So I have a Nook Color.  (What?  You thought this was going to be about something else?)

It’s fine as an e-reader.  However, I watched several youtube videos and discovered it could be so much more!!  Like an android tablet, minus the android price tag if I could just figure out what an android does and how to do something called “rooting.”

I am woefully under-skilled and waaaaay behind in tech lingo.  Way.  I don’t own a smart phone, I still carry a razor flip phone.  I have never texted in my life.  So with those enviable credentials I deemed myself qualified and set to work.

Once I figured out what the word “root” means (that’s right I said it!) my next step was to define “android.”

And I am still not clear exactly where the ‘android’ term falls in tech land.  For instance, internet explorer is a web browser, windows an operating system…so what exactly is android?  Is it also an operating system but for phones/tablets?

I dunno, and turns out it doesn’t matter too much just so long as you pick the RIGHT one.

I read/heard/watched a lot about Honeycomb.  Besides making me hungry for some cereal, I also read rooting the Nook to Honeycomb isn’t a good idea.  Something about Honeycomb not being a full version…everything after that was just blah blah blah.  But I figured if I was going to do this, it should be with the full version of something I don’t really understand yet, and not some fly by night half-er (or whatever) version.  See?  Tech.  Savy.

Then there was Gingerbread, but I didn’t delve into it.  Anything named after a food can’t be good for electronics.  (Which begs the question…what was B&N thinking?  The Nookie??  lol)

So I found another android (whatever-category) called CM7 (now THAT is a proper, serious sounding technology!)  Except after reading the instructions, and watching the install on youtube, decided this rooting thing is probably not a good idea.  It voids my warranty, and frankly, there’s the very real possibility I will screw it up.

So I set it aside for a few weeks.  But Netflix called to me.  I saw myself so cool, so modern, sitting in Panera Bread watching The Tudors on my hacked Nook color.

“Yes, I did actually hack it myself.  It was soooo easy.”

(Ok not really.  I just want to watch it while I sit in bed occasionally, and maybe at the gym.)

Once again I searched (i.e. googled and youtubed) until I discovered putting CM7 on a SD card.  This keeps the original Nook software alone, therefore keeping the warranty, and the Nook-turned-Android Tablet runs off the card.  WOO HOO!!

The directions, no matter which version, were so simple.  (To read at least.)

All it takes is a micro SD card and a few easily downloaded programs/images.  (You buying this?)

Here are some things I learned during this process:

• No matter how easy the installation looks on youtube, and in written form, it’s NOT.  You can’t get there from here!
• If it is supposed to take 10 minutes, it will really take at least that many hours
• Firewalls, security, and auto-backup are not your friend.  (Sure they save your computer from all kinds of evil, but they take such JOY in screwing up downloads and stuff!!)
• You need special programs to zip, unzip, capture blah blah blah, for just about every step of the process… (Winrar, winimage, etc)  And if you let these programs self-install, it takes FOREVER to figure out how to turn them off so they don’t unzip every file on your SD card for instance (which leaves you with no space!)!
• Android forums are pretty much useless to the layman; fairly Greek to the less-than-layman
• There is a difference  between a micro SD card and a mini SD card.  (Don’t ask me, one fits the other doesn’t.)
• A micro SD card is practically impossible to find if you drop it between the couch cushions.
• There is also apparently a “quality” difference within micro SD cards.  (who knew?  Musta lucked out on that one; mine works)
• When you’re given multiple ways to do something..find someone who seems to speak your language, at your level.  I really liked this girl because her youtube video tutorials were only a couple steps above my head.  (“This is an SD slot.”)  Despite her “easy” to understand directions, it still took me about 15 hours.  (Yes I‘m bragging!)  As opposed to this guy….

After many hours and much grumbling…I FINALLY did it.  That’s right!  I turned my Nook Color into an Android Tablet!  WOO HOO!!!!

Fear my skills. 

Fear.  Them.

Now I just have to figure out how to use it.

After an hour to figure out that touching and scooting the phone/earth icon brought up the 4 squares which take you to android market, I was off and sputtering.

Sort of.

Next step?

Backing up the Nook Color. 

But frankly I dunno if I care enough about that information to go through such an easy and fast process again.

It’s beneath my ability.