It occurred to me today (through an experience I shall describe shortly) how when using a computer; what starts out as a simple task; can often become a super-human effort of will as one thing leads to another. Example: I was randomly reading the internet and I stumbled upon GME (Google Mashup Editor) it looked interesting so I followed the links to find out more. I wanted to have a go but apparently there are limited spots and you have to sign up and wait. So I dutifully typed my name and email and hit the submit button. "Please enter a valid Gmail account." My screen blurted at me. Sigh! Open another tab and sign up for a googlemail account. Thinking: "hmm, what happened to Gmail." This only takes a few seconds, so I'm still feeling chirpy. Back to to the GME sign-up. Still no go; not so chirpy. Think: "Maybe I have to wait a while, I only just got my account. Gmail; googlemail; are they the same?" Open another tab, and search for: "Gmail same as googlemail". I Browse the links that come up and discover googlemail is what UK users get as Gmail is a tradmark used by a company in the UK already. So that's not the cause of my problem. Well a few minutes have passed now so I'll try again. Still no good. Refresh the page and try again, BINGO! I'm in.
So now I have this googlemail account staring me in the face. My eyes peruse the links hinting at what I should do next to get the most from my googlemail experience. "Import your contacts." This seems sensible so I click on that. I am presented with a long list of how to export from just about every popular email client on the planet. At the top (surely no mistake!) A link to Yahoo's own help pages on how to export your contacts from Yahoo mail. Well that's me so I click it. I Read the instructions, they seem fairly straight forward. (I can hear you sniggering already.) Basically I just go to my address book and click the 'Export/Import' link in the top right of the screen. I go to my address book and gaze over to the top right of my screen. There is no sign of any 'Export/Import' link. But, there is an 'Options' link so I click that and a drop down menu appears. I can see 'Import contacts...' but nothing for exporting. There is something else though: 'Switch to original Yahoo mail...' In desperation I click that. Lots of screen flickering later, Yuck! What is that? The old interface obviously. Ah-ha there it is! 'Export/Import' in the top right, now we're cooking on gas. I click the link and export a Yahoo.CSV file to my hard drive. Finally! back over to googlemail to import the CSV file, job done. Phew! However, now I'm stuck with this yucky retro interface at Yahoo. When I changed the interface there was a message displayed telling me how to put it back. But-of-course, I didn't read that! So I'm hunting around again and suddenly I spy a link. 'Try the new Yahoo mail beta.' That must be it, click. "Sorry we are experiencing problems please try later." Arrrrghhhh. Much refreshing and browser restarting later I'm back on familiar ground at last. Cripes! is that the time?