I've recently started to play with taking pictures, hoping to move beyond snapshots and use photography in a project. A lot of experimenting, a lot of throw away shots, a lot of frustration. A friend suggested I get Lightroom to post process pictures, and after some investigation, determined the latest version was the way to go. The only thing preventing the purchase was the need to upgrade the operating system on our Mac. Did I say "our"? That would be a misstatement. I use it whenever I want, but "the Mac" is Dan's purview. And he'd read enough reviews of OS upgrades to know he really didn't want any part of OS 10.9. No, Dan still longs for the pinnacle of Apple development, the beloved system 6.8. Rock solid. Bug free. Sure, it was a small B&W screen and the internet was still science fiction, but to Dan, 6.8 was it. The negatives outweighed the positives...except, he really wanted the "Find my iPhone" app.
As our Mac boarders on "vintage" he first had to (I had to ask Dan for details here) upgrade from Leopard to Snow Leopard. Snow Leopard is so old he had to order it on a disk. Did I mention our computer is less than five years old? From Snow Leopard we could have made the jump to Lion or Mountan Lion, but instead we skipped those steps and went right to Mavericks. When complete we then needed to purchase newer versions of a few programs, but overall, the upgrade was a success. I loaded in Lightyear. We then moved on to "Find my iPhone." We added the app to both our iPhones and the Mac. Now to test it out.
Dan launched the app and found his phone. I launched the app and found my phone. And the computer monitor indicated that it knew exactly where it was. So as long as I have my phone in my hand I'll know right where it is. Dan stared at his phone and muttered "God how I miss 6.8." The computer sat there silently, smugly, knowing exactly where it was.
I am reminded of a story from many years ago, when Dan's parents got wireless phones and a new answering machine (they still have the same machine. Good for them--upgrades can kill.) They called us on two seperate phones, but somehow hit mute. Dad is yelling Hello? Hello? while Moms is saying "I'm right here!" This went on for several minutes as Dan and I chuckled and shook our heads. Dan then uttered words that are burned into our hard drive: "Technology has not been kind to my parents."
Meanwhile, in this century, several hours into our "Find my phone" adventure, we have three devices that can find themselves. Dan declares that he is taping a post-it on the back of his phone offering a reward to whoever returns it. "Now it will find itself," and leaves the room. I heard a voice ... "moms, never forget the miracle that is Google..." and started typing in questions. The answer seemed to be that we had too many "cloud" accounts. How do we sync our cloud and make this work? Lots of answers, most of which seemed to be head to the genius bar at the Apple store. Fortunately I knew how to make an appointment online.
We were met at the genius bar by an Apple guy assigned to triage (apparently not a genius) who said he wouldn't be able to answer our questions but would run some preliminary diagnostics on our computer. He was wearing a Mac 30 shirt. Dan asked "The Mac is 30 years old?" Yes!" was his response. "I had one of the 128K Macs," Dan responded. Imagine the look you'd have on your face if, as a 20something, someone said to you "Yeah, I supplied Noah the lumber for his boat." It was that kind of look.
As we described the issue, and what we hoped to accomplish, he graciously started explaining the iCloud concept. "No it's better not to sync, you log into each cloud from another device, then search for your phone... and this is how you get your phone to make a tone so you can find it in a laundry basket"...and so on. By the time he was done with the explanation the diagnostic came back clean and we were good to go. We thanked him and I said "you're a genius."
Dan picked up our Mac (there had been no reason to bring it into the store, running the whole diagnostic thing was just a way for us to save face) and headed for the door.
We've become our parents.
As our Mac boarders on "vintage" he first had to (I had to ask Dan for details here) upgrade from Leopard to Snow Leopard. Snow Leopard is so old he had to order it on a disk. Did I mention our computer is less than five years old? From Snow Leopard we could have made the jump to Lion or Mountan Lion, but instead we skipped those steps and went right to Mavericks. When complete we then needed to purchase newer versions of a few programs, but overall, the upgrade was a success. I loaded in Lightyear. We then moved on to "Find my iPhone." We added the app to both our iPhones and the Mac. Now to test it out.
Dan launched the app and found his phone. I launched the app and found my phone. And the computer monitor indicated that it knew exactly where it was. So as long as I have my phone in my hand I'll know right where it is. Dan stared at his phone and muttered "God how I miss 6.8." The computer sat there silently, smugly, knowing exactly where it was.
I am reminded of a story from many years ago, when Dan's parents got wireless phones and a new answering machine (they still have the same machine. Good for them--upgrades can kill.) They called us on two seperate phones, but somehow hit mute. Dad is yelling Hello? Hello? while Moms is saying "I'm right here!" This went on for several minutes as Dan and I chuckled and shook our heads. Dan then uttered words that are burned into our hard drive: "Technology has not been kind to my parents."
Meanwhile, in this century, several hours into our "Find my phone" adventure, we have three devices that can find themselves. Dan declares that he is taping a post-it on the back of his phone offering a reward to whoever returns it. "Now it will find itself," and leaves the room. I heard a voice ... "moms, never forget the miracle that is Google..." and started typing in questions. The answer seemed to be that we had too many "cloud" accounts. How do we sync our cloud and make this work? Lots of answers, most of which seemed to be head to the genius bar at the Apple store. Fortunately I knew how to make an appointment online.
We were met at the genius bar by an Apple guy assigned to triage (apparently not a genius) who said he wouldn't be able to answer our questions but would run some preliminary diagnostics on our computer. He was wearing a Mac 30 shirt. Dan asked "The Mac is 30 years old?" Yes!" was his response. "I had one of the 128K Macs," Dan responded. Imagine the look you'd have on your face if, as a 20something, someone said to you "Yeah, I supplied Noah the lumber for his boat." It was that kind of look.
As we described the issue, and what we hoped to accomplish, he graciously started explaining the iCloud concept. "No it's better not to sync, you log into each cloud from another device, then search for your phone... and this is how you get your phone to make a tone so you can find it in a laundry basket"...and so on. By the time he was done with the explanation the diagnostic came back clean and we were good to go. We thanked him and I said "you're a genius."
Dan picked up our Mac (there had been no reason to bring it into the store, running the whole diagnostic thing was just a way for us to save face) and headed for the door.
We've become our parents.
