Well great news! Yesterday after my blog post I got a Twitter follower from Los Angeles. So it's official. From coast to coast nobody knows what the hell Pinterest is! At least we are all banning together. But enough social media for now. Today in an effort to become more computer savvy I took a class at my local Apple Store on the magical, the mystical, hell even the ethereal - The Cloud. Did you know that you can take free live (in the store/3rd dimension) classes at any Apple Store? I'm not sure Steve Jobs knew about it or not. But yes you can get something free from a company who prides itself on charging at least four times more for products than its competitors. But darn it they are so addictingly adorable in their angelic and virgin-like white boxes. Not since Tiffany's has a company made so much money from packaging. An Apple a day keeps early retirement away.
So what is the cloud? Does anyone know? Does it really exist? Well best guess is it is a big file cabinet in the sky that you can send all your cute kitten photos, recipes and anything else that you would normally want to put on Pinterest to. And it just sits there until you need it, or the end of days arrives, or North Korea steals it. It also enables you to link all your overpriced Apple Products together. This way if you snap a photo on you ipad of your dog eating an ice cream cone you can bore people to death with it on your iPhone too. You get to put stuff up in the clouds for free too. Up to five gigs of crap. This comic wishes she had five gigs. Anyway I would define a gigabyte in highly technical terms of "a really really really really lot".
So it happened. I am up in the cloud. Linked. My iPad, iPhone, and MacBook Pro have all the same bad jokes on them. Or at least that was the plan. However after two plus hours at the Apple Store in Atlantic City my bad jokes are still right where I typed them. Arrrrgh%&^%@)&@*^%!$#%?!!
And that is why any normal person has the uncontrollable urge to chuck whatever device they are currently clicking on and chuck it out the window after they have set it on fire! Where is the "command IMPLODE" button on this thing?
If there is one thing I hate about computers it is the phrase "Just point and click." Oh yeah. Just point and click. Like as soon as you point and click you will be magically transported to this utopian society where you fulfill your hopes and dreams while Oompa Loompas feed you candy and L.L. Bean provides you coupon codes and free returns. Well don't buy it folks. I have had many successes online. But they have never been a click away. They usually involve several keystrokes, an online chat, and a few calls to customer service. The Cloud was no different.
Here is what it says on the iCloud website: iCloud connects you and your Apple devices in amazing ways. It makes sure you always have the latest versions of your most important things — like documents, apps, notes, and contacts — on whatever device you are using. It lets you easily share photos, calendars, locations, and more with friends and family. It even helps you find your device if you lose it. And iCloud does it all automatically. Just like that. Just like that? Just like that? Arrrgh@$#%(*&^/?! How dare you iCloud? What they mean by "just like that" is if all your devices are compatible with the latest IOS software, if you allow access through your key chain (whatever that is), if the planets are aligned, and if Steve Jobs left a special codicil to his will stating that you specifically can use it. Ug. Although my head is often up in the clouds, the material on my three Apple devices sadly are not.
And here is the kicker folks. After all this the instructor recommended to use an external hard drive for back up because the Cloud is not perfect. No shit.