Don't let that splashy, moderately outdated flat screen monitor fool you—THIS is what underpowered design stations looks like.
Ladies and gentlemen, the G5 has left the building.
Now for those of you who don't routinely base your self-esteem on what your computer allows you to do, or don't earn your healthcare plan from it, maybe my tale of woe will fall short of "this blog post is awesome, dude!" status. It's okay. Really. For some, technology failure is is about as interesting as sorting out the recycling. But for me, it is nothing less than a crisis of Hurculean proportion.
I'm not crying anymore. That's the good news. No. That was last weekend. I saw it coming and made the bold decision to BACK UP. Not everything on my hard drive, but stuff I deemed critical. Like work files. And old scans of scrapbook pages. And addresses for my favorite "adult" websites. And because of that, the November/December issue of Simple Scrapbooks will not have to be started from scratch! This is a very good thing. This is a mental health saving thing.
Maybe that's my message today, to you…right now. Back it up, sisters. If it's been a while since you've made nice little copies of the digital information that matters, today might just be your day to do so.
I have all the confidence in the world that Tom at the Apple Store in Rosedale Mall is looking out for me and my titanium clad baby. But in the meantime, bring on Photoshop with only 2 GB of RAM, and a single processor. I'm ready!
Rachel Greig says
here, here! One of my colleagues rang me yesterday to say he didn’t back up in 8 years (yes, 8 years!) and he lost the LOT yesterday. Including the first photos of his newborn daughter (and the following 5 years worth of photos).
Sigh. That’s a hard lesson to learn.
We backup every month without fail.
Jennie says
Backup and scatter around. I’m a little OCD about the backup thing. I like to employ options A, B, C, and just in case, D. Backup to disc, backup to DVD, store in safe deposit box, send one to mom, hide one under the bed. You just never know what the circumstances will be.
Nikki says
SCARY!!! My G5 also pays for my healthcare plan and every other plan we have so I would be freaking out to the point of no return if something were to happen. Of course, I have a full time job (no benefits) and freelance on the side, but if things keep picking up I’ll be forced to make a decision. I hope you get your baby back soon!!! Good luck!!!
jill s says
seriously computer problems…or even reading about someone else’s problems make me want to puke. now i’m OCD about getting the uploaded to scrapbook pictures and my laptop before i delete them from my camera. thanks for the nudge to back-up again though. i’m doing it right now. i’ve been neglecting my external hard drive.
i don’t usually comment on your blog. but i love it.
Sharon says
external harddrive- I have 4 of them. Back up everynight with SuperDuper! Easy and painless.
grungedandy says
Oh no, and you so loved your G5, it’s really hard to go back once you’ve had the power!
We once lost the lot when a power company switch every thing off because they were doing some work out front & then straight back on, 5 mins later, popping all our internal fuses! The surge fried our little Mac! They said they knocked on the door but we were in all day & no one knocked! Everyone in our street complained but we had no proof to take them to court! The lesson in this story is back up, back up, back up & buy surge protectors!
Good Luck
*G*
cathy says
hehe!…I feel like I’m looking at MY desk!…yup, totally underpowered. In fact I just upgraded from 512mb of ram …and I ran PhotoshopCS2 on that!…imagine!
I always backup client stuff, and forget to do my own stuff. thanks for the reminder. I’m sure your baby will be back soon…maybe it just needed a holiday.
Rebecca Gawryl says
Oh, man. Does that stink or what? I definitely have a love/hate relationship with my G5. Love the processing time, hate the stupid underpowered video card that we were told would work great. Of course, Apple will happily replace it for $1700! Ugh. Sorry to hear yours is down. I just had tech support, ie. my husband, back up both my G5 and my laptop to an external hard drive. But, I ALWAYS backup all photos onto DVD as well – just in case.
Hope the ‘puter gets fixed in a jiffy!
Madeline R says
Yikes! I am a mac girl too and have a G4. We are right now looking to upgrade to a bigger and better mac, this time a desktop. I wish you’de talk even more about the G5.
Laurie says
Cathy
Not related to your recent post, but I saw Crowded House in Chicago last weekend. The Trib gave them a tepid review but I disagree ! They were great. Have you seen Neil’s son Liam ? He was one of the opening acts, and he is insanely talented. I think CH played all CH stuff, no Split Endz or solo stuff… loved the sing alongs and I thought the banter was fun and appropriate. They even played Pineapple Head! I almost cried during Silent House since we just lost a loved one to dementia. It was very effective to see it performed live… seriously took my breath away. Our show was taped (both camera and radio) and supposedly it will be on WXRT Sunday night sometime for their weekly live music program. ALSO cool was the fact that they were selling their new release on vinyl.. lots of vinyl-lovers in the crowd appreciated that. Enjoy your primo seats and have fun at the show. It was wonderful and I know you will enjoy it.
jes says
ouch! so glad you thought to back up tho.. i must do that this week!
hoping that you get your baby back pronto!!
jes says
ouch! so glad you thought to back up tho.. i must do that this week!
hoping that you get your baby back pronto!!
Jack says
Hey, it may be one processor, but it has dual cores…
Just think, when the G5 first came out, how much did it cost to get those boatloads of RAM? Now you can upgrade that MacBook Pro to 4 GB for just a couple of hundred dollars.
Christine Villacarlos says
sorry to hear about your G5, Cathy. I, too, have a G5 and have only started to back up recently. Can’t be too careful with those precious data! 🙂
Michelle says
I hear ya. The little guy sitting under me pays the bills too (and the computer also gets a workout!) I happen to have an external hard drive that backs up twice a week. it’s pure heaven. Heaven in a funky little silver box. I go over there and check it out once in a while to make sure it’s still doing it’s thing. It always does 🙂 Can’t wait to see the new setup!
Christa says
for a second there, i thought you were giving up on a G5. I almost thought I would have to stop reading this blog (just kidding) because you have de-apple’d. But as I kept reading I was reassured that you are still sane.
I say, no worries, apple can do everything and anything and I have full faith that it will be restored.
Long live the G5!
Jana says
Yep, mentioned this recently, backing up is sooooo important—I hadn’t for about 6 months, then my Apple computer hard drive broke—discovered the hard drive isn’t made by Apple—lovely! Now my old hard drive is heading to a recovery biz, I’m sporting a new one and slowly reloading my life this week… Not a fun place to be! If recovery works, I’m going to schedule back-up nightly if I can!
Thena says
Just had a major crash here with my desktop and took hubby two weeks to recover it for me. We had not backed up since March and I would have lots a lot. Our terrabyte is about full and when he repaired my PC he put in two 750 gig HD’s for me. That should last all week! 🙂 (It’s those RAW files!) I would have lost several books that I could have never recreated!
Hugs,
Thena
Nicola says
I’m sorry, I know the loss of your “precious” is not good but seriously…
And addresses for my favorite “adult” websites <—- hehe
Maegan says
Oh No!!!! My heart is racing just thinking about loosing my Mac. I will try and send Tom some “fix Cathy’s computer” vibes. ACK!
I don’t know what you do to back up right now, or what you are missing but I use SmugMug to back up my pictures and layouts. You can upload an unlimited amount of photos there for a monthly or yearly fee. Since the layouts are much larger files I have to pay the extra “professional” fee, but I know that everything is safely backed up off site. You can also order prints and your family/friends can download the pictures if you allow it. However, my main concern is the off site backing up. It does no good to back up to CDs if your house catches fire. You know?
Good luck!!!
Lietje says
Hai Cathy
Why a new computer????
Have you thought about what a great cd/radio player you could have bought for your car WITH a ipod connection????
Wow… driving in your car and listening at crowdedhouse, ohhhh, would love to 😉
Or how about buying an iphone????
suetreiber says
man you just reminded me how much i need to do this!!!
barb says
Thanks for the reminder. I backed up everything today thanks to you. I would die if I lost my pix or iTunes!
And for what it’s worth, I’ve been running PSCS2 on a MacBook with only one gig of RAM for nearly a year now. It sucks. Today I bought a memory upgrade to 3GHz and an upgrade to PSCS3. Life is good.
Tara says
SOOOO sorry to hear this!!
I know what you mean about PS on a 2G… I am working on getting some more RAM for my MacBook Pro…
That and iLife, Leopard…. sigh…. I think I should divorce the hubby and marry Steve Jobs…..
Brianna says
Definitely added back stuff up to the to-do list. It’s been quite a while since I’ve done that.
Katie Scott says
I have very little idea what you are talking about in this one. Usually I totally read your blog but today I just skimmed it. I have my husband deal with my computer issues, I enjoy being married to a sorta nerd especially since it means I don’t have to know what a G5 is. I just make him come in when the computer isn’t working right. We actually had one of our biggest fights ever b/cs he said I was a TECHNOLGY RETARD (i guess I should have said impaired, but he actually called me a retard, which I of course found offensive as anyone would).
P.S. I’m totally addicted to Ben Folds right now.
P.P.S. I had a dream about you – that we were both kidnapped by a man who wanted to eat us (not in the good way, but in the hanibal way), but we kept running away so we were ok. I guess this means I read your blog WAY too much. sorry. I will use it with discretion in the future.
Katie Scott says
P.P.P. S. Ok its really late, maybe I should just keep my thoughts to myself and go to bed, I hope none of that was offensive, I didn’t mean it to be. I think you are awesome. Truly. In a 1984 WICKED AWESOME kind of way.
stephanie t. says
I feel your pain. Here’s the scenario: an old iMac (running OS X 10.3 kinda old!), new, 300g external drive, 283pictures to download and a little message that says ‘your desktop is full’. I’ve cleaned house so many times and that damn message STILL comes up!
The good news is, the new iMacs came out with a 24″screen, and more gigs and terabytes than a girl could ever hope for! And SPEED! Oh mon Dieu! Toss in a hefty educator’s discount and rockin’Best Buy rewards points (that new washer and dryer had to be good for smething!)…and VOILA! Momma’s gettin’ a new ‘puter!! Ohhh Happy Dance!
stephanie t. says
I feel your pain. Here’s the scenario: an old iMac (running OS X 10.3 kinda old!), new, 300g external drive, 283pictures to download and a little message that says ‘your desktop is full’. I’ve cleaned house so many times and that damn message STILL comes up!
The good news is, the new iMacs came out with a 24″screen, and more gigs and terabytes than a girl could ever hope for! And SPEED! Oh mon Dieu! Toss in a hefty educator’s discount and rockin’Best Buy rewards points (that new washer and dryer had to be good for smething!)…and VOILA! Momma’s gettin’ a new ‘puter!! Ohhh Happy Dance!
stephanie t. says
I feel your pain. Here’s the scenario: an old iMac (running OS X 10.3 kinda old!), new, 300g external drive, 283pictures to download and a little message that says ‘your desktop is full’. I’ve cleaned house so many times and that damn message STILL comes up!
The good news is, the new iMacs came out with a 24″screen, and more gigs and terabytes than a girl could ever hope for! And SPEED! Oh mon Dieu! Toss in a hefty educator’s discount and rockin’Best Buy rewards points (that new washer and dryer had to be good for smething!)…and VOILA! Momma’s gettin’ a new ‘puter!! Ohhh Happy Dance!
Sara says
Yep I’ve got the external hard drive right next to me. Still in the box!
Lee says
Hi –
We’ve made it to the belt and suspenders level of backing up. We use the Apple “BackUp” program (belt). Once a week the insistent little umbrella bounces around on the screen until we respond and burn to DVD!
The suspenders consists of an external hard drive, which also automatically insists on being attended to once a week, on a different day.
But we are still short of the next level of protection which is off-site. I keep hoping Carbonite will accept Mac soon.
Thanks for the reminder to us all!!!
;o)
– Lee