IF IT AINT BROKE.....

I love new technology, and gizmos and gadgets. They’re great…. Till something goes wrong. And it always does go wrong. Especially if you give it a wee helping hand.

Been enjoying using my new EReader. Great wee device and I’ve got it loaded with quite a few books now.

All the books are kept in a virtual “library” on my PC and a piece of bespoke software controls what I load and what I take off. Or that’s the theory…

Got a bit bored last night and decided that I’d “clean up” the ereader. Take off some of the books I’ve already read. That sort of thing.

But did I stick to using the bespoke software? No I did not.. I know what I’m doing see? I’ll just jump in there with good old windows file manager…select what I want to get rid off and “bosh”..

Only it didn’t quite work out that way… I had also deleted the system files. And apparently they are quite important.

Fook!

I powered off the device. I powered it back on…. It hung.. Keech. I tried to power it off again… it still hung. KEECH!!. I swore at it, THEN tried to power it off … it still hung. Double KEECH!! When swearing at a piece of technology doesn’t fix it you know it must be serious.

What to do? I thought about looking at the user manual.. But that’s a PDF file on the bloody device!

I looked at google. I found a website by the manufacturer….

“Reeboot”… blah blah blah… “system files”.. blah blah…”firm ware” … blah blah. Yes it can be done, but is “very complex” and should only be carried out by “a competent and experienced user”. Well my recent behaviour ruled me out of that category, but what the hell…..

Had to download a 230mb file and put it on to a 2GD SD card. 230mb at 8:30 at night – even on a fairly fast broadband connection that took a bloody age.

SD Card? I’ve only got one at 2GB and that’s in my camera, so I had to download all the photos from that and then reformat it.

Loaded the new software onto the card.. Then had to follow the “detailed instructions”. Basically this amounted to “hold button “A” while simultaneously depressing toggle “B” THEN place a paper clip [I kid you not] into hole “C” for 5 seconds. THEN while still holding “A” and “B” remove paper clip and wait for screen to flash”. I followed this to the letter while all the while threatening this little thing with god knows how many types of technological pain and torture if it didn’t behave.

It did J

All my books had been scrubbed though, so had to spend a bit more time reloading some reading material (including the book I’m halfway through).

Hell of a palaver… You know what would be better? Get all the words from an ebook file and somehow pring them onto paper and then bind all the pages together to keep them in order. That’s the future…..