At Home with Tech

To Lion or not to Lion? I’ve already pressed the button. Here we go!

Previously on At Home with Tech…
Barrett blogs about finally upgrading to Apple’s Lion operating system so he can use iCloud as a replacement to MobileMe to share his pictures and movies.

He admits his jealousy towards new tech adopters.

He explains his fear about his iMac losing its ability to edit on its old Final Cut Pro platform with Lion.

And he reveals his unrequited love towards Apple.

Barrett sits down to press the Lion “Install” button. The sweat drips off his forehead. He hesitates for another moment.

Close up shot of Barrett’s finger clicking the white wireless Magic Mouse. Shot cuts immediately to black, and we hear the piercing click. The final word of his blog is cut off without explanation.

And then silence.

His readers are left without resolution.

They immediately move on with their day without giving it another thought. There are a trillion more pressing problems to occupy their brain space.

But the smallest morsel of concern is left behind.
Buried deep, the struggle for technology survival at home lurks in all of us.
Finally, their tech curiosity emerges, forcing his readers to return.

Inception achieved.

And now…

Episode 2, Scene 1
We see total black for another three seconds.

Finally, the black slowly dissolves to a fuzzy white. The white starts to come into focus as the shot zooms out slowly to reveal the screen of a 27” iMac.
And we see the little logo.

Joy.

Barrett’s computer is rebooting. It takes its sweet time. An eternity.
Finally the Milky Way Galaxy appears as the desktop background.
Lion has arrived.

Roll opening credits and theme song!

After the Commercial Break
My precious iMac still has a heartbeat. I begin breathing again.

I immediately begin checking the functionality of all my software.

Word- Check.
Entourage- All there. (I know I now need to upgrade to Outlook)
QuickTime- Good.
Safari- No problem.
Aperture- All photos present and accounted for.

Final Cut Pro 7-
I look at the FCP icon. This is the moment of truth.
I wait as it loads.
And wait.

Then…
IT’S THERE!
My family history timeline. Still intact.

To celebrate, I think I might listen to a little music. Click it.
…and then… NOTHING.
Instead, an error message pops up.
“iTunes cannot open, because it was created by a newer version”

Newer version? What does that mean?!
Usually the problem is having an older version of software… not newer!
I start to panic.
My music! My videos!! OMG!

What should I do?! The room starts spinning.
Life is so fragile.

And then I remember to check Software Update to see if my new Lion needs any updates to the other programs in its kingdom.

I check Software Update and see there is indeed an update to iTunes standing by -10.6.1.(7). Plus a couple of other ‘improvements’ like a firmware update.

I immediately perform the downloads, and my iMac automatically reboots.
All good so far.
I click iTunes again and cross all my toes.

THERE IT IS!
As if nothing had ever gone wrong.
I think I hear my iMac say, “What’s the problem?”

Never mind.

I continue the functionality check and notice the batteries on my wireless Magic Trackpad are a little low. So I reach for my Magic Mouse to take over cursor control. My mouse often lies dormant, because I love my trackpad so much, and…

…NOTHING.

Here we go again.

The good news is I don’t panic again.
This is more of an inconvenience than potential disaster.
I’ve found Apple’s Bluetooth devices to sometimes act a little glitchy. It’s one of the reasons I originally bought both the mouse and trackpad. And yes, I even have an older wired mouse that serves as a triple back up. (I don’t mess around!)

I jump online and see a whole bunch of people with Lion and Magic Mouse problems. And there are multiple home remedies offered.

So I get to work.

I try re-pairing the mouse to the iMac. Nope.
I re-verify disk permissions in Disk Utility. No go.
I delete the mouse in Bluetooth and re-introduce it to my iMac. Nada.

Then I reboot my iMac and go back to Bluetooth. The mouse is still listed. Strange.
I thought I had successfully deleted it.
Should I just reconnect it? Maybe third time’s the charm?
BINGO!

Don’t ask questions. I tell myself to just move on.

While the going is good, I run Time Machine to capture all the goodness.
It is curiously a huge back up, since I ran it right before the upgrade. But I’m not sweating the small stuff.

Happy Ending
So that’s pretty much my Lion tale.
With the exception of a couple skips of my heartbeat, I’m still here.
Not so horrible.

But my adventure is just beginning…
Remember, the end game is get to iCloud. And the clock is counting down on that one. Plus, I’m planning on upgrading Office for Mac 2008 to the 2011 version, which includes Outlook. Stay tuned…

Oh yeah… and how does it feel to be running with the pride of cool current operating system users?

Apple’s newest operating system, Mountain Lion is due out this summer.
Here we go again!