MRS. MURFREESBORO: Techology can be harder than it looks on The Murfreesboro Post

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MRS. MURFREESBORO: Techology can be harder than it looks

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By: JEANNE BRAGG, Post Columnist

Posted: Sunday, February 17, 2013 12:00 am

My goal for this week is to back up my iPad to my computer.

It sounds simple enough, doesn’t it?

It is not.

I had an iPhone 4 for a couple of years, but it was in such bad shape from having been dropped so many times, I risked hurting my hand from the glass shards on the back when I removed it from its case.

So I bought the iPhone 5 after Christmas.

My family tells me that it is much faster than the 4 but I haven’t noticed much difference.

I have only used Siri (the voice-activated personal assistant) once and was thrilled at the results (“Siri, find Patty B’s address” and it showed up immediately). But it’s hard to teach us old dogs new tricks and, while I plan to master Siri soon, I’m not there yet.

Buying the new phone necessitated syncing all my Apple products to my iCloud account (Apple’s online back-up service) and fortunately when I purchased the phone I had the luxury of a competent salesperson to guide me through the initial steps.

Good thing.

It took her more than 20 minutes to do so. I have learned that iCloud it takes precedence over iTunes where my devices were previously synced.

Tantamount to backing up information on everything was the fact that my original e-mail address was Netscape, one of the first mail websites. Years ago Netscape sold out to AOL so I had an AOL address for about six years. Then some system or person hacked it and my account was abruptly terminated.

If you need to find something to occupy about 10 hours of your day, try to reestablish an AOL account.

Because it was my first account it was tied to my iTunes library, many shopping sites, all my news information resources and eventually most of my business transactions. Try solving the problems that ensue when six years worth of that information is lost.

When I logged into AOL and got the message: “Oops, This account is closed. Call this number for assistance.” It seemed simple enough.

I was naive enough to think that calling the number would actually help me.

After half a day, I realized it wouldn’t.

I decided they were merely placating me by offering a “lead” to no where. I was answered by a machine and placed on “hold” for more than 20 minutes and instructed to send the nature of my problem via an e-mail (allegedly to be answered within 20 minutes).

No reply was ever received.

My iPhone and iPad synchronization were connected to that account and when I could not retrieve information from either account because “My Apple ID was incorrect.”

Oh, brother.

I have been tackling my issue by methodically following instructions found online (I began by googling “How do I change my Apple ID on my iPad)?”

These instructions entail ridding myself of any former IDs (some of which were randomly assigned because another of my e-mail accounts were detected) and establishing only one Apple ID.

And good luck with me remembering my (myriad) passwords, which were at one time OK with six letters but must now include a capital letter, a punctuation mark and minimum of seven characters.

I’m following my son-in-law Alex’s mantra of just being more stubborn than the machine is, and I’m making some progress.

And for future purposes, I’m hiding notes everywhere containing my ID and new password.

Committing them to memory hasn’t served me very well in the past.

‘Til next week.

Tagged under Technology, Voices

Member Opinions:

By: bota on 2/17/13
Jeanne; To avoid this trap the first thing I asked myself was how much of this cr*p do I really need and how much is just placating a need for "keeping up". I value my privacy so I don't let people in general know that I have a cell phone, although I have had one practically since they were invented. That also wipes out the need for a Facebook page since my social "dance card" is totally filled without (it). I manage my activities so that I spend more time reading than I do on the computer although I sometimes spend an inordinate amount of time in researching a subject. So Jeannie, the bottom line is how much quality time are you spending in the "snake pit" that you have created and is it worth it?