Modern Problems

In response to my query as to where he's been lately--I've missed him playing Words With Friends (WWF)-- my friend Rick G., a court reporter in Florida, wrote the following. I felt it was far too informative to keep to myself, especially since I did not understand even one word of it. Perhaps it will help someone else who is struggling with some of these same issues, whatever they are:

"Sorry I've been slack on WWF, but one thing has led to another.  A couple of weeks ago I decided I needed a 7200 RPM drive in my MacBook Pro, and while I was at it, I would add more memory.  So I go to Best Buy and buy a hard drive, which now they have dual drives, a 7200 RPM disc and there is 8GB of SSD on it too, so you use the solid state drive for common all the time programs and the 7200 disc for the rest.  Sounds easy, open the back, slip in the memory and unscrew the support screws on the existing drive and replace it with the new one.  Oh, I also decided that for Photoshop I needed to upgrade the RAM for the desktop, but for that I ordered on the Internet.  I got both the same day, so I figured how long could it take????  Hmmmmmm.

I open the desktop, put in the new memory sticks, put the side back on, turn it on, and boom, I'm surfing along with 12GB of RAM!

Then to the laptop.  Open it up, put the new memory in, put the new drive in, put the back on, turn it on ... and nothing!  Open the back, open the memory draw, giggle that around a little bit, check the connection of the drive, put the cover back on, turn it on... and this time it works, but it's not working right.  It won't let me format the drive to load the OS.  So I put in my original memory, works perfectly.  I decide that I should I return the drive and the memory to Best Buy, maybe it was a bad memory stick and drive. Got a new drive and memory, came home, put them both in, and this time the drive is fine, but the memory is bad... AGAIN!  So I decide I should do what I didn't want to do in the beginning.  I returned the memory and ordered it from a specialty Mac supply house, the one where I bought the memory for the desktop.  So I have my original 4GB of memory and a new drive. Works okay, but I want more memory so my virtual drive of Windows 7 will run better.  Two days later, I get the new memory, put it in, boots up, I'm able to format the drive and reinstall a Time Machine backup of my computer, and I'm up and running... for a little bit.

I carry an AT&T hotspot with me to work so I can check Facebook and do e-mail while I'm writing. I get to the job and the hotspot battery is dead.  I plug it in and things just aren't working right, the connection keeps dropping. In the meantime, I'm rebooting the computer while they're talking! I came out of there with little pieces of the job and put them all together when I got home.  Something happened electrically with the battery... I don't know what, but I had to restore a backup of my hard drive.  These restores are taking hours and hours of time.  

So now the hard drive is new and the memory is new, I'm fine there, but the hotspot keeps screwing up.  So I call AT&T support.  The guy is sort of in a rush and he says, "It's your battery--we'll send you another."  And that was it.  I'm still waiting for the battery.  Friday night I call AT&T and I ask how they could be so sure that the problem was the battery, the unit keeps losing connection even without a battery.  The woman was very tech savvy and nice and at one point said that the problem I'm having is two-fold.  Yes, the battery died and they're replacing it, but she wanted me to load new drivers in the computer for the hotspot so I can plug it directly into the computer rather than the wall.  I ask her why not the wall, and she says, "Oh, when you plug it into the wall, the unit shuts off and loses connection!!!"  That was my problem all along!  So we try to load the drivers.  They won't go, I get an error.  She calls Sierra Wireless, the maker of the unit, and I speak to a tech there.  He says that they should replace the unit because something is definitely wrong with it.  Before I spoke to the tech, the ATT lady said she'll call me back to make sure things were okay.  I'm still waiting from Friday.

So, I say to myself that I'm going about this all wrong.  I go to the Sierra Wireless Website and download the drivers, both the Windows and the Mac, and install both, and all of a sudden the hotspot starts charging, and I'm also able to tether it to the computer.  

So it's been two weeks of sitting on the phone talking with one tech or another and when I got to WWF, I was just too tired to think of any words, so I said when I woke up, I would do it, but I was busy with the computers from when I woke up at six to about one in the morning. So now the computers are all set and hopefully I'll get a night's sleep and then be back to normal on WWF. That's why I dropped off the face of the earth!!!"

Amazingly, Rick sent the preceding message without one typo in the whole thing. Now that's impressive!