My first job with computers was circa 1974 when they were vast machines that occupied air-conditioned halls, tape decks were a thing, and programs were entered using punch cards. Home computing was Sinclair ZX81s and I aspired to owning an Apple II, but never did. My first computer being an Apple Macintosh, which I got in 1988. The late eighties and early nineties I was there at the forefront of home computer use and could walk into a design studio and sort out SCSI cabling issues with aplomb.
After nearly twenty years of having the same internet service provider I find myself having to set-up a new email address, and as a result change my FaceBook, Amazon, eBay and other account settings. To say that this has been frustrating is an understatement. I've been reduced to shouting at my computer in frustration, which on a scale of one-to-ten rates about an eleven for pointlessness.
And don't get me started on spam filters that sent every confirmation email into a special place that would only appear after repeated logins to my new domain.
To add to the total joy, I also find that my blogger contact forms won't update to send emails to my new address, even though I've changed the email setting, and furthermore, to make my life especially miserable, the blog lost all the links on my blog list. And then there's Yahoo, where I'm forced to change the address of each list I subscribe too individually.
And I used to take such things in my stride.
Then this morning Susan's car wouldn't start, because the battery had died. My truck is currently in Aldershot being serviced and getting its MOT, so this was the icing on the cake of a very stressful week where I've not managed to do any work on my novels.
The good news is that I guess that sometime next week my friends will receive an email from me with my new address. Ah the bliss!
As another long time computer professional, I started on a C64, I feel for you. It is amazing how many places our email shows up.
ReplyDeleteYou-know-who is handling this email thing very badly. It's a naked cash-grab for their partners.
ReplyDeleteMay be too late, but I strongly recommend getting your own domain, and then pointing it at whichever email provider you end up using - that way you can change email provider with much less pain.
Yep, that's what I'm doing.
ReplyDeleteI have never had the, ah, let's say pleasure, of dropping a box of punch cards and having to sort them back into proper order, but I too have been getting annoyed with such things of late. Texting confirmation/recovery codes to my phone isn't helpful when my phone isn't getting reception...
ReplyDeleteHave you recovered the links on your blog list? If not, https://web.archive.org/web/20160401000000*/http://ashleyrpollard.blogspot.com may be of some use.
I'd forgotten about the Wayback machine, cheers for the link.
ReplyDeleteToday I discovered that my spam settings have been trashing all my Yahoo groups emails. Facepalm.