Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2011/12/13

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Subject: [Leica] OT (Sort of) Clear fingernail polish
From: kanner at acm.org (Herbert Kanner)
Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2011 15:22:33 -0800

The Bush era Attorney General Ashcroft stated publicly that the only 
things one really needed were duct tape and WD40: duct tape to keep 
things from moving that shouldn't move and WD40 to enable things to 
move that should move. I propose to add clear fingernail polish to 
this list.

Years ago, I bought a Timex watch that had a nickel back and 
discovered a violent allergy to nickel. I went to a store that 
specialized in watch bands and was disappointed to be told they 
couldn't accommodate a Timex. Then a customer said: "Paint the back 
with clear fingernail polish."

Years later, my iPaq, which just refuses to die, had the socket for 
the stylus wear to the point where the stylus was falling out. Being 
as both the top of the socket and the top of the stylus were both 
plastic, buying a new stylus for $11+ was a minor gamble as I did not 
know which component had worn the most. Alas, the new stylus was 
looser than the old one. I thought, I should paint the socket 
entrance with collodion; now where the hell do I get some of that. 
Then, I remembered: "Clear fingernail polish!!!" Was it still in the 
medicine cabinet? It was.

OK, now I'll show how this relates to Leica. The 8 gig SD card that I 
bought at the store where I bought the M8 had a write protect slider 
that did not "click" between positions; it just had friction. In 
about a year it got pretty loose and if I didn't insert it very 
carefully into the camera, I would get an angry message on the LCD 
screen. Yesterday, I was trying to update the firmware in the camera 
and every time I dragged the firmware icon to the SD card icon, the 
icon would snap back; I just couldn't write to the card. I was being 
pretty stupid about it; it took a long time before it occurred to me 
that there was probably nothing wrong with the firmware update file, 
that this might be the behavior if the card was set to write protect. 
So, I took a 2 gig card out of my point-and-shoot, saw that I could 
write to it, and that if I set it to write protect, it behaved like 
the card out of the M9. After many attempts to insert it into the 
card reader without that tab moving to protect, I decided to cement 
it in place with nail polish. Worked perfectly!!

Final note: Leica lied when they said that updating the firmware 
would reset the L number to zero. It didn't.

Herb
-- 
Herbert Kanner
kanner at acm.org
650-326-8204

Question authority and the authorities will question you.