Cornell Hockey In My Debut Novel

[KeithK]

Presumably you should also unmount/eject the kindle's hard drive before disconnecting it from your computer, as well...

Even I knew that. **]

Meh. I hardly ever bother to do that and have never had a problem with any of my devices, Kindle or flash drives.

[Jim Hyla]

Presumably you should also unmount/eject the kindle's hard drive before disconnecting it from your computer, as well...

Even I knew that. **]

Meh. I hardly ever bother to do that and have never had a problem with any of my devices, Kindle or flash drives.

Ah ha, but there's always a first time. I could never understand why computers, software actually, make you go through all those steps. For example, why can't there be an onboard battery, which if a power outage, or you mistakenly shut off the computer, then it would automatically save everything and shut down. It couln't take that much power to do that, would it? Why is it if you mistakenly eject your disc physically, without first closing it, it takes offense?

[Rosey]

Presumably you should also unmount/eject the kindle's hard drive before disconnecting it from your computer, as well...

Even I knew that. **]

Meh. I hardly ever bother to do that and have never had a problem with any of my devices, Kindle or flash drives.

Ah ha, but there's always a first time. I could never understand why computers, software actually, make you go through all those steps. For example, why can't there be an onboard battery, which if a power outage, or you mistakenly shut off the computer, then it would automatically save everything and shut down. It couln't take that much power to do that, would it? Why is it if you mistakenly eject your disc physically, without first closing it, it takes offense?

Power is not the issue. The issue is that writes to a USB-connected storage device don't always occur immediately when you hit "save": they may be cached in the computer's memory so a bunch of writes can be flushed at once, reducing overhead and (at least on platter-based devices) increasing throughput. If the data hasn't been written to the device, no battery on the device will save you. For flash-based devices, the right semantics are probably to flush the writes immediately, and it's possible that Windows and MacOS both do this, but there is still the possibility of corrupting the file system on the device if the computer is in the process of modifying it when you pull the plug so you have to somehow signal to the system that you are disconnecting the device so it can make sure the state has been fully synced. (FWIW, there are also solutions to this problem, but almost every storage device these days uses a legacy transfer protocol and file system that together make corruption not only possible, but likely.)

[jtwcornell91]

Presumably you should also unmount/eject the kindle's hard drive before disconnecting it from your computer, as well...

Even I knew that. **]

Meh. I hardly ever bother to do that and have never had a problem with any of my devices, Kindle or flash drives.

Ah ha, but there's always a first time. I could never understand why computers, software actually, make you go through all those steps. For example, why can't there be an onboard battery, which if a power outage, or you mistakenly shut off the computer, then it would automatically save everything and shut down. It couln't take that much power to do that, would it? Why is it if you mistakenly eject your disc physically, without first closing it, it takes offense?

Power is not the issue. The issue is that writes to a USB-connected storage device don't always occur immediately when you hit "save": they may be cached in the computer's memory so a bunch of writes can be flushed at once, reducing overhead and (at least on platter-based devices) increasing throughput. If the data hasn't been written to the device, no battery on the device will save you. For flash-based devices, the right semantics are probably to flush the writes immediately, and it's possible that Windows and MacOS both do this, but there is still the possibility of corrupting the file system on the device if the computer is in the process of modifying it when you pull the plug so you have to somehow signal to the system that you are disconnecting the device so it can make sure the state has been fully synced. (FWIW, there are also solutions to this problem, but almost every storage device these days uses a legacy transfer protocol and file system that together make corruption not only possible, but likely.)

My scanner at work has no mechanism for ejecting the thumb drive, and I even though I wait until it seems everything is quiescent before disconnecting it, routinely find that drives to which I've scanned have developed corrupted filesystems and need to be reformatted.

[KeithK]

Guess I've just been lucky. But then, I've had Vista installed on my home PC for 3+ years and can only remember two BSoD events.  (Am I due for a Law of Averages event? :-p)

[Beeeej]

Easy. All you do is take the cable that came w/ your kindle and plug it into your computer. It'll show up just like a USB thumb drive (or any other mass storage device, like a HD). There's a folder hierarchy there, I think the one you want is called "Documents." It'll be full of all your amazon purchases. Just drag the .mobi file there (it has to be .mobi, Kindles can't read ePub (the other unencrypted standard ebook format)) and then unplug the kindle. It'll be there in your list of books.

So, I finally got around to doing this - and the file is now safely in the "documents" folder on my Kindle, along with all the other books I've downloaded to it in the past.  But when I ejected the Kindle, the book didn't show up on my Home screen in the list of books.  I plugged the Kindle back in, and the file was still there, so the copy went as it should have.  But I noticed that while this is a .mobi file, all the other books on the Kindle are in .mbp format.  I also notice that .mbp is not a format supported by Calibre, which someone else here recommended in case I needed to convert.

Can anyone tell me what I need to do now in order to see this book in my list of books on the Home screen?

Thanks again for assistance.

[pfibiger]

So my kindle is full of .mobi files, it shouldn't be an issue. AZW is the amazon DRM-enabled mobipocket format, MBP is the metadata for the book (highlights, bookmarks, etc).

Is there any chance it's just on a second page of your home screen or something? Or perhaps it has weird metadata that shows it by a different name than just the filename? Even if it were a corrupt file, with the .mobi extension it should show up in the document list. All kindles from the first have been able to read unprotected .mobi files.

[Beeeej]

Is there any chance it's just on a second page of your home screen or something? Or perhaps it has weird metadata that shows it by a different name than just the filename? Even if it were a corrupt file, with the .mobi extension it should show up in the document list. All kindles from the first have been able to read unprotected .mobi files.

I checked all three pages of my home screen, and I checked my "Archived Items" menu.  Everything in those lists corresponds with a book I know to have purchased, and "Robert's Rules of Karaoke" ain't there.

Other suggestions?

[pfibiger]

Is there any chance it's just on a second page of your home screen or something? Or perhaps it has weird metadata that shows it by a different name than just the filename? Even if it were a corrupt file, with the .mobi extension it should show up in the document list. All kindles from the first have been able to read unprotected .mobi files.

I checked all three pages of my home screen, and I checked my "Archived Items" menu.  Everything in those lists corresponds with a book I know to have purchased, and "Robert's Rules of Karaoke" ain't there.

Other suggestions?

So "Archive" is only for books that are purchased on Amazon but aren't on your Kindle. No surprise it isn't there.

Here's a pile of free-of-copyright .mobi files:

http://freekindlebooks.org/mostfamousbooksmostfamousauthors.html

Grab a couple and try adding them to your kindle. Do they show up? If so, then perhaps it's something weird with this particular one (try deleting it, empty trash, disconnect, reconnect, add again). If that doesn't work, contact the publisher and see if they have any idea what's up with that particular file (or try it on another kindle).If none of those public domain books show up, then I'm stumped.

[Beeeej]

Here's a pile of free-of-copyright .mobi files:

http://freekindlebooks.org/mostfamousbooksmostfamousauthors.html

Grab a couple and try adding them to your kindle. Do they show up? If so, then perhaps it's something weird with this particular one (try deleting it, empty trash, disconnect, reconnect, add again). If that doesn't work, contact the publisher and see if they have any idea what's up with that particular file (or try it on another kindle).If none of those public domain books show up, then I'm stumped.

Okay, now we're getting somewhere.  The public domain book I copied onto the Kindle shows up in the menu, and is readable as a book, with no problems.  I'm definitely going to try again, and if it still doesn't work, contact the publisher about this.  Thanks for the assistance thus far!

[ugarte]

Is there any chance it's just on a second page of your home screen or something? Or perhaps it has weird metadata that shows it by a different name than just the filename? Even if it were a corrupt file, with the .mobi extension it should show up in the document list. All kindles from the first have been able to read unprotected .mobi files.

I checked all three pages of my home screen, and I checked my "Archived Items" menu.  Everything in those lists corresponds with a book I know to have purchased, and "Robert's Rules of Karaoke" ain't there. And my Kindle is flashing "12:00".

Other suggestions?

FYP

[Beeeej]

I read the description on TheWriteDeal, Elliot, and it sounds like my kind of novel, so I look forward to it.  It's not actually going to be $0, right?

Correct. It's going to go for $11.50, if I recall correctly. Hope you enjoy it!

Aw, man... now it's $9.25.  So much for the advantages of early adoption!  ::crazy::

[jtwcornell91]

Is there any chance it's just on a second page of your home screen or something? Or perhaps it has weird metadata that shows it by a different name than just the filename? Even if it were a corrupt file, with the .mobi extension it should show up in the document list. All kindles from the first have been able to read unprotected .mobi files.

I checked all three pages of my home screen, and I checked my "Archived Items" menu.  Everything in those lists corresponds with a book I know to have purchased, and "Robert's Rules of Karaoke" ain't there. And my Kindle is flashing "12:00".

Other suggestions?

FYP

[Beeeej]

I contacted the support people at the website.  First they completely misunderstood my question, so then I had to explain it in small words.  Then they suggested I try some things that I had already, in my original email to them, explained that I had tried.  Once they exhausted that impressive arsenal, they gave up and offered me a refund.  I don't want a refund, I want to read the damn book.

Anybody here have any other suggestions?  Has anybody here bought the book and successfully downloaded it and transferred it to a Kindle?

[RinkRatInExile]

Beeej,

Yves forwarded me your e-mail. If nothing else, I can send you my PDF copy of the book. Obviously, it won't read on your Kindle, but you will have the book in some form.

I'm sorry you've been having trouble with it.

Thanks,

EO