Publish and be damned

Let's face it, most newspaper editors have problems with printers and deadlines, with equipment and distribution. However, it is very annoying to have the same problems at home.
To recap:
Point one: My Dad was given our old iMac, scanner and printer by my mother for Christmas. My mother paid secretary and me the money to buy a new flash three-in-one printer/scanner/copier as a replacement. You already know that.
Point two: When loading the software for the printer onto my iBook on the day of the Billie Piper letter I discovered that I couldn't use it with the Mac OSX operating system I had and had to load it onto secretary's pc laptop to print it instead. You know that too.
Point three: This Sunday we had the special screening of Songbook and the handing out of DVDs of the show. More of all that in a moment. I've mentioned that.
Point four: I did the DVD label and cover for the box a couple of weeks ago and gave them to previous director who was editing the recording to print but was due to do the booklet insert at work last week so that I could print it there. And that one as well.
Point five: I was so busy with work on Friday that I didn't leave until just before 11pm anyway, so I had no time to finish and print the booklets.
Point six: So I therefore had to do them at the weekend.
If you have made it this far you will probably have spotted the fundamental flaw in point six. I couldn't actually use the printer at home...
Well there's a solution to everything isn't there. and the solution to this problem was simple. Get the latest operating system for my iBook and upgrade it.
Simple stuff. But don't forget about the deadline, deadline, deadline, whispering away at the back of the mind.
Now there are Mac users and there are PC users and I won't go into a long detailed explaination of why Macs are far, far better than PCs here and now. Well other than to say of course they are and don't argue.
One problem with Macs however is that because they are the elite of the computer world, there are fewer stockists...
Well on Saturday morning I rang the Apple Centre in Brentford to check that they had the OSX Tiger operating system in stock - just in case - well actually because secretary told me to. After all she would be driving me there.
Of course they didn't. I asked where else might. PC World I was told. Oh the shame of it. A Mac man having to ring PC World. Did they have it in stock at either their Slough or Staines stores. No, of course not.
So off I went on a jolly little jaunt to the Apple Store in Regent Street. Oh the things I do for CAST on a Saturday afternoon. I spent the journey to and fro learning my lines with the recording of the show on my iPod so it wasn't time entirely wasted.
So I returned with Tiger plus the latest version of Adobe Photoshop Elements to sort out the pictures. And I began loading the software...
Now these are not small items. An entirely new operating system for your computer takes a little while to sort itself out. Suffice to say that I went to bed at gone midnight leaving the Photoshop stuff still loading.
Sunday was our first setbuild day, but I spent the afternoon sorting bits out for the Mort programme and then loading the printer software...
And finally, at about 5.45 I was ready to start printing the booklets.
Deadlines, deadlines, deadlines.
By now previous director was gathering together the last of the 18 DVDs he had managed to copy ready to race down to the village hall and set up the screen and equipment for the show.
Meanwhile back at the nightmare ranch...
I had put the booklets together with the publishing trade's number one tool, QuarkXPress. It's a wonderful thing. I have worked with it from my first days as a sub-editor at the Windsor & Slough Express through various generations of the software. There is nothing to match it as a layout and editing programme.
Every time I do a poster or programme or leaflet or postcard for Cast It gets done with QuarkXPress.
I have version 4.1 at home. It's not bad. To give you an idea, we had 3.2 on our Macs at work until a few months ago. I now have 4.1 on a Mac and version 6.0 on a PC.
Anyway, here's a crucial little techie bit - 4.1 will only operate on Mac operating system OS9, which I also have on my iBook. To use it on OSX or Tiger I would have to get an upgrade to version 6.0 or 7.0.
Am I boring you? Well it was all boring me on Sunday.
So here you are. The result of my endeavours. A series of equations which do not have an answer.
OSX Tiger on iBook can use printer. Tick in the box - bought it in London.
QuarkXPress can run in OS9 on iBook. Tick in the box - already there.
OOOOPS! S**t, b*****s, b*m.
Yes I couldn't print from QuarkXPress in OS9 as the printer would only work with software in OSX Tiger.
Deadlines, deadlines, deadlines.
Nothing to be done. No booklets.
And people would have loved them too.
So they will now have to go out separately at some point in the future once I have moved all the documents to work. I see another trip to the Apple Store to pick up a new version of QuarkXPress on the horizon.
Technology is a wonderful thing... except when you have to use it.
PS. If you hate all this sort of techno-gibberish you have my apologies. But don't worry. I do too.

Thought for the day: 'You are the apple of my eye...' You Are The Sunshine Of My Life. Stevie Wonder. And plenty of other people in other places. It's probably from Shakespeare. I'll check.