Round up #286: new Dr. Seuss, kindlereunion
The ILMK Round ups are short pieces which may or may not be expanded later.
Mayday saves the day!
I have said many times that I consider Amazon’s nearly instant onscreen tech help for some Fire devices to be one of the greatest Customer Service innovations in years.
It was proven for me again yesterday.
Two “third party” apps on my
Kindle Fire HDX (at AmazonSmile*)
wanted updates, and I did it.
You can install apps from places outside Amazon…contrary to what you might hear, Amazon is quite open to you using “competitors'” products. It’s a simple settings change, to allow installation of apps from “unknown sources”.
Naturally, you assume the risk for doing that…the apps will not have been vetted by Amazon to make sure they work and won’t damage your tablet.
I only do it with very few apps, where I trust the studios.
In this case, it was Zinio, which I use to read Fortean Times (which Amazon does not carry), and Maxthon, which is my browser of choice.
Well, after the updates, neither of them would launch!
They appeared to be on the device, but when I would try to open them, they just wouldn’t.
I tried a few troubleshooting things on my own:
- I tried restarting the device
- I tried opening them both from the Carousel and from the Apps tab
- I tried clearing the cache and force stopping them
- I tried uninstalling and reinstalling Maxthon
- I finally cleared the data on Maxthon…that’s not too bad with that program, since my “favorites” are all stored on their server. The only thing I lost was my “Quick Access” choices…that’s not hard to fix
- I downloaded Maxthon fresh from their website
Since none of that worked, I called Mayday.
At first, it was clearly baffling.
Some things would indicate it was on the device, some wouldn’t. For example, there was an icon on the Carousel (with an exclamation point on it…a trouble indicator). It showed on the Cloud tab, not on the device tab. Now, an item can be on the Carousel and not be downloaded, but things were just weird.
Finally, the Mayday rep suggesting syncing with Amazon. I hadn’t thought of that…since Zinio isn’t stored in Amazon’s Cloud. I did get Maxthon from there at some point, when it was available.
That did it!
Don’t ask me why, but after a simple sync, they were both fine.
I’m going to go with what’s called the Engineer’s Law or the Law of Pragmatism: “If it works, it’s true.” 😉
I think Mayday is great for people who are not techies, but even for someone who is quite knowledgeable like me, it can be terrific.
KindleReunion.com
Sometimes, I get comments on very old posts…so most people will never see them.
In most cases, they are fake comments…what I call Eddiecoms.
I got one recently on one of my most popular posts
What to do if your Kindle is lost or stolen
It recommended the use of a site called KindleReunion.com.
I thought it was worth sharing my response with a wider audience:
“I appreciate the suggestion, and I checked out the site.
That seems unsafe to me.
One of the main reasons someone steals something like a Kindle is to get personal information and in other ways take advantage of the person who lost it.
kindlereunion arranges a connection between a Kindle loser and an apparent finder…and it seems to me they share your e-mail address.
You put in your serial number and an e-mail address as a loser. Another person, who is a finder, puts in a serial number and their e-mail address. The site says
“Once the system finds a match, both parties will receive an e-mail so they can arrange the exchange of the Kindle.”
So, here’s the scenario:
You are at the airport, and someone steals your Kindle while you are going through Security.
Naturally, you have it password protected and you deregister it and have it blacklisted (as indicated in the post on which you commented).
They enter the serial number as a finder.
kindlereunion (and my intuition is that their heart is in the right place) e-mails you both (after you enter as a finder), and connects you two.
The thief then has a number of ways to go.
“I’m on the other side of the country. Why don’t I just mail it to you? What’s your address?”
“Let’s meet and I can give it to you.”
“I’d send it to you, but I don’t have the cash to mail it. See, I put in an airport locker, but I lost the key. They want $40 to replace the key before they’ll give it to me.”
You can probably imagine a lot of other scenarios…
That’s why a recovery service like ReturnMe maybe worth it…it protects your personal information. TrackItBack, unfortunately, is out of business at this point (it’s been about five years since I wrote that post).”
A new Dr. Seuss
Following on the heels of the announcement of a never before published Harper Lee novel (written before To Kill A Mockingbird…I would consider it an early draft which was massively revised, based on what I’ve heard):
Go Set a Watchman (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)
comes the news that we are going to get a new Dr. Seuss picturebook!
It’s coming in August, and while a Kindle edition is not yet available for pre-order, my guess is that one will show up soon. I’ll link to the page for one you can pre-order, and eventually, a Kindle edition is likely to be linked on that page:
What Pet Should I Get? (at AmazonSmile*)
I’m not hearing a lot of controversy about this one, like there has been about Go Set a Watchman (some people worry that Harper Lee doesn’t fully understand or approve of what is happening…my guess at this point is that is unlikely), but the provenance on this one is very different as laid out in this
USA Today story by Maria Puente
ILMK Flipboard Magazine passes The Measured Circle
Just since my most recent
Update on my free Flipboard magazines: 1000s of ILMK readers!
the free ILMK Flipboard magazine has caught up to and passed the The Measured Circle Flipboard magazine!
ILMK has 2800 viewers and The Measured Circle has 2621.
I would guess that by the next time I give an update, there will also have been 100,000 “flips” in ILMK.
I don’t know that the recent update to the Flipboard PC browser version mattered to that…but I suspect it will help with getting readers.
Recently, one of my relatives wanted to start getting ILMK on a tablet, but didn’t want to get other news stories (as you do with Flipboard). I installed the free
I also tested it out myself…seems to work fine for the simple purpose of reading blogs.
Adding subscriptions was a snap, and you download for offline reading, share, and use a white on black viewing mode, if you want.
Now, I’m always very grateful to people who subscribe to this blog through the Kindle store. That ninety-nine cents a month (well, my cut is about thirty cents) is honestly one of the things which makes the blog possible…thanks, subscribers!
However, Amazon still doesn’t make the blogs available to tablet users. I’m sure some of my readers are still paying the ninety-nine cents a month just to support me, and reading the blog on a Fire.
If they do that, I want to give them a good experience.
I do love Flipboard, but if all you want to do is read blogs, well, gReader seems like a good way to go.
What do you think? Are you excited for a new Dr. Seuss? Have you had a great Mayday story? Did you lose a Kindle…and then have the finder return it? Feel free to tell me and my readers what you think by commenting on this post.
Join thousands of readers and try the free ILMK magazine at Flipboard!
* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get. 
Shop ’til you help!
This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.
I Love My Kindle 
February 20, 2015 at 5:06 am |
I have a few 3rd party apps on my HDX — I get them from 1mobile,com. They tell me when updates are needed, and its done through the 1mobile app (I don’t generally side load 3P apps). Mostly I get a few apps from 1mobile that are in GooglePlay, but not in the Amazon store (except for Google’s own apps which are generally not available). I have been able to install the Chrome browser, and it appears to work.
I’ve not seen the problem you describe, but that doesn’t mean that I won’t someday 😀 . Anyhow, I’m not sure what you mean “sync with Amazon”? Is that some kind of global action, or is it something that’s specific to individual 3P apps?
I still pay for 4 blogs (including ILMK). Since I do most of my reading on my PW2, every time I finish a book, I go to my “Blogs” collection (I recently learned you can put subscribed blogs in a cloud collection), and read any of the “new” blog deliveries before I start the next eBook. For ILMK, however, I’ve signed up for an ILMK email from WordPress which is dropped into my inbox at 11pm every day, and that’s how I read most of your posts, and all of your comment replies.
February 21, 2015 at 3:42 am |
Thanks for writing, Roger!
Sorry, I should have been more explicit. On a Fire, you swipe down from the top and choose “Sync”. On some models, you find the option in the menu…it may say, “Sync & Check for New Items” or something similar.
It’s a global action…that’s one way to force the delivery of a blog, if you don’t have the latest issue yet.
I really appreciate you subscribing! Thanks!