MacTimeWasting

Damn, but I hate, hate, HATE having to update hardware and software. It’s so frustrating and it absorbs s-o-o-o-o-o-o damn much time, some of which right this minute I should be using to read a client’s book, and now after having spent two hours schlepping down to the Apple store (in the 8:00 a.m. rush hour, with every wacko who has a driver’s license frolicking grotesquely in front of me!), dinking around with sort of learning how to operate Lion (spare me the goddamn cutesy names, dear Apple, and please spare me the interminably repeated interminable learning curves!), getting connected with the iCloud, learning that it’s not as advertised, and discovering the Geniuses hadn’t done half the stuff that I asked them to do and that they said that they would do while they’ve had my MacBook for the past two and a half days, NOW I HAVE TO SCHLEP BACK DOWN THERE THIS AFTERNOON!

It’s after 11, and so effectively the entire morning is blown. Starting at 12:30, when I’ll have to get back on the road again, the entire afternoon will no doubt be blown.

When I dropped $2200 on the current new iMac, Apple agreed to…

• clone the applications and files on the MacBook to the new unit;
• update the MacBook’s operating system to Apple’s latest large cat, “Lion”; and
• connect the two computers to iCloud.

After two days without an efficiently functioning computer, I fly into the store at the appointed time and learn that yes, they have cloned the MacBook to the gigantic new iMac. And…

• No, they have not updated the MacBook’s OS. And
• Yes, I can expect downloading and installing Lion to take something around two hours from my office’s connection. But
• Sure, they’ll download it on their hyper-fast connection; it’ll take around 20 minutes there. And
• No, I don’t really want to wait for it to install at the store, because that will take upwards of an hour. Do I have something else to do in the (closed, at that hour) mall? And
• No, they haven’t connected either computer to iCloud. And
• No, come to think of it, you can’t use iCloud to store files. Well, unless they’re files created in Mac programs. iCloud will not let you store MS Office files! Hmmmm…
• No, we don’t know why you’re paying for this service. But you have to buy it to use your MacMail.
• Yeah, just about iCloud’s only function is to synch devices. Isn’t it kewl how you can get all three of your toys to talk to each other through this thing? Look, look! They’re all the same now!
• Yes, the only way you can locate a missing iPad is to have its GPS device configured so any moderately clever one who choses can trace your every footstep. But of course,
• No, you can’t use the “find my iPad” function without letting any-moderatelyclever-one snoop into your personal life. Isn’t it odd, though, that you would object to that?

When I left the MacBook Pro there to undergo these procedures, I said in no uncertain terms, please do NOT disable my Acrobat Professional! Please, please, PLEASE be sure this goes over to the new computer with no problem. I use this program in my work. It is crucial. It must function for me to do my job.

N-o-o-o-o-o-o-o problem, said they.

So after I bring the MacBook home and let it grind away for an hour gagging down the current jungle cat, I turn it on and what do I find?

A nice big circle with a line through it slapped over the Acrobat Professional icon.

Phone Apple store. Wait interminably listening to goddamn rap music (can you believe rap has now descended to the level of elevator muzak?), interrupted periodically with a robot voice cooing, “Your call is next!”

Get a very youthful male voice on the phone.

“When I brought this thing in to be cloned and updated,” say I, “I explained that I really do need Acrobat Professional, because it’s something I use in my work all the time. I asked your staff not to disable it, no matter what. Now I get ‘You can’t open the application because PowerPC applications are no longer supported.’ So, WTF????? What am I supposed to do now?”

“Uhmmm….  Well, that’s a really good question!”

“Isn’t it?”

[Personally, I’ve already figured out the problem is Mac won’t support Flash applications and so it probably won’t run Acrobat at all, period. At best, there’s a passel of “known issues,” fixes to which are problematic at best. To say I’m pissed is to understate dramatically.]

[I know there are workarounds in the new  Preview, yes, yes, she said. She knows that. But they’re not the same, and they don’t do I what I need the goddamn program to do.]

The iMac is still in its box, it being too heavy for me to lift onto the desk by myself. God only knows what hassles installing that and trying to get it to talk to my dinosaur of an HP all-in-one will entail. You can bet, though, that at least one of those hassles will involve my having to stuff it back into the box and lug it back down the the Apple store.

Never fails.

I want my Smith-Corona typewriter back. Just give me the god damned typewriter.

Images:

Prohibition sign, public domain
Corona Portable Typewriter, 1991(1991): Musée des arts et métiers, Coyau, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported, 2.5 Generic, 2.0 Generic and 1.0 Generic license.