An Apple today could've saved the day

This past week makes me wish he had one of the colio Macs. I felt like that poor PC shlub from the Apple ads.

It started with my DVD creation software. I was able to make a decent picture slide show with it, though I stumbled through the learning curve. I have now started on the "Year in Review" project, and I had a video clip I wanted to insert in the midst of the pictures. When I did the little drag-and-drop into the program, it would accept the audio portion but not the video. A search of the help files produced nothing. I found an online forum filled with user entries. Lately this is where I find most of my solutions as the product manuals are generally pretty useless. The gist of it was that yes, Sony doesn't support avi or mpeg files, and you need to search for a CODEC (whatever that is) to make it work. I went through three or four different free programs before I got it to work.

Then I updated the software on my phone. The update came out in April, and I held off until now because I anticipated issues. Well, I got them. The syncing program would hang when it was almost done. When I closed the program and reconnected, my computer wouldn't recognize the phone. Plug and play my a$$. Through multiple profile deletions I was able to get most of the data on the phone, but it still wouldn't sync fully. For some reason today, it does. We'll see about tomorrow.

Then Adobe flash suddenly wouldn't work in Internet Explorer. Eventually I did the uninstall/reinstall dance and I can now see videos again.

Today at work, the pdf creator for printing out listings stopped working. Quick learner that I am, un/reinstall to the rescue. Then I downloaded software for a new loan program we are offering. Naturally it didn't work. An e-mail to the help desk was actually returned within an hour. The solution - uninstall the version for your system and install the one for a couple of versions ago. This would be the "upgrading to a older, more familiar experience" from the PR lady Apple ad.

This is all just venting really. Macs aren't compatible with our Multiple Listing property program, and from what I hear Macs even have their own problems and "blue screen of death". The preceding link has a great video comparing Mac and PC packaging if you haven't already seen it.

Maybe the Macs don't live up to their hype and marketing, but I'd like to think there is a better way.