As of Today, I’m A Mac

I woke up, so excited, like a kid on Christmas.  The package was going to be delivered in just a few hours.  Would it really be on time?  Would I get to hold it in my hands before I had to go to work?  I went downstairs and pulled up the shipping notification email to track my shipment.  It was in the city!    But no updates beyond 7:57 am.  It was promised to be here by 10:30 am!

I anxiously got in the shower.  After exiting the shower, I checked the status again.  Drat!  No change.  I decided to just get ready.  I didn’t have to be at the office until 11:00.  I finished with my hair and makeup and decided I would turn on the computer rather than checking the status on my phone.  Maybe the site wasn’t updating properly on my phone.  This time – success!  On the truck and out for delivery.  Now, would it be here in an hour and a half?

I tried to do some work, listening intently for vehicles to drive down the street.  At 10:20, I heard a rumbling.  It didn’t sound like any ordinary car.  I jumped up and peeked out the front window.  There is was!  The white Fed Ex truck!  It was here!  I eagerly met the driver outside the front door (mainly because if I were to open the door, the dog would run away).  I frantically scribbled my name on the package tracker device and tried to take the package in a way that did not appear as if I were snatching it from the driver’s hands.

I nearly rushed into the house.  I looked at the box.  Amazed.  It was in a plain cardboard box.  No logos.  No distinguishing marks.  Nothing to indicate the wonderfulness that was inside.  What was inside you ask?  Something built just for me, made to my exact specifications.  A MacBook Pro!  Still nervous about the switch from PC to Mac, I took a picture of the unassuming brown box, and left for work.  I didn’t want to go, but I had to get to the office for my call.

Somehow, the day flew by.  I had to run an errand before heading home, and that seemed to take forever.  So much traffic.  My husband told me I could go ahead and open the box before he got home.  He had a late appointment and I had somewhere to be at 6:30.

I carefully opened the packing slip and cut the packing tape on the top of the box.  I slowly pulled the computer box out of the shipping box.  Even the packaging was beautiful.  So compact.  So environmentally friendly.  With much anticipation, I opened the box, revealing the MacBook inside.  It was all I had dreamed of.

I resisted the urge to just open it up and turn it on.  This wasn’t a PC.  I should probably take a quick look at the instruction booklet.  I scanned the first few pages and realized this was even simpler than any PC I’d ever set up.  I grabbed the power cord, went to the couch, plugged it in and pressed power.  Oh, the screen was amazing!  Such color!  Such definition!  I’d never seen such a screen on a laptop.

I played around with the applications.  Checked my email and my blogs.  Then, I plugged in my external hard drive will all my photos.  First, I plugged in the hard drive and the computer immediately recognized it.  I just clicked on it, and everything was there.  No “new hardware found”.  No “installing drivers”.  It was just…there.  I clicked through the folders and opened the first picture I came to.  I was floored.  The clarity!  The contrast!  This computer is amazing!

Unfortunately, I had to leave for a knitting class.  I am just now getting to play with it again.  I installed my Photoshop Elements and am getting ready to start editing.  I can’t wait.  The speed with which the program was installed and the photos were pulled into the Organizer was amazing.  I’m going to fly through edits!

Needless to say, I missed my run tonight.  There’s always tomorrow!

Here a Tweet, There a Tweet

I have finally joined the world of Twitter.  For some reason, I had been reluctant to do so.  In general, I love social media, but Twitter seemed so intimidating.  I didn’t understand tweeting or following or hash tags (hash marks? I still have so much to learn).  I believe social media should be fun, and it seemed like Twitter would require work to figure out.  I felt like I would need to read a manual or take a training class or something.  I never even went to the Twitter website.

I almost created an account about a year ago.  I attended a seminar at a conference about using social media to market your law firm.  While it piqued my interest enough to figure out that I had a Twitter app on my phone, I left the seminar more confused than I started.  And I put Twitter out of my head again.

I finally went to the Twitter website over the summer when the government agency I worked for at the time decided to start tweeting.  I thought it was ridiculous and had to see what they were saying.  Needless to say, that was not enough to get me to create an account.

Even though I knew a number of people on Twitter that I would be interested in following, I couldn’t see myself tweeting.  What in the world would I talk about in 140 character bursts and who would follow me?  I figured what was the point of joining Twitter if not to tweet?  Well, I finally came across a good reason to sign up.  There is a web site that provides daily suggestions for pictures, and if you complete the assignment and tweet it, your picture will appear on the website.  I completed a few assignments and just added my photos to the site’s Flickr group.  Obviously, the photos on the website get more exposure, and since I’m really trying to market myself, I figured I should give Twitter a try.  Funny how things motivate us, right?

I signed up yesterday, but have yet to actually tweet anything.  I looked at yesterday’s assignment, read the instructions on how to properly tweet my photo in order to get it onto the site, read the FAQs on the site, then went to the Help page on Twitter.  I am still feeling overwhelmed about how to properly tweet for this particular purpose (in general, I get how the process works.  I’m not that technologically inept).  I did take a picture for today’s assignment, so as soon as I process it, we’ll see how it goes.

On the other side, I have found all kinds of interesting people to follow.  I really should have done this a long time ago because you don’t have to tweet to enjoy Twitter.  I get updates on my phone, and it’s much better than checking out a bunch of different websites.  Everything is right there in one place, just like the news feeds on Facebook.  Finally, something I can relate to!  So far, I am enjoying my newfound Twitter world.  Do you tweet?  I just might follow you too.

For The Love of Technology

I love the portability that technology provides us with today.  I love my smart phone.  I love sitting on my couch with my laptop surfing the internet, shopping or blogging.  I love taking my laptop when I travel and being able to connect to the internet pretty much anywhere I want.  I am dependent on (some might say addicted to) this connectivity.  I feel if something is amiss when those connections are down.

Which is exactly how I feel right now.  Something crazy is going on with my internet browser.  It started a few days ago.  Late in the evening, right before bed, anytime my husband tried to open Internet Explorer (yes, I realize that in and of itself may be the source of the problem but I am incapable of downloading something else!) it immediately shut down with the error message that a problem caused the program to close.  You know the message.  Windows assures you they are looking for a solution to the problem.

I should interject at this point that I am no technology guru.  I can usually fix my modem and printer problems, run my virus software, and install and uninstall programs.  That’s about it.  So, by no means should you read this as being written by someone with any sort of technological background.  I am just your average person who wants her internet to work, dammit!

The next night, the problems started earlier in the evening.  I have no idea if the timing is at all relevant, but I do find it suspicious.  As if IE were working its way up to a complete meltdown.  I could find no connection between the browser crashing and what we had just been using the computer for.  Each time it was something different.  Yesterday I got home and started working on my two blog posts.  We had dinner, I finished writing, posted everything, and started checking out my Facebook account.  That’s when the problems really escalated, and about 2 hours earlier than the issues the previous night. 

I clicked on the link to a blog I always click on.  A separate window popped up like normal.  Then another error message popped up (I can’t recall what it said this time), but again said the browser needed to close.   Some crazy circular programming bug (I assume) kicked in and I couldn’t close anything.  I finally got both browsers to shut down and restarted the computer.  Same original error message when I opened IE.  After like five restarts, I shut the computer down in a huff and decided to leave it alone for the night.  I could survive those few hours until I got to work, right (as my hands began to shake…)?

I got home tonight and the same thing happened.  Then the panic really started to set in.  I committed to posting every day in 2011 to not one, but two, blogs!  What was I going to do?  It’s only January 6!  I don’t want to fail already.  As I write this (in a Word document) I am running my virus software to see if that finds anything.  Then, disk defragmenter.  Why?  Because I don’t know what else to do!  If that doesn’t work, throw a tantrum because I didn’t get to post today.  OK, that might not be the next step.  I think the old laptop still connects to the internet…

As I was driving home tonight I was thinking about all the wonderful advances in technology, and all the opportunities the internet holds (such as allowing someone like me to use WordPress.com to have two free blogs to promote my separate passions).  I was thinking about how I can recall a time when there was no such thing as the internet as we now know it, and a computer in the home was unheard of.  Are we too dependent on technology?  Maybe.  But I wouldn’t change it for the world (even though I sit here cursing my computer).

*UPDATE: I am posting this, so I obviously got the computer to work.  I had to disable all internet add-ons, and that seems to have done the trick so far.  I think shopping for a new laptop has been added to the weekend’s agenda.