Blog Loving Monday

Gemma posted on Friday that we were bestowed with an "I Love Your Blog" award, so this week we will each be choosing a blog to pass that honor on to. For my choice, I am picking my agent's blog - Pub Rants. My agent is Kristin Nelson and I love her blog. She gives industry information that is accurate, useful, and interesting, and she never pulls any punches. If you want the lowdown on the publishing biz from someone who lives it everyday, then check out Pub Rants!

I had another selection of blogs that I love, but the problem is it can't be narrowed to just one. I really, REALLY love techno-geek blogs! You know why? Because no matter how screwed up the manufacturer has made a product, there is someone out there smarter than the guy who built it that can tell you how to fix it, and he has a blog. Some of you may remember my horror story about opening the Office 2007 box. Well, my latest problem was with my Sony Reader.

My new laptop has Vista (God help us all), and it's been a challenge to put things politely to get certain software to function. However, I'd managed them all except my Sony Reader software - which incidentally is sorta like iTunes for the reader, in that without it, you can't buy new books or transfer them to your reader, leaving you with a really expensive doorstop.

So I did everything Sony said to do to update my reader software to work with Vista. I loaded it on the new computer, downloaded and installed the patch, blah, blah, blah. And it always looked like it worked, but then when I rebooted my computer (which is required) a quarter of the reader software screen disappeared. And great for me - it was the left side - the side with all the menus. This might be a problem. Ha! Might as well have no software at all. So of course, I emailed Sony and I am still waiting on an answer - that was six months ago. Finally, I got fed up and called (spent four hours on hold), for them to say that there software didn't work with Vista yet. Hello? Your website says it does.

So I ask why a computer manufacturer who was actually privy to advance release copies of operating systems didn't anticipate a problem with Vista. Are they really that stupid? The Sony guy whispered "Apparently they are. Do you have any idea how many of these phone calls I take a day?" I replied "Probably as many as the number of resumes you sent out this morning." He agreed.

So back to no software. I fall back to my failsafe - the internet. So I Google, Sony Reader+Vista+missing part of screen - and guess what, answers! I find a blog where a techno geek tells me that there's a registry file that must be deleted or Vista keeps the software from displaying properly. That's it. One friggin' file. Of course, this should have been a five-second event, but there's this whole administrator login issue with Vista that makes me want to run screaming into traffic. But I'll save that story for a morning where I can stay at home and drink.

So after wrestling with the administrator login, I manage to delete the file and lo and behold, techo geek - who is still in college - has fixed my problem that Sony - the MANUFACTURER of the product, didn't have a clue about.

So in collection - I Love All Techo-Geek Blogs!

Deadly DeLeon