Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Gotta luv technology

So Sunday was just one of THOSE days. You know, we all have them.

I bought a mini-mac not too long ago to support some fairly heavy graphic programs. Oh yeah, macs rock when it comes to graphic output. But I love my PC. I have everything on her and yes, I know she's 8 years old but she works like a charm. Until, she realized I bought that mac. I think she was jealous. She started acting up and doing odd things. I think it's the motherboard, but in an effort to use both, my son hooked up both to my monitor with a way to switch back and forth. Pretty cool really.

But, realizing my PCs days were numbered, I saved all files to the external and didn't give them another thought. I also recognized the need to switch my printer over to my mac. Oh, now there in lay the problem. My mini doesn't support my 4 -yr-old Magicolor 2400W. So I go to look for drivers. None to be had but I did find a forum that gave me a way to get it working. I followed the instructions and - it still didn't work. No worries, I still have my PC. She hasn't died yet. Wrong. She died on Saturday. I think I'll have her funeral on Friday.

Enter Sunday's drama: I am working nonstop on the magazine (a local magazine I moonlight for as their editor and now layout person) when my husband says, "By the way, the renters are coming at 8:30 to sign a lease." What? That's in two hours and it's Sunday. "I have no printer!"

Ack, so - I'm smart. I can fix this in two hours. I decide to hook the printer to my son's computer. He originally had my computer acting as the hub for all the computers in the house. I see where the printer is in his control panel and try to print. Nope. Won't print. I reinstall the printer and YAY, it prints. But where did I put that lease. Oh, yeah, on the external. I unhook the external from my PC and rehook to my mac. I find the lease but it's in word perfect. ACK. No worries, I'll e-mail it to myself and print from my son's computer. I open up the file and - yep my son doesn't have word perfect on his PC. I find the disk and prepare to install. I get the error message. Not enough memory to install. Grrrrrrr.

Back to square one. I look at the clock. I have an hour left. Think. Okay, I"ll open up the file on my laptop and convert to rtf. Problem solved. I do this and e-mail it to myself again. But when I open up my beautifully written 10 page double columned contract, I discover a foreign language. The columns are all over the page and instead of 10, I now have 79 pages of rambling rhetoric. Arggggggg.

Thirty minutes left. All I need is the front page and the signature page, the one with the increase in rent. I can copy the other pages and staple is all together. No one will ever know. I did manage to rearrange, reformat and rebuild one page before they rang the doorbell. Needless to say, either my son needs to figure out how to make my printer work on the mac or I have to go shopping for a printer I can't really afford. What a trip.

1 comment:

Linda LaRoque said...

Ciara, I feel your pain. Hope you get it all straightened out so you can work with less stress.