Friday, January 9, 2009

How I Got Taken and Decided to Rush

I read the reviews of the USB turntable on Amazon twice - once before choosing this turntable (Audio Technica) for my wish list and once while I was climbing the learning curve to learn the software. I noticed one of the reviews both times - someone said something about the software only being available for 30 days. I did notice that the review was about a year old, so I figured that whatever software worked for only 30 days had been changed. Surely there would be more complaints on Amazon if they were selling a machine with software that would last only 30 days without making you pay for an upgrade!

When I first started using the Cakewalk Audio Creator LE software, it told me to I would have register it within 30 days or it would stop working. It told me that all I had to do was key in my email address and they would send me a key for registering. I decided to wait a few days and test the machine and be sure it was going to work for me. I had entertained the idea of digitizing all my albums within 30 days after Christmas and returning the whole turntable to Amazon for a refund; but then I decided that was really not appropriate. At best, the stylus wouldn't be in new condition. But I was prepared to send the machine back if it were somehow incompatible with my system or otherwise faulty.

After a few days, I was beginning to digitize my albums in earnest and I was getting tired of the popup window reminding me that I had 29, 28, 27 days left to register my software. I figured they just wanted to force me to receive advertising email or maybe they wanted a database of names or even a statistic about the number of buyers of the machine. So, I cratered and registered the software. The next day, a new popup came up. It said that the mp3 encoder module of the software would be available to me for only 30 days, after which I would have to upgrade or not transfer files into mp3, which was, of course, what I was doing.

So, I got took! Had I waited for 30 days to register the software originally, I would have had 60 days total with the mp3 encoder. 60 days would have been more roomy for this project. Trying to get it done within 30 days has me humming all the time but rarely having time to hum the same song twice!


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