The First Step Is Admitting You Have A Problem

My fascination with learning the Nook is veering into dangerous territory -- addiction.  I've not entirely finished one book on my new toy, but I'm close.  The problem is the valuable time I've spent in playing with it, seeing what it does, and trying different mediums to obtain ebooks from (yeah, I joined NetGalley...*sigh*).  So even though I can finally whiz-bang through transferring my ebooks over to the Nook, I have not finished one blessed book since Sunday -- digital or paper.  It's becoming a distraction,but one I want to master...

I was all happy happy last night when I started this post.  And then today hit, and I thought I'd get cute and request a galley from NetGalley. 

***SCREEEEECCCHHHH, kee-rash, blam-o!*** Or at least that's how I translate the soundtrack in my brain, a car slamming into a big brick wall.  Seriously, I'm not a genius when it comes to computers, but I tend to pick things up pretty well when it comes to them.  Hmm, then again, don't ask Wendy about my virgin blog days and trying to set my place up with all the pretties.  Yeah, not so cute...

Today I spent nearly five hours here on the computer, trying to figure out why the one galley request I'd downloaded to my computer using the software necessary for these transactions would not read on Veronica, my Nook.  Seriously, I had tech support from Adobe Digital Editions (ADE) and NetGalley, as well as various buddies of mine from the reviewing community, trying to help me.  Hell, I even called the library because I was having the same problem with their digital library and kept getting the same "User Not Activated" message when I moved the damn book over to my Nook.  I cried.  I sweat.  I ignored John.  I think I even threw something -- of course only after I safely moved the Nook out of my wrath's way.

And then the ADE gods smiled on me and pointed me in the direction of the site's message boards for users.  Forget the site's technical support and friendly advice -- they're bogus.  I went to the people who actually use the software and scrolled through the long list of topics.  "Authorizing Nook" popped up, and from there I finally figured out the problem.

So what do you get out of this post?  Probably nothing.  Hopefully you smiled.  But, I beg you -- never go to tech support and hope that they can magically fix whatever problem ails you.  In my case, I got lucky.  But then again -- I went to the people who actually USE the equipment, not the nerds who support it, and got my answers, with a little bit of cheerleading from the girls at NetGalley.  I applaud them, seriously.

Here's to a healthy relationship in the future, NetGalley!