What seems simple is not always so
It’s new, it’s shiny, it has taken the world I live in by storm. Everywhere, people are slipping and sliding their fingertips back and forth, following the magic squares that will lead them to nirvana. Yes, indeed, the iTouch does keep one bedazzled.
Until you try to do things that require configuration. This afternoon, our department was asked to attach an iTouch to the Exchange service. Highly possible, given the inclusion of a client in the operating system. Highly difficult, as we discovered. Picture three qualified technicians and a proud owner, passing the new jewel back and forth (using our fingertips, but not in the approved Apple method). Things might have gone well, except that the iTouch hadn’t connected to our ambient wi-fi.
The online documentation makes it sound easier than easy (is that the new paradigm?). However, although wi-fi was “visible”, no success. Turns out that the DHCP server had run out of available leases, although there is no way that you can determine that from the graphical interface. Nor, it seems, can you easily destroy a faulty network profile in order to start all over again.
A second (actually third) iTouch has joined the family circle this evening, and although there has been no plaintive appeal for assistance (yet), I’m on standby… with a copy of the “Missing Manual” series of books cached under other documents. I’m going to wait and see if a new owner can get to a working status, acruss the many obstacles. Things like network config, firmware upgrades, iTunes (the analogy of purgatory). I’ll keep you posted, just in case you fall prey to the marketing blitz. After all, there’s an app for that, too.
