Classic Rant #325 (September 2, 2010): Eureka! I Have Figured It Out!

Have you ever deemed that there is something out there that you need to further your life, purchased this item, and have been completely let down by the fact that you can't figure out how it works?

I have just had such an experience, and let me tell you, it is frustrating.

About two months ago, I noticed that an item I had been waiting to be released finally was put on the market. It is Tape Express by Ion Electronics, a company that creates generally easy to use gadgets that you can use along with your computer to further your musical enjoyment. They make probably my favorite such gadget, their turntable, which comes with a USB wire and which you can use to digitize your old LPs and 45s.

I have a good amount of cassette tapes that I collected through the years. No, I am not inundated with them, as some were, as I always preferred vinyl, but I do have probahly 100 prerecorded tapes and heaven knows how many tapes I made for myself.

With this amount of tape--and with no way to listen to these things anymore--I had heard that Ion was coming out with a simple to use device that came with a USB cable and which you could hook up with your computer and convert what was on the tapes to MP3 files.

The device finally came out a few weeks ago, and I jumped on it. It was relatively inexpensive, which made it even more attractive.

I received the thing in the mail a few weeks ago, and as I customarily do, let it sit for a few weeks more until I found the time to figure it out.

I finally found that time about two weeks ago. I followed all the instructions--including a warning that I had to have iTunes on my computer to use the product (I don't like iTunes), but the product would not work.

I tried everything--re-downloading iTunes, changing various settings, really doing anything and everything to get this thing to work--but it just wouldn't oblige me.

Let me tell you, this was frustrating as all hell.

I wrote an email to Ion's customer service, and they got back to me quickly, but with little information into what the problem was. I also contacted them on their Facebook page, but also to no avail.

I also wrote a note on their review page at amazon.com. This was the first step that I guess I had to take to figure this thing out.

Somebody answered me, told me what to do, but it still did not work. I found out I didn't need iTunes, which was a major step in this process, but the darn thing would not work.

Finally, yesterday, on a whim, I downloaded another program from the Internet that was my last ditch effort to get this thing going. And you know what--it worked! Yes, the device now works, and I can transfer my old cassette tapes to digital MP3s in a snap.

I guess you can call it perseverance, but in the back of my mind, I thought that through trial and error, I could figure it out. And I did.

Once again, I have proven to myself that you should never give up hope when it comes to these types of things. It might take time--mine took several weeks--but it worked out OK for me.

How I wish that life in general was so easy to figure out.