Listen to Your Mac Friends...

Not long after I came to San Diego, I purchased a software program for my mother's computer. In Nashville, I have a home studio for audio recording, but with nothing of the sort in California, I bought a little upgrade for Windows called Microsoft Plus! For basic applications, it was an exciting addition. It had an easy interface and made the online capture of one of my archived radio reviews a piece of cake. I was quite taken with it... until I tried to add my voiceover demo to a website I'm working on.

I am an Earthlink subscriber. I didn't choose Earthlink -- I became a subscriber when my local ISP was bought out -- but I love Earthlink. It may be the only product I've ever been consistently happy with. And when I discovered a fully-equipped downloadable mailbox ready to accommodate my extended stay three-thousand miles away from my home computer, my love was sealed. But this isn't about my love for my ISP. It's about the webspace it provides with my account.

You see, for months I've been trying to add a sound file to my webspace. My voiceover demo. It's do-able, but only if the file is in .wav, mp3, or other supportable format. It's not. It was burned from my home computer and coded for Windows Media Player -- a .wma file. Which is apparently not supportable. And this is the source of my new frustration with Microsoft Plus!

When you create a sound file with Microsoft Plus! you are creating a Windows Media Player file. Extention wma. This should be irrelevant, because one of the selling points of Microsoft Plus! is the built-in audio converter that'll create mp3s of your old audio files. Great stuff! Except... it can't convert wma files. It does't recognize wma files. Which is a nuisance, since this program CREATES wma files. Burn it or play it back, but don't expect to use it. Great.

Adding frustration, Windows Media Player 10 is itself an unstable program. At least, it is on my computer. Again, it's good stuff... as long as you keep the program open. Close it, and you'll have to download it again. A real pain in the patookus. The download center at microsoft.com was getting at least 10 hits a day from me while I was trying to sort this out. Instead of solving the problem, I've given up. You won't be hearing my demo on a website any time soon.

I'll admit to having a bit of computer savvy. I have dabbled. I have tinkered. I have confused HTML codes. But a real computer nerd could solve these problems. And a MAC user wouldn't have them.