Progress Report 2022 Week 46

This week was Real Life Family Event (RLFE) Week at my house. A fun time was had by all, to combine a cliche with passive voice. Well, not “all.” My word count had very little fun. And I also encountered a rare instance of an Apple technological failure costing me hours of lost time. Let’s talk about that after we look at the numbers for the week!

Progress Report 2022 Week 46 By the Numbers

I’m bummed I didn’t hit 10,000 words this week!

I had a couple of RLFEs hit this week. Both dealt with the BMV. To be fair, the folks who work there were professional and helpful! So I’m not blaming them for the inordinate amount of time I spent there. I spent so much time there that I almost felt inclined to file a change of address form. But that’s over now (I hope), so fingers crossed this week’s better.

But there was another event that seemed to take even longer! And it involved my preferred technology platform. Let’s talk about that next.

Remember QuickTime VR?

Back in 1995, Apple launched QuickTime VR. It’s dead now. It’s hard to tell when it really died. Apple talked about it less after 1997. The lack of alternatives, and maybe Apple’s reputation, still gained it supporters, particularly in the museum space. That’s where I ran into trouble.

Several years go, I plotted a novel called Divinity Ascending. I think the title sucks now; I kinda liked it back when (I talked about it a little in February 2020 on this site). That outline included scenes on the USS Cod. I visited it in person years ago, and the experience inspired me.

I wanted to have a detailed vision of the interior, but I didn’t want to drive to Cleveland. Fortunately, the museum’s web site included a QuickTime VR tour. Years ago, I downloaded the QuickTime files so I could use them later. This weekend, I got to the point in Evolution’s Hand Book 4: Blind Exodus where I needed those files. So, I tried to load them on my MacBook Pro. Quick time responded:

That’s a bad sign!

After some research, I made a terrible discovery. Apple doesn’t support QuickTime VR anymore. In fact, since I’m running a MacBook Pro with Apple silicon, there was no Apple-sponsored way to use these files anymore.

I spent the next couple of hours pouring through Apple support discussions. Some of those answers pointed me to applications that should have helped. I tried a couple software package (fortunately, they had try-before-you-buy versions), but none of them worked. Some packages that sounded like they’d be perfect were only hosted on download on sites I could charitably describe as sketchy. I felt tainted just looking at their descriptions in Google’s search results!

Then I had what seemed like a genius idea! I keep an old Apple iBook around for emergencies (okay, I’m a pack rat). I fired it up, but it has QuickTime X, which could not read the times. Ah! But I could install QuickTime 7.7.9 for that old version of MacOS! So I did — and it could read the files!

But it could not export them, even though I had a QuickTime Pro license from a decade ago. Which, and kudos to Apple, still worked. So I had to settle for doing some screen caps as I rotated through the QuickTime VR files. But there are a lot of them. And I don’t want to keep hauling the iBook out.

I settled for installing QuickTime 7.7.6 on my Windows gaming PC. The security professional in me rebelled at the idea. But now, at least I can use the QuickTime VR files. And it only cost me about six hours of research and experimentation!

Progress against Last Week’s Goals

I asked the recipients of my newsletter to write a review of Evolution’s Hand Book 1: Executive Action. It’s been less than a week, but I’m a beginning writer. Still, it’s good practice.

In terms of writing progress, here’s my status:

• Finish Conrad’s midpoint: Done!
• Finish Butler’s midpoint: Done!
• Stretch goal: try to finish Duncan’s midpoint: Switched! I decided that Owen Payne’s midpoint fit better, and I finished it!

I also started Henry Duncan’s midpoint. So in terms of plot points, it was a pretty good week.

Goals for the Week in Progress Report 2022 Week 46

1. Conduct general research aimed at improving my marketing efforts
2. Finish Henry Duncan’s midpoint
3. Finish Conrad’s pinch 2
4. Finish Malhotra’s pinch 2
5. Start Butler’s pinch 2

What Do You Think?

Have you had a recent technological failure that cost you a lot of time? I’d love to hear about your experience1 Feel free to share in the comments!