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REFLECTIONS
By FAITH WYLIE
TECHNO TANGLES
I was taken to the woodshed a few weeks ago. The consultant accused us of publishing “your father’s newspaper.” That is not a compliment.
Fortunately, I was not singled out in the tongue-lashing. About 60 Oklahoma newspaper people were in the class when the newspaper design consultant gave us a “C.”
I attended the conference because my summer project is redesigning the Leader. I expected layout tips. I didn’t expect to be called un-American
He told us that we are “too bland, too objective.” “Amp it up” and “raise hell” were our instructions.
Oh, dear. I like to play it safe. In fact, I hate controversy.
Tough. Readers love controversy. Actually, readers claim to hate controversy, but they sure respond. Spicy stories bring more readers, more feedback and more conversation. Maybe the design jerk knows what he’s talking about.
I had known it was time for an upgrade and redesign. My software struggles to handle the files needed for providers and customers. My computer crashes and gets brain overload several times a day.
So what’s the big deal? Upgrade the darn software. It sounds so easy.
Step one: buy a new computer to handle the more complex software.
A laptop seemed like a good idea so that I could work at home in the evenings. I waited until after Christmas for sale prices. Finally my budget and computer capabilities matched up. I ordered a new Lenovo during the company’s March Madness Sale.
The sale computer is a myth. It’s not even built in China until after my purchase. Finally, the laptop arrived.
It’s Vista. Vista is different. Within 10 days, the computer was totally crazy. Was it born crazy or did I drive it crazy trying to make it work like Windows XP? Who knows? John finally got tired of me moaning. He hired a geek to unscramble it for me.
Step two: hook up the printer and scanner.
Vista can’t talk to my printers. Add a new printer to the budget. Vista can’t talk to my scanner. How about a new printer/scanner?
Step three: download pictures from my cameras.
The little media slot claimed to read Memory Stick and MS Pro cards. My little camera has a MS Pro Duo, so I popped the Memory Stick in the slot. The dark hole swallowed up the tiny card. Turning the laptop over and shaking did no good. It was gone.
Maybe I could get pictures off my big Canon 10D using the USB cable. I found the camera program disks and loaded the software onto the laptop. It’s Vista. The camera is too old to have an updated Vista driver. I’ll have to buy a separate card reader for the flash drive.
Try Googling “memory stick stuck in laptop.” It’s amazing how many of us luddites think that we can stick a MS Pro Duo card into an MS Pro slot. One of the suggestions even worked!
Step four: buy design software.
I checked the date on my current software: 1999. Ugh, that is ancient. I checked the price on the new Adobe Design Suite: $1,799. Ouch, that makes the old stuff almost bearable.
Bargain shopping on the internet located the product at $458.15, almost too good to be true. I won’t knowingly buy pirated software, but this promised to be legit.
The design software arrived today... minus the registration number. Software without a registration number is worth less than a Memory Stick stuck inside a laptop. After several phone calls and emails, “Mitch” came through with the number.
The next step is office software. Do I fork over more money for MS Office 2007 or search the place for an unused license for Office 2003? Will Office 2003 work on Vista? Will anything work on Vista?
Maybe Open Office is the way to go. (Readers, I’d really like to talk to someone who has made the switch to Open Office.)
I’m tired of tangled technology. Do I care what some consultant from Oregon thinks? What’s wrong with my father’s newspaper anyway?
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