Chapter 15. Playing Music, Audiobooks, and Podcasts

For people who love to read, almost nothing stirs up as much nostalgia as the thought of listening to some nice music while reading a good book and maybe sipping a nice glass of wine. Your NOOK can’t make wine, but it can provide the other two ingredients to this nostalgic scene.

Adding Audio Files to Your NOOK

You can use two folders on your NOOK specifically for audio files: My Audiobooks and My Music. When you add audio files to one of these folders, your NOOK recognizes the files and enables you to play the audio using its built-in audio player.

Playing Audio on Your NOOK

To play audio on your NOOK, you first need to copy the MP3 files to its memory or to a microSD card in your NOOK. Audio files should be copied into the My Music or My Audiobooks folder. If your microSD card does not have a My Music or My Audiobooks folder, create one before copying audio files to it.

After you copy your audio files to the My Music or My Audiobooks folder, you can play them using the audio player on your NOOK. To launch the audio player, tap Open Audio Player on the touchscreen from any menu.

Using the Audio Player

The audio player on your NOOK is a bare-bones, basic audio player. So if you’re expecting an iPod on your NOOK, you’ll be disappointed. However, for playing background music while reading and for listening to audiobooks and podcasts, your NOOK’s audio player is a great feature.

When the audio player is launched, the first thing it does is collect all the audio files in both the My Music folder and the My Audiobooks folder. It then creates a playlist of all those audio files. To start playing the playlist, tap the Play button on the touchscreen.

The following buttons are available in the audio player, from left to right:

• Previous:Moves to the beginning of the audio files currently playing. If you tap it a second time, it moves to the beginning of the previous audio file in the playlist.

• Play/Pause:If the audio player is playing audio, tapping this button pauses the audio. Otherwise, it resumes playing the audio. If audio is paused and the audio player is closed, audio picks up at the same point when the audio player is reopened unless you copied new audio content to your NOOK.

• Next:Moves to the next track in the playlist.

• Volume:Tapping this button opens the volume control. Move the slider to the right to increase the volume and to the left to decrease it. Tap the X button to close the volume slider.

• Scrubber:Press this button to open the scrubber. The scrubber enables you to change the position in the current audio file quickly. Drag your finger on the scrubber to change the position. When you lift your finger from the touchscreen, the scrubber closes automatically. To close it manually, tap the X button.

• Shuffle:Toggles Shuffle mode on or off. Each time shuffle is toggled on, a new random order is created for the playlist. You can also shuffle the playlist by tapping Shuffle Playlist when the playlist is displayed.

• Playlist:Tapping this button displays the current playlist. You can tap an audio file in the playlist to immediately begin playing that file.

While playing audio, you can tap the X button in the audio player to close the audio player interface. Your audio will continue playing, but you can interact with other menus on your NOOK. To stop the audio from playing, tap the Pause button prior to closing the audio player.

Controlling the Order Files Are Played

As I mentioned earlier, your NOOK creates a playlist of all your audio files sorted alphabetically by title. In some cases, that might be fine, but in other cases, you might want audio files to play in a particular order. For example, classical music CDs should always be played in the correct track order, but if you copy one to your NOOK, it essentially shuffles all the tracks.

To control the order in which audio files are played on your NOOK, you can edit the title of each track and put a numerical value in front of the title. So, you can add a 1 to the title of the first file you want to play, a 2 to the file you want to play second, and so on. However, you can’t just change the name of the file to make this work. You have to change the title embedded in the audio file.

You can use any application that manages MP3 audio files to change the title. That includes iTunes, Microsoft Zune, Media Monkey, or any other similar software. All these applications enable you to change information such as the title, artist, genre, and so forth.

Playing Podcasts and Audiobooks on Your NOOK

In addition to listening to music, you can also use the audio player on your NOOK to play podcasts and audiobooks.

Podcasts

Podcasts are audio programs released on a regular schedule. You can subscribe to a podcast using any number of software applications, and when a new episode is released, it’s automatically downloaded to your computer.

Podcasts are available that cover just about every topic of interest that you can think of. For example, some podcasts can help you use your computer or help you take better pictures. Some podcasts can deliver the news daily or weekly and other podcasts cover entertainment gossip. There are also podcasts that enable you to listen to your favorite radio shows on demand whenever you want.

If you own an iPhone, iPad, or iPod, you almost certainly have iTunes on your computer. iTunes enables you to easily subscribe to podcasts. You can search or browse for podcasts in the iTunes store. If you own a Microsoft Zune, you can subscribe to podcasts using the Zune Marketplace. If you don’t have an application that you can use to subscribe to podcasts, you can download Juice, a free podcast receiver that makes finding and subscribing to podcasts easy. Juice is available from http://juicereceiver.sourceforge.net.

When you subscribe to a podcast, each time you launch your podcast application (whether that’s iTunes, Zune, Juice, or some other application), it checks for new episodes. If it finds a new episode, it downloads it automatically to your computer. You can then copy that episode to your NOOK. You need to check the documentation and options for the software you use to determine where it stores podcasts it downloads.

Podcasts should be copied to either the My Audiobooks or My Music folder on your NOOK. I typically copy mine to the My Audiobooks folder because I like to keep my music separated from other audio files. However, because your NOOK combines the audio files in My Music and My Audiobooks when it creates its playlist, it doesn’t matter which one you choose.

Audiobooks

Audiobooks are recordings of someone reading a book out loud. They are the digital version of books on tape. The most popular source of audiobooks is Audible.com, but your NOOK is not compatible with Audible audiobooks. However, you can enjoy plenty of sources of MP3 audiobooks on your NOOK.

Following are sources of MP3 audiobooks you can use on your NOOK:

• Audiobooks.org: Free audiobook versions of some classic books. There aren’t many books here, but the ones it offers are of good quality.

• Simply Audiobooks (www.simplyaudiobooks.com/downloads): For a few dollars per month, you can download as many audiobooks as you want. Simply Audiobooks offers both MP3 and WMA audiobooks, so be sure you choose the MP3 versions for your NOOK.

• B&N Audiobooks (www.barnesandnoble.com/subjects/audio): B&N offers a wide assortment of audiobooks. If you’re a B&N member, you can get some great deals for your NOOK.

• Google Product Search: Google Product Search (www.google.com/prdhp) is an excellent way to locate MP3 audiobooks. Simply search for “mp3 audiobook,” and you can find a vast assortment from many merchants.

After you download an audiobook, copy it to the My Audiobooks folder on your NOOK. You can then play it by selecting the file from the audio player playlist.

Playing Chess and Soduko on Your NOOK

Since the original release of NOOK, B&N has added two games: Sodoku and Chess. You access the games by tapping Games on the touchscreen and tapping either Soduko or Chess.

Sudoku

When you first start Soduku, you need to select the difficulty level. The E Ink screen displays the entire puzzle while the touchscreen displays a scrollable version of that puzzle. Tap an empty cell in the touchscreen. You are given some options:

• Numbers:Tap the number button that you want to fill the cell with. If you enter an incorrect option, the number appears in red in the touchscreen.

• Clear:Clears the selected cell.

• Notes:Turns on or off notes. Notes in Sudoku are a way to indicate possible options to fill the cell without filling the cell. The numbers you type appear in a small version in the cell. Tap Notes to use this feature. The Notes button and the Number buttons turn blue. Tap Notes to turn off this feature and enter a number to fill that cell.

• Hint:If you are stuck, tapping this fills in the cell with the correct number.

Chess

Feel like playing a game of chess? Well, your opponent is just a tap away. When you tap Chess, the game opens with the board displayed. Tap Settings to set your color (White, Black, or Random). White moves first. In Settings you can also set the difficulty (Easy, Normal, or Hard). You can also set the amount of time allowed to win. On this latter setting, you can set it so that only you or the NOOKcolor or both have a designated amount of time to win the game.

If you set Save Game Before Exit to Yes, when you exit the game, it is saved for you to return to at a later time. If you set Resume Prior Game on Startup, the next time you tap Games and then tap Chess, the game you were playing last starts.

Tap Play Against NOOK to start a game using the settings. The game appears in the E Ink and touchscreens. If you tap the Options button in the top-left corner, you can start a new game, resign, see your past moves, and save the game. To move a piece, tap the piece on the touchscreen, and tap the location you want it to move to. Tap Undo to move the pieces back to the previous positions.