Sometimes I Hate Technology: All I want to do is print a picture!!!

Over the weekend Sue (my wife) undertook the monumental feat of walking 26.2 miles around the streets of London. As you might imagine she took lots of photographs of this adventure and she wanted them printing out so that it was easier to show people.

Printing – simple concept.

Last night was the first chance I had to go and get the prints. I anticipated that this would be a couple of short interruptions to my evening. It’s a 5 minute drive to the local supermarket (Asda) and I know that I would have to go drop of the files and pick them up later.

As you can probably guess by the title of this post things didn’t work out that way:

Put required photos on USB memory stick. Everyone supports USB, right?
Drive to Asda
Walk to photo booth.
Look for USB slot, but no slot to be found .
Ask lady behind counter if she can help. Shouldn’t have bothered .
There is no USB slot. Even though there has to be USB within the machine, there is no USB slot. I’ll need to come back with the files on a different format.
Walk to car.
Drive home.
Put pictures onto Compact Flash card. That should be fine. Consider putting them on CD as well to be sure but know that the machine has a CF slot so should be fine.
Drive back to Asda.
Walk to photo booth.
Follow instructions on screen and insert Compact Flash card.
Screen tells me that it is reading the card.
Screen counts through the photos it has found 1,2,3…11…stops… but there are 62 pictures on this card .
Start again.
Follow instructions on screen and insert Compact Flash card.
Screen tells me that it is reading the card.
Screen counts through the photos it has found 1,2,3…8…stops… but there are still 62 pictures on this card .
Remove card.
Go to second machine.
Follow instructions on screen and insert Compact Flash card.
Screen tells me that it is reading the card.
Screen counts through the photos it has found 1,2,3…12…stops… but there are still 62 pictures on this card .
Ask lady behind counter if she can help. Shouldn’t have bothered . “We see lots of problems with those type of card, sorry”. Decide that I am not going to be beaten by some poxy machine.
Walk to car.
Drive home.
Put pictures onto CD.
Drive back to Asda.
Walk to photo booth.
Follow instructions on screen and insert CD.
Screen tells me that it is reading the CD.
Screen counts through the photos it has found 1,2,3…62…result.
Follow the rest of the instructions for size and quality, etc. Just about to finish and then get a prompt from the system for authorisation of the order showing a screen requiring a PIN.
Ask lady behind counter for help (different lady by now). Get the wonderfully helpful response “Oh, I’m just standing in while she’s on her break, I don’t know.” . She asks the supervisor, shouldn’t have bothered. She asks another colleague, shouldn’t have bothered. Eventually phones through to the canteen and interrupts the other ladies break. Turns out that the PIN is the default “1234” . I have no idea what the purpose of the PIN was, she didn’t check anything, she just put the number in.
Pay for pictures
Walk to car.
Drive home.
Stop, relax, unwind for 40 mins.
Drive back to Asda.
Walk to photo booth.
Original lady has now returned.
I hand over my slip.
She spends 10 mins finding the pictures. There still on the machine
Walk to car.
Drive home.