eBooks are great for those on the go. They allow you to carry a good-sized library right in your pocket. Amazon's Kindle is one of the leaders in this area, and they make it easy by
providing software to turn your PC, tablet, or other device into a Kindle reader.
One of those other devices happens to be my
Android phone. A rather old Android phone.
I had installed the Kindle software on it some time ago, and to be quite frank, it left a lot to be desired. It was slow and prone to crashing, but it worked well enough to allow me to read a number of books while on my way to work without having to carry an additional electronic device. After a while, however, things got worse. It began to get slower even after upgrading, took forever to launch, and crashed so much that I finally uninstalled it.
Noticing that I had an alert on the Kindle software on my PC that told me I needed to upgrade, I thought I might try to re-install it on the old phone. And so my troubles began...
I downloaded the new version and, after giving it permission to access most of my life's secrets that are stored somewhere on that ancient phone, told it to install itself, which it did. Sort of.
Since I had de-registered the phone, it wanted me to re-register the device. So I put in my e-mail address and then attempted to put in my password. At this point, it locked up and eventually rebooted, all without any external input.
I repeated this process several times before I decided to check the amount of remaining memory. I believe this is the first time I've ever seen a negative number on that screen.
So I moved the application to the SD memory card, and the results were the same, only it took less time to crash.
At that point, I did an uninstall of the Kindle software. Then I downloaded and installed it again.
This time, it let me put in my password before locking up the phone and crashing.
Once more (with gusto), I did the uninstall and re-install. This time, however, I moved the application to the memory card before starting the program. I attempted to register the device, and this time the process worked, albeit slowly. Then when the program finished setting itself up, it told me my library was in the archives, and so it was.
Just to be certain this was no aberration, I shut the program down and re-started it. It came up almost immediately. I brought one of the books back from the archive to my pseudo-Kindle, and it opened almost as fast as my regular Kindle. I tried this multiple times, and the process was repeatable and successful.
I now have a truly functional and useful eBook reader. I may never upgrade again. Or be able to buy another phone.
My advice is to copy that program to your memory card right after installing it and before attempting to read a single word of any eBook. I'm hoping that's the secret should I need to do this again.
.
Shameless
plug
section!
|
|
The horror anthology,
includes my poem, The Ballad of Drunken Jack.
Available on Amazon for Kindle
(yes, even the Kindle on your Android phone)
or in paperback. |
© 2012-2014 K. R. Smith All rights reserved
