[Dyre Straits]

One of my favorite newspaper columnists had published his travails this past year with technology.....or more aptly, the failure of it:

by LEONARD PITTS JR./COMMENTARY

It is spring.

I walk into my home office ready to work. My computer is not. It seems to have smoked crack overnight and will not function, despite repeated rebooting, several sharp slaps to the CPU and curses upon the name Bill Gates.

I call technical support. Technical support explains that I am in deep waste matter and must reinstall the operating system. This, in turn, will require me to reinstall all my software and hardware.

Crying like a baby will not help.

I reinstall the operating system. Also, my scanner and printer, my Scrabble and SimCity, my Bible and dictionaries, and a bunch of other stuff. Working off and on, this takes a few days.

When I am done, the computer has more bugs than my old apartment in the projects. Worse, it has passed the crack pipe to my printer, which now declines to print because, it says, the paper is jammed. It says this even after I have removed every scrap of paper within a six-foot radius.

NOT MUSIC TO MY EARS

I buy myself an iPod, a device that will allow me to record thousands of songs to my computer, download them and carry them with me on the plane trips that are the bane of my existence. But when I get it home, I find that my new iPod isn't. New, that is. There are some 1,800 songs already on it, along with more fingerprints than a toddler's mirror.

I have been sold a used machine, packaged and priced as new. Far be it from me to embarrass the electronics superstore that did this by naming it in public; suffice to say, this wasn't the best buy I ever made.

It takes visits to two stores over the better part of an evening, but eventually I get a new new iPod. It serenades me while I beg my printer to acknowledge my existence.

Summer comes.

I visit a writer friend in North Carolina and pity him. He's computer illiterate and proud of it. I tell him the Internet is the best research tool a writer could have. I tell him to wake up and smell the 21st century. He just shrugs.

FRIENDS AT TECH SUPPORT

When I get home, I take my car to the shop. It occurs to me that if the auto industry ran like the computer industry, I'd be in a world of hurt. I can just see myself on the phone with Toyota technical support being guided through a transmission overhaul. Sometimes, it seems like I talk to technical support more than I do my wife, but I am determined to eradicate these bugs. Of course, the bugs seem just as bent on eradicating me.

Meanwhile, my printer is still on crack. Even at this, it is in better shape than my iPod, which has been possessed by Satan. It now refuses to download new songs, mysteriously erases old ones and causes the computer to freeze every time I plug it in. It also levitates above the desk and spits pea soup when I reach for it.

NEW SEASON, NEW PROBLEM

Fall arrives.

I decide to exchange my new new iPod for a new new new one. It turns out they no longer make the model I have. I ask the salesman if the updated version will be compatible with my computer. He says it will. He is just joking.

It turns out that, in order to use my new-to-the-third power iPod, I must buy and install a new computer operating system to replace the one I restored last spring. I do this and naturally, a number of programs immediately stop functioning. My printer is still paper-phobic. I consider enrolling it in a 12-step program.

Instead, I take it to a technician who advises me to reinstall the printer's software. Miraculously, this fixes the printer and it works for almost 20 minutes. Then it becomes jammed with invisible paper again. Somehow, I resist hurling it through a window. Instead, I buy a new printer.

As I'm hauling it to the car, I think of my poor writer friend. Still hammering on his typewriter. Still driving all the way to the library to do his research.

I am sad for him. He doesn't know what he's missing.


Leonard Pitts, Jr. writes for the Miami Herald. His column appears occasionally in the Atlanta Journal/Constitution.

[Judas]

.....i feel sorry for him...

[Dyre Straits]

I wonder if that's a USB printer he's using? Some of those are very frustrating to work with.

[Sourcer_2002]

Hmm my usb scanner/printer runs fine for me never had a problem with it. As far as the IPOD sadly i feel his pain!

[shortstuff]

Poor guy.

[Falstaff]

This reminds me of an Andy Rooney segment on 60 minutes, wow what load of lemons to make lemonade out of

[Matth]

A friend was having trouble with their EPSON SP1200 printer - just kept spitting blank paper, wouldn't print.

So I arrived, armed with the SSC Service Utility (expecting to have to reset EPSON's sneaky service counter), but the util hit a serious bug.

So I try the standard test procedure (works with 99% of inkets, it seems) - Hold FEED button while powering on - and it throws out a near-perfect nozzle check.

Waste loads of time fiddling with drivers, old, new, WinXP native, Win2000 EPSON (no XP driver).
Finally realize that it could be a bad cable, losing bits so everything comes over as control codes.....

"You've got another printer cable?" - everyone that's had a couple of printers has a spare printer cable, don't they? - well, except when you need one!

Then realized it was parallel and USB, so stole the USB cable from another device and tried that.
Cocked up the USB printer installation, - reread instructions and did it right the second time - hey presto, it works.


The amount of time saved by technology is probably equal to the time wasted by it!

[Judas]

Originally posted by Matth
The amount of time saved by technology is probably equal to the time wasted by it!

That there is worth quoting.....