It s'now Show for Snow Leopard @ The Apple Harvest

Despite putting in a pre-order for the Snow Leopard family pack and spending all day yesterday preparing the Apple Harvest machines for installation, I've been let down by courier firms yet again.

I ordered through Amazon who duly shipped on the evening of the 23rd August and provided me with a UPS tracking number. UPS recorded the package as Out For Delivery from their Derby depot before 5.00am on 24th August. Despite the depot only being 10 miles or so from where I live, I never received the package , and just before 8:00pm it was reported by UPS as being returned to their Derby depot. I'd been in all day and there had been no sign of a UPS van.

In the meantime I had prepared boot-able Carbon Copy Cloner copies of both my iMac and MacBook Pro which will now be out of date by the time I (hopefully) get the package on Tuesday, since it's a holiday weekend in the UK. And on Tuesday I'll have to go through the process all over again.

I find it astonishing that UPS, FedEx and DHL manage to screw up so regularly. I have a lot of things delivered, and often a local courier is used who is regularly at my front door before 8.00 in the morning and rarely later than 10.00am. He also delivers on Saturdays. Despite having massive computing systems and networks at their disposal, the big couriers can only provide delivery windows of between 9.00am and 7.00pm, Monday to Friday, and although I live on the doorstep of the hubs I almost always seem to get my deliveries at the end of the day. Good job I work from home.

I guess the good news is that everyone else who spent last night and will be spending the weekend doing their installations will uncover any issues, and I'll benefit from their experiences. But for an early adopter, it's really frustrating and very disappointing...