Well, it wasn’t meant to be. After a trip to the computer doctor, it turned out my hard drive was dead, dead, dead. I brought it to Northbrain per the Apple store’s recommendation, and although I hope to never need their services again (fingers crossed), I would definitely go back to them if I did. Even though they weren’t able to salvage any of my files, they did replace the hard drive for me — and since they didn’t have any of the 160GB drives to hand, they put in a 225GB drive for the same price. Never mind that I never managed to fill up my old 80GB drive (I didn’t keep music or anything on it) — I’ll have to start downloading movies! Anyway, if your Mac needs sorting out and you’re in the Twin Cities, I’d point you in their direction.
Despite the loss of my data (I’ve decided I’m most annoyed about having to proof read an entire novel again; I’m saddest about losing my own writing), it’s a liiiittle bit fun to have, essentially, a new computer. The new drive has OS X 10.5 (versus 10.4 on the old one), which is just different enough to be interesting. I don’t know whose idea it was to get rid of two-finger tapping for the secondary click, though. No other added function could possibly be worth not having that. I don’t want to have to tap AND click! Melodramatic sigh.
But! I’m a bit goofy over the voice command. (I’ll admit that I’m not sure if this was on 10.4, but I never noticed it before.) I mean, not in an I’ll-ever-use-it-for-real way, but it’s fun/funny. To get it to pay attention to a command, you have to preface it with ‘computer’, as in, ‘Computer, minimize the window!’ It doesn’t understand some (most) of the time, and I find myself repeating the commands as you would to a stubborn dog. Calm, assertive energy, that’s what you need.
I’m working up to, ‘Tea, Earl Grey, hot.’
(And with that, she finished her nerdiest twelve22 post ever.)
Clean Slate
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Love the last line! Check out this photo of my library:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/piece__of_me/3251435507/
If you go to the largest size of the photo and look at the third shelf from the top at the very right, you’ll see my stack of Harry Potter books. Leaning against them is my talking Picard action figure. Sadly, he does not say “Tea, Earl Grey, hot.” He does, however, say, “Damage report,” “Engage!” and “Captain’s log supplemental.”
Nerds of the world, unite!
Voice command on 10.5?! I have 10.5! I’m definitely not utilizing my Mac for all it’s worth. . .
Do you know Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy? I was just reminded what with how much trouble they got into trying to explain to the computer how to make a cup of tea!
What a drag about your computer, you take it in style though!
(Have I said hello before? I cannot remember. I really enjoy your writing and have been visiting for a while now, so, hello!)
I have to say that I would be devastated, but having a regular, reliable back-up routine should now form part of your computer life – my entire photographic work is stored on my laptop, and I backup once per month at an absolute minimum. It’s a habit which will serve you well. End of lecture. I love the Kathryn Janeway moment, too, in case you thought you’d gotten away with it!
Hee hee. “Tea, earl grey, hot” is exactly what I thought of when I pictured you commanding your laptop with “Computer, …”
That’s totally what I’d be inclined to command my machine to do.
I believe you can set your two-finger-tap preferences under System Preferences, in the Trackpad section. It lets you choose all kinds of ways for your trackpad to behave.
Carissa — That was pretty much the very first thing I did after getting the computer back, but the two-finger tap isn’t an option. The 10.5 version of it seems to be two fingers + click.
Sorry about the loss of your work! Been there, done that, repeatedly. An external back up is essential and shouldn’t set you back too much if you don’t have one already. I’ve had my hard drive crash twice in 2008 and once in 2009, and while I did lose stuff it wasn’t as bad as it could have been, because I’d backed it up a few days before. Good luck getting to know your ‘new’ computer!