Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Phobic, or why I can't use my iPod

When I met Pete, most people were using Windows on their PCs. Not him, though, “real computer users use DOS,” he said. He didn’t even have MS DOS…he used DR DOS, whatever that was. At one point, he tried to install Windows on his computer because something wasn’t working right, but he couldn’t even do that because he had “personalized” his configurations in such a way that the computer was no longer compatible with Windows.

Last year, I asked for an iPod mini for my birthday. He hemmed and hawed and suggested Dell mp3 players. But I didn’t want some big black clunky thing. I liked the cute little mini, although I couldn’t decide on the pink or the green.

He convinced me it was too expensive, and then surprised me with a gift card, although he stipulated that he had to install iTunes, not me, because he didn’t want Apple software getting too close to his precious PC software. He started talking about partitioning the hard drive. I tuned him out.

A month later, we finally made it to the Apple store, and I went with the green because you can always get the right shade of pink to go with your green, but finding the perfect green isn’t always so easy. Two weeks later, the mini was discontinued, and the nano was introduced. I was thankful I had gotten the mini when I did because the nano didn’t come in pretty colors.

Fourteen months later, iTunes still has not been installed (and nanos are available in pretty colors). Now the reasoning is that I’m getting a new laptop next week…might as well wait and put it on the new machine. All I know is that if I don’t have a working iPod (and a working laptop, including a DVD driver!*), somebody’s getting a lump of coal from Santa.


*Pete refuses to use a computer straight out of the box. He insists on wiping it clean and starting from scratch, so he can make it just how he wants it. The last time he did major maintenance on my computer (rewriting everything), he forgot to reinstall the DVD driver, which I only found out about when I tried to play a DVD for the girls in New York.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You "forget" to include that my so-called personalizations have resulted in a network of computers that is virtually impossible to infect to a crippling degree with any sort of virus or other malware thereby proving uninterrupted service.

Besides, no matter how pretty Apple products are they still remain toys.

--Pete