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Sunday, May 15, 2011

Blackberry Boondoggle (or, What's the Point of a Thousand Cool Apps When the *&^%$#@! Things Don't Work Worth a ~!@#$%^&*+?)

Hello faithful two-fisted followers. I haven't been neglecting my blogging duties; just juggling a lot of irons through the fire onto my plate, with my nose to the grindstone and all that rot.

Well, whip out your violins and prepare for a snivel-fest.

The line of drudgery work I've found myself in requires a lot of driving. Not such a bad thing--I like listening to music, and I can check out audiobooks from the library to listen to while I drive. Well, the selection is limited in the East Bumfuq Public Library, so I've broadened my genre horizons considerably. But the gig I'm working now has me driving boocoup miles everywhere but my county of residence, and checking out books on CD has become unrealistic.

Lo and behold: Public libraries have entered the digital age, offering audiobooks in mp3 and other formats for checkout/download. High speed, sez I, and jumped on the bandwagon. I'm sure iPod and iPhone owners have no trouble taking advantage of this advancement, but my experience has fallen somewhat short of the technological potential in theory.

I installed MP3 Overdrive and some other apps on my Blackberry. After more hair-pulling and teeth-gnashing than I care to detail, the only mp3 Overdrive/Blackberry allows me to download/play is Overdrive's "Welcome to Our Wonderful App" message. Big surprise, but listening to this welcome-to-this-app-that-only-plays-this-one-single-friggin'-file 400 times doesn't really hold a candle to a Wilbur Smith historical adventure...or the pulpnificent periodical I checked out but can't friggin' download. I tried to outflank the cyberkilljoys by downloading to my PC, then transferring the file to my smart retarded phone, but those diabolical bastards are one step ahead of me: My PC doesn't acknowledge the existence of the Overdrive folders, and when I copy the file into a folder it does recognize, then Overdrive refuses to acknowledge the file's existence.

Sigh.

Not all is lost, sez I. Critical Press Media is podcasting an indie novel. I'll listen to that. But when I get to the point I reached before (it never fails) somebody friggin' calls me. Then nothing but error messages until I yank the stinking battery out and power cycle the furshluggoner smart retarded phone. After ages of rebooting time, then eons spent getting back to where I was, guess what? That's right: another phone call. Wheeeeeeeeeeee!

I'll have the Overdrive welcome message memorized verbatim after another 400 listens or so.

7 comments:

  1. Time to ditch the CrapBerry and get yourself an Android or iPhone, amigo. They are great for businesses, but IMHO lousy for the private owner who has a large selection of other phones to choose from.

    In the next couple of months I'll be ditching my not-so-smart flip-phone for an Android phone. If you can't get another phone soon, I'd advise just biting the bullet and buying an iPod.

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  2. You are right, of course. Don't know quite when my teeth will be strong enough to bite THAT bullet, though.

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  3. I have a pay-as-you-go forty dollar cell phone. That pretty much sums up what I think of cell phones. I thought the ipod was a pretty good product except for that fact that itunes is absolutely horrible. I've heard of another third party program you can use in its place, but my ipod has been collecting dust because their service is so ridicules.

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  4. Ah. See, now I'm afraid to even check how much I'd have to pay to use an iPod.

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  5. Forget iTunes. You're talking about downloading music and paying for it. It costs nothing to use an iPod. If you buy your music THROUGH iTunes, then yes, it kinda sucks, but you can import MP3s just fine. I've had an iPod Touch for two years now, and I love it. Although it can't go online except when I'm attached to a wi-fi hotspot, I pretty much always have it with me to fire off an IM, check wikipedia or somesuch, weather, CNN, e-mail...you name it.

    iTunes might be a pain in the butt, but iTunes is also the least useful aspect of an iPod, IMO. The new iPod Touch can also take photos and even shoot video, which can be handy now and then if your cell phone camera isn't that good or you don't have a good way of getting the pictures / video off of it.

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  6. What do you use as a replacement for itunes?

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  7. I use iTunes on the computer end to manage music, but I just impmort off of CDs I buy. I don't have a huge music collection, but there's a few hundred songs on there. I just build playlists, put 'em on the iPod, and I'm good to go. The Touch has a basic music app, while my Nanos, they just play whatever I put on there.

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