Jailbreak Job

While I have nothing against John Steinbeck or Virginia Woolf, and devoured Pride & Prejudice like kids today ravage Twilight novels, it's been a real pain in my ass to have to stare at portraits of Jane Austen and other famed authors rendered as my Kindle wallpaper. So a year and a half after receiving the contraption, I finally made time last week to Jailbreak the device. Now, I get a lovely rotation of black-and-white Foxy Brown pix and random fashion editorials I googled. I figured I'd share it here because a lot of people probably can't be bothered to Jailbreak, or think that it will void the warranty, or didn't even know you could do it.

The process of Jailbreaking is a lot simpler than I thought -- all you have to do is download a file, drag it into the Kindle folder, and then unplug and click update. Then to add the wallpaper hack, you download another file and do the same thing. Straightforward instructions appear here (mirror site 3 worked best for me to download the appropriate files).

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Serve and Protect

How I manage to put up a blog post a day is sometimes beyond me, because I'm the most disorganized person you'll ever meet. My personal life is in absolute disarray, my taxes are way beyond due, I can't cash a check to save my life and I meant to order a Kindle cover back in September but -- guess what? -- I haven't really gotten around to it. Somehow I have managed to shop online for way more clothes and shoes than I need, maintain a Restaurant City account, manage my dog's Facebook profile and read four Sookie Stackhouse books in the past week. Twice. Priorities, people.

Wakeboarding season is beginning, which means my Kindle needs protection from leaky tanning oil bottles, car keys, sand and whatever other accoutrements get into my beach bag. But the main reason I've been dilly-dallying when it comes to ordering a protective cover is that the ones on Amazon are pretty dull, and way too fancy, and occasionally much too expensive, ie in the costs-more-than-a-Kindle-itself range. Thank heavens for the little elves at Etsy, who get to work sewing up squishy manila-envelope-style Kindle covers in all sorts of fun patterns, starting at US$15 a pop.

Of course it follows that most of these vendors also sell sleeves in sizes to meet all your other portable tech requirements as well -- iPad cases, laptop sleeves, other brands of eReaders, etc. All of these range from the sophisticated to the silly -- I'll let you guess towards which end my tastes sway. Some of these guys don't seem to ship to Hong Kong, but I'll not hold that against them. I know you readers are good at figuring ways around these silly shipping issues.

Rogue Theory: Huge selection, ringing in at US$15 a piece. Doesn't ship to Hong Kong, it appears. The design is a simple sleeve envelope with no seal.
Geek Pick: The Birch Orange Navy is sharp and chic, and sort of reminiscent of Maya's amazing print from Project Runway, if anybody still remembers that.


Rockit Bot: US$29 for eReader wristlets -- simple sleeves in an Orla Kiely-esque pastel palette. Don't swing the wristlet too hard, as it doesn't appear they have any closure mechanism.
Geek Pick: Duh! The geeky glasses in FashionGeek's favourite green.


Free Moment: Also not a viable option for shipping, but these are the most secure of the Kindle cases, with a wraparound zipper as well as tabbed edges to keep your reader secure. There's even a pocket to store your other stuff, all for US$43.99.
Geek Pick: Sweet graphic prints slay me any day.


Smile Recipe: This shop is all about the kawai! Lots of pinks and polka-dots, occasionally at the same time... US$22 each.
Geek Pick: The panda print is adorable.


echoshop: Simple, mostly earthy sleeves in a variety of prints, all of which close with a button and elastic. US$20 up.
Geek Pick: They wouldn't call me ShoeGeek if I didn't recommend the pump-printed sleeve, now would they?

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