I hate computer updates, I really do. Sure, if not for them, I would be back in 2000. But they become so constant and every change makes some favorite app not work right. Every Firefox or Safari update (about once a week each) means I have to create a new password or lengthen the existing one for my AOL email accounts.
And dammit, even with my accounts printed out on legal size paper and double-spaced, I run out of room and I have silly arrows pointing all over the place to wherever there is room! Don't worry about my security though. I have a stand-alone computer for a couple obsolete computer games and I keep my password spreadsheet on that. Unhackable.
But what got my knickers in a knot today was Mac Photos. The newest upgrade from Sequoia 15.1 to 15.2 "upgrade" (you will only understand that if you have a Mac) completely changed my camera-to-computer upload procedure. I went nuts trying to get pictures off my camera yesterday for hours.
I thought the problem was Photos. Nothing I tried fixed that. So I thought it was Sequoia 15.2 which had just been upgraded. Looking for a new Photos version that worked with it got me nowhere. The instructions for ways to revert to Sequoia 15.1 were beyond my ability.
And I will add that restarting the computer, shutting it on and off, and looking for "patches" got me nowhere. So I shut the computer off and went shopping (eyeglass repair, DIY store) just to clear my mind.
When I returned (fed The Mews, cleaned the litterboxes) I went at it again. And trust me, when cleaning the litterboxes is better than struggling with the computer, you know you have a problem.
But then the great Spirit of Christmas descended upon me! I saw a single line in a 4 page help article that referred to "device in the sidebar". Curious, I went back to Photos and searched around. And I found the word "device" in a drop-down menu. Clicking on it, I found "camera".
The good part is that everything worked again. The mean part is that Mac/Google were trying SO hard to get me on ICloud in a Google-controlled account instead of just letting me manage my little photo world myself. Sometimes, I feel like a small mouse with a tiny mace fighting a Bobcat!
But I beat them again!
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Allow me an admission. My favorite baseball player of all time is Pete Rose. Yeah he bet on games. But as a player, he was everything I ever tried to be. His nickname was "Charlie Hustle". He did his best on every at-bat or fielding effort. Mickey Mantle once related a story about the first time he saw Pete Rose in the outfield. Mantle said something like "I hit a homer that was 50' over the wall. And this new kid climbed the wall trying to catch it. We called him 'Charlie Hustle' after that". He always ran hard in a sure out, launched himself at every fly ball he could not possibly reach, and played every day as if it was his last. I think he once said that he would pay to play baseball.
I understand him everytime I play a game or tackle a computer problem. Sometimes it isn't skill, but determination. Perseverance counts too. Sorry, I didn't mean to talk about myself, it just went from the brain to the keyboard...
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There were only 5 pics on the camera, but 3 were so weird... I woke up yesterday and thought my neighbors had put a row of fake owls on their roof-ridge to scare away pest birds. But then one of them moved! And I realized it was a whole row of vultures!
I love taking pictures of The Mews of course, but THIS is really why I have a camera... For the things that you can never even imagine could happen...