Livescribe Pulse (Echo) smartpen Registered to someone else.

You were stumbling around the internet, saw a cool add on Facebook about this ‘Pulse smartpen’ from Livescribe, and thought it looked cool. Or, maybe you were in school and saw someone else with a really weird looking pen and asked them what it was. They told you it was a Livescribe Echo Smartpen, and showed you what it could do.

For whatever reason, you decided to pick one up for yourself. You looked in the stores, but they were pretty expensive. For a pen, 200 bucks is a hefty about to throw down. So, instead, you checked out EBay, and Amazon, and all those other sites.

But wait! You found someone selling a Pulse (Echo) smartpen (4GB Titanium? 2GB Charcoal-Blue?) for cheap! You don’t know why, but it’s your lucky day. You make the executive decision, scrounge around for the spare change (or just withdraw it from the bank) and meet up with that person.

Cash and Pulse change hands, and next thing you know, you are now the proud owner of a Livescribe Pulse Smartpen! Congrats!

You rush home and take out your new Livescribe smartpen, confirm everything’s there, and then read the Owner’s Manual. Okay, so you skim it. (RTFM, it’ll help a lot.) Then you get ready to use your Pulse (Echo) smartpen!

First you download the Livescribe Desktop, just like the manual says. Then, you get ready to play with your toy.

You jot down a few notes in the Livescribe Starter Notebook (With its odd dot matrix pattern on the background) and put your Livescribe smartpen in the cradle and a prompted to authorize the pen.

Bad news! It’s registered to someone else! What to do?!

First, let me explain why. When the Pulse (Echo) smartpen is registered, it places a certificate on the Livescribe smartpen to tell the Livescribe smartpen not to talk to any Livescribe Desktop, except the one that has the username that the registration certificate references. It’s to keep your data safe.

There are a couple things you can do in this scenario, to make your Livescribe smartpen work for you.

First, you can contact the person you bought the Pulse (Echo) smartpen off of, and explain the situation, and ask them to unlink it from their account. It should be a relatively painless process.
Or, you could also ask that they change their account name to whatever you want yours to be, and give you their password. You can change the password with little trouble, and they can recreate their account afterwards.

But, say they’re not responding, or you don’t have a way to contact them? Then, you’re going to need to contact Livescribe Customer Support (877.727.4239 – 877.SCRIBE9 or CS@Livescribe.com) and explain the situation.

They’re going to ask for the Serial Number of your Livescribe smartpen, and then they’re going to tell you they need to check with the original owner of the Pulse (Echo) smartpen. Don’t get offended, it’s just protocol, nothing personal.

Then, you get a notice a little while later that your Pulse (Echo) Smartpen has been unlinked and some instructions on how to Master Reset your Livescribe smartpen.
Done with that, you can use your Pulse (Echo) smartpen with utter freedom, the way it was meant to be used.

So, if you do get a second hand Pulse (Echo) smartpen, be sure that you’ve taken care of registration before you record important information on your Livescribe smartpen, otherwise it could be a headache and some lost data.

On a side note.You can get more information about the errors on the Livescribe Website, in their Knowledge base.

Please, be sure not to confuse the issue: 85200 – When I dock my smartpen and run Livescribe Desktop I am getting the message: This smartpen is registered to another user.

With the issue: 80301 – How do I remove a registered smartpen from the Livescribe database so someone else can register it (the smartpen was given or sold to someone else)?

One is for if you own the Pulse (Echo) smartpen already and are re-authorizing it to your computer and Livescribe Desktop, the other is if you bought the Livescribe smartpen off someone else and need to unregister it from them and to yourself.

Filed under: Desktop, Livescribe, Smartpen

Livescribe’s Beta Application Store

The reason for the 2.0 Livescribe Desktop (I discussed it in my last post here.) is to make way for the next big thing: Apps!

The Livescribe Application Store (Beta) is one of the biggest things to hit Livescribe since the wave of paper products in the middle of last year.  They upgraded the pen to an astounding 4GB, just to hold more of those delicious apps.

Later I’ll be going through the cheap (and free) apps that are available to the Livescribe owners, but today I’m talking about the store itself.

Applications galore at the Livescribe Online Store!

When it was first introduced, there were so many people visiting it that it cause the servers to have sporadic issues for at least a week. (Remember that finals pencast you wanted to upload but couldn’t? Yeah, this is why.) Since then, it’s been growing in popularity.

There are free applications, cheap applications ranging from .99 to 2.99 and more expensive ones. The most expensive is Yiddish chanting for a whopping 99.99 (Magic Yid).  And they range from Educational to just plain fun.

There have been some issues with getting the applications to download properly on the Livescribe Desktop, but with a quick rename (I’ll post more on that later – it’s changed since the 1.7) you’ll be good to go.

You have to have the 2.0.1 LD and 2.1.1 FW in order to take advantage of the apps; but it’s worth it in my opinion.

I bought the Hang Man application the first day it came out, and my daughter loves it. She’s always enjoyed the piano, so having Hang Man really made her day. Truth be told, I enjoy it, as well.

I also took advantage of a free offer and snagged up Draw Poker, which takes paper but the ‘Application Drawings’ can be used again and again, thus ensuring you don’t have to waste paper on repeatedly drawing the application support picture. (And, finally a reason for the stylus!)

Have you checked out the new Application Store? What’d you think of it? Did you buy one of the Apps? Which ones?

Filed under: Livescribe, Smartpen, Applications, Store

2.0.1 Livescribe Desktop

If you’ve put your pen in the cradle recently, you may have been asked (told to on pain of death or dismemberment) to update your Livescribe Desktop.

The new face of the Livescribe Desktop (PC Version) is more appealing after a complete remake.

Initially, you’re impressed with the changes. It’s a little more aesthetically appealing, with a more easy to navigate GUI. But then, the problems begin.

You put your pen in the cradle, expecting it to transfer the content from your last meeting, only to discover empty silence in return. The one time perfect relationship between your Pulse Smartpen and the Livescribe Desktop, the happy ending of Romeo & Juliette’s tragedy, act as if they don’t even realize the other exists anymore!

First things, first – Don’t panic. We can fix this.

Before we fix it though, let me explain why this problem has arisen. Your pen and your computer both have programs inside them that tell them how to interact with one another. Before this update, then pen has a firmware (FW) 1.6.2 that connects to the Livescribe Desktop (LD) version 1.7. This update takes your desktop from the 1.7 to a 2.0.1 which means it’s a completely new software version on your computer.

Your pen, still at FW1.7 is unable to process this. It can’t connect to the LD simply because the LD can only speak with FW version 2.1 or higher. Which means, your pen isn’t angry with it’s one time soul mate, they just aren’t speaking the same language anymore.

In order for our pen and LD to once more ‘make eyes’ we’re going to need to first teach the pen how to speak 2.1 instead of his outdated (and probably barbaric) 1.6.2. ‘How do we do that?’ you ask. Or, as one of our readers put it:

Anything on the problem zillions of LD 2 users are having in not being able to migrate or upload audio on the desktop from their upgraded software and pen? – Bill Linnane

In answer to that, I say ‘Yes! Yes there is!’.  We just need to update the firmware on your pen.

The LD is supposed to do this automatically, but there are a few instances where it didn’t work.  Either it’s no longer recording audio and playing back audio on the pen (no, it’s not broken) but it does respond to all the other keys.  Or, it’s just showing the time regardless of what you tap it on! (Possible FSR issue, but it’s unlikely if you’ve just updated it.)

The only hope for our now silent lovers is to… Do a Manual Firmware Update. (Or contact tech support.)

To manually update the firmware on your Mac, or PC, you’re going to have to follow one of the links below:

Mac Manual Firmware Update

Windows Manual Firmware Update

The instructions explain how to download the .zip file that you will need to run the installation program from. And, how to run the program from there, to get your pen’s FW up to date.

Now, let’s let Romeo and Juliette get back to making kissie faces, while you’re getting your content transferred.

Did this help any? Did your LD automatically update the FW on your pen?

Filed under: Livescribe, Smartpen, Firmware, Update