The rest of us have been left behind

I sent the following email to the store where I bought my MacBook Pro. I picked the computer up two weeks ago today and sent this email on July 14.

Well, I have the MacBook Pro up and running, almost. This has been the worst installation and migration since I worked on mainframes.

First, migration assistant crashed leaving many applications and other files unmoved. I forget if I repeated it, but not much moved.

Second, I couldn’t get the MacBook Pro to access my DSL modem. This was my first call to Apple Care. After talking to two people for almost an hour, including wait times, I discovered that I had set it to allow access only the PowerBook G4!

Third, the installation of Leopard on the PowerBook crashed. Nothing would boot at all. Second call to Apple Care but immediate response!! After much discussion the agent suggested holding the option key (I think) while booting. Leopard is now on the PowerBook also.

Fourth, the installation of the Time Capsule did not go according to instructions. Third call to Apple Care and again immediate response. This agent was also the most patient of all. I’m glad I have a couple of Ethernet cables handy. All the new stuff has a minimum number of cables.

The Time Capsule is up and running on the MacBook Pro now. I’ll do the PowerBook another day. The first backup took about five hours; I started it just before going to bed and it was over half done when I got up two or three hours later. The Time Capsule is one hot machine. I put it on a wooden cutting board so the desk surface doesn’t get damaged. No char marks on the cutting board.

Fifth, when I synched my iPod to the MacBook Pro, iTunes deleted all my purchased music from the iPod because I was not authorized to play them on the MacBook Pro. Even after I authorized it, iTunes would not download the purchased music to the iPod. I sent email to iTunes support and got a pretty quick response. Unfortunately this agent deauthorized all my computers (I wanted only one deauthorized, a G3) and said I could download the particular lost music again without payment. I haven’t gotten back to her yet.

Sixth, I did use a Firewire cable to move all the files that Migration Assistant didn’t move. That went fairly fast, maybe a couple hours or less. Probably over 40GB of stuff. Thank goodness Apple provided the FireWire cable with the PowerBook G4. Of course, this copying doesn’t make many of the adjustments that Migration Assistant would have made.

Seventh, Excel 2008 doesn’t recognize Visual Basic macros, and I had a bunch. Now I have to spend time learning AppleScript, something I’ve made several attempts at learning. Online manuals are not as easy to use as paper manuals.

Eighth, ExpensePlus on my Palm Zire doesn’t like Excel 2008. Even when I follow the instructions for Leopard on the WalletWare site, HotSync still won’t upload my expense sheets from the Palm.

Ninth, because Migration Assistant crashed, I’ve had to reregister much of my third party software and not always successfully. This is a good argument for keeping old email. I have found some of the registration codes in three- and four-year email.

Tenth, I had a deadline for my Reader Weekly column. With all this frustration, I did not put together a column as coherent as I would have liked.

Eleventh, a piece of good news. For some reason the receipt for the PowerBook G4 is out on my desk. Everything on it was more expensive then except AppleCare which was the same price. The total was $3,355.10 and I got more stuff and more powerful stuff for $3,144.40.

Twelfth, all the other little glitches I forgot.

Maybe my problem is that I know too much about computers, and so I blithely charge ahead without reading the instructions carefully. But that would only explain some of the above problems (iTunes, web access, ...)

Thanks for your eyeballs and your friendly service. See you in three or four years when technolust overcomes me again:)

I have worked through most of the problems, but there are still many little problems to go.