Alec Bryte's Website Tales of an adventurous architect...

I've just bought my first E-reader, Nook Touch by Barnes & Noble. I had been resistant to switch to reading books on electronic devices for various reasons.

As a software architect, I already spend too much time looking at a LCD screen. Therefore devices like iPad and Nook Color just won't cut it. I need my eyes to rest.

Nook Touch on the other hand is a black and white device with mechanical pixels, so it looks like a real sheet of paper.

Many early E-readers were sluggish with turning pages, i.e. you'd press Next Page and then wait up to a second for the screen to refresh. The new Nook's page scrolling is almost instant. Great.

I was deciding between Nook and Kindle and went with the former because it's more compact, has a touch screen with keyboard on it showing up at the right moments. Kindle has a real keyboard, which is not used during reading.

I also didn't care about the application support that Kindle had since I already had an iPhone and can play my games on it.

Overall I'm satisfied with the product.

One note though because it feels like a book, there is no background lighting inside the device. Just like reading a normal book. be sure to use Nook in a room with good lighting. If you're sitting at a desk, use a desk lamp.

Last note: I'm donating about 40 books to the local library tonight. A tax write-off and extra space in my overflown bookshelf. Yay!!!

I was standing about 100 meters (300 feet) away from the World Trade Center when the first plane crashed into the North Tower. Check out the eyewittness interview I gave to http://dhbit.ca. Show #56 is located under Downloads -> Show Archives. This is a Canadian Internet radiostation called "Does Humor Belong In Technology," only this particular show was not just about the laughs.