I learned that lesson a few days ago–I downloaded a third-party utility that was supposed to be able to convert .rtf files into .lrf files (the native format for the Sony Reader), and I got visions of turning Early English Books Online documents into books to read on my Sony.
Bad idea.
The third party program’s presence mucked up the software that came with the Sony Reader, and the next time I plugged the unit in for a recharge and to put my new finds onto the Reader, it rendered about half of my books inoperable.? The good news, of course, is that they were all public domain, so all I have to do over the next little while is re-download the ones that I want.? The bad news is that I had to reformat the SD card where I kept my books, so I lost all my bookmarks in all the books I’d been reading.
Bummer.
Lesson learned: if it’s open source, monkey as you will, but back up.? If it’s proprietary, don’t even trust the backup; just don’t monkey with it.
