Until recently I’ve had a long and relatively happy relationship with Amazon*. Then I got a smartphone and it all went to hell.
Naive and unknowing, I made the mistake of logging on to Amazon with a second device, which triggered some security bot. Now I can’t use either my laptop OR my smartphone on Amazon without inputting a second security code emailed by Amazon’s bot – except the emails the bot sends me are invariably BLANK. Which is not a big help.
Maybe – probably – it’s just my comically outdated software. Maybe … I don’t know. I’m sure an eleven-year-old would sort this out without breaking stride. I have officially reached fogeydom. It’s all downhill from here.
Curiously Amazon has no problem whatsoever with the tablet computer Big Brother gave me in April. So now I do the small amount of online shopping I do using the tablet. But I invariably forget about that and get frustrated when Amazon won’t let me shop on my laptop.
—
*Yes, yes, I know they’re evil privacynappers intent on world domination. True. But you deal with the despot you’ve got.
I’ve never yet bought anything from those bastards, & intend to spend the rest of my life with that being true. I do buy some few things online, but not from them. Of course, I can just drive 15 miles or so to Peso General for most things. I know you don’t have that option, Joel.
Joel, my Luddite friend… :^) Go into the Amazon settings look for Digital Content and Devices and click on it. Then look for Content and Devices and click on it. Then look for Your Devices, click on it and check to see what devices you have registered and which one is your primary. Then set the device you want as primary, I.E. where you will order items from. And don’t forget, when you download an ebook click on the device it’s going to be downloaded to. If this fails, hit the help button and chat with somebody who will walk you through it in real time.
Joel – as to Amazon’s ‘blank’ emails… do you use Thunderbird as your email client? If you do and you also have it set to display messages in plain text – some of the fancier emails can display ‘blank’. If it’s T’bird then I can point you towards how to see the message. Basically – you just temporarily change the setting to view ‘message body as’ to either ‘simple html’ or ‘original html’.
By the gods! This fixed it. Thank you!
Nice!
Just fwiw – the difference between those two settings is that ‘original html’ will attempt to load any linked objects (graphics and such) within the email from someone else’s server when you open it – ‘simple’ doesn’t send out a beacon – just indicates where it is within the email but won’t ‘ping’ a server. Anytime you ping a server – information about your machine is recorded by the server – so ‘plain text’ is the way to go for (a trivial amount of) privacy and security.
I used to say – somewhere around ’92 – that I was glad that I’d be too old to be expected to use and understand personal computing by the time it was commonplace. In my defense – when you’re XX years old – you probably have no idea of what “too old” actually is.
Like a passed buddy of mine used to say – “Any day you wake up and they’re not kicking dirt on you is a good day.”