Tag Archives: new computer

complaints, music, videos, YouTube

Why do “user friendly” applications have to be so unfriendly?

I swear, I’m not a “boomer”, nor am I a member of the “greatest generation”… I’m sitting here having flashbacks to the late 1990s, when my dad struggled to send emails and would call the local computer wizard to help him with that basic task. So many of us tried and failed to teach him that skill. It got so bad that the local computer wizard quit answering my dad’s calls!

No… I’m not THERE yet… But I do seem to be having some issues with iMovie that I didn’t used to have.

On my travel blog today, I wrote a post about how I made a new music video starring our dog, Noyzi. This is something I’ve done dozens of times over the years. I bought my first iMac in 2011, and although no one ever taught me how to use iMovie, I quickly figured out how it operated. I made a whole bunch of YouTube videos, most of which didn’t feature my visage at all.

It wasn’t until some months ago that I finally decided to make music videos that show my face. Surprisingly enough, the videos that show me tend to do better, even if I think pretty scenery and pictures of my dogs are much more beautiful than I am. But, as I explained in my travel blog a few days ago, I had a really nasty looking “bloody eyeball” bruise over the weekend that was kind of disturbing to look at. It was mostly healed yesterday, when I decided to make a new video, but the song I recorded just really lent itself to using clips of Noyzi, insteading of my homely mug. So I recorded the audio portion of the video, then went off to iMovie, to make the visual part.

I tried to drag photos and clips from my photos into the editor. None of them would import. I got one of those circles with the diagonal lines through them when I tried. I went looking for an explanation and a solution. I found a few suggestions, most of which involved granting permissions, moving media into the application, rebooting my computer, updating software, and changing security settings. I did all of that, but today, I still can’t make videos the way I used to.

Another hindrance is the fact that everything help related seems to be made in a video, rather in a written article, which can be a good thing or a bad thing. Yesterday, I was finding that I had to keep stopping and starting the videos I tried to watch in order to help myself, flipping back and forth to try to fix the issue. Ultimately, my efforts failed, anyway.

I created yesterday’s video using my trusty laptop. I don’t like to make videos on that, because I don’t have a mouse for it. I did have one for my old laptop, but I so seldom used it that I didn’t bother to get one for my newer one. Consequently, it’s a real pain to try to maneuver things on my laptop, and it makes creating videos all the more annoying. I did manage to succeed yesterday, though. I thought maybe I could just make the visual part on the laptop and send it to my desktop, but no dice… the video would NOT load into my iMovie app. I got the infuriating circle with a line through it and the message that I “didn’t have permission”. Grrr… it’s my computer and MY photos, dammit!

So then I airdropped my audio track to the laptop and created the video that way. It’s now on YouTube, doing fairly decently in terms of engagement. And today, I’m looking into seeing what I can do to fix the settings on my newest computer, so I don’t have to use the laptop the next time I don’t want to video directly from my desktop machine.

I’m sure there are better video editing software programs out there, but as I’m not a technogeek, I have no desire to try to find a new program and figure it out. In the past, I’ve bought new software, only to never use it, because I couldn’t quickly and easily figure out how it worked. I just want the Apple software to work easily. Is that too much to ask?

Some people are fascinated by techie stuff. Figuring things out is exciting and fun for them. I am fascinated by figuring certain things out, too… but mastering computers isn’t among my passions. I wish it was. It might make me more employable. Some people really have a real gift for mastering any and all gadgets, but I am definitely not one of them. I could probably make videos on my old desktop, but I relegated it to light duty for good reason. It’s kind of on its last legs.

Anyway… I’m sure the issue plaguing me is a minor thing. It’s just annoying, is all. But it’s not as annoying as the prospect of vacuuming the house, which is today’s dreaded chore. Guess I’d better get on that.

By the way… I’m dealing with a petty annoyance on my travel blog, too. For some reason, it won’t let me use certain category tags on my posts. For instance, if I try to tag a post with “Germany” or “dogs” or certain other categories, it will automatically revert to “uncategorized”. It doesn’t do that for all categories, just certain ones. It’s very annoying, but not as annoying as contacting tech support. I just wish things would WORK properly!

Edited to add… I ended up deleting iMovie and reinstalling it, and Final Cut. Final Cut, which I hadn’t even had on this computer (I bought it for my old one), was giving me the same weird error. It finally let me move a clip, but presented it as a still photo instead of a video. But then I tried iMovie again, and that time it worked. Why it suddenly worked is a mystery, but for now, my issue is resolved. All’s well that ends well… for now, anyway. 😀

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first world problems, modern problems, music, technology

I feel the terrible “STING” of moving Sting’s music to my new computer…

I’m getting a late start on today’s blog post, because I spent the morning trying to move more of my music collection from my old computer. It mostly went smoothly, until I got to Sting. I have tons of music by Sting, and that seemed to complicate matters a lot. I have multiple copies of several albums, along with different versions of the same albums. I kept trying to put them on my external hard drive, so they could be moved, only to find that either the albums didn’t make it onto the drive, or I got partial albums.

Making matters worse was the fact that every time I tried to move the damned files, duplicates were generated on the old computer. And even then, it was a crap shoot as to whether or not they’d successfully migrate to the hard drive, even when I tried to check.

I know this is a first world problem, but moving these files is legitimately a real pain in the ass. I have to get up from my chair to go to the other computer, which doesn’t have a chair. Then I stand there and wait for the colorful wheel to stop spinning so things won’t be frozen. After awhile, I got the bright idea to delete some of the duplicate files, only to find that I accidentally permanently erased a few of them.

iTunes won’t let me replace the lost tracks, because they’re already purchased. Amazon won’t let me buy MP3 albums here, because I have a US based credit card, but I live in the German market. And I have a US Apple account, so I can’t buy from the German store. Even if I wanted to do that, I’d still have the credit card issue. Sometimes, I can use PayPal to get around that kind of stuff, but it was all just getting way too annoying and complicated. And sometimes there are other editions of an album available that can be purchased, but there I was no such luck for the album I messed up today. So I ended up buying an actual CD so I can manually replace the lost files.

Hopefully, my Superdrive CD-ROM peripheral will still work properly. I’m not sure if I managed to move everything else I have by Sting today, but I simply had to quit trying. My mood was progressively getting worse by the minute.

The good news is, I don’t have too much further to go in order to be done with this “project”. I managed to get to the Ts, my trials with Sting notwithstanding. So, hopefully, I will be finished with moving my music tomorrow. Then I can make new playlists. I might have said “fuck it” regarding Sting, but he happens to be a big favorite of mine. I have some pretty great stuff by him, some of which is rare. I’m not willing to sacrifice a thing.

I’m sure I could probably send Apple a note and see if they might make it possible to download those files again on the new computer. However, as much as I’d like to be practical and save some money, my concern is that it would take too much time and effort to deal with customer service.

You know… as much as I like how easy and convenient it is to download music, and as nice as it is not to have to find places for physical CDs, I will say that using CDs was a lot easier. Plus, once you own the CD, you have the music for as long as the CD lasts. I don’t want to join Apple or Amazon Music, because I don’t want to rent my music. Plus, I don’t want them fucking up or with the files I have. Some of my most cherished MP3s date back to Napster circa 2000.

So anyway… because of this project, I don’t have anything else to write about today. Sorry to have wasted your time. 😉 Maybe I could rant about how it’s 2023, and I’m having to waste so much time on this shit. Why wasn’t all of this automatically moved on the cloud? iTunes/Apple Music really sucks on many levels for multiple reasons.

But there are lots of other useful posts in this blog… and other blogs on the Information Superhighway. I now feel the overwhelming urge to go lie down somewhere and try to decompress. Maybe tomorrow, I’ll be back with something more exciting to share.

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music, songs, technology, videos, YouTube

It really sucks when technical difficulties abound…

This morning, I wasn’t feeling that great and didn’t feel particularly motivated to write. After I watched a couple of videos on YouTube, I finally decided I’d start today off with music. Today’s music video was a long time coming… God willing, it will premiere. Maybe some people will even enjoy it.

The blues song I recorded today is called “Women Be Wise”. It was written by Sippie Wallace and John Beach and made famous by Bonnie Raitt. I’ve been wanting to do it forever. I actually love the duet version Bonnie did with Sippie years ago, but a backing track to that version isn’t available yet. I’m a lot more familiar with the live version of the song, though, so that meant I had to learn the studio version.

Then, I was hoping to record it with my usual equipment, and on my old computer. I would love to keep the old computer going for awhile, until I’m more used to the new one and have all my old stuff moved over to it. Unfortunately, my old computer has become a huge pain in the ass to use, even just for playing music. I kept getting disk overload/too slow errors, even though I dumped a lot of data from the machine and deleted some resource hogs that were slowing it down.

The next issue was my microphone. I have a trusty Shure SM58 that I’ve been using for at least ten years. It still works fine, but in order to record with it, I have to have a mic interface. For about three years, I had a PreSonus 68c that worked just fine. But now, no matter what I try, I can’t hear myself when I use it. My vocals are too low. After consulting lots of GarageBand articles, updating drivers, and trying all sorts of things, I determined that the problem is with the interface. So, I ordered a new interface and a new Beyerdynamic mic that got here on Saturday. The new interface was less expensive than the old one, but it works perfectly. The new mic, alas, apparently doesn’t.

Finally, this morning, after one last try with the old computer and getting two disk overload errors, I moved the new interface to my new computer… I was pleasantly surprised by the resolution in the video, even though it’s not perfectly synced. I don’t like looking at myself on video anyway, though… I’m all about the song. It took a lot of effort to get it to a passable level, even though it’s not quite perfect.

So after I got the video made, it was time to upload it to YouTube… and now, I’ve found out that my internet connection today is as slow as molasses in the Arctic circle. As I write this, I have about 37 minutes to on uploading. For some reason, our internet speeds have really sucked lately. Sometimes, I even use my cellphone for a connection, because it’s more stable.

I don’t actually know why I feel compelled to upload music videos. They aren’t particularly popular or anything. I guess I like doing them because I genuinely enjoy making music, and because my song videos mostly aren’t controversial at all. I don’t have to worry about getting much bad feedback on my cover songs… at least not necessarily because of the content. I still don’t have a lot of subscribers, so if I put up something that really sucks, chances are good that no one will see it, anyway. 😉

I do like my new mic interface. It’s a Focusrite Scarlett 212, which is pretty basic. I like it because it’s very simple to use and well designed. I paid twice as much for the PreSonus 68c, which has more mic outlets, but is less straightforward in how it can be used.

I’m expecting a new cable to arrive today. I’ll try the new Beyerdynamic mic again, to see if I can raise it from the dead. It’s disappointing that the thing arrived apparently already dead. It wasn’t a cheap mic, and it’s a real pain to have to send it back to the seller.

One other big thing I purchased over the weekend is a new mattress topper for our bed. I’ve been using feather toppers for a long time, but they tend to get flat and misshapen fairly quickly. This time, I ordered a foam topper, which I hope will be better. We really need a new mattress, but it’s hard to get the right size in Germany, unless we order through AAFES. Ordering through AAFES takes forever and offers a pretty poor selection. Then, we have to deal with getting rid of the old mattress. It’s not actually difficult to get rid of mattresses in Germany. You can just call and have them picked up. The real ass pain is in getting the thing down the stairs and out of the house. I wish I had some friends with teenaged boys who need some extra euros.

Arran is still hanging in there. I think the vet is surprised, since he has a big lymph node that has become pretty obvious. You’d think he’d be a lot more lethargic and less interested in eating. But no, he’s still dancing around, eating, sleeping, playing, taking walks, and snuggling. He’s an amazingly resilient dog, and he obviously still wants to live. Canine lymphoma sure is a strange disease. When Zane had it, it took him very quickly. But with the help of chemo, Arran is still putting up a big fight. I know sometimes, it has to do with the dog’s personality. Arran is one of the most devoted dogs I’ve ever seen. I thought some of his predecessors were dedicated, but he’s kind of put them to shame with his determination to stay with us for as long as possible. It’s astonishing, and kind of inspiring.

Well… YouTube is telling me that my video is almost done uploading. I guess it took less time than the computer estimated. Once it’s done uploading, then I have to wait for it to be processed… What fun.

Here it is… the syncing is a bit fucked up on it, but I don’t feel like redoing it now. The end result isn’t perfect, but it sure took a lot to make this video happen. I recommend not actually watching the video. As the featured photo says… “Screw this shit.”

But this song is sure fun to sing… I’ll get the technical glitches sorted out eventually.

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blog news, true crime

The Internet is really sucking HARD today…

I don’t know why, but I’ve been having some pretty serious and annoying Internet issues this morning. Lately, our Internet connection has been very fragile, even before I got the new computer. I’m still trying to move files and unload some of the resource hogs from my old computer, so it might still be useful for awhile. But the freakin’ Internet connection really blows.

It’s hard to tell why the Internet is sucking so much, especially today. I have noticed that lately, the Fiberglass Internet Vodaphone guys have been trolling the neighborhood, trying to get people to sign up for their service. Since installing it involves excavation (I think), that will be up to the landlord.

Fortunately, my new computer is willing to accept my phone as a hotspot. I’m sure my old one would, too, but for some reason, I could never successfully get it to do that in the past. It’s possible this is a system issue, and not something with our house or our particular connection. Whatever is going on, it’s very annoying.

I’ve been trying to read a book my friend, Mary Beth, suggested… It’s a true crime book that I’m finding very triggering. The woman involved is like an extreme version of Ex. She does cruel, narcissistic things that are like Ex, but magnified a lot more. It amazes me how many truly abusive and perverse people are out in the world, free to wreak havoc until they finally get caught going too far.

What’s scary is, these folks, by and large, appear to be “normal” to those who don’t know them. Anyone who sounds the alarm is branded as crazy, bitter, jealous, a liar, etc. It really is crazymaking. Things don’t usually improve until people start to compare notes. That’s what has been happening in our situation. Bill and his daughter have been talking to each other and realizing that their experiences were similar. They also confirm to each other than being out of that environment is much better than being in it.

In the book I’m reading, it’s pretty clear that people knew the crazy abusive woman was crazy and abusive, but they were children… and they felt totally powerless to take any action. I’m sure they feared for their lives.

I have been reading for a week or so, and thought I was further into the book than I actually am, apparently. I think I will try to do a lot of reading today, so I can review the book and move on to the next one… maybe one that doesn’t have to do with true crime.

As for my computer/Internet woes, I’m sure they will pass in a day or so. I’m getting closer to having everything set up the right way. I’m kind of missing the times when we didn’t have to worry about such things to get through the day, but just about everything is connected to the Internet now. Even our freakin’ lights are connected to an app.

Maybe it’s time to get a new router… I don’t know. Anyway, I think I’ll take advantage of the downtime and read more of this book, so I can post a review. It’ll also give me a chance to rest my hands and the backs of my thighs, which are still aching from Wednesday’s big office makeover.

Edited to add: I managed to fix the Internet issue. Just needed to unplug from the router instead of the wall. But I’m still thinking I’ll try to do some reading… before someone on the Internet pisses me off and makes me feel like ranting.

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home, technology

My big time office makeover…

The featured photo is of my new setup for my old computer, and the snazzy new lighting strip. I can control the lights from my computer (home app). They’re pretty cool.

Yesterday ended up being very busy. I ordered a bunch of stuff for my office, and most of it showed up yesterday. It started with a slim dock port I got for the new computer, so I would have some ports that could handle my old peripherals until it’s time to replace them with USB C type devices. Then I got a new table for my old computer. I was going to add the old machine to my pile of discarded computers, but then I determined that I might be able to use the old computer for media… making videos, playing music, watching movies or videos etc.

The new table is very nice. It’s made of solid pine, and has a lovely aroma of fresh wood. I was in the middle of putting it together when my new HomePod Mini showed up with a smart socket and smart Nanoleaf strip lights. I hadn’t planned to buy the socket or the lights, but Apple did a successful suggestive sell move. I’m actually glad I bought the strip lights, because they look really cool and offer much needed lighting to my usually dim workspace.

I spent about an hour putting the table together, mostly screwing in the forty screws it took. It’s perfect for what I needed it for, but putting it together came with a price. I got two blisters on my right palm. It was also quite an effort to get it upstairs to my room. The thing weighs a lot. It’ll probably last for the rest of my life, though.

After I got the table set up, I put the old computer on it, and started configuring things. I unpacked the light strip and wondered where I should put it. Then I realized it was just about the right length to go around the front of the new table. Now, I have new lighting on my new table holding the old computer.

Blisters from putting together my new table…
But it’s a very nice, solid wood table.
Roses Bill sent on Valentine’s Day.

Meanwhile, I’ve been slowly setting up the new computer, which is turning out to be more difficult than I expected. Starting with the new VESA arm and ending with transferring files– mostly music files, some of which are on CDs– has been a real pain. For some reason, even though Apple still sells the SuperDrive (with the USB connection), I had to buy a special connection to get it to work on the new computer. And even then, there’s no telling if it actually will work. Half the time, when I try to import a CD, the Internet gets knocked offline.

I will say this, though… When the Internet is robust, and I have all of the speakers going, it really sounds good. The trouble is, our Internet has become very fragile lately. This was a problem even before I got the new computer. My next upgrade will be a CD tower for all of the CDs I’ve accumulated since we’ve been in Germany. I don’t buy them unless the music is something I really want in my collection and I can’t download it. I have a whole lot of CDs in storage, too. If I ever move back to the USA and live in my own house, I’ll have a wall full of them.

I actually moved my old office chair back into my workspace. It works better than the new one Bill got me for Christmas. I put that one in the entertainment/Noyzi’s room. Someday, maybe we’ll use that room more often than we do.

By the time I’d written two fresh blog posts and practiced guitar, I was pretty exhausted. When Bill got home, he walked the dogs. Today, I’m not expecting any deliveries, so I plan to walk the dogs. The exercise will do us all some good, although Arran looks like he’s getting kind of tired. He seems determined to stay with us for as long as he possibly can. He truly adores us on a rare level. Unfortunately, the lymphoma will eventually win.

This post is probably not that interesting to most people. I could be writing snark about the Duggars, especially Josh– who appears to have gotten into some trouble in prison. I haven’t read Jinger Vuolo’s book, and I probably won’t, because to me, it seems like she traded one cult for another.

I could also write about Timmy Rodrigues, who has apparently found himself a partner for courting… I could write about that, but I don’t care enough about it to watch the videos. Or, I’ve just been busier than usual. That could be a very snarky post. Maybe Toni will come back to chastise me. 😀

Meh, we’ll see. I’d like to get to a point at which I feel comfortable and functional with my new equipment. I sure have more computers than I ever thought I would. It’s hard to believe there was a significant portion of my life when I didn’t even have ONE computer. Now, I have six of them… and three of them don’t really work anymore and need to be ditched.

Yeah… I’ve been unusually busy this week. I hope the building projects will be finished soon.

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