Hi, and a couple of questions

[Pete731]

Hi everybody, I found an Aluratek Libre Pro on sale as open box at Future Shop for 39.99$, so I got it as a back up for my Kobo Vox (which I love, but it's big and has short battery life). It seems to be working well, I got a cheap generic 2 GB SD card to go with it. I am enjoying it, but have 2 questions/issues that I was hoping for some advice on.
1. Bookmarks don't seem to stay. I press the menu button, then bookmark this page, then a little paperclip appears in the header. But if I go back to the main menu, the book opens to the first page next time I open the book. What am I doing wrong/should be doing?
2. When I plug it into my PC (Vista 64 bit), both the internal memory and sd card show up, and I can open them to explore files. But when I try to copy and paste, or drag and drop epubs, pdfs or mp3s onto either, I get an error message "The disk is write-protected. Remove the write protection or use another disk"
The thing is, if I remove the SD card, and put into the card reader in my computer, I can copy files back and forth with no problem.;
So it's not a serious issue, since I'm storing all media on the SD anyway, but was wondering if this was normal, or if it indicates a problem?

[Ken Maltby]

The Libre Pro only has an USB 1.1 interface for its SD card reader and USB connection,
your PC's card reader is most likely USB 2.0, this makes a big difference. It is, by far, a
better procedure, to use your PC's card reader and not manipulate the data on your
SD card while it is in your Libre. They pop in and out very easily. (Just have the Libre on
and follow the warning message.)

Even Vista should allow you to treat the internal memory the same as any other storage
FAT partition. What do you see when you look at that drive letter's properties? Is it
showing as "Read Only"? If so can you change it?

Luck;
Ken

[k9reeder]

1. That should be working, sounds like you're doing it right. By the way, just as an aside, the ALP, mine at least, automatically re-opens any book I was reading to the last page I was on - it remembers, no bookmark necessary. I assume yours works the same way, right? Anyway, are you experiencing the same bookmarking problem with all books, and all formats?

2. I don't have an answer, but just to eliminate a possibility, have you tested using a different SD card, different brand, different size? I had similar problems with what I thought was a faulty mp3 player, but turned out the player just didn't seem to like the brand of card I had been using. (The bum card worked just fine in my PC's card reader too, just like your experience.)

[Pete731]

Ken Maltby - I didn't know that could make a difference, makes sense though, learn something new every day! I probably will just take the SD card in and out, since I plan to keep everything on it anyway.

k9reeder - You're right, It does seem to open automatically as long as the book is in "recent readings", at least in txt, epub and pdf. I think I just need to play around with it some more. I did try it with a 4 gb kodak SD card from my dads camera, and it did the same thing, but it did display the pictures properly, and seems to work fine otherwise, so I'm not that worried about it.

Thanks for the advice!

[Ken Maltby]

I charged up my ALP (I got it to run some tests and explore the differences between it
and my 4 jetBook Lite [JBL]) and reread your OP.

You seem to be missing a part of the bookmark process. The bookmark doesn't set where
the book will open to. The bookmark is added to a list that you access through
the second item in the "Function" menu when you are in an ebook "Bookmark List".
You can have pages of bookmarks listed and you make them so that you can quickly
return to a page you have already read. (Depending on the size of the font used on a
page, the page will be displayed on a number of screen pages, check the page number at
the top of the screen.) It's too bad that they don't let you title the bookmarks, (like they
do in the jetBook Color), you only have the number in parentheses, and the page number
to go by.

A number of ALP/JB/JBL users use the free Calibre program (it has a forum here on MR)
to organize their collection of ebooks, as well as convert from format to format. Calibre
can work with your SD card, in a reader on your PC, as if it were a folder on your hard
drive. That way you can place sorted collections on the SD card using Calibre's extensive book management tools.

I personally just made a folder on my PC, that holds my ebook library, and use the free
Microsoft "SyncToy" to copy that folder (or as much of it as I want) to my SD card in
my PC's card reader. I have it set so that any changes I make to the PC folder are made
on the SD card, so that the SD card remains a copy of my PC folder. That way I can
use all the tools on my PC to manage the files in the PC folder, very easily and quickly.
Then when I want to update the SD card I just place it in the PC's card reader and run
SyncToy, where only the changes needed are made.

Luck;
Ken

[Pete731]

You are correct, this does appear to be a case of user error Bookmarks working ok now.

I downloaded Calibre a couple of days ago, have been playing with it, seems like a neat program. Not familiar with the Sync Toy program, but will look it up, sounds useful, I like to mess around with stuff like that. (My philosophy is try it and see what happens.)

Thank you for all your help!