What sort of cockamamie question is that?

California - Home of Apple!

You will not be astonished to learn that it takes a very, very long time indeed to transfer 18,000 songs from an iPod to iTunes. And – (why is it always like this) anytime the software –which is called ‘Senuti’ has a problem it asks you want you want to do.

i.e. ‘I have been unable to copy a song called ‘The Sheik from Scrubby Creek’ what do you want me to do?

The options are Cancel (close the program) or Ignore

Close the program? What sort of an option is that? What would be the point of that? What sort of cockamamie question is that?

Doesn’t the fact that I started you on the Herculean task of copying 18,000 songs give you a clue as to my intentions? Forget about that song – I will live without it – when I get stuck I can whistle it - move on!

The problem of course – as anyone who has ever done anything like this will know – is that it stops everything while it waits for an answer. So if you have popped off downstairs to watch the cricket for an hour or so and come back thinking that it must almost be done you discover that it has not budged a millimetre because it is waiting to hear what you want to do about ‘The Sheik from Scrubby Creek’.

This software developers revenge for having to do their lousy and difficult job is to force the users to sit there and watch the program go through every excruciating process as the blue line creeps excruciatingly slowly towards the finish line like a stoned snail crawling through marmalade.

As a variation sometimes they make the software hang. It says it is doing things but you just know it is not and there is absolutely nothing you can do about. Well – you can stop it and start again – but what would be the point of that – so usually you just have to sit there for a while until the programmers inbuilt ‘tension building pause’ has come to an end - and then it will come back to life and start beavering away – or crash.

My favourite of all time is when an excruciatingly slow software programs grinds through endless processes and eventually finishes. Up pops an error message saying something like ‘there was an error in Spangle #54679 which prevented the program from completing its job. Please run the program again’.

But why? You will get the same error message next time. I don’t think software programmers ever use their own programs. Like people who design automated telephone answering services never have to call their own companies to get the excruciating message.

“Welcome – we don’t give a flying fuck about you and that is why we are going to make you go through an excruciating menu of meaningless questions and numbers until we finally connect you with a complete nincompoop who will have no idea what you are talking about and will promise that someone will call you back but you both know that will never happen and when you call again you will never find that person because they left the company five minutes after taking your call and if we don’t like you (and we don’t) we will either cut you off or hang up on you – whichever comes first”

But it’s done. All my songs are now in the iMac iTunes files (with the exception of The Sheik from Scrubby Creek and some others).

I was so please with this I decided to sync my iPhone with my new iMac and succeeded only in deleting all the contact details from my iPhone. If I used to call you and email you but no longer do so – now you know why. As far as my iPhone is concerned you do not exist – and no I did not have a back up – that is what I was trying to do.

I have sent pleading emails out asking for contact information.

This is the tip of the iceberg. I am sure that there are many other ways I can make my files TARFU.

Cate has asked how long it will be before I get all the Furshlugginer files transferred. I have advised her that at the current rate of progress I am looking at 2013 – about April 23 I think.