Oh What a Tangled Web

Imac SetUp - New Page480This time six years ago, I was dreading the consequences of the choice I made to never go to Dell again–in a hatbox or otherwise. I was fed up with the PC blue screen and had heard that Mac JUST WORKS. I wanted me some of that. And got it, mostly, since making the switch with the arrival in late January 2008 of the MacPro. I have said good-bye to the old gal now, and gone soon to another.

The old system is still operating fine, inasmuch as any piece of technology is reliable in relative terms. I’ve not had it into the shop but once, and in the last year have added some components that are worth the asking price of the whole system. I may boost it for sale here and on FB soon if my current sales lead does not pan out.

But the deal, for the past month, has been to be proactive with regard to the logistics of the transition from old to new. It is not by any means straightforward, largely because of the rat’s nest of wiring that’s swathed in cobwebs and house dust (with Ladybug Sprinkles!)  behind an immovable solid-oak desk and sidepiece. Tthe two of them probably weigh  three hundred pounds and sit on a medium-pile rug. They are not sliding or shoving anywhere, even by an inch.

So I’ve spent a lot of time the past few days spelunking in the dark recesses to label each wire that will have a life and need to find a plug-in on the new machine. Many, thankfully, won’t have a life to come–like the multiple lines required for the MacPro monitor alone.

The new system will cost me every bit I earned over 2014 with book and note card sales, speaker’s fees and computer consulting home visits. But the iMac 5K 27 inch Retina (with beefed up RAM and HD) should last me possibly for the duration. We’ll see about that.

Over the weekend, I was cooing clucking around the place making the nursery ready for the new baby, and today is the Big Day. So now I’m just waiting for the UPS stork.

To be confident I had a good idea ahead of time that I wouldn’t have a Oh Crap moment lacking outlets, cables or other hardware, I created a diagram in LucidCharts. So I should be able to just plug it in right out of the box and be back in the saddle, and tomorrow, my first blog post on my last computer ever?

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fred
fred

Fred First holds masters degrees in Vertebrate Zoology and physical therapy, and has been a biology teacher and physical therapist by profession. He moved to southwest Virginia in 1975 and to Floyd County in 1997. He maintains a daily photo-blog, broadcasts essays on the Roanoke NPR station, and contributes regular columns for the Floyd Press and Roanoke's Star Sentinel. His two non-fiction books, Slow Road Home and his recent What We Hold in Our Hands, celebrate the riches that we possess in our families and communities, our natural bounty, social capital and Appalachian cultures old and new. He has served on the Jacksonville Center Board of Directors and is newly active in the Sustain Floyd organization. He lives in northeastern Floyd County on the headwaters of the Roanoke River.

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  1. I got my first Mac at work last year, and although I still prefer Linux at home, I can’t imagine having to suffer with Windows at work again. My daughter borrowed my Macbook for a couple of hours one day last summer and immediately requested a Macbook to take to college.

  2. Made the switch from Windows last year and have no regrets, and I started on ms-dos when it was newborn. I did tap my retina display a little too hard once and it cracked, costing a small fortune to fix. Clumsy yes but would have liked to have seen a little more sturdiness in a laptop. Also the power cord attachment has hundreds of vulgar reviews all of which I concur with. A nice bennie I wasn’t aware of until after purchase is that Mac OS is a Linux variant. So if you like Linux or want to learn it, open a Terminal session and you’re in a real Linux shell, not simulated.

  3. Allen just got a Mac Air after a lifetime of PCs. (He worked for IBM in the 60’s, so he is an old timer!) He absolutely loves it.