There is the 'big Mac', and then there is the iPad and also the iPhone. I should be allowed to think that this is enough to keep me going.
But no!
There is also the HP air printer down here in NC and the one up there in VT and together they amount to a heap of trouble.
I just had an encounter with one great business I am dealing with. They had put completed forms relating to transactions I had initiate on my web account and I was expected to print them out, sign them and return them to their address. The law, apparently, does not allow electronic signatures in the present case, so we were locked in with USPS or Messenger Service.
Well, in anticipation of this important and time sensitive event I checked out my systems and found everything working just fine. The log-on worked and the site opened up and the place where the forms were going to be were accessible and a trial print with a document from another file worked very well to expectations.
D-day came and there was a conference call and the various steps were discussed and explained and the web site was opened and the forms were displayed and the print button was found and activated and - nothing. The printer that was supposed to spring into action and shake, rattle and roll before starting to produce an orderly print issued not even a faint hick-up.
It was decided to abandon the high tech path of action and engage a messenger service for overnight delivery of the documents to my door and I would receive, sign, repacka nod return by fax. This thing is time sensitive, you know, and if things don't happen, the law has means to transfer slices of the object to undeserving recipients.
So, to give greater assurance to eventual success, I started to trace the problems. First, I found out that my the 'big Mac' could not find the printer! Hear, hear, where did you find it yesterday? Well, today it was not there. I went to the HP hep site and was told to check for software updates. I did. Turned out that my Mac wanted to receive Mavericks X so the air printer would operate properly, and I spent about two hours to get that downloaded over the super fast network connection. Then, back to HP we went and I was asked to look for more software updates. There were five of them. Attempting to get them all, I hit the bitten 'Update all' and things really got rolling. Two of them started right away and spent some time calculating the length of time to complete the transfer of the updates. The first one reported in with a frowning lay accepted 4 hours and 20 minutes, the second one wanted one day, seven hours, and 45 minutes.
Forget the time sensitivity. I have sensitivities also. Mine come first. If I had not in time remembered the price tag attached to this communication system, it would have gone out through the window. But let's give it another chance.
Sometime day after tomorrow I should be back in business again, in the meantime, I expect that Mac to work without breaks, without water, without sleep . . . Which reminds me - my settings allow it to go to sleep after about thirty minutes without keyboard activity. If I go now to settings to eliminate this contract clause between and the Mac! Will I have to start this process from scratch?
I was around at the beginning of the computer age. I worked with the old, early IBM Machines that were programmed to perform their specified tasks, using peg boards. Do you remember peg boards? If you watch very old movies, sometimes you catch a glimpse of a maid operating the party line on the local telephone net. She manually establishes connections between phone partners using long wires with plugs on each end that were pushed into hole on a large board in front of the operator and so connected the calling party with the called party. That's how early IBM business computers worked. I wish we could go back to those simple days and get on with what really matters.
But no!
There is also the HP air printer down here in NC and the one up there in VT and together they amount to a heap of trouble.
I just had an encounter with one great business I am dealing with. They had put completed forms relating to transactions I had initiate on my web account and I was expected to print them out, sign them and return them to their address. The law, apparently, does not allow electronic signatures in the present case, so we were locked in with USPS or Messenger Service.
Well, in anticipation of this important and time sensitive event I checked out my systems and found everything working just fine. The log-on worked and the site opened up and the place where the forms were going to be were accessible and a trial print with a document from another file worked very well to expectations.
D-day came and there was a conference call and the various steps were discussed and explained and the web site was opened and the forms were displayed and the print button was found and activated and - nothing. The printer that was supposed to spring into action and shake, rattle and roll before starting to produce an orderly print issued not even a faint hick-up.
It was decided to abandon the high tech path of action and engage a messenger service for overnight delivery of the documents to my door and I would receive, sign, repacka nod return by fax. This thing is time sensitive, you know, and if things don't happen, the law has means to transfer slices of the object to undeserving recipients.
So, to give greater assurance to eventual success, I started to trace the problems. First, I found out that my the 'big Mac' could not find the printer! Hear, hear, where did you find it yesterday? Well, today it was not there. I went to the HP hep site and was told to check for software updates. I did. Turned out that my Mac wanted to receive Mavericks X so the air printer would operate properly, and I spent about two hours to get that downloaded over the super fast network connection. Then, back to HP we went and I was asked to look for more software updates. There were five of them. Attempting to get them all, I hit the bitten 'Update all' and things really got rolling. Two of them started right away and spent some time calculating the length of time to complete the transfer of the updates. The first one reported in with a frowning lay accepted 4 hours and 20 minutes, the second one wanted one day, seven hours, and 45 minutes.
Forget the time sensitivity. I have sensitivities also. Mine come first. If I had not in time remembered the price tag attached to this communication system, it would have gone out through the window. But let's give it another chance.
Sometime day after tomorrow I should be back in business again, in the meantime, I expect that Mac to work without breaks, without water, without sleep . . . Which reminds me - my settings allow it to go to sleep after about thirty minutes without keyboard activity. If I go now to settings to eliminate this contract clause between and the Mac! Will I have to start this process from scratch?
I was around at the beginning of the computer age. I worked with the old, early IBM Machines that were programmed to perform their specified tasks, using peg boards. Do you remember peg boards? If you watch very old movies, sometimes you catch a glimpse of a maid operating the party line on the local telephone net. She manually establishes connections between phone partners using long wires with plugs on each end that were pushed into hole on a large board in front of the operator and so connected the calling party with the called party. That's how early IBM business computers worked. I wish we could go back to those simple days and get on with what really matters.
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