Tuesday, April 17

Technologically Challenged

Urk.

So I took the unformatted XD card to Wal-Mart, where they ever-so-helpfully directed me to the photo thingy. You know, the one that makes cheap copies of your Olan Mills pictures for you? Yeah, that thing. Upload, burn to disk, you're good to go. (And no, I do not make illegal copies of copyrighted original materials.) What they not-so-helpfully neglected to point out is that the pictures are burned into a marketing nightmare thirty layers deep, from which you will emerge embittered and probably burdened with Kodak products you never knew existed.

Once you arrive home, if you would like to view, retrieve, or in any way claim ownership of the images on the handy-dandy disk, you have to wade through a butt-ton of Kodak "Easy Share" software demons that want your email address ("makes it easy to share photos with friends and family through email!" Um... as opposed to hitting the "attach file" button, "browse", "attach" and *poof* you're done?), automatically sets itself to your default picture viewer (EVEN if you click on "FinePix Viewer", because you've developed Stockholm Syndrome after being held captive by Fuji's stoopid photo software for so long), and then finally locks down completely after doing something horrible to your existing files, and yet never letting you anywhere NEAR the ones you put on disk.

Where is the "I do not want your services. Please release the images into my control NOW" button? Where!?!?

Bee pictures.
Cute, clean baby pictures.
Awesome FOREVER HOME pictures - the school room (all decked out in kids and jelly beans), the baseboard in the bathroom (which makes potty time a happy time around here), and the latest really cool unidentified plants... all stuck!

I hate Kodak. Believe me, they don't want me to share these moments.

I'm going to bed. G'nite.
Dy

3 comments:

Jenni said...

I'm currently having issues with my Corel software that came with the camera. I scanned a gazillion photos into dh's computer upstairs because--duh--that's where the scanner is. The photos went into the Corel Photo Album, but I am not allowed to load them to a disk so I can put them on my computer and actually *use* them because the trial period is up. I did the update and paid for Corel on my computer because it is the only one hooked up to the internet and where I do most of the photo stuff, but that doesn't help me with all those photos I spent hours scanning. Dh will not allow his computer to be hooked up to the internet, and I do not want to pay for their crappy program twice--yet I don't want to rescan all those photos, either. ARGH! I'm calling today to see if they will send me a disk to load to dh's computer for free, but I will probably just spend several hours trying to talk to someone for whom English is a second language only to be treated like an idiot and told that I must pay for a second copy of the software. Double ARGH!

Kathy Jo DeVore said...

I feel your pain, honestly, but gah, you make me laugh.

Needleroozer said...

I agree with KathyJo. I want to see these pictures, so I am mad with you, but you wrote this so well, I am glad I wasn't drinking hot tea at the keyboard!
LB