Saturday, February 26, 2011

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!       

4 comments:

Wendy said...

You should see what I had to do get Adobe Digital Editions to authorize my Sony Reader. Granted, this was like 4 years ago (the Dark Age!) - but it was a series of hoop jumping involving downloading and updating firmware. I didn't throw anything - but I did have to read and decipher directions. Always a scary prospect :)

The shiny will wear off and you'll stop "playing" with your Nook once it becomes old hat. Right now it's still shiny! new! pretty! And you'll settle in to "how" you read. For me, that means a mess of review books and Harlequins on digital - pretty much all else I still go print.

Terrie said...

LOL Amy you crack me up. I needed a smile too ... although now I'm in deadly fear of my kindle -- which I have barely figure out how to turn on LOL

Terrie

Amy said...

Terrie, be afraid, be very afraid. LOL Who knew digital reading was so scary? Now that you can turn it on, your next step is figuring out how to charge it.

Wendy, why do they make this stuff so complicated? I'm not a stupid person - not a genius either - but 5 1/2 hours to fix one little problem? OMG, the time...

The next installment in mine and Veronica's journey? Yeah, I figured out how to download books I've bought at BN.com to my computer and from there to my Nook. I can finally do it without having to go into the store, which the BN guy promised me I would have to do since I don't have Wi-fi.

CindyS said...

lol - I say user forums rock. You can type in a search in Tech support and I almost never get to the problem to see the solution. But user forums are awesome cause if you are having a problem, then you can bet someone else out there is having the same problem and may have posted a few days before you so the answer is there waiting.

Glad you figured it all out. And yeah, the shiny would distract me for a while also but once you see it every day you'll get back to reading. Until then have fun with Veronica!

CindyS