by tidy up
My, have I been busy, either gardening in this gorgeous weather (almost too hot) or indoors tidying up digital files. We are giving away our old Apple G3 computer because we no longer need it, and that’s a bit of a long story.
We’d been using it just to operate our old scanners with their scsi ports. Recently I upgraded to Tiger (on this G5) and discovered that I also had to upgrade Remote Desktop, which allowed me to view the G3 window from this machine. Well, dang it, but this would not work with the particular video card on the G3 – do you think they’d tell you this beforehand? And the G3 crashed! Husband spent hours and days getting it running again. Grrr, this is my pet peeve about the constant and expensive upgrades we are subjected to! And then what to do with the old equipment. We are trying to find homes for them and NOT take things to the dump, but BC is very slow in getting their technical equipment recycling program going! In the meantime, we have a room full of dinosaurs. (The old scanner will work with daughter’s boyfriend’s PC at least!)
Anyway, we ended up buying a new scanner, a lovely beastie indeed. So now, I’m taking off old image and text files from about a dozen Zip disks that I used in those days. Handy, I loved them but they were getting small at 100 MB as my image files became bigger. Then Zip drives became obsolete, replaced by CD and DVD burners. Sigh. Now I have a huge desktop folder here that I must sort through and burn to CDs. What will be next?
But I had to have a bit of fun, too. I’ve been going through some of my photographs (from pre-digital days) especially of some very interestingly weathered rocks and petroglyphs on Hornby Island, one of the northern Gulf Islands here on the west coast of BC. I scanned a few while getting acquainted with this new equipment. One of them is above… your reward, dear readers, for patiently reading through my boring complaints!
By the way, this image was used in several of my prints: Paths XIII (Nexus), Paths X, and Paths XII.
May 5, 2006 in Being an Artist, Photoworks, Rocks, Tools and technology by Marja-Leena
I have 6 Macs, the latest (this one) a G4. They all communicate with one another, but then that’s because text files are easier to hand across. if i were a visual artist as you are, I’d be tearing my hair out…{grin}.
Hi Peter! Being a family of Mac users, yes, networks are a big thing! We play musical chairs with the machines – everytime a new one enters the chain, the older ones get bumped down the line. But eventually the oldest one ends up needing a new home! If we all only used text, life would be simpler indeed!
It’s a dilemma. On the one hand we love the technology upgrades, and in many ways I find I demand more and more. And yet, on the other hand I find it such a waste that hardware is obsolete. I’m still loth to throw my electronic typewriter on the dump, but cannot find a home for it: it’s either too old or too new technology (there’s a company which sends non electric typewriters to Africa, but they won’t touch my lovely Olivetti Praxis 41 because it is not only electric but electronic).
My favourite of the three pieces you refer to is Paths X. I immediately saw heads!
Aye aye! You already know how I empathise with those Mac upgrade problems. I’m still grinding my teeth over some of the hassles with my new iMac Intel and software incompatibilities. On the whole, Tiger is OK but there were things I preferred in the old (ancient, by their standards) OS9.2. Why do all these upgraders think that lots of gadgety “fun” stuff is better than simple reliability? You’re right about the obsolescence culture – I really hate having to retire my old G4 Mac to an Old Computers Hospice.
Omega – your electronic typewriter does sound too precious to be consigned to no-man’s land! That reminds me, we have an ancient manual Olympic somewhere in our dungeon ( er, crawl space)! You really are “into” heads these days, Omega! 🙂
Hey, Natalie! You had a pretty bad time there with your switch! I have always loved my Macs. I do like OS X far more, and was very happy with Panther, resisting going to Tiger. The problems arise when you try to hang on too much older stuff, mixing with new, as you know. Until now, the techies (husband & son-in-law) made it work. Husband has my older G4 Cube which he adores. For a while there, he even had his old PC hooked to the monitor and did “switches” between the Mac and PC. Then the PC got badly infected with a virus and is almost dead – another one to retrieve old files from!
We became Mac users because of Windows 3.1. And to think we Mac users used to lord it over Windoze people because of Microsoft OS’ continual obsolescence and the need for expensive upgrades and incompatible OS’ etc etc–only to find ourselves in exactly the same boat!
Peter – yes, we have become captives to clever marketing! 🙂
Husband has to use a PC at work but switched to Macs at home after daughters and wife insisted on Macs for themselves. Now his work PC is due for replacement already ( a shorter life compared to Macs) and he’s hoping to get one of those Intel Macs at work, but it’s tough convincing the old PC mentality!