Curve Balls, Curve Balls

Even for those of us who are comfortable using computers and know some shortcuts and things, there are still times when getting something done seems more cumbersome than it needs to be.

So I am trying to set myself up with one of those companies that will email your newsletters and manage your email list for a reasonable monthly fee. It is a great idea. Some people I know use them and they look very organized and polished.

See, the thing is that once you have more than a couple hundred names on your email list, it becomes difficult to keep in touch with people. Web based email services generally only let you send 200 emails a day, and after that they will block you from sending any more messages for 24 hours because they suspect you are spamming.

Of course, the problem is that just going by the numbers like that, they have no way of knowing that I have more names than that on my list because people gave me their emails so that I could keep in touch.

And here I am trying to upload my address book to this mail manager. Except that they say they cannot just tap into my email account to load the addresses. Facebook was able to do that. But apparently the email management firm can't, so we have to load our address book onto an Excel spreadsheet.

I did that, and the mail manager still wants me to provide it something so that it can do the download. Except that I have no idea what it wants and the help desk is closed for the night.

And here I thought I was going to be more efficient. Maybe I will get lucky and they will have a quick fix for this. One can only hope.

Why do they always ask me the questions I don't have answers for? I know all kinds of stuff they are not asking me.

Even though you keep your eye on the ball, they will still throw you curves.