Nook: Shutdown image hack

By default, when you power off the Nook reader (long-clicking the power button) the eInk display will be set with an all-white image (i.e. no image at all).
As you probably already know, a nice eInk display feature is that they don't need any power to display any kind of image: the power is only needed during page transitions. Therefore it is possible to let the Nook display any given image when it is powered off without any effect on battery life.
Unfortunately, this (pretty useless, i admit; it is just "for fun") feature is not present on original Nook firmware, so i decided to implement it with a small modification of firmware (actually, of an android system library).

More details and download on this page.

Nook: updated version 1.2 of Font Hack available

The new version 1.2 of Font Hack for Nook is available.
This version fixes a small bug that prevented the right indication of the currently used font in Preferences Menu of Epub Reader application.
Moreover, now if the file "name of the font.fontname" is imissing, the label "unknown font X" is used as font name instead of the corresponding default font of Nook, so to avoid possible ambiguities.

Further details and downloads in this page of the blog.

Nook Screensaver set: Piranesi - Carceri d'Invenzione

A nice feature of Nook (and, indeed, of many other ebook readers) is the possibility of using custom screensaver.
Actually, there would be no need for using a screensaver on an eInk display (on the other end, they also don't have almost any side effect, even on battery life); so its only function is just to let you enjoy nice pictures!

I created a screensaver set collecting the famous and beautiful series of (16) prints The Prisons ("Carceri d'Invenzione") by the Italian artist Giovanni Battista Piranesi; the images are converted and optimized for usage on Nook (and any other eInk reader with display size of 800x600 px).
Some samples of the image set:


You can download the entire set here.

The installation on Nook is pretty simple and could be done on any (either stock or root) firmware version. Simply unzip the archive and copy the folder containing the 16 images into folder "my screensaver" of the internal SD drive of Nook (of course, after connecting the Nook to a PC through USB). Then config this screensaver on Nook clicking, starting from Home screen: Settings -> Display -> Screensaver -> "Piranesi - Carceri d'Invenzione".

Source images of Piranesi prints from here.

Nook: How to use any font in ePub reader

The ePub reader application of Nook provide the feature of choosing one of the 3 font families included (i.e.: Amasis, Helvetica Neue, Light Classic).
But there are many reasons why one would have the chance of using other fonts for viewing his own ePub documents:

• the standard fonts are not able to correctly render all the characters used in some languages (for instance, eastern-europe languages based on Cyrillic alphabet);
• you may find more readable, or simply like more, other fonts;
• you just want to have full control on any geek gadget you own.

You can find the complete procedure here.