Ken Anderson’s Weblog

Have you ever changed platforms? You know, from PC to Mac. Well I did a couple of months ago, should have done it years ago. Lightroom moved across on its existing serial number but CS3 could not. Contacted Adobe and asked what I could do. Simple, was the answer. Send us a form we will email to you and return it with £6 and we will give you a cross platform licenense. Simple! Or not? 4 weeks on I am still trying to get the license. My 30 trial copies of CS3 I downloaded from the web have now run out so I can’t do any work.

I called Adobe and asked where my new license was that had to be mailed and the answer that came back - returned to them, three weeks ago!

Me - Why?
Autotron - Not sure, is your adress the one I just read out?
Me - no
Autotron - well there you go! wrong address!
Me - I gave you my new one
Autotron - Well we failed to update
Me - I need the software
Autotron - We will send it out again you should have it in a week
Me - I can’t do my work, make a living, can’t you give me the thing electronically like you do when someone purchases software online through a download?
Autotron - No
Me - Why, it was your mistake and I can’t do my job because you screwed up?!?
Autotron - it is not in the procedures manual
Me - you call that customer service!!!!!!!! Your mistake but you can’t correct it!!!!!!! !£@$%£%&*^%@£&*^(&£*&^%!£*&^!!!!!!
Autotron - It is not allowed

There is a show here in the UK called Little Britain. In it there is a skit where a lady (well a man dressed like a lady) sits in front of a computer and is asked reasonable sensible questions, consults the computer and then answers “computer says no” in a very mundane toneless voice. Interesting to find that the person exists in reality.

Oh well gives me more time to write in this blog. Too bad I can’t pay a credit card or mortgage payment with it!

Pam and I visited northern France over the weekend.  We have been making regular trips to France for some time.  This weekend we were enticed by a stay in a French Chateaux and some excellent French food.  We had been asked to join a friend and his wife on what for them was a fact collecting trip so that he could begin a book on a WW1 subject.  I had agreed to photograph the areas of interest.  We visited several sites where fighting had taken place, it’s hard not to find battlefields in this part of France.

Towards the end of the day we literally stumbled on a WW1 American cemetery.  This is a land defined by its cemeteries marking the final resting place of millions of French, English, and German soldiers.  It was unusual to find one that was American from the WW1 era, not hard at all to find graves of fallen Americans from WW II though.

It was one of those moments in life when you have to stop and acknowledge a significant debt to the thousands of men who fought what they thought would be the “war to end all wars”.  It was a humbling experience, one I will never forget.