A Cautionary Tale ...

The Monk recently upgraded his iMac to the all new Mountain Lion Operating System. At the same time Mausi decided, with the Monk, to upgrade our printer/scanner to a new one we had discussed and liked. There was only one problem as far as could be seen, that is the download speed of our internet connection. So, the iMac was duly packed up and taken down to our local Apple Mac representatives and they set it up in their store, connected it to the internet and - zing. Some forty minutes to download the system update and another 30 or so to install it and the iMac performs extremely well.

Except for one small problem. It can see the new printer/scanner. It can even identify the fact that it has downloaded all the relevant tools on the CD for the printer/scanner. What it can't do is talk to it ...

Various downloads have been searched, tried and and ... nothing. Finally, the Apple Support team were contacted, they did a search and - presto. "Sorry, sir, there is, at present, no driver available for Mountain Lion and that model Samsung CLX 3185W Printer/Scanner. We suggest you call Samsung Technical Support and see if they can help."

The Monk did so. Samsung's helpful adviser only dealt in Mobile Phone problems, but he passed the details of the problem and the return call number to the Technical Support staff for Printers... Seven days later, the Monk has had a call from Samsung.

Now he could attempt to be amusing. He could attempt to give this a Japanese accent, but he won't. He will resist the temptation. There is, it seems, no driver for quite a number of Samsung printers available for use on an iMac with Mountain Lion. The Monk is assured that one is being developed and will be available ... soon.

Thankfully, the Monk's other printer, a Black and White Lexmark is very happy to work with the Mountain Lion. So, a little patience is required, full service is promised, we just don't know when ...

Ain't technology wonderful .....

Except, of course, when it drops you in it big time. For some time now I have used a Hewlett Packard PDA as a diary and as a note book. It was always backed up to Outlook on my PC and even though it had previously crashed twice I was always able to retrieve my appointments and my address book by connecting it to the PC and reloading the data. Then I upgraded my Microslosh Office to Office 2007. Initially on the cheapest option for that package. Mistake, the Office 2003 suite conflicted with it and so, in a moment of sheer stupidity - I uninstalled 2003!

Wait for it - that removed Outlook which I had not acquired in the 2007 bundle. No problem thinks I - I'll just reinstall that and reconnect the PDA. Except something in the PDA Synchronising prgramme no longer worked. It would not reconnect and would not share.....

So I contacted Microslosh and discovered the problem, I had the wrong programme package. More cash changes bank accounts and now I have the righ package installed. Except the PDA still won't talk to the PC.... OK, so now I need to contact HP to get the programme changed, in the meantime praying that the PDA wouldn't have a wobbly. I should have known, the PDA crashed today, wiping out my appointments, my address book and every note I have mdae in it. Nothing I can do will make it talk to anything else (I did have some of the information backed up on a laptop - but the PDA won't talk to that either!) and now I have to try and contact everyone I can recall having an appointment to meet and everyone whose address I can recall being in the damned thing - and try to get the information back somehow.

I guess it just proves, yet again, how dependent we have become on these electronic gadgets - and how helpless we are when they drop us in the doo-doo. At least I'm not entirely alone - I see the Gorse Fox is having a Technoclasm as well.

Struggling at the moment to get my head around course design and course materials for a short course I have to give in Ireland next month. Its a bit like clutching at ephemera, just as you think you have it sorted someting else moves and you've lost the thread. Part of the problem is that this is for a mixed group - some fire officers, some consultants and some civil engineer/fire officers. Now you may think that should make it easy, but in fact it complicates things no end. For some I'll have to explain the concepts and for others some of the explanations will be too simplistic .....

As it's a "bespoke" course, the other challenge is to find support notes and materials which will give the content I have to deliver without having to write it all myself. All of this takes up an enormous amount of time - in fact it is often said that to prepare an hours lesson takes four hours of preparation. Well try the maths to work out how much time is absorbed by trying to put together 35 hours of tuition.

No wonder my head hurts. And I already know the "preparation" time isn't built into the fee .....

Sigh.