Late to the Party

Late to the Party

Okay, I admit it.  I’m always “late to the party.”  This time, it’s the iPhone party.

I was a Blackberry girl and thought my Blackberry was pretty awesome.  So, happy and satisfied with my Blackberry, I pooh-poohed any notion of upgrading.  What could an iPhone do that my Blackberry couldn’t?  Boy, was I ever in the dark.

When we moved back home in December 2008, I didn’t have anything but my old laptop that I managed to take during our evacuation from the Witch Fire in 2007 (see the series “Any Way the Wind Blows“).  And, my laptop was at least 2 to 3 years old in 2007 (so you do the math).

My first sign that I should probably get a new computer, whether desktop or laptop, was when I broke down and bought my first iPod in mid 2009 (I know, I know – I was really late to that party!).  I went on-line to iTunes to download some music and a message popped up saying something like this:

“Warning!  Your computer is not compatible with iTunes!”

What the heck does that mean?  So, I called my tech guru, my very smart (she has 3 boys) sister-in-law Lisa, and asked her.  She said something to this effect:

“That means your computer is outdated and you need to buy a new one.”

OMG!  I was so NOT.READY.TO.BUY.A.NEW.COMPUTER!  I didn’t have time (time management issue) to drop everything, go to the store, choose a computer (especially since I’m as non-geek as you can get), go home, spend the rest of the day setting it up just to download tunes!

So, I asked my sister, Gail, if we could add tunes from her laptop.  Sure, she says.  Go to her house, we spend hours and hours doing various things (including downloading some of my CDs), only to have that time wasted.  Her computer was old, too; not too old for iTunes, but old enough that everything we attempted to do was at a snail’s pace.  We were quite a pair – two overly middle-aged (as in closer to 50 than 40), clueless women trying to navigate a mysterious world that our preoccupied young ones knew how to navigate instinctively.  I left with no tunes on my iPod!

So, my iPod lay in a drawer, tuneless and empty for about 4 months until a much younger friend graciously offered to put tunes on it.

Now, fast forward two years into the future and lucky for my sister, her significant other is a geek; so she has no computer issues anymore.  EVER.

Now that I had a working iPod (and my Blackberry), I wasn’t anxious to upgrade anything and put off getting a new laptop and/or desktop until I was absolutely forced to.  Why was I “forced” to?  Because in August 2011, I asked my employer if I could work from home.  And, they graciously said ‘yes.’  But, since my ancient laptop was “not compatible” with iTunes, chances are it wasn’t compatible with my employer’s remote services either.

So, before I could work from home, I needed to buy a new computer of some type!  I asked my sister’s geek boyfriend, Brian, what to buy and he gave me excellent advice and so in August 2011, I went and purchased my current desktop system.

I bring it home, set it up and then attempt to connect to the internet via the MiFi I still have from my ancient laptop (I live in the country – no cable connection for me!).  Anyway, a message came up:

“Not capable with your computer!”

OMG – will this nightmare never end!  It’s Sunday and I have to be “on-line” tomorrow for my first day in connecting to my employer from my home office!!!

So, I call my phone service and they tell me that they’ll need to upgrade my MiFi (apparently it was time anyway) AND they ask “wouldn’t you like to upgrade to an iPhone, too?” (those smart companies with products to sell – always using the McDonald’s marketing tactic:  “wouldn’t you like to super-size your order?  It’s only 30 cents more!).  Anyway, after some “I’m not taking ‘no’ for an answer” tactics from the phone rep, I agree to the iPhone.  They were shipping both overnight the next day, so I’d have them Tuesday.

So, I go into my employer’s office on Monday and work the rest of the week in the actual office – waiting for the weekend to try to set-up my home office again!

It’s now Friday and my day off.  I’m determined to get my computer up-and-running so that I can talk to the geeks that work for my company and they can set-up and download the right stuff for my remote connection.  If I can get this done today, I can start working from home on the following Monday!  Woo hoo!

A few hours later, my internet service is working like a charm and my geeks have me working!  I’m so excited.  Then, they tell me to print something on my printer (I can print remotely, too.  In fact, I can print to other printers hundreds of miles away – the miracle of technology!).

Well, my printer doesn’t work.  It keeps telling me that I have packing material stuff inside it.  I take everything that I can apart and can’t find the darn packing material.  I turn it off, turn it back on and reboot it over-and-over again and it still tells me that it has eaten the packing material!  In frustration, I tell my work geek not to worry – I don’t use the printer (much) and I’ll keep working on it over the weekend and we’ll try again on Monday.  So, me and the geek hang up (BTW – the work “geek” I keep referring to in this post is also a personal friend, Vickie; a smart, lovely, techy woman who I don’t get to see enough of!).

So, I continue trying everything I know how to do – I disconnect it completely from my computer and start all over again.  In desperation, I call my sister and tell her and she says she will ask geek boyfriend, Brian, if he can come and help me tomorrow (Saturday).  Gracious Brian says ‘yes’ and both he and my sister come over on Saturday.

So, I show Brian what’s going on.  He, too, checks everything and can’t figure it out.  But, he keeps at it and an hour later, he DOES find packing material!!!  The printer has a little bit of a broken-off styrofoam jammed in an area barely accessible and certainly not visible!  I am good to go!  Brian’s my hero!

All this time, I’ve got my new iPhone, too, because it arrived the previous Tuesday with the MiFi.  But, I ignore it and put it in a drawer.  I just can’t tackle all of this tech stuff at once!  It’s so overwhelming {heavy sigh} and the iPhone is not a priority since I’m still happy with my Blackberry.

Life is good – I’m working from home and now, 7 months later (March 2012), I decide that maybe I should get out my iPhone and get to it.  Probably Apple released something then that spurred my memory banks about my newly purchased iPhone, sitting in the drawer unopened, now 7 months old and now obsolete!

So, I decide on a Friday at about 3:00 p.m. to get this show underway.  I unpack it, start reading, then realize I need to back-up the 300+ contacts I have on my Blackberry phone.  I don’t have any photos to speak of, so that isn’t an issue.  But, my contacts are my life line.  They aren’t just MY contacts; they are my parents’ and my aunt’s contacts.  Multiple doctors, medical services, bank contacts, lawyers, CPAs, their friends, their assisted living facilities and the multiple contacts in each – probably 200 of the 300 hundred contacts are for them!  (You can read all about my eldercare journey here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here!)

So, I tried to download my contacts from my Blackberry into my phone company’s area on their website, but somehow it all goes array (big surprise)!  I call an angel (disguised as the phone company’s rep) and she walks me through the process, which for some unknown reason takes hours!  It literally did (iTunes downloading something), so I said “buh bye” to the phone rep (7 p.m. here and 10 p.m. her time), go have dinner and come back to my computer.  iTunes STILL downloading!  I go watch a TV show and come back – iTunes STILL downloading.  11 p.m. my time and iTunes STILL downloading!  I give up, turn it off and decide I will tackle it in the morning (Saturday).

I get up Saturday and realize I have NO PHONE!  My Blackberry no longer works and my contacts have disappeared!  I’m panicked!  I get on-line to iTunes and try to start over.  Something is horribly WRONG!  I call my phone company and they tell me to go to a local phone company for help.

So, in the car and I drive 10 miles to the nearest one and they tell me they can’t help me because they are a FRANCHISE store and they don’t have the right equipment and I need to go to a CORPORATE store!  About 3 miles later and waiting in line 5 deep for help, I meet the most wonderful woman at the CORPORATE store (also an angel in disguise) who fixes everything AND downloads my phone to the Bluetooth contraption that’s a part of my car, saving me a separate trip to the auto dealership!

Back in business after 10 hours with no phone, I begin the process of the “learning curve” with the new phone.

What learning curve?  Steve Jobs was an absolute genius {I’m a master at both understatement AND stating the obvious PLUS, as we all know now, I’m always “late to the party”} and this phone has literally CHANGED MY LIFE.

Top 3 Reasons Why I Love my iPhone

Here are my TOP 3 reasons I love my iPhone:

1. Ease of use – its touchscreen and icons are amazing plus with only an “on” button and increase/decrease volumes buttons, there’s nothing more to remember (or accidentally screw up); everything else is via the touchscreen.
2. Keyboard – it’s amazingly intuitive and anticipates words with a few keystrokes and corrects my spelling errors (which are many!).
3. The apps are just what I need (and if I need more, there’s like 350,000 others to choose from!) – great photo storage, great photos, a “notes” section, a “to do” list, an awesome, customizable contacts section – just to name a few!

So WHY have I written an incredibly long post about my struggles with technology and getting up-to-speed?  Because in spite of everything I went through to get to this point, it was SO TOTALLY WORTH IT!  I would do it again, in a heartbeat, even knowing that there will be “hiccups” along the way because of my learning curve.

So, if you are reading this and you are my age (well over 50), and you are still “late to the party”, get going now!  If you are Tiffany’s age (30+) and have parents, aunts, uncles, etc. who are “late to the party”, encourage them to get on board – heck, they may even pay you to help them, so it could be a winning proposition for you!

Now I want an iPad (no, don’t yet have one), an Apple Air (no, don’t have that either) and of course, the newest iPhone!  But, each will have to wait until they fit in the budget!  But, they are definitely on my “wish list” (Santa, baby?).

Do you have a tech nightmare story or a “late to the party” to share?  I’d like to hear about it.

Tootles,