Thursday, April 26, 2012

Computers are not our Friend

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Exciting Computer Adventure

Recently the media has been playing up a most unusual event; no, not the Mayan Apocalypse, A virus for the Mac!  We Mac users have always been very smug about not getting them like the PC users seem to do.  So, letting my paranoia get the best of me, I tried to get my Time Machine working again so I would have a back-up in case the virus came my way and destroyed all of my documents and pictures et all.

My Time Machine filled up and told me to open a new disk when it is suppose to erase the oldest after a certain time.  Apparently my TM didn't do that.   Trying to find out about changing a disc, I even started prying on the TM machine but it foiled my feeble attempts so I unplugged the damn thing and put it out in the garage with my other out-dated and useless electronic equipment.


That was month or so ago before the Coming Death Star Virus.  So, off we went to the Apple store to see what was available for protection against the fore certain catastrophe.  The salesman suggested a couple of back-up machines but kept asking me questions that I couldn't answer, like how much gizabites and thermo-couplers my Mac had.  Those are the mysteries I bought into when I joined the Computer Age Cult.  I'm just a foot-soldier, the Sergeants know the secret code and how to fix stuff.

We just happen to know one of the wiz-kids and left the store empty handed but with a plan to call our Sgt. Major (?) (make that Bob to protect the privacy of (?)) He came over right away and did some magical finger moves over the keyboard and presto, the Time Machine bust into life and told him it was full.  Move waving of fingers and the TM was emptied and began backing up our entire Hard Drive.

Sgt. Major "Bob" left and said it would take about four hours to do the back up.   Thirty hours later the TM stopped backing up and said it had failed to finish with about 50gizabites left over.  It suggested I change the disc and continues to nag me with "Time Machine Error, The backup volume is read only."  Oh sure, it gives some information about going into the system preferences but then I'm into windows that tell me more of what to do but I cannot seem to access those suggestions.

I contacted Sgt. Major Bob and he suggested I get a new machine with 1TB of something and replace the broken TM.  I'll miss the Star Trek like window screen that comes on when it starts up, when it worked.  Between now and buying a new backup machine, I get to find out where some missing Documents went during the aborted backup and begin deleting some useless bits of space eating nonsense.  Who knows, maybe I can start calling our computer "Lightening" again when the speed picks up.

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