Incompatibility

I've frequently acknowledged my inner-tech geek.  While I'm far from savvy when it comes to technology, I'm nevertheless drawn to it.  I don't necessarily feel compelled to acquire the latest and greatest gadgets -- or, at least, I usually manage to resist the temptation to impulse buy on launch day.  But I do love my iPhone, and my laptop, and, even moreso, finding and learning about new apps and how they work and how to integrate them with other newer, cooler apps.


When I encounter the inevitable software snarls and snafus, my standard response is to lock on like a pit bull and not let go until I'm able to unsnarl them.  Not that I ever really know what I'm doing.  Mostly, it's a matter of searching Help files and Google and bumbling my way through potential fixes until the little bits and pieces finally fall into their required places and the program(s) at issue begin chugging along as intended.

Such was the way I spent (wasted?) much of an afternoon last week.  You see, my work calendar syncs seamlessly with my iPhone.  This, I cannot claim credit for -- it was achieved via the magic of "Exchange" and our IT wizards long ago.  I don't know how or why.  I just know that it works.  This, I like! 

But...it wasn't enough.  Now that I'm all laptoppy, complete with Office 2010 and Outlook, I wanted to figure out a way to sync my iPhone calendar with my laptop calendar, as well.  "Oh, no problem - just use iTunes."  Yeah.  Um.  iTunes and have a longstanding feud, characterized most notably by the fact that I. DON'T. GET. IT.  It never seems to do what I want it to do, and insists on swapping out musical libraries on a whim.  Once, it even ate all my contacts, all while pretending to "upgrade" my iPhone software. 

Ahh, but you see, there's this new magical fairy dust cloud thing called "Mobile Me," which lets you do it all wirelessly!  It's a cinch!  You just set it all up here and there and all and...ERROR! "Either there is no default mail client or the current mail client cannot fulfill the messaging request...."  Wait...how can that be?  Of course I have a default mail "client."  (Why is it called a "client"?  I'm the one using it!)  But...yes - I have one.  It's Outlook.  Duh!  Well, actually, okay, it might have accidentally been set to Windows Live Mail in my pre-Outlook days.  Obviously, I'd just need to flip some switches here and there and get that straightened out.

Several hours later, after numerous attempts to skin that cat, I was still receiving the damn error message.  Even after uninstalling Windows Live Mail.  My foray into on-line help led me down the daredevil path of repairing registries and the like.  Now I was really getting crazy. 

Finally, after more cursing and hair pulling than I'm comfortable admitting, I stumbled across this tasty little tidbit of information:  "There are no add-ins to work with 64-bit Office 2010 yet. Microsoft recommends that you use 32-bit Office 2010 and only install 64-bit Office 2010 if you need the ability to use very large spreadsheets or documents. If you install 64-bit Office, third party applications which need access to Office programs will not work until the add-ins are re-written with 64-bit compatible code."

Oh, well, of course. Silly me.  I got the swanky new version of Office 2010 and the rest of the software world just hasn't bothered to catch up with it yet.  In short, my laptop software and iPhone are simply incompatible at present.  The timing just isn't right.  They're just at different places in their lives right now.  Star-crossed software.  It just wasn't meant to be.  Hmmm....how appropriate.