Kindled Spirits
The USB connector on my Amazon Kindle gave up the ghost the day before yesterday. I actually saw the event that heralded the loss; I was looking at the little charging light that sits next to the USB connector. Suspecting that it would turn from amber (charging) to green (charge complete) at any second, it did nothing. I mean that in the literal sense. The light just quietly went off.
I actually had an adrenaline rush of fear when I saw the little black hole from which colored light had moments ago been glowing, I feared the worst; a dead Kindle. You see, the USB port is how you charge the Kindle. You may use a computer or the little white wall voltage to USB voltage transformer they provide with the eBook reader. I knew with creeping dread that if the USB port failed, the battery would continue to lose charge until it eventually succumbed. There would be nothing I could do, short of hacking the reader’s case open and physically removing and charging the battery from a home contrived source.
I went through a series of tests which sought to eliminate different possibilities. To make sure it wasn’t just a cable that went bad, I tried a different cable, known to be working to use instead. Nope, no go. The light stayed off. So I tried a different USB port on the computer, just in case the one I was plugging into before had a problem. Nope, still broken. So I used the little Amazon transformer and plugged the Kindle into the wall with it. Then I tried two different cables with the transformer. Finally, I tested to see if it was charging in spite of the light not working. By now I had chewed off a third of the battery charge, so I left it plugged in for an hour and then checked the battery icon on the Kindle. It was still sitting where it was to begin with; about one-third low.
It was time to call in the experts. I’m an engineer so I knew that there was an issue with the USB circuit. Perhaps a trace or pin became disconnected. A break in the ‘wire’ will certainly cause failure. Or perhaps some component failed; whatever it was, it exceeded my ability to fix it so I contacted Amazon Kindle Customer support. I wanted to get an idea on what repair costs might be. The people at Amazon were spectacular. They listened as I explained the testing I had done, and when I finished they agreed with me. The Kindle was broken.
So, I said. Just what will it cost me to have my Kindle fixed? The immediate reply was that they had just placed an order for a brand new Kindle for me as a warranty replacement. They overnighted it to me, already registered. It took me mere minutes to have it looking and reacting like my old one.
In these days of having to go through excruciating gyrations to reach customer support, no less have your issue resolved quickly and conveniently, and in your favor. Amazon was outrageously spectacular. My part in this is to return the broken one to them. They gave me an internet URL to go to with my web browser to get a pre-printed, prepaid shipping label to return the old Kindle with. They sounded almost apologetic that if I didn’t return it within 30 days they would have to charge me for a new one. I think that’s totally fair.
My Kindle is important to me. It is more personal and utilitarian than my smartphone, and more dear than my steroid-grown computer. It was with me through the thick and thin of my treatments, the hospital stays because of my treatments, and the moments in between. It was good to be able to lose yourself in the characters and plot of a well crafted story. My Kindle kept my mind occupied when even watching television was too much. Frenetic and fraught with attention deficit syndrome, television bounces quickly from subject to subject, often with rising and falling and oh so irritable soundtracks. It was nice to mute it and put it on a channel that focused on the planet or the space it sits in as a backdrop for my reading.
My Kindle has been from Spokane to Seattle to San Francisco and Boise. It has traveled with me on three different airlines and made it through security xray 8 times. It has pumped a total of 130 books into my head as well just during the first year I’ve owned it. My Kindle is the best present I ever gave myself; I have used it more and more consistently than any other device I have, including my computers and home theater.
My new Kindle, now charged and anxious to go, is even better than the first. Running the latest operating system update, it is faster. Following instructions I found on the web, along with Amazon agreeing that it would not violate the warranty, I changed the screen saver images that came with the Kindle. Now my family members, robots and places I have enjoyed being are displayed when the Kindle powers off or goes to sleep. It was nice to have it come back after the reset required to make the photos display, and to see my son’s smiling face looking back at me.
And lastly, with the new Kindle also came the invitation to being able to offer my blog to others through the Amazon Kindle store as a free or low fee. That means that people with Kindles (and the interest) to be able to get Deludia delivered directly to their Kindle. So this morning I started the process to make Deludia available to interested people.
What started as a gut wrenching loss of a companion turned out pretty good in the end.
