Routes not rewriting links properly

[eluser]steeped[/eluser]
[quote author="jvicab" date="1313177435"]if what you want is convert example.com/index.php/electronics/notebook/$1 into example.com/index.php/item/toshiba try
$route['electronics/(:any)/(:any)']='items/$2';
this rewrite the url changing electronics(the name of your controller) by items, and append the third parameter. Again, I am not sure what you would like your url to be[/quote]

The current long URL which I have is: example.com/index.php/electronics/notebook/toshiba123, but I would like to simplify it to instead look like: example.com/index.php/item/toshiba.

I apologize if I'm confusing you a little - I think i'm starting to confuse myself a little too.