This Christmas I got a Nook Color from my hubby and mother. I’ve been using it for a few days and I think it’s time to share my opinions. First things first, if you have an ebook reader you must download Calibre. Calibre is an open source ebook management application that runs on Windows, Mac and Linux (a flavor for everyone). It’s a great way to convert files from one format to another, to manage all of your books and to download news from the web to your reader. I have started with a bunch of free and public domain materials (nothing purchased yet). I chose the Nook over other alternatives because it could open so many formats of ebook and it runs on the Android operating system so that gives me some options for openness should I decide to root the device (a practice that has recently been declared legal). However I have found some downsides to the supposed openness of the Nook. While I can read materials purchased or downloaded from other sites, these materials are treated like second class citizens on the Nook. What do I mean? Well my EPubs and PDFs can’t be mounted on the home screen. I can only access these materials by browsing my shelves or files. I also can’t use the built in social networking functionality on materials that are not from Barnes & Noble. Basically I can read these materials, but they’re harder to get to and not as functional. I’m reading The Art of Community right now and have just figured out how to highlight passages (a big plus). I can also access all of my highlights and notes in one menu. Now for the minus – I can’t find a way to download or share these quotes. If this were a Barnes and Noble publication I could share the quotes one by one with the ‘share’ function, but because this is a PDF (converted to Epub in Calibre) I can just highlight and that’s the end of it. ...