Posted by Chad on Jun 02, 2009
So if you read my post from May 24th you know I was having some trouble with my Mac. Well, the averted disaster turned into major disaster. The hard drive completely failed. It would not even mount. For you non-techies when a drive will not mount it is like having a cowboy and horse together but the cowboy can’t get on the horse. And the cowboy is no good without his horse. Just like a hard drive is no good without a CPU (Central Processing Unit). So, for the record: I purchased this Mac in October of 2007, had to have it replaced in March of 2008. The reason for that replacement is unknown. The computer was just a lemon. Even the “geniuses” at the Apple Store couldn’t figure out what was wrong with it so they decided to replace it at no cost. Thank goodness I purchased Apple Care. Everything was just peachy (besides the very annoying internet connection issues which is another story) until the hard drive failed. So, in my 18 month relationship with Apple they’ve replace my entire computer once and my hard drive once. The hard drive was only 14 months old. Doesn’t seem right. I will say this though, most of what I have read about hard drives is that they are somewhat finicky because sometimes you’ll get one to last 6 years and sometimes you’ll get one that only lasts 6 weeks. Ahhh… the wonders of technology.
I’m usually pretty on top of getting pictures posted of Emily at the beginning of each month… but that is difficult to do when your computer is not up and running. I should get them posted in the next couple of days.
Posted by Chad on May 24, 2009
Pictures are priceless. Let me say it again… pictures are priceless. My iMac decided to take a dump and stop working altogether Saturday so when I got home from TAPS (another post about my wonderful weekend with TAPS is coming soon) I tried to fix it. By the time I decided to start fresh and do a restore from the Time Machine software it was more jacked up than when I started. So jacked up that if I clicked the mouse or hit a key on the logon screen it froze up completely. Anyway, I found a helpful Mac Support page that said I could do a restore by booting from my install disk and using utilities to restore from a back up. I was like, “Cool, I’ve had time machine up and running since June. I should be good-to-go.”
So, I set it in motion and went to bed. Upon getting up the next morning I checked it out and all my photos were not loading in iPhoto. I freaked a little but then I opened Time Machine and there they were… just waiting to be restored. I thought it kind of weird that they weren’t automatically restored but I figured as long as they were still there… no big deal. So I left to go to TAPS about 90% sure I would come home and be able to restore all my photos with no problems. I got home to find that when I clicked on Time Machine all my backups were gone and I started to cry like a baby thinking all my pictures were gone forever! The 1st 9 months of Emily Kate’s life documented meticulously by Jen and I… gone. Once I stopped freaking out I knew there was a way to recover data from formatted disks because I have heard smart people say it could be done. I’ve never had the need to even try it until now.
So I did a quick search and FileSalvage popped up in Google so I tried it out… boy was I relieved when it worked. All my pictures were still there… just hiding amongst the 1′s and 0′s of the hard-drive. Now the fun of going through them all and sorting them again. But I’d rather have that problem the pain in the pit of the stomach feeling of losing nearly 2 years worth of photos, most of which I could live do without, except the last 10 months. Thanks goes to the folks at SubRosaSoft for developing FileSalvage.
Posted by Chad on Apr 13, 2009
Ever wish you could type up an email and have it sent at a later date? If you are a Microsoft Outlook user you may have used this function. Outlook allows you to specify a date and time for a message to be sent and then, when you send it, the message is saved to your outbox. The message is then sent at the specified time and it doesn’t matter if your computer is on or not. Many, many people have requested, through the Google Labs Forum, to have this feature added to Gmail. People have listed a wide range of reasons for wanting Google to develop the capability ranging from typing up birthday messages early, to business use, to just casual use if you’re going to be away from the computer for an extended period. Over the past couple months I have been watching the Google Labs Forum and I would say this service is requested multiple times a day with no response or reaction from anyone at Google. Instead of developing something useful like a delayed send service they seem to be busy developing services for people who drink to much instead. So, since Google seems to be busy developing applications for lushes, try Letter Me Later if you find yourself in the need of delaying the send of an email.
