| So – back to the computer and the water. There actually wasn’t enough water to damage anything inside of the computer, but unfortunately the computer was plugged in and the water hit the spot where the charger plugs into the computer…so the screen immediately went black, never to illuminate again. At the time, I didn’t know the hard drive was okay and here I am closing in on finishing my thesis. I am usually really good about backing up but I hadn’t since the week before, so I was in a panic for a while and, against the advice of internet forums, I booked an appt with the Apple genius bar that night. Their diagnosis: the MBP was dead, but the harddrive lived on. So I bought a little device called a “sled” that reads my old internal drive as an external, which is actually pretty cool because now I have an extra external drive and I can still access everything I need from my old laptop without having to dump a bunch of old files onto a new computer. Javi needed a new computer already (his was SIX YEARS OLD! That’s a dinosaur in technology world) so we went to Apple on Sunday and each got an 11in MacBook Air. | Bueno – de vuelta al computador y el agua. No habia suficiente agua para danar nada en el interior del computador, pero desafortunadamente el computador estaba conectado a la corriente y el agua justo cayo en el lugar donde el cargador se enchufa…asi que la pantalla se puso negra de inmediato, y no se prendio mas. En ese momento, no sabia si el disco duro estaba bien o no y justo cuando estoy trabajando en terminar mi tesis. Normalmente soy muy buena cuando se trata de guardar mi trabajo pero no lo habia hecho hace una semana asi que entre en panico por un momento y, en contra de los consejos que dan en internet, reserve una visita a la tienda apple para esa misma tarde.. El diagnostico: el cumputador estaba muerto, pero el disco duro sobrevivio. Asi que compre un aparato llamado “Sled”, que lee el disco duro interno como si fuera un disco externo, lo que es muy genial por que ahora tengo un disco externo mas donde puedo ver todo lo que tenia en mi computador antiguo sin tener que mover todos los archivos a mi nuevo computador. Javi necesitaba un computador tambien (el suyo lo tiene hace 6 anos! Eso es un dinosaurio en el mundo de la computacion) asi que fuimos a Apple el domingo y nos compramos MacBook Airs de 11 pulgadas. |
THE SLED!
| We started out by looking at the MBPs but they started selling us the Air and it made sense – it’s lighter, does the same stuff essentially and we aren’t using huge files or recording music or anything. I do all my photography work on the imac desktop and these laptops are really for personal use, so it’s nice to have something that weighs 2 pounds instead of 6. They tried to sell us the 13in, but the whole selling point was portability and size so we figured if that’s what we’re going for, might as well save a few hundred dollars and get the smaller one. I LOVE it. It’s like an ipad with a keyboard, and it weighs next to nothing. I don’t need a huge screen – the imac fixes that. It’s also nice because it doesn’t get hot and it doesn’t have any moving parts, so no whirring noises that make it sound like the computer is a rocket ship. Pretty awesome! I guess Apple is trying to push everyone toward buying devices without CD drives so you have to download software, movies and music from iTunes. I like that because it means the computers are smaller and lighter and I don’t have a ton of CDs and DVDs cluttering my personal space at home, but Apple doesn’t sell data analysis programs that I need for school and we don’t have Insanity on iTunes! So we bought one external DVD/CD drive that we can share. | Primero vimos los MacBook Pro pero en la tienda nos recomendaron el MacBook Air y con buena razon – es muy liviano, hace lo mismo que el otro computador y como no usamos archivos pesados no necesitamos nada grande. Yo hago todo mi trabajo de fotografia en el computador de mi escritorio asi que estas laptop son para uso personal, asi que es genial tener algo que pesa 1 kilo en las piernas en vez de 4. Nos trataron de vender el de 13 pulgadas pero para nosotros lo importante era la comodidad y portabilidad, asi que preferimos el mas pequeno y nos ahorramos algunos dolares. Me ENCANTA. Es como un IPad con teclado y pesa nada. No necesito una pantalla grande – nuestro IMac se encarga de eso. Es comodo tambien porque no se calienta y no tiene partes que se mueven, asi que no hay sonidos de esos que hacen que el computador pareciera un cohete. Genial! Supongo que Apple esta intentado convencer a todo de comprar aparatos sin lectores de DVD para asi bajar los software, musica y video de ITunes. Me gusta eso porque significa que los computadores son mas livianos, mas pequenos y no hay un monton de CD dandose vueltas en la casa, pero Apple no vende los programas de analisis de datos y no tiene Insanity en Itunes! Asi que compramos un lector de DVD externo que podemos compartir cuando lo necesitemos. |
| Javi and I bought a couple of awesome little sleeves from Etsy – if you are ever looking for a cool sleeve or case for a laptop or tablet, be sure to check out these three shops (listed below) on Etsy for some awesome hand-made sleeves. I already bought my mom an iPhone cover for her bday, a kindle cover for me and an iPad cover for my dad from Fernfiddlehead – her stuff is great! | Javi y yo nos compramos protectores para los computadores en Etsy – si alguna vez buscan por un protector para acarrear su IPad, computador, o tablet, asegurense de revisar las tiendas de Etsy donde se pueden encontrar muchos protectores hechos a mano. Yo ya he comprador uno para el telefono de mi mama, uno para el kindle y otro para el Ipad de mi papa en Fernfiddlehead – sus articulos son spectaculars! |
Etsy shops:
Elizabeth’s Place (the cover with the russian nesting dolls)
JiuJiu Studio (the cover with newsprint)
Introduction (the red cover with white polkadots)
Fernfiddlehead (the paisley kindle cover)
Los Rodriguez Life 
5 responses to “computer crisis”
What a relief the data was still safe. Aren’t the Airs great! Love the sleeves too.
yes – I love the Air!! It’s awesome! And SUCH a relief my data was safe…oh it would have been awful to lose my harddrive!
I love the air too…it makes me feel alive….it fills up my lungs and nourishes my body with O2..im just kidding, I like my computer…and the air too hahaha
Looks like a really great choice. Good for you.
Oh gosh! I really feel for you. This happened to me last year. Nightmare! I dumped an entire glass of water into my MacBook and when I picked it up, water just cascaded out of it. I had no back-up. Nothing. And I was right in the middle of the second chapter of my dissertation.
I took it to the Apple Store and the amount they said it would cost to replace the hard-drive was more than a new computer. Curiously, the Apple “Genius” told me to go home, get a big box, and bury my MacBook in RICE for 2 weeks to dry it out. He said that rice pulls the moisture out of everything and that (fun tidbit alert) the Japanese use to leave bags of it around their homes in the old days to absorb the hot sticky humidity.
2 weeks and ten pounds of rice later? MacBook saved. And I have a killer back-up system. And I keep the liquids far away!!!
But your new AirBook looks so pretty. That will be my next upgrade, but so far so good. Knock on wood 🙂