This time I have a really good excuse, and it was Yahoo's fault. Yahoo sent me an email basically insisting I update my Firefox browser to the latest version. I had received and ignored several such demands, including from Firefox itself, because whatever, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
This time, for whatever reason, I actually clicked on the "download the latest version" link, and discovered too late that the operating system on my iMac was too old to use the newest version of Firefox. (It would have been nice if Firefox had told me this up front.) Too late - it tried to install, wouldn't open, and AARRRRGGHHH!! All of my bookmarks and recipes and and links to all the stuff I use every day was locked away inside a dead Firefox.
I quickly found and opened Safari and raced to the Apple website, where after much digging around support forums and swearing and gnashing of teeth, I established that if I updated to Snow Leopard, Firefox might be saved. Obviously I am several OS updates behind the curve here, because Snow Leopard wasn't available as a download. I had to wait for a disk, which was shipped UPS Ground. Yes, I could have updated the blog via Safari, but while I adore almost all things Apple, Safari has always annoyed me, so I wasn't online for non-work reasons too much for several days.
When the disk finally arrived Tuesday evening, I stuck it in this machine. It spent about an hour making impressive noises of Installing Things, while I worried about whether I would ever see the nearly 7 years of my life stored in various forms on this computer again. (Yeah, I'm one of those people who doesn't really think about backing up personal stuff until a disaster strikes.)
I suddenly had a flashback to the reason I bought my first Mac: a disastrous upgrade of Windows that led to many, many calls to Microsoft support that never quite fixed everything and left my Dell desktop only about halfway functional. When Microsoft accesses your computer via remote and still can't fix their own product after SEVERAL tries, it's not a good thing. So, while I had faith in the magic of Apple, I still had that nervous little thought that maybe this time it wouldn't be as easy as I'd hoped and I'd be on the phone with tech support people again.
After an hour of very serious-sounding clicking and whirring of the DVD drive, it restarted itself. Firefox - the newest version, the one that was dead - opened right up, all of my stuff was there, I didn't have to do a damn thing. Everything works, everything is fine, I put a new OS onto a nearly 7 year old computer and didn't have a single issue of any sort. And this is why Apple products are worth their price. (Oh, and the update to the OS cost me a whole 20 bucks and was shipped for free.)
So, anyway, I'm back. I'm busy, but feel a bit like I'm just spinning my wheels with my business. Today and tomorrow are dedicated to getting my online presence pulled together, getting my new business photo and my bio where it needs to go, etc. etc. It's all surprisingly time consuming, something our high-energy coach seems to have forgotten. He has a team of minions; I have a dog snoring on the couch in my office. But it needs to be done, an online presence is absolutely necessary these days and I'm basically invisible. I need to get myself on The Google. The kids tell me it's all the rage.
Catherine, you have just summed up the reasons I will be going Mac with my next computer.
ReplyDeletePC's are a mish mash of programmes that 'fit where they touch', but I have been told that basically if it is made for Mac it will cooperate with everything else on Mac.
I use Firefox and Thunderbird, and have done so since their development days as Mailwasher.
Gae, in Callala Bay
Macs are almost ridiculously easy, IMHO. I actually laughed out loud when after an hour of MAJOR upgrading, grinding and groaning, it restarted and Firefox just opened right up, fully updated and working perfectly.
ReplyDeleteI am almost ashamed to admit this, but I can't get Facebook to work. (!) I work in my LYS, and we are encouraged to use the shop's FB page to promote the products sold in the shop, and the classes we teach. (We develop our own classes, the shop promotes them and we teach them there, but we collect the tuition---that's how you make $ working in a yarn shop.) For whatever reason, I am the only person on the planet who can read the posts I made to the shop's FB page. As luck would have it, I got a community ed catalog in the mail a few days after I opened my account, and there is a *senior* learning class on FB being offered. I don't know what-all they are covering, but it is three two-hour lessons, and I hope the instructor can get me up to speed. The shop owner and the other employees are all young enough to be my children, and to be honest, I am humiliated by this, but I am going to conquer this if it is the last thing I do.
ReplyDeleteBrenda
It's probably something in the page settings, but I'm hardly a FB expert. I'm guessing a five minute chat with the instructor in front of a computer will fix that. I'm currently trying to master Google+, because it does seem to be more useful for business (unfriendly as it may be for casual conversation, at least to me).
ReplyDeleteWhat is the yarn shop name? I'll see if I can like it on FB!
ReplyDeleteHistorically (and hysterically) we started with computers for the family toolmaking business nearly 30 years ago, and the only computer that was available here that had a 'maths co-processor' and was capable of running Auto-Cad, was an NEC Powermate (har de har har!) 286. The computer, digitiser and drawing system (like a small draughtsman's board with multiple pens of different colours, and the Auto-Cad programme and dongle, added up to $A 15500, and was clunky and frustrating for Ernst, trying to learn the computer and Auto-Cad at the age of 50.
ReplyDeleteThese days a computer set-up for Auto-Cad is about 1500.oo.
Once the business was committed to Auto-Cad on PC, we were sort of stuck with it, after all there are two computers (one in the office, one at son's home) running Auto-Cad, and another in our home running Auto-Cad Lite.
Now that Ernst is no longer doing any designing for the business, he only uses A-C Lite for woodwork hobby design, we can either transfer everything to the Mac when I get it, or keep this old clunker (ahem, Windows XP).
Can't wait to get my paws on a Mac.
Gae, in Callala Bay
I work at Knit & Knot in Bettendorf, Iowa.
ReplyDeleteBrenda.
The Goggle IS all the rage but if you want any privacy you have to watch it every second because, baby, it wants to be inside your head looking out your eyes.
ReplyDeleteActually, it's not really that different than FB in that regard. hmm?
I know Teh Google is a privacy-stealing beast, but loss of privacy is sort of the occupational hazard of real estate.
ReplyDelete