Saved by Wireless Internet

Last night was the big annual fundraiser for my employer. It's our annual banquet held at Cliffbreakers (who do an outstanding job every year!). I was asked to hook up our brand new projector to our brand new laptop for my boss's Powerpoint presentation. Let me say, first off, that I made a few fundamental mistakes. When I installed Office on this computer last week, I assumed that entering the 25 digit registration number for one piece of Office software was enough. Second, I assumed that everything would work just fine when I plugged in the CD with the presentation. I had entered the Big Number last week when firing up Access. I did not fire up Powerpoint until I got the disk, at 4:00 yesterday afternoon--a very BIG mistake. When Powerpoint popped up, it wanted that 25 digit number that I had entered last week for Access. I ran back to the office to get that number. I entered it. Rejected. I entered it a second time. Rejected. I double checked what I had just entered. It was right. I entered it a third time (what's the definition of insanity?). Rejected. I went home and got my Mac mini. I hooked it up and all was good, until I inserted the disk. Disk burned to non-standard format, the mini couldn't read it. Hmmm...

Ah yes, wireless internet access since the restaurant is connected to a hotel. Inserted disk into laptop, fired up my .mac account and uploaded the presentation to my .mac "hard drive." Went back to the mini. Synced my .mac account, downloaded the presentation. All was good. I got to eat dinner after all!!! Only took a couple of hours to get the Powerpoint presentation on the screen!

My conclusion: a Mac mini with wireless support is the best computer buy on earth. Oh yeah, and get a .mac account with it, it'll save your job someday!