Lee Hogan Have you seen the economic for the new Macintosh — the one with the two men status in huge cardboard bins? The younger, more active guy, glaringly a Mac, jumps out of his carton, ready to get to work. The PC person, searching a bit chagrined, stays in his box. It appears he can’t get started till he gets some extra software program and different system. So sad.
“And so now not authentic,” my daughter tells me. She bought a Dell, which got here with all software program she ordered and was honestly geared up proper out of the field. No ready. No additional device. No problem. She became the use of it 10 mins after it arrived.
I, however, became now not. I took my gorgeous new iMac out of the box and plugged it in, however, had no idea what to do next. The computer did include plenty of software (iTunes; iCal; iPhoto; iDVD; iMovie; iChat; Garage Band, whatever that is; and something that made little widgets fly all over my display screen), however, I failed to need that. What I wanted became to open my vintage documents, which I could not do due to the fact the laptop didn’t have the applications I had been the use of and would not use the packages I did have. It regarded I might need all new software program, which ended up costing extra than the hardware.
I can be a dyed-in-the-wool Mac man or woman, but I’m also technologically impaired. I referred to like my Mac guru right now. Seven-and-a-half of hours and $300 later he had transferred all of my documents to the new iMac, connected me to my e-mail provider, imported my bookmarks and cope with book, set up a king’s ransom in software, and given me a fast tour of OS X. “You really need to take a direction in this operating system,” he cautioned.
OK, that become highly-priced but well worth it, I notion. True, it turned into a little greater complicated than the economic advised, but I turned into useful. That’s what absolutely counted, proper? Well, no, not right. It could have counted if I have been purposeful, however, I wasn’t. Since my zip and jazz disks wouldn’t work with the iMac, I now wished an external hard drive to lower back up my files. So, I ordered a one online, were given a lemon, returned it, got some other lemon, returned it, and ultimately sold one for twice as great deal cash on the Apple keep. That took three weeks.
Well, at the least I had Windows, or so stated every other Mac industrial. My new iMac become also a PC with an Intel chip. Pretty high-quality, huh? That’s what I idea. But I became wrong. The iMac did not come with Windows. I might have to buy it if I wanted it, in addition to a program that allowed me to interchange to and fro between OS X and Windows. More money; greater trouble. I decided to forgo Windows.
The proper news was that I was going to get a $179 rebate on my iPod, which, quite genuinely, I would by no means have ordered; however, it had come with the computer. By this time, I must have predicted the procedure to be greater complex than advertised. In order to get my rebate, I needed statistics from the UPC label on the authentic carton. Unfortunately, I had thrown out the carton because I had no region to store it.
The Apple representative reluctantly agrees to fax me a shape; but, considering the fact that neither my fax device nor my fax software program worked with the new iMac, I had to have it despatched to Kinko’s. There are lots greater to this tale, however, the factor is that 3 months, four phone calls, and numerous portions of mail, I nonetheless have now not received the rebate.
What mattered maximum turned into that I turned into able to paintings, at remaining — if I failed to matter printing. The new pc failed to seem to like my laser printer, which it insisted on calling Flash Paper instead of LaserJet 2100 M. Flash Paper had something to do with Macromedia’s DreamWeaver. Nothing made it leave, which includes dumping all Macromedia applications within the trash.
I called Apple support. The tech turned into baffled and cautioned I delete the printer. Then, he despatched me to Macromedia, who changed into additionally baffled and referred me to HP. HP concluded that the pc was now not recognizing my printer, and, for the reason that mine become about to die of antique age, I ought to without delay improves to a brand new printer for most effective $330.
Setting up the printer was presupposed to be so simple a child ought to do it. Unfortunately, I couldn’t. The pc turned into still calling it Flash Paper. I called HP. It appears I did not have the proper printer drivers; but via the magic of an HP Macintosh professional, the iMac sooner or later diagnosed the printer, modified its name to HP LaserJet 1320, and managed to get rid of Flash Paper.
All that remained become to parent out my new software. My Web guru (not to be confused with my Mac guru) came over to tinker with DreamWeaver, which turned into no longer permit me to upload files to my Web web site. After six hours of troubleshooting, she gave up in despair. I was known as Macromedia once more.
Macromedia has been bought by Adobe, so it changed into difficult to talk to a real person. But, by the 0.33 try, I reached a very determined DreamWeaver assist person in India. She sooner or later found a space in the front of the hard pressure’s call (do not ask me how it got there). Take out the gap, rename the hard power, reenter all of the information, do that, do this; and, poof, I should upload documents.