Fat Glowworm - using your SD card as storage for your BN downloaded and other content on the nook simple touch and nook glowworm

I just threw together a quick hack for using your sdcard to store your library without rooting your glowworm or nook simple touch.

Many folks feel that the Nook Touch and Nook glowworm just don't have enough storage.  I've repartitioned my unit so I have ~ 1 gig of onboard storage, but for folks with hundreds of books, that's actually not enough storage. 

It turns out that you can very easily (three commands) tell your Nook device "hey, use this directory for storing files from BN, willya?" - and that directory can be your sdcard.  (This approach will also work on the Tablet and Color devices;  however, enhanced magazines probably won't work using this approach.)

In addition to lots more storage, you now also can manage everything on your device using Calibre. 

I've written a flashable script for doing this - you do not need to be rooted to use this script! 

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?physd5t39dxfenx

In order to use it, you must download the "clockwork recovery" disk image as described here.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1360994

I have detailed instructions for working with those files posted here:

http://nookworks.blogspot.com/2011/05/clean-12-install.html

(stop at "Once you've made the disk" and come back)

Drop the file sdcard-symlink.zip file, still zipped, on that disk.  Power off your nook touch.  Put the disk in and power on.  You will boot from the disk.

Navigate up and down with the righthand buttons;  navigate back with the lefthand upper button;  choose an item or run a command using the raised n button.

Navigate down to "install zip file from sdcard" and hit N
Hit N again to "Choose Zip File from SDcard"
Navigate down to sdcard-symlink.zip and hit the n button
navigate to "yes - install symlink-sdcard.zip"

Once the program has run, use the upper left button to navigate back to where "reboot system now" is highlighted.

Eject the disk, then reboot.

Put in your own SD card as the boot process starts (do NOT use the card you made here for storing your library;  every time you restart your device, you will find yourself booting into clockwork!)

Improvements by others  most welcome!  : )

I agree that requiring the sdcard to be around is hinky, but the advantage to it is that it expands the capacity for storage a HUGE amount and I don't know how to do the resize commands from CWR - and if I did, the most we'd have available when we were done would be around 1-1.2 gigabytes.

The hack is nondestructive, and in fact could be set up to be reversed (as my noshopnobrowse hack is reversible.)

I just applied to the glowworm, and it does work.

If the glowworm is booted without an SD card, it boots fine.

The library launches fine and displays what the library thinks it should have in it.

However, the library doesn't have any of that stuff in it (unless you also have sideloads on your device) and cannot download any of that stuff, since its /data/media directory is missing.

So, this is a fix for the onboard storage limit that redirects ALL downloads to your card.

If you don't have a card or your card gets borked, you will need to buy a new one (or reverse the hack)

Keeping your NC at 1.2 (or 1.3)

Udated June 2012 to block 1.4.3. I just made a custom build.prop file and packaged it as a flashable file and am using the prior reversion zipfile.

Barnes and Noble has released OS 1.4.1 for the Nook Color, a nice update to the Nook OS. Landscape mode, promised for a year, has arrived.

Unfortunately, as of now, 1.4.1 is not usefully rootable so those of us who've gotten used to having our NCs set up just so will lose that configuration if we update. If you are running 1.2 or 1.3 stock and prefer not to update (some folks don't like the new home button behavior) this approach will work for you, also.

I created a build.prop file which can be installed via Clockwork to block the over the air update. Basically, you tell BN you're running 1.4.2 already when your NC phones home.

To be clear: you boot once from CWR and run the install script. You remove the CWR card and reboot normally. You have not rooted your device using this process, but copied in one file to a part of your NC that you can't reach from your computer.

So, how do you do this?

You will need:

- a microSD card
- a copy of the Clockwork Recovery disk image
- copies of both of build.prop zip files, from

http://www.mediafire.com/?6sos4y0z3sappj1 (1.4.3-preserve.prop.zip)

http://www.mediafire.com/?qbc7kycx9b95eku (restorebuild.prop.zip)

- a disk imaging tool such as diskimag (or use dd for mac/linux)
- a good zip tool - I recommend 7zip.

Leave the files zipped.

The Clockwork Recovery disk image is available here

http://legacyschool.us.to/nookdev/clockwork/0.7/

Download the file that matches the size of your SD card (the 128 M file requires a 256 M card - I've never gotten it to fit on a 128M card.)

First, make the card:

Step 1: Make a bootable CWR disk.

Completely unpack the CWR file you downloaded. You must use a file whose name ends in .img. as your source for making the disk. The files I am pointing to for downloading end in .tar.gz, and are essentially "double compressed."

gz = gzip. 7Zip, an excellent cross-platform compression utility, can decompress these, leaving you with a file whose extenion is .tar

.tar = unix tape archive. 7Zip, an excellent cross-platform compression utility, can extract files from these.

Once you've unzipped and untarred the file, you should have an .img file (sized appropriately for your SD card. You will need at least a 256 M card, but I prefer to use larger cards so I can also store backups on them.)

Use an imaging program (diskimag or winimage or dd for mac or linux) to make a bootable SD card by "writing" the .img file to your SD card.

This erases all the data on that card.

The card is analogous to a bootable disk for your PC (remember boot floppies?) The program formats the card and write a very few files to it. Those files tell the Nook Color "you can boot from me. Once booted, run Clockwork Recovery."

After you make the disk, leave it mounted on your computer.

Copy both of the zip files onto your CWR card. Leave them zipped!

Safely remove the card from your computer. Power down your Nook Color and insert the CWR card. Power on, and you will boot into Clockwork Recovery, which is controlled using the volume and power buttons to go up and down in menus (volume) or back (power.) An action is chosen using the N button on your NC.

go to "Install Zip from SDcard. " Use the "manually select" option and install 1.3.2-preserve.prop.zip.

Hit the power button to go back to "reboot," remove the card from the slot, and reboot.

When and if you are ready to update to 1.4.2, you can use the second file, restorebuild.prop.zip, to restore your old build.prop. Be sure you have not formatted
your device before trying this; NCs with no build.prop are not bootable and are easiest
to fix via a full restore.

If you want to, you can use this technique in conjunction with a restore to "lock" your
OS at a restore point pre-1.4.2 -- if, for instance, you like the old touchscreen activation more than the button-based activation as many do. http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifhttp://www.blohttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifgger.com/img/blank.gif

To do so, you would follow the instructions for doing a clean install - formatting /system, /data and /cache being key - and then install the preferred OS.

and then you would apply the preserve zip, or if you have the 1.3 updater, you
could do a clean 1.2 install, then update that to 1.3, then lock that down.

It turns out there is also a flashable 1.3 installation file available, which you can use to go directly to 1.3 following the same process as for 1.2.

The file lives at http://www.multiupload.com/BW8FIEJ2GH

and I have never used it myself.

Information security and digital rights management

Information security is a triangle: availability, confidentiality, integrity.

Digital Rights Management damages the security of your information. You lose control over availability and integrity in order to deliver confidentiality to the vendor of your files. You have to trust that the DRM-ified files you paid for can be accessed again. If you lose access to the email account the files tie back to, this can be very hard. (I recently lost access without notice to an address that had been stable for >10 years.)

Other examples of availability issues are in the context of the Nook devices. Barnes and Noble promised and failed to deliver a landscape reading mode on the nook color for more than a year. For most of us, this is simply an annoyance. For some folks with chronic pain conditions, however, the lack of a landscape mode on the NC substantially impacts the availability of their BN library on the device. If they are able to use a reader that does support landscape, availability is restored.  More recently, buyers of the Nook Touch products found that their devices could not access their libraries of paid content for more than two weeks, while mysterious demons were exorcised from the BN servers. 

There is a great set of people studying just how much confidentiality the vendors and publishers actually get by imposing DRM on us; the answer is 'not so much, really.' Apprentice Alf's blog is a great starting point.

The tools discussed there let you manage the availability and integrity of your data for yourself. You owe it to your ebook vendors to maintain confidentiality -- but you owed them that to start with, and it was in the agreement as you purchased the books.

With that said, then, I want to give readers a look at using Calibre and various DRM management tools to regain control of their security.

Start by downloading the Nook app for your computer.

Sync it with your library.

It creates a folder in your Documents folder:

C:\Users\your-user-name\Documents\My Barnes & Noble eBooks\your-email-address

All of your BN books live there.

If you have an Amazon account, install the Kindle app on your PC.

Sync it.

It creates a folder, too:

C:\Users\your-user-name\Documents\My Kindle Content

Now, install a free program called Calibre on your PC. You can use it to manage ebooks on many devices, and it knows a lot about Nooks (both the color and monochrome models.)

Download it from here: http://calibre-ebook.com (it's free.)

Download a file called "tools_5.3.1.zip" 

Only download the file - I see that the site offering the file now offers it directly or via  'download manager,' so untick the 'download manager' tickbox.  At best download managers are a hindrance.  

The file changes its name and URL as it is updated;  if the link is out of date, by all means let me know but also take a look at Apprentice Alf's blog, which ordinarily has the current information.  

To read more of the details on this file, and think more about security, access, and digital rights management generally, take a look at

http://apprenticealf.wordpress.com/2010/02/11/hello-world/

Unzip tools_4.7 , and remember where you put it. Don't unzip the files inside it, though.

Launch Calibre. The first time you launch it, tell it what kind of e-reader you have.



Now, from inside Calibre, you need to add the DRM plugins to the mix. There are quite a few, but the process is basically the same: rowse to the folder you unzipped tools to, and find the Calibre Plugins folder. Add the ones you want; read the readme files to see if there are additional notes.



Hit Preferences



Hit plugins. The "Miscellaneous" button is helpful at a different stage.



Hit load plugin from file - you need to browse to the files that were inside the tools you downloaded. The zipped files need to remain zipped for Calibre to reconize them.





If there are no visible files here, it means the internal zips accidentally got unzipped.

Once you click on "open" you'll get a couple of dialogs.



You'll have to decide for yourself if you trust the files. The files I've linked to contain complete source code, and I think people would be singing out if they were risky.

If and when you choose to install these plugins, returning back to the main plugins screen, you'll see the new items in Formats:



Once you have loaded the k4mobi plugin and installed the Kindle app on your system, you are ready to begin reading and managing books you can read in the Kindle app in Calibre as well. Just drop the book files (azw, at least) onto the library pane in Calibre and give it a few moments to import them. If you have an e-reader that prefers epub over azw or mobi, when you connect it and use Calibre to push a file onto it, Calibre will offer to convert it automatically.

Nook content

To manage content from BN, there is manual configuration needed, and you have a decision to make. The simplest way to unlock content from BN is by storing your name and your credit card number on your computer. The alternative is to read Apprentice Alf carefully, install Python and the Python crypto system, and use the "ignoblekeygen.py" tool to create a fake token that your computer can use to open your books.

Many people, especially their first few times looking at this stuff, simply don't want to install more programs. And that's fine - you can set up the plugin with your name,yourcc# -- no spaces, and the spelling and capitalization of your name have to be exactly what BN has on file.



If you do that, it might not be a bad idea to de-configure the plugin after you've secured your library, and re-configure when you are ready to add new books.

Or, later on, download the additional tools to avoid storing this info in Calbre.

With the plugin configured, quit and restart Calibre.

Drop books from your BN folder onto Calibre's window, and it will make it so Aldiko can just read them - you won't need to fiddle with your billing info again! Start with just one book. Confirm you can read it by clicking on the word epub in the "Formats: EPUB" line. It'll pop open a little window that will let you read your epub right there, if you like. Once you can read the epub in Calibre, you can read it on any device which can read epubs.

This display means you need to remove the book from Calibre, reconfigure the plugin, and try to reimport, though:

I want to lock down browsing and shopping

Now and again, the nookboards have a parent turn up who wants to have control over what's in the library for their kid. Usually, these folks also want to have control over what the kid can do with the internet.

As long as you are ready to dedicate the NC solely to your kid's use, including assigning a unique registration email to the NC, this is possible.

The method is very simple: remove the browser and the shop from the device.

The library still works, and books can be read. If you go to the BN website, log into the account tied to that device, and buy books, the books will sync to the device and be readable.

However, since the shop on the device is disabled, no offending titles will be displayed. Since the browser on the device is disabled, no offending websites will be displayed.

If you want more granular control, the iTouch is a great device that has very fine-grained parental controls available. It costs about as much as the NC (for a smaller screen, granted)

If you like the large screen and the price of the NC, this method has the advantage of being free. As set up, it is also reversible - the first scripts copies the Browser and Shop to /media/my files, then deletes them from /system/app. The second script puts them back.

How to do the lockdown:

You will need:

- a microSD card

- a copy of the Clockwork Recovery disk image
- Copies of the files:

- NoShopNoBrowse.zip to remove access to the browser and shop.

http://www.mediafire.com/?0okd2499bdh7w9s

- RestoreShopBrowse.zip to put the files back again if you want to restore access

http://www.mediafire.com/?rjx4h4j2q7asp9o

- a disk imaging tool such as diskimag (or use dd for mac/linux)
- a good zip tool - I recommend 7zip.

Leave the No Shop and Restore files zipped.

The Clockwork Recovery disk image is available here

http://legacyschool.us.to/nookdev/clockwork/0.7/

Download the file that matches the size of your SD card.

Step 1: Make a bootable CWR disk.

Completely unpack the CWR file you downloaded. You must use a file whose name ends in .img. as your source for making the disk. The files I am pointing to for downloading end in .tar.gz, and are essentially "double compressed."

gz = gzip. 7Zip, an excellent cross-platform compression utility, can decompress these, leaving you with a file whose extenion is .tar

.tar = unix tape archive. 7Zip, an excellent cross-platform compression utility, can extract files from these.

Once you've unzipped and untarred the file, you should have an .img file (sized appropriately for your SD card. You will need at least a 256 M card (the 128M images don't quite fit on a 128M card, more's the pity,) but I prefer to use larger cards so I can also store backups on them.)

Use an imaging program (diskimag or winimage or dd for mac or linux) to make a bootable SD card by "writing" the .img file to your SD card.

This erases all the data on that card.

The card is analogous to a bootable disk for your PC (remember boot floppies?) The program formats the card and write a very few files to it. Those files tell the Nook Color "you can boot from me. Once booted, run Clockwork Recovery."

After you make the disk, leave it mounted on your computer.

Copy the NoShop and RestoreShop files onto the CWR card. Leave them zipped!

Safely remove the card from your computer. Power down your Nook Color and insert the CWR card. Power on, and you will boot into Clockwork Recovery, which is controlled using the volume and power buttons to go up and down in menus (volume) or back (power.) An action is chosen using the N button on your NC.

Navigate to "install ZIP from SD Card"

Install the zipfile of your choice, NoShopNoBrowse.zip locks access; RestoreShopBrowse undoes the process.

Navigate back to the beginning menu in CWR (where the "reboot now" prompt is a choice.

Remove the CWR disk and choose Reboot.

When the device reboots, apps installed before this process will be onboard, as will books and any sideloaded content. The web browser placeholder will be there, but will not launch. The shop placeholder will be there, but will not launch.

As DeanG pointed out originally, the scripts are so simple that anyone with a ZIP viewer can verify the contents of the relevant files:

The NoShop files that do the work are:

• META-INF/com/google/android/updater-script
• tools/remove.shop.browser.sh

The RestoreShop files that do the work are:

• META-INF/com/google/android/updater-script
• tools/restore.shop.browser.sh

If you have also rooted the NC you are running these scripts from, you almost certainly have ROM Manager installed.

If you do, you can use ROM manager to boot into Clockwork, and that lets you do this very time-saving thing:
- copy the scripts to whatever SD card you normally have in the device
- reboot into CWR
- install the script of your choice
- reboot

Here there's no need to swap cards.

Obviously, if you have a rooted NC and older kids, this particular may stop working, because eventually the kids will figure out how to boot into ROM manager and run the restore script.

Unless, of course, you rename it and put it in a subdirectory, which will delay them for a few days more.

But by then smarter kids will already have used their allowance to buy an SD card and install CM7 on it, and be watching and reading anything they like without leaving a trace on the device :)

Flow for common issues

Here are some common issues people look for help on with their NC. Many are interrelated. My goal is to walk through processes that can help address them. I tend to avoid post-setup configuration. Actually using a device is less interesting to me than breaking it and fixing it, that's just how I roll.

- my NC won't update

- my NC can't talk to my wireless

- I want to root my NC

- I want to use netflix

- My nook reset itself and I can't connect to my wifi now

- how do I back up my NC?

-BN has remotely reset my NC, what do I do?

- I hate the udpate. BN says I can't roll back. BN is mistaken.

- BN sent me a nook with only 1G of room! DeanGibson has a fix for that, written
up here with additional info.

- I hate the cookbook. So do we all. Dean fixed that, too.

- You talk about rooting a lot, but I thought I was rooted on an SD card running Phiremod. What's up with that? By my definition, you're not rooted. Sorry for the confusion.

Getting Netflix Running

So, you want to watch netflix on your Nook Color. No problemo.

There's a fast, free way to do this. The fast, free way is not the easy way. Specifically, the fast, free way to do this assumes that you know the editor vi, already have ssh, telnet or adb access to your NC, and are very comfortable with commands like "mount -o rw,remount -t ext2 /dev/block/mmcblk0p5 /system"

If that's you, just change two build.prop values to these:

ro.product.model=HTC Vision
ro.product.manufacturer=HTC

The rest of the class, this method costs five bucks but will save you hair pulling. And you ought to be supporting the occasional android developer anyhow.

You will need: to be running 1.2

Start by rooting your 1.2 Nook Color (I recommend: root w/4.5.18 + apk-enabler)

Go to the Android market and install netflix.

While you're there, buy root explorer.

I have not found a simpler, safer way to edit build.prop on-device. I've tried the mount /system app (https://market.android.com/details?id=com.beansoft.mount_system) in conjunction with non-root file managers (ES, Astro); I've tried File Expert and could not get it to link to an editor well.

Launch root explorer. It's a graphical display of all your files.

su will ask you if you want to give Root Explorer superuser permissions. The answer is yes.

Navigate up to /

Navigate into /system

Press the "Mount R/W" button displayed at the top

Long-press on the "build.prop" file

Choose Open in Text Editor

Change two lines in build.prop:

Change:

ro.product.model=NOOKcolor

to:

ro.product.model=HTC Vision

Change:

ro.product.manufacturer=BarnesAndNoble

To:

ro.product.manufacturer=HTC

Save the file. Root explorer backs it up automatically. Check the file; if you did something wrong fix it now by copying build.prop.bak onto build.prop and trying again.

A blown build.prop can prevent your NC from booting normally, which might lead you to need to reinstall all or part of the OS. (You should be able to restore a backup of /system, after formatting /system. But that assumes you made a clockwork recovery backup of /system.)

Restart your NC.

Sign into Netflix.

Watch movies.

I hate the cookbook

OK, you hate the cookbook. DeanGibson has your back, and I'm dropping his info into my basic "this is the howto on Clockwork Recovery."

He has modified his original deletion file to now hide the cookbook. This is so that a restore to stock truly works - the old method of deleting files wound up making the onboard restore to stock methods not quite work.

you will need:

- a microSD card
- a copy of the Clockwork Recovery disk image
- a copy of Dean's zip file, from http://www.mailpen.com/download/hideSamples-v1.zip
- a disk imaging tool such as diskimag (or use dd for mac/linux)
- a good zip tool - I recommend 7zip.

Leave Dean's file zipped.

The Clockwork Recovery disk image is available here

http://legacyschool.us.to/nookdev/clockwork/0.7/

Download the file that matches the size of your SD card.

Dean's file is explained below. First, make the card:

Step 1: Make a bootable CWR disk.

Completely unpack the CWR file you downloaded. You must use a file whose name ends in .img. as your source for making the disk. The files I am pointing to for downloading end in .tar.gz, and are essentially "double compressed."

gz = gzip. 7Zip, an excellent cross-platform compression utility, can decompress these, leaving you with a file whose extenion is .tar

.tar = unix tape archive. 7Zip, an excellent cross-platform compression utility, can extract files from these.

Once you've unzipped and untarred the file, you should have an .img file (sized appropriately for your SD card. You will need at least a 256 M card, but I prefer to use larger cards so I can also store backups on them.)

Use an imaging program (diskimag or winimage or dd for mac or linux) to make a bootable SD card by "writing" the .img file to your SD card.

This erases all the data on that card.

The card is analogous to a bootable disk for your PC (remember boot floppies?) The program formats the card and write a very few files to it. Those files tell the Nook Color "you can boot from me. Once booted, run Clockwork Recovery."

After you make the disk, leave it mounted on your computer.

Copy Dean's sample removal zip file onto your CWR card. Leave it zipped!

Safely remove the card from your computer. Power down your Nook Color and insert the CWR card. Power on, and you will boot into Clockwork Recovery, which is controlled using the volume and power buttons to go up and down in menus (volume) or back (power.) An action is chosen using the N button on your NC.

Navigate to "install ZIP from SD Card"

Install Dean's zipfile.

Dean describes it thusly:

This is a really simple, scaled-down version of another script that I use that works, but it is untested. However, it is so simple that anyone with a ZIP viewer can verify the contents of the two relevant files:

• META-INF/com/google/android/updater-script
• tools/remove.sh