Saturday, January 19, 2013
Restoring a Kindle Fire (1st Gen)
In case you weren't aware, the first Amazon Kindlle Fires were only sold in the U.S. This annoyed non-U.S. technophiles who liked the look of the devices, and some people outside the U.S. got their hands on them. Their frustration increased when they found out that access to the Amazon Store through the Kindle was limited to those with credit cards with U.S. addresses.
Anyway, a friend of mine got hold of one, during a trip to the U.S. During an official update, the device appeared to break. It was probably not charged enough, or the update was flawed; I'm not sure. Amazon were running a returns programme, but as he was in the UK and not supposed to have it, he thought he would take a different approach. He knew someone who had rooted the device previously and thought he would do that.
Unfortunately he 'soft-bricked' it. That is, it would switch on, but would not proceed beyond the power up screen. I read a bit about Kindles and I thought maybe it was stuck in Fastboot mode. I offered to help, and downloaded the Kindle Unbrick Utility (from XDA) on to my netbook and took it in to work. When we plugged the Fire into the netbook, it wasn't recognised as a device - which pointed to a driver problem. So I brought the Fire home and had a play here.
The first goal was to get the Fire recognised by the netbook - which meant messing about with drivers. I found this site run by Jayce Ooi and followed the instructions there. This involved installing a generic Kindle Fire driver so that the netbook could talk to the Fire, and then the Fire itself installed the correct drivers.
Once that was done, I re-ran the Kindle Unblock Utility and Hey Presto! The 'brick' was revived.
The Kindle Fire is a nice device, with a good screen and a nice UI linked to the Amazon ecosystem. If I were in the market for a tablet now, it's one I would consider.Unfortunately it don't mean much if you can't actually buy anything from the store...
So, almost as an afterthought I rooted the Fire with the Kindle Fire Utility and installed Google Play. Now, at least, the Fire's owner should be able to access Play Books and other apps from Google Play.
Saturday, January 12, 2013
Dutch Tvashar Plumes
I bought an album from Resident Music last week, based purely on their description of it. It has to be said, I was intrigued - Dutch Tvashar Plumes by Lee Gamble.
Having listened to the first couple of tracks, I think I made a good decision; it sounds a bit like Ambient Classics, or at least in that sort of mood. I'm looking forward to listening to the rest of it.
A detail I was really impressed by was the record sleeve. At first glance, it looks like your common or garden plain transparent plastic sleeve. But take it off, and you realise that the album name (the white writing in the photos is actually on the sleeve itself. Genius!
It's little touches like this that make me smile. And yes, I know that makes me a bit of a nerd...
iTunes Frustration
Thursday, January 10, 2013
Hats Off to Apple...
So, we chose to be really generous and give our eldest daughter an iPod for Christmas. It was an iPod Nano, and to be fair, it was a 1st Generation iPod Nano which Amy had been given a number of years ago, But, thanks to my inability to throw anything away, we had all the original packaging, so we were able to clean it up and make it look like new - like a Christmas present, in fact.
We charged it up, and on Christmas Day we gave it to ED. I loaded some songs on to it when I had a moment. On Boxing Day, ED brought the iPod to me and told me it wouldn't switch on. I thought maybe she hadn't held the button down for long enough, so I gve it a go. Unfortunately that didn't work, so I thought maybe I would reset it. I went online to look for tips, and while I was browsing around, I came across a "1st Generation iPod Nano Replacement Scheme". It turns out that some of the batteries in the 1st Gen Nanos were a bit dodgy, and as a result they had decided to replace all 1st Generation iPod Nanos. Result!
So I went to the Apple website, entered my serial number, and clicked 'Enter'. I got an instant reply; Apple were sending me some packaging I should use to return the Nano, and they would replace it. ED and I waited a day or two and the packaging arrived. We packed up the Nano and sent it off, and waited. I checked the website regularly for updates, and then I saw it - a replacement unit had been dispatched and UPS were going to deliver it last Friday. Unfortunately TW wasn't in, so UPS took it back to their depot and advised they would redeliver it on Monday.
Monday came, and I sat on UPS's website, refreshing my tracking number every five minutes. I was worried that TW had such a full day of exercise and work and dropping off the kids and picking up the kids and driving and errands and BEING OUT OF THE HOUSE that she would miss the delivery. I think I was more eager to receive the delivery than ED! Late in the afternoon, I pressed F5 for what seemed like the 1,000th time, and instead of being "Out For Delivery", the replacement iPod Nano was "Delivered and Signed For by Customer". I rang home immediately to check, and counted down the minutes until I could leave the office and get home.
Upon arriving home, I went to look at the delivery, and we had been sent a 6th Generation iPod Nano. This iteration has a touchscreen and 8gb of memory.
So because Apple had identified a potential fault in a 6 or 7 year old piece of tech we had lying unused in the bottom of a drawer somewhere, an old bit of kit with a clickwheel and 1gb of memory, they were willing to replace that with a two-year old newer bit of kit with a touchscreen and 8gb of memory. And it's got a 90-day warranty. I'm sure that by then ED will be bored of it. :-)
Great customer service - but then I think most people say that, right?
Sunday, January 06, 2013
And So the Festivities End
TW spent a lot of time in hospital with her gran - she's fine, still going strong and is as stubborn as ever.
Our Christmas Eve drinks party / open house tradition was a success again. I say 'our', but really it is all down to TW. She loves it. The Day itself was a restrained affair at M&P's, and then friends came over for the evening.
I was back to work on Thursday 27th as I had drawn the short straw at work.
New Year's Eve was a second wave of over-indulgence and January 1st was a very slow day indeed - all the girls saw in the New Year though, which was a good thing (I think).
Then 2nd Jan was back to work again and for me it's been back to normal every since. TW, on the other hand, restarts her routine tomorrow - and that might be a shock to the system... :)
Me? I've already been out running twice this year, and looking forward to getting out more.
Happy New Year!