Wednesday, July 16, 2008

"Reset at 30,000 Feet"

It sounds like a new action-packed, high-flying drama. I recently lived out "reset at 30,000 feet" and it did feel a little dramatic... The other day I found myself on a 4-hour flight at 30,000 feet or so with a locked-up Kindle. This is at least the 5th time I've had to reset my Kindle but this one was a bit trickier. It's amazing how hard it is to find a paperclip when you're up in the friendly skies. I checked my bag. No go. Even my handy folder full of various business papers came up empty. Fortunately I was sitting next to a guy who had one and he let me borrow it for the job.

As I removed the back cover to resurrect my lifeless e-reader I had an idea: Why not just tape a small paperclip in the recess of the back of the device, under the removable cover? It looks like there's enough clearance for this and it would save me the headache of looking for yet another paperclip the next time my Kindle freezes. I'm going to give it a shot as soon as I get home tonight.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great idea! I'm going to try it out.

Anonymous said...

Seems to work just fine.

Thanks.

ctitanic said...

Well, you probably have a few ebooks that are corrupted or something because I have owned my kindle for around 5 months now, I have more than 300 ebooks on it and I never have had to reset it.

Katey Coffing, Ph.D. said...

Good idea!

I wasn't positive my Kindle had enough clearance inside the plastic cover, so I just taped the paperclip to the back, near the top. Most of the time I keep the Kindle in its leather case, so I doubt its emergency tool will get knocked off anytime soon.

I've had to reset my Kindle three or four times--often after I've been playing with the "experimental" web browser (which seems to be living up to that name).

Anonymous said...

I like this high tech solution! Funny that a a button that needs to be used apparently, from time to time ('m out of Kindle Region, in Argentina) - that such a control should require a paper clip! Surely a hard-to-use, recessed, button would do.

Anonymous said...

If you are without a paper clip, I just pull the battery out and plug it back in. This seems to do the samee as a reset. I'm sure I am systematically destroying my Kindle but I just don't carry paper clips around with me.