Technology beats me again!

I’ve just spent the last 15 minutes fighting with technology. I’ve been trying to do something that a few years ago you would not have even imagined could be possible.

This morning on the train in to work I was reading the Metro and realised The Gadget Show is on tonight. Being mildly geeky I quite like the program and also the write up made tonight’s episode seem interesting. I decided to do something amazing. I would spend 2 minutes of my working day on the Sky website and set my SKY+ to record it remotely. In itself this ability to record a program on your home TV just by popping on the internet at work is outstanding.

I’ve said before that I love gadgets so my delight at being able to perform this magic trick should come as no surprise.

I’ve said that on the whole I’m fairly useless and I’m inept at using or picking gadgets and so my inability to achieve this simple task should also come as no surprise.

I completely forgot to bother and so here I am on the train home – knowing that I won’t get home until half way through the program slowly getting to the point of this post.

I remembered the 2nd amazing fact about SKY+ remote recording. You can set it to record by text. Amazing, you are out and about in the middle of nowhere but you can still set your TV to record! I have the number in my phonebook so I got to work.

There is, of course, a specific format for the texts. It’s important that you speak Bill Gates in order to understand the format and so I almost immediately faltered. I tried sending a text. Seconds later it returned letting me know how to send it again in a style that it believes an averagely intelligent member of society should understand. I re wrote the text and tried again.

When the reply came back having failed again, the message was slightly different. I’m sure it was in a slightly bigger font size. The letters slightly more spaced apart. The message was written in a maner designed to let somebody slightly dyslexic understand it. This time they explained a little more carefully what to do.

My third try was sent confidently knowing that I would be home soon able to sit back and enjoy the show.

The 3rd failed message was written in capitol letters and in a style that suggests it’s designed for people to have it read for them. I was not expected to be ale to read it myself. This time the word date was explained for me in case I didn’t know what it meant. I could see that time meant the time of day the show was expected to start. I could see that channel referred to the channel that the show might be on.

I was in despair – I was considered by SKY to be a 5 year old. The message went on to suggest that I should ask permission of whoever pays the bill before trying again. It also said that Postman Pat was on CBEEBIES if I was interested.

Most importantly of all the last line simply said “Or you could just simply type the name of the show and we will have a look in the paper for you ourselves and work it out!” Sorted – I replied “The Gadget Show” immediately.

It’s now been 30 minutes since I sent that and it’s now 10 minutes since my program started and SKY have not yet replied. I assume they have had to send someone out to the newsagents to get a TV Quick. I suppose I could have gone to plan B and phoned home, asking for it to be set for me but there are a couple of things wrong with that.

Firstly, it would have admitted defeat in the face of technology.

Secondly, My Mother in Law is babysitting at the moment and so I would have had to try and explain to her how to set the SKY+ to record which would take even longer and could easily result in any of my unwatched recordings being deleted.

Therefore I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I’m going to miss some of the program.

UPDATE:- It is half past 9 and the program finished ages ago. It did not record but I saw some of it. My phone has just received a message. SKY has noted that I want to record next weeks Gadget Show and has set it to do so. SKY has charged me 25p. I’ve just been charged 25p to record next week’s show 20 minutes after I was sat on my sofa setting the series link! I’m just so rubbish at gadgets.