Yahoo, Dell and Microsoft, I'm unhappy with you all

In 2004 I purchased a Dell DJ MP3 player. I was able to upload music to it from my Microsoft ME computer using the free Music Match software. That computer died in early 2007 (I believe from some Microsoft patch, but that's a whole other story)

I purchased a new computer from Dell in April 2007 running Windows Vista. Sometime between 2004 and 2007 Music Match was purchased by Yahoo and renamed Yahoo Music Jukebox.

My Dell DJ worked with my new computer and Yahoo Music Jukebox. It allowed me to upload music. Then at the end of September Yahoo forced an upgrade to Music Jukebox. After the upgrade I was no longer able to upload to my player. I tried a system restore to roll back to pre-upgrade. Yahoo Music Match would not work and insisted on the upgrade.

I contacted Yahoo (which in itself was a challenge as their support form is buried and then IE7 had a conniption fit since the form required security settings to be changed to allow Active X controls) Here is their response:

We appreciate you contacting Yahoo! Music regarding this issue and apologize for any inconvenience this has caused you. Unfortunately your portable device is currently no longer supported by Windows MediaPlayer. Since Yahoo! Music Jukebox uses the same application programming interface as Windows Media Player, it will return the error you are seeing returned while attempting to transfer tracks.

I would suggest contacting the manufacturer of your device and request an updated driver. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to reply to this email.

Media Player wasn't upgraded, Music Jukebox was, so I was none too pleased with their response. But, following their advice I contacted Dell to see if they would come up with drivers for their not so old device.

Their first response sent me to an article with instructions on how to physically unlock the player (kind of like a keyboard lock on a cell phone) Hey guys, that's not the problem, the player works fine, I'm just asking you to support it under the newest Windows operating system. The device is not all that old and it wasn't cheap.

So, I replied back that their answer did not address the problem. Next guy kind of got it, but his solution was for me to pay for fee based support. Can you imagine how much it would cost for me to pay Dell to write drivers for their device?

I did check out the Dell forums. I'm not alone in my frustration but we all seem to be on a fruitless battle with technology companies' business models. Upgrade the software to require new hardware, all the while leaving slightly older devices orphans and destined for the dump.

Next step is to find an archive of old programs and see if an old version of Music Match will work under Vista and recognize my MP3 player.

The only satisfaction I've had is filling out a Yahoo support feedback survey. I let them have it.

iPod vs. Vista

Just bought an iPod shuffle. Gee they are cute and the built-in clip is an inspiration in functional design. Attached it to a USB port on my new computer running Vista and got a friendly beep that the computer recognized new hardware. Then all &*#%^@! broke loose. The USB mouse and keyboard no longer responded. Detached the iPod, still no keyboard or mouse. Unplugged both, plugged them back in, still no response. Powered down a couple of times, switching out USB ports and plugging the mouse and keyboard in both with power down and power up. Still no response.

Pulled out the warranty for the computer to find the toll-free number. I expected to be on hold for quite awhile but I was connected to a technician in under a minute. He had me do a drain all power shut down (power down, remove power cord and then hold the power button for an additional 20 seconds before replacing the power cord and turning the computer back on) That did the trick and the mouse and keyboard were back. However, I have two hard drives in a RAID 1 array and the array had to rebuild itself. I left the computer churning away while I gathered strength to try again with the iPod. BTW, it's a Dell. I'm really impressed with the customer service I received.

You know when people say RTFM? They really mean it. Turns out I should have downloaded and installed iTunes before connecting my Shuffle to the computer. Did things in the correct order and now I'm bopping to my tunes.