Technology Makes Life Better?

"NEW!" "GOTTA HAVE!" "YOU NEED THIS!"

Of course, advertising is going to try to make a product seem better than it is. And, truthfully, when I got my new toy, I knew (but didn't believe it could happen to me) it could have problems, as most new electronics have bugs that need to be worked out. But I was anxious to have it make my life better, like it is supposed to.

What is my new toy, you ask? I got a nook. It's an e-reader, made by Barnes and Nobel. I had been looking to get an e-reader for a while, I did my research, I compared pros and cons, and finally decided to take the plunge. I justified my purchase by the money it would save me. E-books are usually cheaper than the actual book (at least, hardbacks), and I could save all the documents I had to read for school (mostly pdfs) on it to read, and not have to print.

I've had my nook for 4 months now, and don't use it much. I did put most of last semesters articles on it, but you can't change the size of print of most pdfs, so the print was VERY small and hard to read. I also wanted the scriptures so I wouldn't have to carry them to my religion class. But there isn't an e-version that's actually made for the nook, so the formatting is off. If you want to read them straight through like a story, great, but if you want to look anything up, tough. The references are all messed up, and the verses aren't all separated right. Now all those books I'd like to read, they're still more expensive than the paperbacks would be. And, since if I'm going to buy a book, I usually wait a year or so until it comes out on paperback anyway, the e-version wouldn't save me any money at all. Not to mention, if it's a book from a series I already have been buying, I want the actual book to complete the series. Then, if it's a book I want my kids to be able to read and reread, I want the actual book to pass around. So, how many books have I read since February? About 30. How many of those are on my nook? About 3.

The real problem, though, has been the nook software. It has crashed more than a dozen times. I've spent countless hours on the phone with tech support trying to get it working again. At one point, they shipped me a new nook, but the second one has crashed several times, as well. Finally, I'm told the latest software update is supposed to have fixed the crashing issues, and will continue to work. I'm crossing my fingers. I haven't yet read a full book on it since then, but when I have read, the battery doesn't seem to be lasting as long. Maybe that's a trade off for the new features: my kids are loving that you can now play games on the nook, sudoku and chess.