i think i may be the first MACer to have total computer failure. i woke up this morning and open up my laptop. it says there are updates available for office. i click okay, and it starts to download. while this is happening, it also says there is an update for itunes available for download. i click okay. office updates fine. itunes stalls and freezes halfway through, and i'm lead with no choice but to "force quit" (the mac equivalent to pc's ctrl+alt+del). i thought this was fine, and i close my laptop and head off to a make a presentation.
and then it happened
i arrive twenty minutes early to review my notes and such and to make sure my powerpoint is working. my computer won't wake up. confused, i try pressing the buttons, i swivel my finger around on the touch pad, all to no avail. at last resort, i press the power button and force a shutdown. i wait with baited breath. i press the button again. it makes the "baaaauuum" sound for the startup, and my heart is soothed a little. but then the unthinkable happens.
the gray screen of death.
that gray screen you get at the beginning of every start up, the one that lasts for only a few seconds, it stays there. the little loading circle spins into oblivion as the computer locked in an unending cycle of booting.
so i was forced to give my presentation without notes, without a presentation, and most of all, without my shield of technology. i had to rely on actually speaking, actually moving, actually clarifying questions and blank stares. it was harsh. without my handy little clock in the top right hand corner, i had to be mindful of my pacing. without an outline in front of me, i had to actually remember my main points and connections.
oh technology, you are a fickle mistress.
i hope ron doesn't yell at me too much tomorrow...
1 comment:
Many moons ago, near the outside of the reliable range of my memory, my dad told me about a presentation on operating systems that he saw. The speaker at one point mentioned that Windows has as many of the huge gaping holes in its software as it does because of lots of sloppy programming, whereas something like Linux has roughly 20 security flaws in them. Windows is constantly running around trying to fix things--all 20 gaps in Linux have been patched.
Now, I say this not to start some sort of flame war over operating systems--lord knows that although I'm a nerd I'm nowhere close to that--but what I will mention was the lecturer's final point. There's a culture of updating in software these days. Part of it is that some companies don't feel pressure to fix things immediately--they can patch things up later--leading to sloppy, unsafe programs that John and Jane Q. Computeruser get to enjoy every day.
Secondly, I've grown paranoid about updates. Two programs, AOL's Instant Messenger and Adobe Reader come to mind. In both cases, I learned to fear their updates, which promised extra features and faster speeds, as the only major change I noticed was larger space in the interface for ads.
My general philosophy, for good or ill, tends to be: if it's a program that's working well enough already, view the update with suspicion, research the changes, and then choose whether to download it. Seems counterintuitive, but remember: "Update" does not equal "Improve".
At the same time, I wonder whether or not it was the actual act of updating that did your computer in or something else. Got me. Fill us in on what happened if you find out.
Hope your computer gets well soon. After all, we can't have anyone else's Mac getting sick out of sympathy.
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