How to…

Buondì.

I’ve got a lot on today, and am starting later than usual due to traffic, roadworks, red lights, and a surplus of morons on Italian roads.

So I’ll just do a couple of quick notes on ‘How to…’ do things, that is to say things that some people seem not to have figured out.

I was going to start with how to walk and chew gum at the same time, but it appears that someone’s already done that one. So…

1.) How to download an ebook

Admittedly, if you’re using an Apple product, their designers may try to frustrate you in carrying out this simple, routine computing task, but for everyone else in the world (we are a shrinking band, I know), it’s easy. And you can PRACTICE NOW, FOR FREE! Here’s how.

Go to our ebooks store, EasyReaders.org by clicking that link (it’ll even work on an Apple device…)

Scroll down until you see the ‘Best Sellers’ column. Naturally, the best ‘sellers’ are always the free ones, for instance ‘Il ristorante’, but for the sake of downloading practice pick whichever language you prefer – there are also French, Spanish and German versions.

Clicking on the image or product notes for ‘Il ristorante’ will get you to the product page, here:

https://easyreaders.org/product/il-ristorante/

Scroll down and click the ORANGE ‘Add to cart’ button.

Scroll back up and you’ll see a dark blue flash with a ‘cart’ icon and the total of your order, which should be £0.00.

Click that blue element to see your cart contents.

Now in the cart, scroll down to see the BIG ORANGE ‘Proceed to checkout’ button. Before pressing it, check that your Cart total is £0.00. If you only have the free one it should be.

ALWAYS CHECK BEFORE YOU PROCEED.

£0.00? Bene. Now press it.

In the cart, fill in your information. If you’re anal about these things, make something up. I don’t care. But use a genuine email address, or you won’t receive the email with the download link for the free ebook.

Press the BIG ORANGE ‘Place order’ button. After a few seconds thinking time, the shop software will send you to the ‘Order received’ page.

SCROLL DOWN to where it says ‘Downloads’. Under that, you’ll see the title of your free ebook, in my case ‘Il ristorante’.

You could click it, or you could click the BIG ORANGE ‘Download’ button to the right. Do that just once, please.

Ta-da! Your ebook has now been dowloaded to your Downloads folder (on a real computer…) You may not have noticed that happening, but if you navigate there, you’ll see it, probably at the top.

How to find the Downloads folder? On a Windows computer, there’s a search icon in the task bar at the bottom of the screen (looks like a magnifying glass). Click it and type ‘Downloads’. Click on the most appropriate result.

So, now we’re in the Downloads folder. Click on .pdf file that’s named for your chosen ebook, and the ebook will open using whichever application you have as your default .pdf reader.

In the .pdf reader, use the ‘Save as’ option in the menu to save a copy of the file in a location where it’ll be easy to find when you need it. So now you have two – one in the Downloads folder, and the copy you just made.

Or right click on the .pdf in the Downloads folder, and select ‘copy’, then go to your easy-to-find location, right click again, and choose ‘paste’.

Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

In the meantime, you’ll also have received an email. The subject line is: ‘Your EasyReaders.Org order is now complete‘. And amazingly, that ALSO CONTAINS THE DOWNLOAD LINK, in case you were in too much of a hurry and navigated away from the ‘Order received’ page, without reading it.

If you didn’t bother to read either the ‘order received’ page or the email with the download link, you could sit and scratch your head awhile, or wait patiently for days or even weeks, for me to send the ebook you ordered (I won’t), before then getting mad and writing one of those ‘so polite and formal as to be incredibly rude’ emails.

Know that I hate those, so may reply sarcastically. Someone the other day suggested I tell my superior how rude I was being to customers, to which I replied that I was my superior, and his too, at least in the sense that I knew how to… and he didn’t.

N.b. The download links are set to expire after three clicks/seven days, whichever comes sooner. That’s clearly stated on every product information page, and in all my marketing messages, but anyway still causes everyone much grief (including me).

The limits are supposed to ensure that people pay attention, and do actually download, and actually save a copy of their ebook (whether free or paid for), which as you now see is actually not difficult at all. Rathert than waiting ten years until I’m dead, then bugging my heirs about it.

And on an Apple device? I’m delighted to say I don’t have one, but I Googled ‘ibooks download a .pdf from a link‘ and found this as the first result (I’m sure there are plenty of other useful guides, too.)

The tricky part is knowing that you have to use an app on your tablet or phone, as there’s no Downloads folder, so clicking a download link without specifying the app will get you nowhere except irritated.

The default app is called iBooks. You’ll need to figure out yourself how to use it. Bug the young people in the Apple store, or Google it.

2.) How to unsubscribe from an email list

This one is even easier, I promise.

What you should NOT do is to reply to the unwanted email with UNSUBSCRIBE!!!!! as whoever reads that will know immediately that you are a  moron and ignore you. Unless they’re polite and caring, as I can occasionally be,  in which case they might reply something like:

“All bulk email has an unsubscribe link, normally at the bottom. Please use it. It takes just seconds.’

You could practice on this email if you wish. Scroll right down to the end, where you will see this:

Unsubscribe   |   Change Subscriber Options

Those links aren’t the right ones of course (otherwise you would be unsubscribing me), but the ones in your emailed article will be.

The first takes you to a page with the name of the list or lists that you’re on – this one is called ‘italianclub’ – with two radio buttons next to each list name: Subscribed and Unsubscribed.

Click the radio button next to Unsubscribed, then scroll down, look right, and click the BLUE ‘Save My Subscriber Settings’ button.

And you’re done. Wasn’t hard, was it?

The ‘italianclub’ list has over 17000 emails on it, and every single one of them managed to sign up without my help. It’s not too much, I feel, that people should also take a second or two to ‘unsubscribe’ without my help either. Life’s too short, as is my patience, for me to be doing it manually. Sorry!

N.b. The other link, ‘Change Subscriber Options’, allows you, for instance, to change your email address. Maybe you signed up with your work email, but would now rather get my wise words sent to your personal address? Now you know how.

And another ‘note well’: different mailing providers work in different ways, for example, the one that EasyItalianNews.com uses to mail thrice-weekly educational material – for free – to over 15000 students of Italian.

Because EIN relies on donations rather than selling stuff, their list is managed by a free external provider of website services instead of the expensive one the club uses, and so operates differently.

If you’re an EIN subscriber, at the bottom of each bulletin you WILL see (if you take the trouble to look) this:

Manage your email settings or unsubscribe.

Again, the link isn’t the correct one (I want to keep reading and listening to the news) but yours will be.

Click it and you’ll be sent an email with a link in it. Click the link and you’ll be taken to your very own ‘Manage all subscriptions’ page.

Scroll down to find the ‘Cancel subscription’ button.

OK, so it isn’t BIG AND ORANGE, but it’s there. There’s therefore really no point in getting irate and threatening me with a one million Australian dollar fine for sending unwanted emails.

Unless you really want a rude reply.

A mercoledì.

P.S.

Have you read/listened to Saturday’s FREE bulletin of ‘easy’ Italian news?

Subscribing is FREE (and unsubscribing is easy, see above.)

Subscribers get the bulletins, via email, three times a week – on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, so don’t have to regularly check the website…

The site carries no advertising, but every couple of months they appeal to readers for donations (this week, actually!)

If EasyItalianNews.com has helped you improve your Italian, donate here.

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