Tales of the FryMac.
A sad thing happened this week. I turned off my iMac so I could take a nap in silence (without the hard drive spinning ambiently in the background). After a restful hour or so, I return to my chair, press the power button, and - then it happened.
There was an ugly BZZZT! sound, followed by nothing. No startup screen, no power whatsoever. But that wasn't the worst part. The WORST part was seeing the thin wisps of smoke slowly waft out of the top of it.
Oh, yes. THAT was the worst part. By far.
So, there you go. In .5 seconds my iMac up and died on me. :\ It lived a good 5.5 years, and I loved it dearly. I'll say I was pretty sad to see it go, but not devastated. Why not? Because I had the foresight to BACK UP on a regular basis. (Much thanks to Greg DeWilde in St. Louis for the extra FireWire drive he had on hand a year ago...) Thus, I only lost a few days' worth of files, and to my recollection, there wasn't anything irreplacable. (Just a few freshly acquired MP3s, etc...)
Still, I was faced with a dilemma. While I had planned to snatch my dream machine - an iMac 20" Flat Panel that came out a few years ago, I just didn't have the extra cash to plunk down for it these days. In the end, I decided on this baby on ebay.
Basically, it's a clone of my indigo iMac. I needed the 40gb drive (because that's how large my backup files were), and I know that everything I plugged into my previous iMac would work (not to mention most of the software, if not all). PLUS, I get the added bonus of having Tiger (10.4.2) preinstalled, so it'll be running the latest system software. (Assuming the processor can actually handle it well...)
In addition to these perks, I'll also be able to use the RAM I had in my previous iMac - a whopping 1gb. I should note that I just bought some RAM two weeks ago - a 512mb stick - and installed it. There might be a link between the new RAM and the ZAP, but I just don't know. (And who wants to go about proving such an allegation? Talk about headaches...)
So what am I running on now, you ask? Why, one of the extra PCs I snatched up at a garage sale last year for $20. The esteemed Century City 100. So far I've used it over the year for installing MP3 ringtones on my Motorola v400, as well as letting Kyler play PC games on it (Richard Scary's Busytown). But now it's really earning it's keep. Thankfully it has the USB slots to let me connect to the Internet over broadband, otherwise, bargain no. (That's a reference to some sci-fi TV show I saw in the 80's, but I forget which one... Star Wars? Trek? I dunno....)
So that's the harrowing tale of the life and death of my iMac. And the moral of the story?
Back Up Your Data. Or take your chances when the spectre of death takes a smoke break in YOUR computer.
Kevin
There was an ugly BZZZT! sound, followed by nothing. No startup screen, no power whatsoever. But that wasn't the worst part. The WORST part was seeing the thin wisps of smoke slowly waft out of the top of it.
Oh, yes. THAT was the worst part. By far.
So, there you go. In .5 seconds my iMac up and died on me. :\ It lived a good 5.5 years, and I loved it dearly. I'll say I was pretty sad to see it go, but not devastated. Why not? Because I had the foresight to BACK UP on a regular basis. (Much thanks to Greg DeWilde in St. Louis for the extra FireWire drive he had on hand a year ago...) Thus, I only lost a few days' worth of files, and to my recollection, there wasn't anything irreplacable. (Just a few freshly acquired MP3s, etc...)
Still, I was faced with a dilemma. While I had planned to snatch my dream machine - an iMac 20" Flat Panel that came out a few years ago, I just didn't have the extra cash to plunk down for it these days. In the end, I decided on this baby on ebay.
Basically, it's a clone of my indigo iMac. I needed the 40gb drive (because that's how large my backup files were), and I know that everything I plugged into my previous iMac would work (not to mention most of the software, if not all). PLUS, I get the added bonus of having Tiger (10.4.2) preinstalled, so it'll be running the latest system software. (Assuming the processor can actually handle it well...)
In addition to these perks, I'll also be able to use the RAM I had in my previous iMac - a whopping 1gb. I should note that I just bought some RAM two weeks ago - a 512mb stick - and installed it. There might be a link between the new RAM and the ZAP, but I just don't know. (And who wants to go about proving such an allegation? Talk about headaches...)
So what am I running on now, you ask? Why, one of the extra PCs I snatched up at a garage sale last year for $20. The esteemed Century City 100. So far I've used it over the year for installing MP3 ringtones on my Motorola v400, as well as letting Kyler play PC games on it (Richard Scary's Busytown). But now it's really earning it's keep. Thankfully it has the USB slots to let me connect to the Internet over broadband, otherwise, bargain no. (That's a reference to some sci-fi TV show I saw in the 80's, but I forget which one... Star Wars? Trek? I dunno....)
So that's the harrowing tale of the life and death of my iMac. And the moral of the story?
Back Up Your Data. Or take your chances when the spectre of death takes a smoke break in YOUR computer.
Kevin
