How much corporate nonsense can I take in a day?

I received an email about a sale of Adobe Photoshop Elements 12.  Since my old Elements expired long ago, I decided to give it a go.  I clicked on the button in the message and a webpage opened with an ad for Elements 12.  It required me to sign in before continuing.

When I did so, it said that I needed to use a new password.  They would email me a temp password.  That came in a short time.  I used the temp password and created a new password.  That verification came in a short time.

Finally, I could order Elements 12 and I did.  I went to my cart and was ready to whip out my credit card.  Fortunately, I read the details of the order before I checked out.  It was for a Windows version!!!  No matter what I looked under, I could never get a Mac version.

I was going to give up, but somehow I clicked on Chat Now!  I explained my problem to 'Selena' and after a few minutes, she gave me a link to the Mac version of Elements 12.  Then I looked at the download times and decided to pass.  Besides, the time for this simple chat was almost ten minutes!  Total time trying to order must have been over 30 minutes!

I have been slowing moving my email from one provider to another.  Sometimes we can tell an organization our new email and it is changed in minutes.  Some organizations say it will be updated in 10 days.  Sometimes we tell an organization and our email is only updated for one department; email from other departments goes to the old email address.

And sometimes we get a doozy of a notice:

"Your primary e-mail address has been updated.  Please note that if you deleted your e-mail address, you are no longer eligible to suppress your account statements…"

"Suppress" our account statements?  What country was this task outsourced to?  Didn't they mean "access".  And why so wordy? 

I have a Monster iCarPlay FM transmitter that I use to play podcasts in the car.  Somehow the tuning goes out of whack and I have difficulty finding a unused frequency.  I know I have the instructions buried somewhere, but I could not find them in the car.

I went to the monster.com to look for the instructions, but all I found was a flyer (called instructions or directions).  It described what one could do but not how to do it.

With a few more searches, I found the PDF of exactly just the piece of paper I can't find.  But it was not at monster.com!  I put those directions on my iPhone and will use them next time I want to drive and listen to a podcast.

I think I dealt with  a couple of other websites or programs that did not operate as one would expect, but it has been such a hectic day, I can't remember what they were.  Oh, yeah!  Blogger "crashed" on me while I was posting a blog entry.  At least, it didn't lose any of my text.

The new look of this blog

Am I getting old or are techies writing less clearly?

I've noticed how the ads on this blog were placed on top of some other header stuff. It looked ugly, but I didn't want to take the time to correct it. Finally I did and took up Google Blogger's offer of a new interface. The new interface certainly looks better and is easier to manipulate.

I also think the layout is better and cleaner.

But getting there was a chore. Windows have cursors that change to hands, but the hands don't move anything. You have to go to another window to that action. I'm not sure how users can subscribe to my blog, but I put in a "gadget" that supposedly allows that.

Oh, for the days of the printed manuals with good indexes! I remember when the Macintosh first came out and I wanted to type certain Swedish, French, or German characters, I just looked up certain terms in index, found the page, and there were the key combinations for those letters. Now, I bet few of you who even speak these languages have figured out how to type these characters.

Well, I do know the ads are better placed. I just wish I would get more revenue from them and I could figure out how to center them. If you see me, please let me know what you think.

Read labels carefully

A couple of weeks ago I went along one of our paths in Brimson with a string trimmer.  When it ran out of gas, I went back to get the gas can.  I refilled the trimmer and it wouldn't start.  Gosh, a friend had just fixed it a year ago and had it running great.

Eventually I got it started but it would only keep running when I could grab the throttle quickly enough.  For many tries, I just wasn't soon enough.  Then I did grab the throttle quickly enough, but I couldn't hold the throttle and get the trimmer back on the harness.  Again and again, the fool pushed on.  I gave up trying to get it in the harness and just rested it on my hip.

I was really cutting grass now.  Then the trimmer ran slower and slower and started smoking.  I stopped it and headed back to the cabin.  Then I looked at the gas can I had taken.  It was regular gas and not gas-oil mix!!

The can for the mix does still have a clear 50 on it for 50-1 mix.  Read labels, dummy!

I emptied the tank and refilled it with the mix.  After many, many pulls, the trimmer ran as it should.

The old saying "If all else fails, read the directions" still holds.

Instructions so simple that...

...they are not even included with the product.

We bought a pair of solar-powered LED yard lights for $5 at Menards. I stuck them in the ground on the way from our cabin to the outhouse. We never seemed to be here even at dusk since then.

Yesterday we finally stayed overnight to see the Perseid meteor shower. The yard lights didn't come on in the dark.

This morning I picked one up looking for some switch I should set. I saw none. I twisted off the top and found a battery with a plastic strip between its positive terminal and the flat contact of the lamp. I pulled the strip and the light came on! My other hand was over the solar panel! I took my hand away and the light went out.

Why didn't I think of checking that before?