kaigou | how to really, really, hate your genetic predispositions. (Reply)

Especially if you've got the chromosone that says "will automatically have the HARDEST FRICKIN TIME when it comes to electrical systems". I'm talking everything from Kaypro to Compaq to Apple, and every operating system from MS-Dos 1.0 through Windows NT, from Apple's first release through the first Mac up to Leopard 10.5, all the way back to the world of CPM, Pascal and Cobol. Considering I (accidentally) created a virus in Fortran that infected nearly every program on the university's terminal system, the past two weeks shouldn't surprise me.

Frustrate me, but not surprise me.

And thus, I bring you: HOW TO GET A NEW COMPUTER RUNNING... IF YOU'RE ME. Have alcohol handy.

DAY ONE

Stall on new purchase for about three years.
Decide on purchase.
Make purchase.
Bring computer home and set it up on shiny-clean spot of precedence on desk.
Admire for a few minutes. (This is important step!)
Hook up to old laptop.
Begin setup/migration assistant.
Wonder why you're not being asked to enter anything new.
When migration assistant completes, discover you've converted over a whole bunch of files and programs that don't work with Intel-based environment, that are leftover from deleted programs, or generally override new system setup.
Then discover the new computer's three IDs -- computer, user, and hard drive -- are all identical to the original laptop.
Fuss. (This means the two systems will show up like they're duplicates on the network -- which theo is which? -- and when hooked together, the hard drive listing will show both hard drives named... theo.)
Change hard drive name. Appears successful.
Reboot.
Change computer name. Appears...
Mac has sudden blue-screen attack. Obviously that was "not successful".
Reboot.
Change user name. All files disappear.
Reboot. Still no files.
Pour a drink.
Reboot. Still no luck.
Have two more drinks and call the help line.
Discover you're not even on the latest installation; the computer was manufactured pre-Leopard, and you need to upgrade.
End up doing close-to-full reinstallation just to get new user name different from original computer, even if HD name remains the same.
Call it a day.

DAY THREE

Crash Mail.
Reopen mail, and get bizarre error messages.
Call help.
Fuss -- quietly but firmly -- when told it was "probably a corrupted file" from the original laptop, and the only thing to do is a full reinstallation.
Insist on talking to someone who might know more.
Agree to wait on hold.
Keep waiting.
Keep waiting.
Wonder if you'll be on hold long enough to run to the grocery store for more alcohol.
Keep waiting.
Start to wish you had gone ahead and gone to the grocery store.
Forty-five minutes and no email later, get someone with some kind of a clue.
Go through the entire mail setup and learn all sorts of nifty obscure things about the OS.
End up pretty much reinstalling (sort of) the Mail program.
Agree to keep prog crippled for a few days to make sure the clean-up "took".

DAY SIX

Hit the roof when for the sixteenth time, Mail refuses to move "junk mail" in the "junk mail" box but insists it belongs in the "friends" box.
Start frothing when Mail won't follow roughly half the listed rules in its preferences.
Start burning CD/DVD backups of everything you'd spent two days putting on the computer in hopes of enjoying a monster-drive that could store it all at once without requiring you flip through twenty-something CDs to find one stupid archive file.

DAY SEVEN

Keep burning archive disks.
Reflect on that moment of happy admiration.
Wonder what happened to it.
Remember what happened to it was YOUR FAMILY HERITAGE.
Pour another drink.

DAY NINE

Give up and do clean reinstall, from scratch.
Watch progression of 250-gig disk get erased and reinstalled from scratch... over two hours.
Start on upgrade to current system... and discover the HD retains the same -- that is, same as laptop's -- name.
Call the help line.
Attempt to be civil despite gritted teeth.
Remind yourself that this runs in your family.
Remind yourself that your father was the first person to blue-screen a doorstop Mac.
Remind yourself that you have never sat down at a computer -- any computer -- and not blue-screened it within the first twenty-four hours. Or green-screened, on the Kaypro 16.
Politely entertain the help-guy while you wait for the "erase disk" action to complete.
Discover you just erased the entire operating system, too, so...
Start over on full installation.
Complete first OS installation.
Confirm HD name is now different from laptop's.
Cheer.
Do registration step.
Enter all relevant information, including user name and "nickname".
Reboot.
Start upgrade to latest version.
Try to stay awake.
Complete main upgrade.
Reboot.
Do additional package upgrade/patches.
Stare at the apparently unmoving progress bar... for an hour.
Download latest patches and install.
Reboot.
Discover the "completely new" computer has a file for "Old Library" -- that is, information carried over from the previous installation(s) -- y'know, the one that was ostensibly completely WIPED!?
Discover the computer's name is not, in fact, the computer name you requested, but "name's computer" which is sort of like me saying I want to call my dog Odetta and discovering the vet's paperwork all says "Odetta's Dog".
Stare in bewilderment at how the username is identical to the hard drive's name.
Wonder where-the-bloody-hell is the username you'd entered.
Call the help desk.
Listen to their recording about how it's after hours.
Hang up.
Pour yourself a drink.
Take a deep breath.
Grab the nearest, biggest, baddest-ass damn frickin MAGNET you can find, and wave it ov

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