Almost since I first updated to the 1.3 firmware I started having battery problems - almost.  A while back I tried the nookdev trick to install some of the nookdev applications like Nook Library (a.k.a. My Books).  To be honest, this free application is quite a bit superior to the B&N "My Library". It puts all of your books in one view, cover flow (I never use), and far better management tools in my opinion.  

After I found out 1.3 didn't do much for my nook issues, I went ahead and switched over to the nookdev version of 1.3.  Unfortunately, a few of the apps didn't work properly for 1.3 and I failed to check.  Some of these application conflicts seem to have caused my battery drains (I guess background threads stealing the battery even in sleep mode?). The latest version of Nook Launcher and My Books appear to have fixed the problem.  I had a steady battery loss that is no longer occurring. 

There were only a few people having this problem which led me to believe it was something about my nookdev setup. This is the kind of stuff you run into when you go off the vendor supported path; that's ok by me.

How to fix? Use Trok to get the newest versions or use adb to uninstall/reinstall.  Here are the command I executed with adb:

./adb uninstall com.nookdevs.launcher 
./adb install -r  nookLauncher.apk  
./adb uninstall com.nookdevs.library 
./adb install -r  nookLibrary.apk 

Hope that helps the other 15-20 of us with the problem :)

Wow, I found something really useful in the otherwise disappointing 1.3 update! Free book reading! 

Here's how it worked for me.  I connected to the store network normally and I received a pop up welcome message.  It said, "Read eBooks for free. You can read many eBooks for up to one hour each day.  Find items in your nook's Shop then tap Read In Store".

Notice the word "MANY".  The first couple books I tried did not have the "read in store" option.  I then found one book and started reading it.  Every page or two it says, "Loading Page" - and pauses.  That's how they control the reading time by checking you every few page turns (smart idea).  You don't seem to have many reading options in this mode - no navigation with table of contents or footnotes.  You also can't do bookmarks, or notes until you buy the book (pretty expected). The first book locked up hard after a few pages so I cancelled and tried another book which seemed to work flawlessly.  Yes, I did try when I got home and it just hung on "Loading Page"

Interesting items:

- Store has a new menu option, "Recently Read in Store", which makes it easy to continue reading previously read books. Nice.
- The "Shop" icon has a "In Store" ribbon on it in the launcher. Cute.
- Not all books are available. I didn't see a 1:1 correlation with "Lend Me" items.

That make the 1.3 update worth it?

Yes I have the 1.3 update!  

All I can say is it seems B&N focused on the extras and not the essentials.  I have a chess game, but I still can't go to a specific page number in a book or have a "slider" for navigation.  I just want the basics many other eReaders have. Even iPhone readers can do some of this. What a huge disappointment for me.

My twelve year old thinks B&N is more worried about a checklist comparison to the iPad than making this the most serious e-book reader around. I think he may be right.

General

Scrolling Launcher (like nookdevs but with "new" icons). 
Menus slide in/out differently - smoother.
New top level icon for wi-fi (Nice)
New Audio icon, same lame MP3 player.
Single click for Airplane mode.  Nice, but still no way to run just wi-fi.

Web Browser

REQUIRES wi-fi hotspot - no free 3G browsing as I expected.
Better than the web browser with nookdevs.
Pan with the color screen.  Zoom in/out with icons.
The eInk devices just aren't great for this so...

Shop

View Promotion Menu Option.
Collections (Top 100, New Releases, etc.)
Read-in-Store! Yup, read my latest blog entry.

Games

Sudoko. Uses both screens, works pretty well I guess except my LCD stopped working in game and had to restart.
Chess, Seems nice. Dual screen.  eInk is for the big view.

My Library / Reading

No consolidation of B&N and owner content.  
Check for new items took minutes for My Documents.
Opening a book speed same or slower based on a few trials.
Page turns faster, and looks different (the way text dissolves).
Text resize seems much faster.
Holding arrow down in book browser goes to last item.
NO New Fonts.
NO go to page number.  Unbelievable.

DOWNLOAD IT HERE ---- IT'S A SLOW DOWNLOAD (note: they have password protected it but keep trying)