10 November 2020

In Which I Decide Technology Is Out to Get Me

As you may recall, earlier this year - right when the pandemic and quarantine got underway - my laptop died.  As in it was DECEASED.  No transfer of things from the old hard drive (RIP photos and documents), no saving of anything at all.  Which was excellent, because it was also when Zoom for work meetings and such became a requirement, and when The Tim was laid off, and all of the buckets of money we previously had (OK not even one full bucket) were pretty well dried up.  Timing, I tell you!

Enter our Discover card to save the day.  The Tim and I poked around, and because I trust his knowledge of such topics, we decided on a Chromebook for me, and purchased one.  (He actually enjoys looking into these things, whereas I would rather even go to the dentist.  And I HATE going to the dentist.  Anyway.)  Said Chromebook arrived, and I have been using it since.  My take thus far is that it's just close enough to a Windows machine to make you feel confident.  Until you go to do something where you discover it has NOTHING AT ALL IN COMMON with a Windows machine.  I have decided it was created to keep me humble.  Which as far as techmology is concerned, does not take much - someone should have warned it.

Anyhoo, we have been getting along well enough.  Not a love affair, at least not yet, but a good enough relationship to enjoy a cup of tea together once in a while, if you know what I mean.  And I think we'll become good friends down the road.

Then there's Blogger and e-mail.  Now *those two* are really and truly out to get me.  The latest thing, which has happened a bit on and off, but now seems somewhat regular, has to do with responding to comments.  I get e-mail notifications, as well as having to approve comments.  Mostly because I got tired of dumb spam that needed to be dealt with, and that was not even amusing spam.  In the past couple of weeks, when I have thought I reponded to comments where I had an e-mail address, days later I'll get an e-mail notification that the message couldn't be delivered for various reasons: the person doesn't exist, the mailbox was full, the address didn't exist, I failed to prove I was not a robot - you know, any number of what I now think of as "excuses."  So I actually started to take the time to respond in the comments.  I would write a response, it would accept it ... and then nothing would show up.  Rinse, lather, repeat.

Sigh.  It would be one thing if this happened on a regular, predicatable basis, but no, it just happens without any rhyme or reason.  Which I feel is legitimate proof that technology is out to get me.  Clearly the gods/goddesses/leaders of technology are messing with me and they don't just laugh when I have issues - nope, I'm 99.999999% sure that they guffaw for a minimum of ten minutes.  (I'm also not paranoid, clearly.)

Not to be outdone, I shall continue the best I can to communicate with those who leave comments, but I have to apologize in advance if you seem to hear from me just fine sometimes, and not at all other times.  I do promise that I read and enjoy comments, and when I can, I love to send a response. I'm not ignoring you/blowing you off, just suffering at the hands of the robot overlords and their creators ...

I swear, sometimes I feel like this guy:


So that's it for now.  I need to go and yell at some kids to get off my lawn. 😜

5 comments:

Nance said...

Chrome is really having some issues, I think. I've noticed slowdowns, processing problems, and commenters at my site are having problems with some of their responses merely disappearing. I'm thinking of switching my browser to something else.

DO YOU HEAR THAT, CHROME? AND YOU GOOGLE OVERLORDS?

KSD said...

Tell them to take their hula hoops and Trapper Keepers and that stuff they call "music," too.

steph said...

i'm not the sharpest tack in the tech box either, but I've actually surprised myself on a couple of occasions. Hubby is a Dell/Windows guy....I switched to Apple (for the photography stuff, and it IS awesome), at which point he wrote me off and no longer was going to be my go-to tech guy. sigh.

A couple weeks ago it took me an entire day....to download and install a plug-in to make my computer love my printer (something I've been struggling with almost a year!!!)....and I only cried twice. I can't tell you how pumped I was when it worked!!! And then I downloaded the newest version of photoshop...and the plugin disappeared. grrrrr so I uninstalled photoshop 2021 and all are living happily ever after. THE END.

Araignee said...

I'm having the same issues here with all my little toys. My phone has been acting up-it can't find the 4G thing. Both of my Chromebooks are having nervous breakdowns on a regular basis and USPS just told me that they won't support my printer anymore-that is ONLY TWO YEARS OLD. I just got it hooked up to the Wifi so I could Click and Ship stuff. Grrrr....Then HBO tells me I can't stream HBO because I don't have HBO which I am watching on my TV at that very same moment. Don't get me going on Blogger. Nothing works right anymore. It's a chore to post and comment. I think everything has gone crazy. I am so over the daily frustration. My old transistor radio is looking pretty darn good.

Meredith MC said...

Maybe Mercury is retrograde? (How’s that for a hippy dippy answer). At least I’m not the only one suffering from random technology gaffes.
And, the ones I create. In zoom classes, I can never remember that I am muted when I return to the main room from a breakout room. I start talking while muted somewhere around 25 times a day. Not exaggerating. To twelve year olds. They both think it’s hilarious and are also over it. My dear old brain takes awhile to figure out this new fangled stuff.