This comes to you from the sad but true file.
I like new gadgets, gizmos and doohickeys as much as the next person. If the next person is a 13 year old Dungeons and Dragons geek. I like finding new applications on the web, new solutions, new ways of doing things. I like this stuff a little too much. My filter for evaluating new technologies has a few holes. There is precious little that I come across that I don't think, "hmm, that's cool, maybe I should download that..."
(It's probably too late now after that bit of disclosure, but please do NOT tell the NCBA's IT Director about my little proclivity.)
In addition to a general willingness to download and experiment with new things, I also have earmarked certain companies whose upgrades I will automatically download without even thinking about it. Apple, Microsoft (more out of fear than because I am expecting something cool), Mozilla, Google. Any time one of these companies sends me a little pop up window that says, "hey Erik, we've made X software even better... don't you want to try it?", my answer is invariably a resounding, "oh yeah! Where do I click?"
Most of the time this strategy works just fine, but occasionally I get bit, and that is less fun than it sounds. Google -- my beloved Google -- is the most recent company to remind me that "automatically" is not necessarily a good word to use in evaluating new software versions. Without digressing too far, you should know that I use a Google app called Google Calendar Sync to sync up my MS Outlook calendar to my Google calendar.
I have reasons why I say I do this (such as Google's far superior notification settings), but fundamentally, I mess around with things like this because I think they're fun. (In other news, I need to get out more.) Anyway, I'd been using Google Calendar Sync faithfully for a couple of months with no trouble at all -- at least no trouble that I had been unable to pin on the doings of the Dark Tower of Mordor, Microsoft.
Until now. Recently, I received an innocuous little pop up box from Google saying, "dude, upgrade calendar sync." And even though calendar sync was working perfectly, I upgraded. Without even thinking about it. Automatically. The saying "if it ain't broke don't fix it" hung above my head like a thought bubble in a comic strip.
Suddenly, (and perhaps unsurprisingly in this little cautionary blog tale) Google Calendar Sync stopped working. It would try to connect but just be unable to. I started getting hideous and obscure error messages with symbols like the "%". I don't know that much about computers, but I know that ain't good. After way more research than a saner man would admit to, I finally found a fix. It involved uninstalling Calendar Sync, navigating to a French Google website, and downloading an older French version of the app. Which explains why my calendar has started smoking filterless cigarettes and reading Sartre.
(Once again, do not tell the IT Director about this. I have a feeling downloading stuff from weird French websites is not on the approved list.)
Yeah. If you have to download stuff from a website in a country where you don't speak the language, that MIGHT be considered a warning sign. Worst of all, I couldn't even blame this malfunction on Microsoft. This was clearly Google sticking it to me for upgrading without thinking. Et tu, Google?
All's well that ends well, and I am happy to report that my little French Google Calendar Sync is working again, but not before becoming a time suck of major proportions. So let my stupidity serve as a warning to you: new is not always improved.
