@#$!! Computers!
It's been a long time since I found myself pounding-my-fist-on-the-table angry, but just now I am.
Come to think of it, my problem now is the same as it's been before: I'm asking a perfectly legitimate question, just as clearly as I know how, and the other party is refusing to acknowledge that the question is asked, or giving me the same irrelevant reply as before, or just generally being unhelpful. At a time and situation when I need help very much, when I am entirely blocked from acting until I can get the piece of information I require.
Only this time it's a computer, not a person.
What, exactly, is it that makes Help writers so completely out of touch with what I need to know? (Well, I know that answer; I was a documentation writer once. The problem is that, by the time I understand the system well enough to write answers that are accurate, I no longer understand enough about being new-to-the-system to know what info you're going to need.)
Why, exactly, is there so little information on exactly those operations that need to be performed less often than once a year?
Just at present, I've bought myself a new Palm, figuring that the Palm Vx I bought in 2000 is no longer supported and won't synch with my Macbook (we established that a week ago). My new Tungsten E2 seems like a pretty nice machine, and has solved my worst problem with the old one, that in low-light conditions I couldn't read it, with or without the backlighting.
But wouldn't you think that Palm would recognize that buying a new computer might be an occasion for buying a new Palm? and that, just maybe, I'd want to keep access to 8 years of data?
So why can't I figure it out?
So far ... I've managed to find that the HotSync entry in Help doesn't mention it, but there IS an entry under Synchronize that speaks of using multiple handhelds. BUT the first thing it says is that you can't synchronize two handhelds to the same data. I can appreciate that this might be unstable in repeated use: but how do I go about replacing the old one if I can't get the data onto the new one?????
"No problem" it says. Just create a "Profile." So I did that. Then it assumes I'll want to manually type in the data to the profile so I can add it to the handheld "before" creating the new username. (Oops). Except that, if I wanted to manually type in 8 years of data, I wouldn't be doing any of this to start with.
"Just import or export the data" it says, but the Help entry on Export and Import doesn't begin to explain how to do it, and seems designed not to export the data as Palm data, but to export it to another program for a different operation -- not what I want.
I am SO frustrated. And I leave the country in a week, hopefully carrying a new computer and a new handheld ... mainly because the old computer seems to be having hardware problems and I wanted a more durable platform.
Sheesh!
(I guess that helped, at least somewhat. If anybody has good advice, I'd love to have it. I have to admit I'm still seething.)
:(P
Come to think of it, my problem now is the same as it's been before: I'm asking a perfectly legitimate question, just as clearly as I know how, and the other party is refusing to acknowledge that the question is asked, or giving me the same irrelevant reply as before, or just generally being unhelpful. At a time and situation when I need help very much, when I am entirely blocked from acting until I can get the piece of information I require.
Only this time it's a computer, not a person.
What, exactly, is it that makes Help writers so completely out of touch with what I need to know? (Well, I know that answer; I was a documentation writer once. The problem is that, by the time I understand the system well enough to write answers that are accurate, I no longer understand enough about being new-to-the-system to know what info you're going to need.)
Why, exactly, is there so little information on exactly those operations that need to be performed less often than once a year?
Just at present, I've bought myself a new Palm, figuring that the Palm Vx I bought in 2000 is no longer supported and won't synch with my Macbook (we established that a week ago). My new Tungsten E2 seems like a pretty nice machine, and has solved my worst problem with the old one, that in low-light conditions I couldn't read it, with or without the backlighting.
But wouldn't you think that Palm would recognize that buying a new computer might be an occasion for buying a new Palm? and that, just maybe, I'd want to keep access to 8 years of data?
So why can't I figure it out?
So far ... I've managed to find that the HotSync entry in Help doesn't mention it, but there IS an entry under Synchronize that speaks of using multiple handhelds. BUT the first thing it says is that you can't synchronize two handhelds to the same data. I can appreciate that this might be unstable in repeated use: but how do I go about replacing the old one if I can't get the data onto the new one?????
"No problem" it says. Just create a "Profile." So I did that. Then it assumes I'll want to manually type in the data to the profile so I can add it to the handheld "before" creating the new username. (Oops). Except that, if I wanted to manually type in 8 years of data, I wouldn't be doing any of this to start with.
"Just import or export the data" it says, but the Help entry on Export and Import doesn't begin to explain how to do it, and seems designed not to export the data as Palm data, but to export it to another program for a different operation -- not what I want.
I am SO frustrated. And I leave the country in a week, hopefully carrying a new computer and a new handheld ... mainly because the old computer seems to be having hardware problems and I wanted a more durable platform.
Sheesh!
(I guess that helped, at least somewhat. If anybody has good advice, I'd love to have it. I have to admit I'm still seething.)
:(P