Back to Normal?

One of the greatest frustrations in modern times is software or hardware that doesn't work like it should on a computer.   I can think of nothing that gets my blood boiling faster than an application that was working and then doesn't.  The worst part is, it all began because I did an app upgrade.

I was playing with my iMovie to create the Duck I published over the weekend.  Got the Duck up and running when I saw that iMovie had an upgrade.  Wow it will work even better now, was my thought.

That was not the case. It crashed immediately. The definition of insanity is "Doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result."  That certainly describes my next 36 hours.  

I am a Mac guy, it was my first computer and I have been a loyal fan of Apple since their inception.  I am far from a Genius Bar geek, but it has to be some problem that is buried pretty deep before I go from merely "frustrated" to "stark raving". The iMovie app problem was buried deeper than Jimmy Hoffa. (you kids look it up... Jimmy Hoffa). It finally got to a point of being on the phone with Apple Tech about 4 hours.  

The same gene that won't allow men to ask for directions is the same one that keeps us from calling tech support. It is absolutely my last resort when faced with a continuing problem.  I will only "go there" when I have exhausted every ounce of energy in a fruitless battle. And of course tech support has to start from the absolute basics before they can move on to the stuff I haven't tried already. If I heard the phrase "let's try this" one more time from my telephone buddy Jason, who's accent sounded more like his name was Jaffar, I was ready to fly over to his office and smack him.

Of course we tried all things I had already done like take out all the files and the preferences and the plug ins and see if that made a difference. By this time I had even tossed and reinstalled the app twice ignoring the upgrade that seemed to cause the problems. "Go ahead and open up iMovie," Jason would say followed by two words from me,  "Okay... crash".  Repeating this routine getting the same results occupied our time for most of the 4 hours. 

It's not that the errant app was impeding my work.  Everything else was working fine, only an app that I hadn't used in several months and probably wouldn't again for at least that long was crashing. But as is the way with this modern day drama, nothing in my life could progress until I had the app up and running again. Finally deep in the library of Linux code was a tiny little plug in that was causing all the problems.  We tossed that and the next time I opened iMovie it worked fine. I had to say good bye to my good friend Jason with tears of sadness that our time together was done.

One of the greatest moments of happiness in modern times is software or hardware that works just like it should on a computer.  If all events in life would have this immediate and joyful resolve... it would be a better ride.

As you were,

Jay