Category: Commentary

Part II of III –

I called Go Daddy – waiting on hold for less than a minute. After asking a few questions and looking at our account, the customer service rep suggested upgrading our outdated POP email server to an Exchange one. He diligently walked me through setting everything up on our iMac, two iPhones and my iPad… and it all worked great. Only costing $155 for three years.

During our conversation I mentioned my next move was to add Office 365 from Microsoft. “I can do it for you right now, saving you $100 over three years,” he said. I always like a good deal, so I said yes. The process took about a half hour… and, after $190 more, I was off and running.

For our iMac, Kathy and I are both ‘Users’ – which means we log-in separately and the screen flips to our individual account. I proudly called Kathy in and showed her how much better Office 365 is than our old 2008 version. Then she went to her account… and discovered she could only Read documents, not Edit them.

I’ll speed through the story at this point to share the order and length of calls: 1) Go Daddy – 30 minutes with Microsoft Support on the line to determine everything should work fine; 2) Apple – two hours before deciding it’s an Office 365 issue; 3) Microsoft – one hour and 20 minutes, concluding since we purchased through Go Daddy, it was back to them to resolve; 4) Go Daddy – one hour to discover we needed to upgrade Kathy’s email to a higher level at an additional $10 per month.

Next: Finally… resolution.

Part I of III –

When Kathy and I created our 2018 business plan a few months ago, we listed five key initiatives. One of them a much-needed enhancement of technology. Having an eight-year-old iMac with an operating system at least four generations behind, it was clear we needed to upgrade.

Since I know little about this, there were several articles to read and a couple YouTube videos to watch. The first thing I learned is it’s essential to clone our hard drive… just in case anything goes wrong during the transition. Thus, the first purchase was a Seagate Backup Plus Slim portable storage device from Amazon for about $80. Then I downloaded a free third-party cloning software and pushed Start.

The estimated time to clone our half-filled TB hard drive was nine hours. All went well for the first 235 GB, as I checked on progress every hour. Unfortunately, up popped an Error message with a note to contact Seagate. The good news is I was only on hold about two minutes. The bad news is they determined my new hard drive ‘failed out of the box’ and I would need to request a ‘return and replace’ through Amazon.

That was an easy process as I took the preprinted address labels to the UPS Store and purchased a padded envelope. Two days later a replacement drive arrived – and, after, upgrading to the $40 paid version of the cloning software, began the effort again. Ten hours later, I placed the clone safely in a desk drawer.

Amazingly, the upgrade to Apple’s High Sierra operating system was flawless – and free. After all these years, our computer was like new. Then three days later, I couldn’t send e-mail…

Next: The troubles begin.

Last week – on the coldest night of the year – I stood at the back door to let in my wife as she made her way from our detached garage with Christmas packages in hand.

A few hours later the moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow – a rarity in Houston – would give the luster of midday to objects below. However, at that moment, what to my wondering eyes should appear but a miniature raccoon headed right for my dear.

I banged on the glass and he scurried away, let in my betrothed and saved the day. Then suddenly the varmint turned with a jerk, and looking straight at me went right to work. He wiggled his nose and scurried inside, clawed to the attic and there he did hide.

It’s a little chilling to know a wild animal claimed our home as his own, so I called a couple of ‘critter-ridder’ places right away to ask what to do. They suggested we wait and see if perhaps he was just seeking shelter from the temperature and might depart the next morning. Sure enough three days passed and there were no signs of him.

Then as we ate our dinner, out near the lawn there arose such a clatter, I sprang from my chair to see what was the matter. Away to the window I flew like a flash, tore open the blinds and hoped this would pass.

His eyes, how they twinkled! His dimples how taunting! His cheeks puffed up as he returned to his haunting. That rascal raccoon chewed through a vent, intending to stay and never pay rent.

I immediately called and scheduled a removal service for the next morning. When the young man arrived and saw the damage, his said: “Wow! That’s one mean raccoon.”

We’ve lived in our home 19 years next week, yet he pointed out five access points that needed repair to prevent another intrusion. Plus, you can’t remove a raccoon and not treat and disinfect… or others will consider it an invitation to take up residence.

Thus, Kathy and my Christmas present to each other is a $1,500 pet raccoon we hope to never see again.