You’d think it such a lithe creature. And indeed, Apple did a remarkable thing in releasing an OS update that is cheaper, smaller and more streamlined.
Until it bricked my external drives. All of them, except one lame, elderly firewire, thirty whole gigs in size. So we’re talking a chipset issue here, but not just Firewire. Three backup drives I used for USB backups— because, let’s face it, Firewire isn’t what it used to be. Or, rather, Apple’s willingness to let the desktop bus not only recognize but hey, mount a Firewire drive has been an iffy thing since at least the first Leopard. And oh what joy Firewire used to be—still could be. Still is. There’s nothing whatsoever wrong with Firewire, there’s something wrong with Apple’s (Steve’s?) attitude toward Firewire. Never mind how many video producers depend upon it. It’s like, okay, we have Dear Leader (phrase credited I believe to the inestimable FakeSteve, whom I have so confused, by now, with the RealSteve and whatever he might have said … just bear with me) and just like Mao, if it doesn’t take up space in DL’s brain, it don’t happen. And we all know there’s a limit to what one man can think about. I mean, imagine with being charged with bringing a childlike sense of wonder to all of our lives. Heavy, man.
And we are grateful, make no mistake. If you have any doubt about the wisdom of that devotion, I suggest that you have not picked up an iPod or iPhone and felt of it. This is not, as ever so many snotty commenters would like to think, some sort of mass hypnosis. Yes, Apple creates drama with the way these things are presented, and presentation is all—almost. Reality must follow apace, and I don’t know about you but I gasped when I unboxed my first iPod. I’m not even gonna tell you what happened when I opened the iPhone box. I mentioned Ocarina last week, but have since come into possession of Koi Pond. Very beautiful, and you shake the phone to feed them, and plurp plurp, listen to them eat.
Where was I. My instantly worthless external drives. There is a thread on Apple Discussions about a million pages long, which means that Apple will issue a fix—or not. We may just have to suck it up and wait for—what cat comes after Snow Leopard? Hey, it’s only one company! One Leader There’s only so much he can do? Except when it comes to earnings; then there’s apparently no limit. That and creating perfect little objects. An OS is not an object, and has so many zillions of files—at least, with its Unix guts, somebody knows what those files are. Unlike the countless, and I mean countless, dll’s that nobody knows anymore what they are.
Never mind that, the system builds itself every time you start up—although you can just use sleep and keep going for days and weeks without a restart. If you want. Plus, any time you want a fresh OS, you can do an Archive and Install, and in twenty minutes you’ve got a brand new System with—oh this is so clever—your account, your Home directory, set aside, untouched. Clever, clever. Remember, nobody ever goes back.
Now: my disks. Bricked, I tell you. I’m in the meantime backing up to my other machine. Will Apple recognize the problem? Apple never speaks. (Apple’s vow of silence is legendary.) Will Apple issue a fix? Does anybody know? It’s like psychoanalysis, see. The analyst never says a word; you can rant and rave, you can weep, you can sulk, you can sweet-talk, it doesn’t matter. All that does is reveal, emotion by emotion, who you are and what you can accept about this life. Ha. Like you’ve got any choice.
Apple Computer. Teh Steve. Sigmund would be proud.
Zo, I am so impressed with your technical savvy and your awareness of the latest news in this arena. My son would think you a demi-goddess! Even while I feel out of the knowledge loop, I enjoy these posts for the quality of the rant. How’s that book coming?