 years ago, and then just went to plain books.

I’m reading,  Makers by Cory Doctorow.

I describe as, “An industrial view of the broken culture that hackers and geeks alike rebuild from the ashes of a collapsed technology paradise.”.

I’m sure there are plenty of summaries out there, but to put it simply its about the new age dotcom bust, and the culture of hackers and gadget geeks making it on their own, taking old technology and reinventing it.

So far I’m about halfway through it. The book is seperated into parts. I’m in the middle of Part 2. Its a little weird starting part two as it has some of the same characters, and the its continuing on, but it leaves you with this sense of waiting for some characters to return.

So far though I’ve had trouble putting it down, and find it interesting to say the least. I downloaded it off his site as its free, If he had only charged for it, the book would have been sort of ironic with the content and then the commercialization. Either way I think more and more authors should do this. Not that I wouldn’t buy a book, but if he charged a few bucks for it. I’d have no problem buying it in a heart beat.

Onto the Nook, since this is the only book I’ve read so far, I’ve broken down a few issues I have with it.

Annoyances:

1. Jump to page

There is currently no way to jump to a page number, only chapters, some books do not have the chapters broken out, but there are page numbers (nook page numbers) that you can see, yet there is no way to jump to a specific page number.

2. Page turning buttons.

This whole bottom set to go right, and top set to go left is kind of stupid if you ask me. When I first held the device I thought to go back I’d just hit the other side on the bottom. Apparently I was wrong since it takes you forward a page, Its going to be the first hack I write for this thing. Just doesn’t seem very logical.

3. Cover Flow

Books you buy show up on the tiny display  when you hit Show Covers, but not books you loaded yourself, even if they have thumbnails and covers and all that.

4. Page Refresh

This one is not that bad, I’m not sure if I’ve gotten used to it, or its speading up as I get more and more in the book. But I think it could still use a little faster page refresh.

Likes:

1. Battery life

The battery life seems great, Although I’ve only had it a few days, I charged it over night. I’ve been reading a book pretty much 2-3 hours on the weekends, and during the week about 1 hour in the mornings, and an hour at night before going to bed. Its still at 86%. It hasn’t had a full charge since Saturday. Pretty good.

2. Readability

I was amazed at how easy the screen is to read. The pages are formatted correctly, the text is easy to see. Although I think I’ll need to invest in a reading light. I wish it was backlit.

3. Subscriptions

I subscribe to the Los Angeles Times, I can read the paper whenever I want. Go 3g!

4. Customization

Customizing this thing was a little fun. First I named by Nook “Breakfast”. Then I created a background for my favorite book, you can download it below. I’m still working on screensavers and I’ll get to it eventually.

Thats all for now, I’ll be sure to post another as time goes on.

Who doesn’t like presents? OK maybe you don’t, but I’m all about getting random stuff shipped. I’ve tried taking this idea to Think Geek a few years ago, but it apparently fell on def ears. Here is the idea. Hopefully Woot will go for it.

1. User specifies a per month cost. (Say 20 per month).
2. User specifies a frequency (lets say once or twice a month).
3. Woot uses a Magical Random Surprise Detection Algorithm or Mrsda as I like to call it, to send me a package, it can use all or some of the monthly allotment, anything not used rolls over. In a month I may only get 1 item that cost 3 dollars, the next month however I might get something for 35. Users of course could choose to turn this on and off.
4. Woot ships me the package via fedex or unicorns, I prefer unicorns, on a random day of the month
5. Bam surprise!
6. ???
7. Profit

Now of course you should be able to choose some options, like I would enable it for both woot.com and shirts.woot.com and maybe even wine.woot.com (man I really want that Bonsai Tree). You would also be able to select types of things, like nothing USB, or Only computer crap, or only kitchen things. That way the surprise is tailored kind of to you. Plus if it it was built around the Pandora method then you could go online and rate your surprise, but maybe on a scale of one to 10 instead of thumbs up and thumbs down. Even if I hated the gift I could give it to someone else and make it their problem.

So Woot, how about it? I’m sure your amazing groups of item description writers could help with the Mrsda system and then I could start getting presents in the mail. Like Tiger Woods would say… Just Do her it!

I’ve been on the dev version of google chrome since 2.x. I don’t mind a few bugs here and there, and for the most part I get to contribute. Since Chrome has finally released extension support there have been a few great ones that I need, and some that just don’t exist yet. I’m gonna go over a few of them here.

1)  
LastPass; Multi browser, multi platform, and the last pass you’ll ever need. This simple to use extension works on nearly every browser, syncs between them all, cloud based so it works on multiple computers, and best of all is free. There is a subscription model for $1 a day. It includes extra features like, iPhone and Android applications, Ad free, and Yubikey support. I hear a Palm WebOS version is in the making. FYI, you should always build secure passwords.

2)
Xmarks; Now that you’re passwords are sync’d you you probably want your bookmarks sync’d across browsers too. Xmarks is your program. Also based on a cloud platform, it allows you to keep your bookmarks sync’d across computers and browsers. As with Lastpass it has a web interface and sharing with friends.

3)

Web of Trust or WOT; is a great extension for finding those shady sites. Now Chrome is great at detecting phishing sites, but WOT extension adds little colored icons next to each link on your search page and gmail. It gives you a better view of sites to just outright avoid. You can also read what others had to say about it.

4)

Adblock; If you’re a Firefox user then you probably know what Adblock is. If not, then it does exactly what its named. Blocks Ads. I however do not use it. I”m sure its a great extension but I like a more system wide approach. I use Privoxy. Its a small application that is basically a pass through proxy, it listens on local host, and you just point your browsers to it. It then filters out anything that passes through it.

5)

Google Quick Scroll; Have you ever been searching for something and you get to a page, but you can’t seem to find it on the page? Here comes Google Quick Scroll to save the day. Basically the way it works is when you click on a link from a Google search page, if relevant enough it dumps to you the right place on the page and shows you a box. Its a great simple little addon, that in my opinion should just be built into the browser. However since there people who use chrome, but don’t use Google search, I could see how this might be a conflict. Anyway back to this plugin, it uses Google’s Magic to decide when the quick box should be shown.  Somehow it does seem to be there when I’m looking for it, and not when I don’t need it.

Misc Extensions:
There are tons of plugins out there, and more every day, The few others I use are;

• Quick Calendar
• Stumble Upon
• Cooliris
• KeyboardNavigation

Call for Development:

So I’ve been thinking about how I’d use the web more and more, I know Chrome is a baby in the Browser war, but its already its approaching its terrible twos and going to wreak havoc all over your virtual house.  I’m sure there is already a plugin for Firefox, but what I’m looking for is an extension that can be a notepad per sites. I already use Chromepad, but its one pad for everything. I would love to be able to put notes per site I’ve visted.

I thought I’d share some Holiday cheer.


1. Challahback Girl 2009 – dj BC

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

2. O Chanukah Dubstep Remix – DJ Flack

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

3. House Of Klezmer – FAROFF

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

4. Nagila What – DJ Flack

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

5. I Want A Gucci Dreidel – ATOM

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

6. Dreidl-Bells – DJ Flack

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

7. Dreidel All The Way – Voicedude

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

8. Hanukkah In Dub – DJ Flack

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

9. Give Da Jew Girl Toys- A+D

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

10. Chankuah Song (dj BC’s Goymix) – Adam Sandler

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Full archive can be found here

Ingredients: Frank Yankovic and His Yanks, Gwen Stefani, House Of Pain, Frank Zappa, Amsterdam Klezmer Band, Pa Brapad, several iterations of The Dreidel Song, several iterations of Hava Nagila, South Park, a dash of Chingy, Adam Sandler, The Star Trek Theme, Van Halen, James Caan, Charlton Heston, Fonzie, Sarah Silverman, Trio, Three Weissmen, Craig and Co, Alan Sherman, Pudie Tadow, and two seconds of Black Eyed Peas. Click here for the printable CD sleeve.

Original Challahback Girl 4-song EP (2005)

Compiled and conceived by dj BC
Original is hosted at http://www.djbc.net/ and http://www.djbc.net/menorah/

I’ve been in the market for an e-reader. I love reading books, but what do you do with them when you’re done? This is pretty much the entire point of this post. Its about sharing books the huge downfall of this LendMe technology. I’ll get into it all in just a minute, but when I’m done reading a book usually I give it away to someone. The sad part is once I do, I no longer own this book. So when someone else I’ve negotiated verbal warfare with has not read a book that I have. I would love to plant said ammunition and get them to join my side. I already gave my book away. I used the word lend in the beginning of this post. No one really lends anyone a book. You usually give it away in the hopes that its going to get passed down to someone else. So onto this new reader I have preordered, the Barnes & Noble Nook.

This device looks fantastic. I’ve been scouting lots of different readers. The kindle looks like something apple made in 1981. The Sony reader looks pretty good, but I played with one in Best Buy and it just was way to big.

So Here is the Nook. Full 3G + Wifi. Not to mention its backed by B&N. Now let me make something clear. I don’t work for B&N, nor have they given me anything. ( I wish they would).

Its not too big, Its not too small. Its got a small color screen at the bottom you can use mostly for navigation. The best thing I think is it runs on android, which means they will issue over the air updates for this device. I’ll be honest I buy books. I know what a concept right? I can’t read them on my computer, nor on my phone.

Navigation seems pretty neat. Includes an onscreen keyboard. I would actually pay a premium if I could use a web browser on this device. I know its not color, in the upper part, but the lower part might be just good enough to browse some pages and read up on Google reader.

Rumor also has it that this thing will be able to get books from Google Books. Thats suppose to be a massive library. I’m not sure how realistic that is since Google wants to do its own book store. Which would directly compete with Barnes & Noble.

The nook has this fantastic feature called LendMe

With our new LendMe™ technology, you can now share from nook to nook. But it doesn’t stop there. Starting Nov. 30th, you can lend to and from any device with the Barnes & Noble eReader app, including PC, Mac OS®, BlackBerry®, iPhone™ and iPod® touch. All you need to know is your friend’s email address. You can lend many of your eBooks one time for a maximum of 14 days. When you use our LendMe™ technology, you will not be able to read your eBook while it is on loan, but you always get it back.

This is a fantastic idea, but severely limited. 14 days? Why not 30? Oh and you can only share a book once. What kind of crap is that? Here is how I think they should change the LendMe service.

1. 30 day lending period
2. Lend the book as many times as you want, with only one lend at a time
3. You can take the book back at any time.
4. If someone lends me a book, Then they take it back. I get notified that I no longer have the book and have the option to buy it right there.
5. The ability to gift a digital book to someone
6. the ability to purchase a book and have it shipped to someone.

I personally would be not only buying books for myself, but I would sometimes buy a book for someone else. I can’t see how publishers are concerned about this. I mean the book is DRM, you can’t copy it. If I lend it to someone I think its only fair that they can use the book. I mean what is the difference if I go purchase a book and give it to someone after I’m done reading it. In the end. I really really hope they change the LendMe program. I think it would be in there best interest to do so. Not to mention I think it would have the same effect that piracy has on music.

Ok so Look at this picture to the left. This was a post titled…

If My Brain Ran Windows, This Would Be How My Task Manager Looks

So this is a great image, however the order is all messed up for me. Food and Drinks are usually important, sex is great. If I had to reorder this it would be as follows

Drink
Play
Sex
Food
Work

So ok, Well there is an issue here, sadly work tends to be first. I love playtime. It doesn’t have to be sexual, just has to be fun, random, and probably a little crazy. Only because if you can’t enjoy life, than what is the point. While I can be the responsible adult that I forced myself to become due to the way I grew up. I am still a kid at heart, and while some people don’t get my sense of humor, I frankly don’t care. If you don’t like me… well I hate you too.