Eddie On Everything » kindle 2

“Press Ctrl-I to enter configuration utility” Boot Failure Caused by Kindle

eddie — Sat, 07 May 2011 15:45:15 +0000

I had to reboot one of my computers, which a pretty rare occurrence around here.

The machine is a few years old Dell Dimension e520.

The problem: The computer wouldn’t reboot. After running through a little RAID dialog, the computer just hung, right after showing the message “Press Ctrl-I to enter configuration utility”.

The solution: I discovered that the problem was caused by my Amazon Kindle. Yes, you read that right, my Amazon Kindle prevented my computer from booting properly. I unplugged the Kindle, rebooted, and everything was magically fixed.

Discussion: I was a little nervous when I saw that this computer wouldn’t boot. I assumed that I had a hard drive failure, or hard disk controller failure. The message isn’t helpful at all, it just happens to be the message that gets spit out right before whatever caused the hang caused the hang… Anyway, I only use this computer as a media manager, so I wouldn’t have lost any irreplaceable documents, but it would have been a pain in the neck to deal with.

After rebooting a few times, and getting the “Press Ctrl-I to enter configuration utility” error each and every time, I started the process of narrowing down the problem. Fiddle with BIOS settings to verify everything is in order. Boot with some hard drives disconnected, in an attempt to narrow the problem down to a particular hard drive.

After about 15 minutes of messing with it, I noticed that my Kindle was connected via USB cable to the computer. I thought, “Hmm, I wonder if this Dell is trying to boot from the Kindle or something…” So I unplugged the Kindle. Voila! Problem solved!

Was the computer trying to boot from the Kindle? Probably not. I assume that the BIOS was trying to get information from the Kindle about what sort of device it was. The computer was asking, “Hey, you there on USB port 1, it’s KIndle, right? Ha, that’s a funny name. Anyway, what are you? Can I boot from you?” To which the Kindle probably replied, “DuuuurrrrrrrR?”

So anyway… If you’re having problems booting your computer, and if you’re getting the “Press Control –I to enter configuration utility” message, try unplugging all of your USB devices before you spend a lot of time troubleshooting.

Changing the Margin Size on the Kindle

eddie — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 21:25:06 +0000

I’ve always thought that the Kindle has way too big of margins.

So much of the screen seems wasted on huge margins. Yeah, it produces a prettier pictures when photographing the Kindle, but if you prefer a little bit larger text size, these large margin cuts down on the number of words-per-page significantly.

I wanted those margins to be a bit smaller, so I set out to find out how.

After much digging, I found a tip on the Kindle forums that told me how to change the margin size.

Here’s how to change the margin size on the Kindle:

1. Set your Kindle to show the main screen (i.e. not displaying a book), then connect the Kindle to your computer.

2. Using your computer, browse to the system > com.amazon.ebook.booklet.reader directory.

3. There, you’ll find a file called “reader.pref.” Open it with your favorite text editor. (If you’re on Windows, you can use Notepad if you don’t have another one.)

4. There’s a setting in there for “HORIZONTAL_MARGIN”. The default setting is 40. change it to whatever you’d like.

5. Disconnect your Kindle from your computer & restart it. (Press Menu, choose “Settings”, press Menu again, then choose “Restart”.

I changed the margin setting on my Kindle to be 20, which seems to be fine for my tastes. I had originally tried setting it to 10, but when the margin is that small the bezel casts a shadow over a small portion of the text. It bugged me, so I’m fine with 20.

There are a couple of other settings in the file, too – one for font justification, for instance. I haven’t played around with changing these.

A note: Don’t open up a document before restarting your Kindle. If you do, the changes you made will be overwritten. Also, make sure that your Kindle is on the home screen before connecting it to your computer.

Another note: If you change the “words per line” setting while reading a book, your changes here will be lost. (That is, the margin setting will revert to “40”.) Chances are you never use this feature anyway, particularly since you came here trying to make the default words per line even greater. I have been able to change the font size without losing my new settings.

Yet another note: This setting also affects the margins for the main Kindle screen. So depending on how slim you make the margins, the little “new” or “sample” flag that shows up next to a title may get cut off. With my setting of 20, everything seems to fit. Even if it didn’t, though, it really wouldn’t bother me too much – what do I care if my screen shows “ample” instead of “sample,” as long as I know what “ample” means?

A tip for Windows users: If you’re unable to see the “system” folder on your Kindle, make sure that Windows Explorer’s “Show hidden/system files” setting is turned on.

How To Fix Your Kindle 2 When It Won’t Charge

eddie — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 01:30:06 +0000

Egad! My Kindle stopped charging!

I settled in to bed the other night and grabbed my Amazon Kindle, looking to pick up where I left off in The Hades Factor. I was met with a familiar “Your battery is running low” message, so I plugged the Kindle in to the charger for the night and instead settled in with an old-fashioned, low-tech, printed-on-dead-trees style book.

The next morning, I unplugged my should-have-been-fully-charged Kindle & sat down to read the morning paper, only to be met with the “your battery is CRITICAL error!” Zoinks! For some reason, despite being plugged in all night, my Kindle had not charged!

I quickly ran to my computer & attached the Kindle. My Windows XP PC popped up that dreaded “USB Device Not Recognized” balloon. “It’s OK,” I thought. “It’ll be OK. I’ll just power the Kindle off by holding the power on/off slider for 15 seconds, and I’ll check back later.”

I returned later and … No dice! The Kindle was still not charging!

Thankfully, I was able to find a solution to this problem. (Whew!) After searching for things like “Kindle reset,” “Kindle hard reset,” and “Kindle soft reset,” I learned that while the Kindle 1 can be reset with a paper clip, or by using the Shift-Alt-R trick, these methods didn’t work on the Kindle 2.

I eventually came across a page that relayed a tip by Amazon Kindle Tech Support. I followed these steps, and within a couple of hours, I was back in action.

How to reset your Kindle when it won’t charge

1. Slide the power button and hold it for 30 sec.

2. Release and wait for 20 sec until the screen begins to flash.

3. As soon as it does, plug in the power and keep it connected for 2 hours.

Big thanks to The Epistemist for pointing me in the right direction. Now, back to my Robert Ludlum book…

Eddie On Everything » kindle 2

“Press Ctrl-I to enter configuration utility” Boot Failure Caused by Kindle

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Changing the Margin Size on the Kindle

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