Firefox

• Apple OS X (Firefox 8.0.dmg)
• Microsoft Windows (Firefox Setup 8.0.exe)
• Linux (firefox-8.0.tar.bz2)

• Apple OS X (Firefox 9.0.dmg)
• Microsoft Windows (Firefox Setup 9.0.exe)
• Linux (firefox-9.0.tar.bz2)

You almost can’t go wrong having Sue Sylvester (Glee’s Jane Lynch) and a gang of scrub faced kids engaged in spirited choreography in a book store. The commercial portends to some of the fancy goings on inside Barnes and Noble’s new Nook Tablet.

LOOK AND FEEL

The Nook Tablet looks almost Identical to the Nook Color which came out last year, but it’s a bit lighter (4.6 oz.). The gun-metal beveled edges make it feel a little lighter than the Kindle Fire, and the case has a sturdy feel. A 7″ tablet is the perfect size between phone and laptop, where 10″ tablets just seem over-sized now. No one seems to know what the loop on the left bottom is for (hooking to a belt, hanging up?). I supposed the open corner allows easier access to the SD slot.

Immediately upon turning on the Nook Tablet one gets a nice, full-screen welcome video with an attractive spokes-model who personalizes the experience for you and guides you through some of the basic operations of the device. It’s a nice touch and a great move for settling the fears of a new tablet owner.

There’s a power button on the top left, and volume up and down buttons on the top right.

One must use the supplied Nook charger cable. Even though it looks like a regular mini USB plug, the B&N plug is slightly different. Also, it takes almost 12 hours to get a full charge.

Like the Nook Color, there’s a home button on the front face at the bottom that takes  you to your home page, or pulls up the bottom menu to choose from. The bottom menu conveniently allows you to go home, to the library, applications, to the web, or settings menu — the most-used functions.

The screen is bright, and responsive to the touch, and like most portable devices, the home screen is easily editable so you can add your favorites for quick navigation.

STORE AND APPLICATIONS

The Barnes & Noble store doesn’t have nearly the selection of the Amazon or Android store, but there’s enough to satisfy with games, social networking, and  productivity apps (calendar, notepad, alarms) etc. It’s better organized than the Amazon or iTunes stores, but the prices are not as good.

The store offers books, magazines, periodicals, movies and more,  but some might not feel as comfortable without Amazon’s familiar shopping interface.

USABILITY

The Nook Tablet screen seems to be slightly more responsive than the Kindle. Typing is never easy on a tablet, and the horizontal mode is slightly too big for thumb typing and too narrow vertically for ten-finger typing. The horseshoe shaped home button seems to add an additional complexity to the flow as it adds an extra step which could’ve been handled on-screen (like the Kindle).

On the home screen your favorites don’t seem to ‘snap’ to the grid and that’s probably a setting that’s easily adjusted, but it’s become so ubiquitous on phones and other tablets, you want it to react the same way.

READING

Reading books is a straightforward affair and the pages turn quickly (albeit without the familiar Kindle page-turn animation).  I had a little trouble navigating the menu and had to go back to the user’s guide to determine how to add a bookmark (tap top right corner).

The magazines in particular show beautiful resolution pictures (National Geographic’s top-notch photography was a good example)  and it’s less choppy than the Kindle’s magazine interface. Book reading is similar to the Kindle, though it might take a little while to get used to the nuanced differences in navigation.

MOVIES AND TV

Movies from Netflix or TV shows from Hulu stream seamlessly with a good WiFi connection, and for personal viewing with good headphones, it’s a treat. Long car rides (as a passenger of course), airport terminals, work commutes are perfect for quickly firing up downloaded episodes and catching up on streaming documentaries.

BROWSER

I found the Nook browser to be just as responsive as the Kindle.

Though Amazon boasts about its Silk browser with its caching capabilities, I didn’t notice any difference.  It remains to be seen if the Silk browser experiences a boost in speed after culling information from all the new Silk users.

STORAGE

Unlike the Kindle, the Nook Tablet comes with an external SD storage (expandable to 32Gb) for additional content.

Here’s the kicker. Natively, the Nook has 13Gb of storage, but 12Gb of it is RESERVED (!) for B&N-only content. You only get 1Gb to store your own images, audio, movies and unlike Amazon, there’s no cloud storage.

CONCLUSION

No one will confuse the Barnes’ and Noble ($249) Nook Tablet for an iPad, but as a content delivery mechanism that fits into a jacket pocket or purse, it might be the perfect solution for many between phone and laptop. It seems to do the job slightly better than the Amazon Kindle Fire.

SPECIFICATIONS

Height: 8.1 inches
Width: 5.0 inches
Depth: 0.48 inches
Weight: 14.1 ounces1

• 7-inch VividView™ Color Touchscreen
• 16 million+ colors, IPS2 display
• High resolution display—1024 X 600, 169 pixels per inch (PPI)
• Fully laminated with no air gaps for remarkable clarity and reduced reflection & glare-read indoors or outside

Adjustable Fonts

• 8 text sizes, 6 font styles, change background colors, line and margin spacing
• Look-up words in the built-in Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate® Dictionary, Eleventh Edition

Web and Email

• Supports Adobe® Flash® Player3
• Check & send email  (i.e., POP and IMAP webmail, including Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail, AOL and others)
• Parental controls to disable the Web browser
• Wireless connectivity via Wi-Fi® (802.11b/g/n)
• FREE Wi-Fi® in all Barnes & Noble stores

Microphone

• Record narration for kids’ Read and Record™ books

Supported File Types

• Loads EPUB (including Adobe DRM or DRM free) or PDF file types from your computer or microSD card
• Other documents: XLS, DOC, PPT, TXT, DOCM, XLSM, PPTM, PPSX, PPSM, DOCX, XLX, PPTX
• Watch videos in MP4, or Adobe Flash Player format, 3GP, 3G2 MKV, WEBM (Video Codecs: H.264, MPEG-4, H.263, VP8)
• Supports Netflix video up to 720p and sideloaded video up to 1080p; renders at 1024 x 600
• Load photos and create personal wallpaper: JPG, GIF, PNG, BMP
• Play audio on built-in mono speaker: MP3, MP4, AAC, AMR, WAV, OGG (Audio Codecs MP3, AAC, AMR, LPCM, OGG Vorbis)
• 1GHz TI OMAP4 (dual-core) processor with 1GB RAM
• Up to 11.5 hours of reading or 9 hours of video without recharging5
• Installed rechargeable battery
• Charge from a wall outlet using the in-box Power Adapter and USB Cable (charging time: approximately 3 hours from wall outlet)

Memory

Hold thousands of books, songs, videos, photos, & more

• 16 GB6 (up to 10,000 books) built-in memory (13 GB for content; 12 GB reserved for B&N content)
• Add up to 32GB with microSD™7 memory card

Pre-Loaded NOOK Apps™

• Netflix, Hulu Plus, Pandora® internet radio, Chess, Crossword, Sudoku, Media Gallery, NOOK Friends™, Email

In the Box

• NOOK Tablet
• USB Cable
• Quick Start Guide
• Power Adapter
• Rechargeable Battery (installed)

Connectors

• Universal 3.5 mm stereo headphone jack
• Charging port
• Expandable microSD8 slot

Read the Kindle Fire review

In his 1899 story When the Sleeper Wakes, H.G. Wells wrote about what he called a babble machine, a machine that would read a book or the news aloud.
Douglas Adam’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy; also described a machine that would display read books out loud in 1976.

Ford pressed a large red button at the bottom of the screen and words began to undulate across it. At the same time, the book began to speak the entry as well in a still quiet measured voice. This is what the book said…

My favorite example was Neal Stephenson’s 1995 The Diamond Age: Or, A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer in which he referred to a multimedia book-size device (a supercomputer built with nanotechnology) that urged the user to expand their horizons to lead a more fulfilling and meaningful live by suggesting text, speeches or movies.

I can’t say if the Kindle Fire, will prompt you to read Chaucer over Dan Brown, or watch Masterpiece Theater over Family Guy, but whichever you choose, the experience should be fairly enjoyable. It can even read text out loud to you.

LOOK AND FEEL
On first meeting the Kindle Fire, I notice the sleek black case, it’s glossy glass face, and feel the heaviness of the weight (a full 14.6 oz). The glass scares me because it seems so fragile, but actually it’s Corning’s Gorilla Glass, and is not likely to break even if dropped!
At 7” it doesn’t fit in my hand as comfortably as I’d like, but others with larger hands might find it comfortable to hold in one. The entire unit is dark and the screen seems to expand to the outer edges of the bevelled case. It’s not as sleekly designed and an iPad, and doesn’t have the sexy futuristic edges of the new Razr, but at $199 it may be THE unit for many users.

USABILITY AND FUNCTIONALITY
Since I’m interested in design and usability, I didn’t look at the manual and searched for a power button (or any button for that matter). There are two ports at the top which I later found out were speaker ports and there’s only one button on the entire unit. The power button is on the bottom, next to the micro-USB port, and the audio output.

After turning it on I got and with the familiar screen swipe (indicated by the orange arrow), I was able to unlock it and was greeted by a sharp home screen graphic, and a nice visual guide with instruction bubbles to the most used functions.
The game was on.

Based on the brief visual guide, I found my way to the home button, the back icon, search icon and list view.
The interface is not nearly as intuitive as an iPad, and a nice opening video tour of the unit (like B&N’s Nook) would’ve been nice, both to train you in the movements that operate the technology contained therein (I’m thinking of my mother trying to use this for the first time without little instruction), as well as to demonstrate the audio and video capabilities.

DISPLAY
The Kindle Fire has a stunning display (IPS LCD) with excellent resolution (1024-by-600 pixel display) which is higher than both the iPad or Motorola Xoom per inch! It might benefit from a non-glare screen protector at times, and possibly too bright (and heavy) for late-night reading. I still can’t help wondering if it would help to have an intro video to show the functionality that would draw the new tablet user in and personalize the experience of owning your (possibly) first tablet.

APPLICATIONS
Access to the applications is speedy (thanks to the dual-core Texas Instruments OMAP 4 processor), and it came preloaded with Hulu, Netflix, Facebook, and a few other core applications. It is primarily a reader, though I think I’d switch to my e-ink Kindle if I was going to read for more than an hour or two. The bright screen might strain the eyes too much and the weight of the Kindle Fire is significantly more than the e-ink version.
The Kindle Fire comes with 512Mb of RAM and 8GB of non-expandable storage which might be a significant turn-off for people who want to store lots of their own content, movies, and music on their new Kindle fire. For most people, however, this will be plenty of storage. Additionally, Amazon is pretty much giving away cloud storage for your own docs and content you’ve downloaded from Amazon, so maybe the expandable storage isn’t so crucial. Amazon is betting on it!

The battery life boasts 8 hours of reading and 7.5 of video, and as always, it is suggested to ‘condition’ the battery to augment battery life to its fullest.

CONNECTIVITY
I’m accustomed to surfing the Internet with my Android phone regardless of whether I’m near a WiFi hotspot or not, so, it’s a little frustrating to be out of range or get on the bus with the Kindle Fire. In those cases, without 3G I’m pretty much lost for retrieving any remote content. I do, however, always have my books and magazines to read, music to listen to, and games to play, but it changes my use of the Kindle significantly. I suppose I could tether the Kindle Fire to my Droid’s mobile hotspot.

The Silk browser that comes installed loads fairly quickly, and handles Flash video nicely. Because Amazon caches a lot of content to the cloud it should ostensibly get faster while not jamming up the on-board cache with a lot of detritus.
In addition to surfing the Internet on the bus to work, or in the car (while my wife is driving of course), I’d love to be able to take an occasional picture. Unfortunately, there is no camera on the Kindle Fire. I’d like to be able to use a tablet to Skype with family or work colleagues, and as a musician, to record and possibly even mix audio that I may want to upload to Amazon’s cloud. I could do neither with the Fire as there is no mic input.
I doubt you could use this unit as an ersatz mini-laptop (as some users do with the iPad using an extension keyboard). It natively supports reading PDFs and Docx (Doc) formatted files, but there are not any applications in the Amazon Market for any office-type apps to create or edit files.

CONTENT
Amazon Prime members can enjoy thousands of movies and TV shows through Amazon Instant Video at no additional cost as well as pay-per-view movies. You can also choose from millions of books (thousands of them free) — including more than 100 current and former New York Times Bestsellers — to borrow and read, as well as a book a month with no due dates, from the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library.

VALUE
At $200 the Kindle Fire is about 40% of the price of the least expensive iPad (about $600), and it’s not as elegant or nearly as robust. Amazon is surely losing money on the production cost of the Kindle Fire ($50 per unit), but they are counting on selling you all types of content. Beyond books and music, Amazon has a fairly large appstore, though nowhere as big as Apple’s app store which offers hundreds of thousands of apps available at or even the equally voluminous Android store offerings. If you become an Amazon Prime member ($79 per year), you will get access to loads of free content.
The Kindle Fire may not be for everyone, but if you want an affordable e-book reader, that’s practically a full-blown mini-tablet, you probably won’t find anything better.

Read the review of the Barnes and Noble Nook

$ md5sum hbooteng.nb0
6991368ee2deaf182048a3ed9d3c0fcb
$

list all connected devices

# adb devices
List of devices attached
HTXXXXXXXXXX	device
#

reboots the device into the bootloader

# adb reboot bootloader
#

list all connected devices

# fastboot devices
HTXXXXXXXXXX	fastboot
#

create bootimage and flash it (unlock permanent hboot and flash temporary hboot)

# fastboot oem mw 8d08ac54 1 31302E30
... OKAY
#

create bootimage and flash it (flashing new hboot)

# fastboot flash hboot hbooteng.nb0
sending 'hboot' (1024 KB)... OKAY
writing 'hboot'... OKAY
#

flash only one (current), order is a must!

2.11.605.9 (current)

$ md5 PG05IMG_no_hboot_2.11.605.9.zip MD5 (PPG05IMG_no_hboot_2.11.605.9.zip) = 3e189b6c85ea7da1e26e12a5cd7b1ab0
$ adb push PG05IMG_no_hboot_2.11.605.9.zip /mnt/sdcard

$ md5 PG05IMG_hboot_ONLY_2.11.605.9.zip MD5 (PG05IMG_hboot_ONLY_2.11.605.9.zip) = d26b3253358407d459c654e6729a39ca
$ adb push PG05IMG_hboot_ONLY_2.11.605.9.zip /mnt/sdcard

2.11.605.5 (old)

$ md5 PG05IMG_2.11.605.5_NO_HBOOT.zip MD5 (PG05IMG_2.11.605.5_NO_HBOOT.ZIP) = b7ebb0b208f704c84f1224de16e61a8e
$ adb push PG05IMG_2.11.605.5_NO_HBOOT.zip /mnt/sdcard

$ md5 PG05IMG_2.11.605.5_HBOOT_ONLY.zip MD5 (PG05IMG_2.11.605.5_HBOOT_ONLY.ZIP) = e6df3ae14523508868dc811ecc5d4b07
$ adb push PG05IMG_2.11.605.5_HBOOT_ONLY.zip /mnt/sdcard

[HOW TO]return to stock (gingerbread) from revolutionary or normal hboot(11/2/11) – xda-developers

Failed to load JavaHL Library.
These are the errors that were encountered:
no libsvnjavahl-1 in java.library.path
no svnjavahl-1 in java.library.path
no svnjavahl in java.library.path
java.library.path = .:/Library/Java/Extensions:/System/Library/Java/Extensions:/usr/lib/java

Solution:

mp:~ alexus$ ls -l /Library/Java/Extensions/libsvnjavahl-1.jnilib
lrwxr-xr-x  1 root  admin  40 Nov 12 00:20 /Library/Java/Extensions/libsvnjavahl-1.jnilib -> /opt/subversion/lib/libsvnjavahl-1.dylib
mp:~ alexus$ ls -l /opt/subversion/lib/libsvnjavahl-1.dylib
lrwxr-xr-x  1 alexus  wheel  22 Nov 12 00:20 /opt/subversion/lib/libsvnjavahl-1.dylib -> libsvnjavahl-1.0.dylib
mp:~ alexus$ ls -l /opt/subversion/lib/libsvnjavahl-1.0.dylib
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root  admin  663784 Aug 26 11:48 /opt/subversion/lib/libsvnjavahl-1.0.dylib
mp:~ alexus$

subclipse: Download and Install

# ./revolutionary-0.4pre4
| Revolutionary S-OFF & Recovery Tool 0.4pre4 |
 =============================================
    Brought to you by AlphaRev & unrEVOked.

Waiting for device...
Found your device: ADR6400L (mecha-1.05.0000, Android: 2.3.4, ROM version: 2.11.605.5)

This is a beta release and requires a beta release key.
Please visit: http://revolutionary.io for more information.

Enter beta key [ serial: XXXXXXXXXXXX ]: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Beta key accepted - thank you for participating!

Zerging Root... this might take a minute or so.. Root acquired!
Sending in Caroline...
Cleaning up...
Rebooting to fastboot...
When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!
Waiting for fastboot...
Rebooting to fastboot (Once moar...)
SUCCESS - Life gave us lemons, we didn't make lemonade!

Do you want to download (Internet connection required) and flash ClockworkMod Recovery? [Y/n] 

Downloading recovery for your phone (mecha)...Done.
Flashing recovery over fastboot...SUCCESS!
#

additional information at following link: public:revolutionary [RootWiki]

Alternative way to flash ClockworkMod Recovery:

# ./fastboot flash recovery cwm-4.0.1.4-mecha.img
sending 'recovery' (4446 KB)... OKAY
writing 'recovery'... OKAY
#

Android & Windows Phone: Tablets, Apps, & ROMs @ xda-developers

• iOS 5.0.1 (9A405)

  iPhone4,1_5.0.1_9A405_Restore.ipsw - iPhone 4S
  iPhone3,1_5.0.1_9A405_Restore.ipsw - iPhone 4 GSM (AT&T)
  iPhone3,3_5.0.1_9A405_Restore.ipsw - iPhone 4 CDMA (Verizon)
  iPhone2,1_5.0.1_9A405_Restore.ipsw - iPhone 3GS
  iPad2,1_5.0.1_9A405_Restore.ipsw - iPad2 (WiFi)
  iPad2,2_5.0.1_9A405_Restore.ipsw - iPad2 (GSM)
  iPad2,3_5.0.1_9A405_Restore.ipsw - iPad2 (CDMA)
  iPad1,1_5.0.1_9A405_Restore.ipsw - iPad

• iOS 5.0 (9A334)

  iPhone3,1_5.0_9A334_Restore.ipsw - iPhone4 (AT&T/GSM)
  iPhone3,3_5.0_9A334_Restore.ipsw - iPhone4 (Verizon/CDMA)
  iPhone2,1_5.0_9A334_Restore.ipsw - iPhone3GS
  iPad2,1_5.0_9A334_Restore.ipsw - iPad2 (WiFi)
  iPad2,2_5.0_9A334_Restore.ipsw - iPad2 (GSM)
  iPad2,3_5.0_9A334_Restore.ipsw - iPad2 (CDMA)
  iPad1,1_5.0_9A334_Restore.ipsw - iPad

• 1.03.605.10
• 1.05.605.00
• 1.07.605.3
• 1.08.605.1
• 1.10.605.3
• 1.12.605.0
• 1.12.605.6
• 1.13.605.7
• 1.66.605.2
• 1.68.605.3
• 1.70.605.0

• Gingerbread (2.3.x)

• 2.01.605.0

• CDMA – 1.39.00.0430 (MD5: cdeec570feba2798fd7b7780ad19ebf0)
• LTE – 0.01.69.0501 (MD5: 704fb7c18d6a9b6b917b885ae098e580)

• 2.07.605.0

• CDMA – 1.46.00.0704 (MD5: a9e6e712b0556d8e702da21788f04da9)
• LTE – 0.01.76.0703_2 (MD5: 08f21245944acc304723bce27998dc40)

• 2.10.605.1

• CDMA – 1.48.00.0726 (MD5: 704404fd7a7bd0958936a32527c06172)
• LTE – 0.01.78.0802 (MD5: d77c7fee8bb598c20d5d37f4a2e28d48)

• 2.11.605.0

• CDMA – 1.48.00.0817 (MD5: 71a8839b30882e238f6b68f9bd91b45b)
• LTE - 0.01.78.0802 (MD5: d77c7fee8bb598c20d5d37f4a2e28d48)

• 2.11.605.2

• CDMA – 1.48.00.0817 (MD5: 71a8839b30882e238f6b68f9bd91b45b)
• LTE - 0.01.78.0802 (MD5: d77c7fee8bb598c20d5d37f4a2e28d48)

• 2.11.605.3

• CDMA – 1.48.00.906 (MD5: c6a5a9eee78e0f33267fa80ced3c49b8)
• LTE – 0.01.78.906 (MD5: 6f33809cf2253c38a3c6bb970f030eee)

• 2.11.605.5

• CMDA - 1.48.00.906 (MD5: c6a5a9eee78e0f33267fa80ced3c49b8)
• LTE - 0.01.78.906 (MD5: 6f33809cf2253c38a3c6bb970f030eee)

• 2.X.X.X

• CDMA – 1.48.00.0930w_3 (MD5:)
• LTE – 0.01.78.0916w_3 (MD5:)

Format USB Flash Memory with NTFS filesystem instead of FAT/FAT32.

• screen shot from now (current)

• Select properties of your USB Flash Memory USB Device
• Follow by Selecting “Hardware” tab
• Then selecting your USB Flash Memory USB Device and hit “Properties“

• Select “Policies” tab
• Change from “Optimize for quick removal” to “Optimize for performance“

• hit “OK” and if you try to format your drive you’ll have an option of NTFS