Computer dying. Spent most of the time scrambling to make sure all the essential stuff was safe. Please hang in there, machine, for two more weeks so I make it to the end of the semester. Then we can all explode and die together.
I feel for you. My laptop killed itself two weeks ago, and I’ve been doing remote system administration on a unix cluster from the keyboard and mouse I plugged into my home media system while waiting for the replacement to show up. (Oh yay, today they actually printed the shipping label… but didn’t put it on a truck… maybe next week?)
Hopefully it won’t take as long as that for you to get something else to work on. Good luck with the backups and data recovery!
About two months ago my CPU cooler spun a bearing and my CPU got cooked. I was able to swap in a spare cooler and get it running, but the damage was done. I had to limp by at about 50% throttle for a month until another CPU arrived. Everything is fixed now and it got me to clean my desk and redo my cabling. Four years of “I’ll just plug it in now and straight out the cabling later” left a real rats nest. I even found the charger for my ex-girlfriend’s laptop. Oops.
whheydtsays
Raspberry Pi for backup system.
John Moralessays
Ray, PZ uses Apple stuff. Not so simple to fix.
wzrd1says
What trouble is the computer giving you, PZ? It it’s the hard drive, hopefully you have a time machine backup, which makes restoring data ever so much easier!
I still have my time machine backup for my stolen macbook pro, just in case I manage to get a replacement.
nomdeplumesays
You could turn that into a poem PZ…
unclefrogysays
well years ago when I was working in construction inthe union I would be out of work for a while and it never failed upon starting a new project part or all of the first check went to repairs always.
I don’t know if received your “stimulus check” yet but sounds like you already have a place for it to go. Oh well!
I do not know what is wrong with your confuser and it is not close to you but it might be something to look in to, that would be the Rossman group , its a small company I discovered on YOUTUBE, they do apple repair down to the board level including data recovery from HD’s as well as flash drives and dead Iphones they are in New York and take mail in repairs and are levels more fair and reasonable then Apple are.
here is a link to the page https://www.rossmanngroup.com/.
you can check him on the Youtube as well. not an add on my part just trying to help by sharing some info. good luck
uncle frogy
wzrd1says
@unclefrogy, thanks! My original macbook pro suffered from an overdose of wine and I was wondering about a quality and reasonable repair shop! I’ll bookmark them for when things are more sane and income exists again.
chigau (違う)says
PZ
If the ground by you is unfroze, start planting.
Any dark coloured beans, peas, carrots, parsnips, potatoes, …
plant anydamnthing you want.
it is really early in the growing year, if something fails, plant again
PZ: do yourself a favor for the future — get a network shared drive of some sort (preferably an SSD) which can be used for Time Machine. Your laptop will back up to it automatically whenever it’s plugged in and the drive is available, and you never have to worry about rescuing stuff again. If you have an actual Airport Base Station of any later generation, you ought to be able to just buy a bus-powered USB drive and use that. (Sadly Apple has stopped making them — I know they were somewhat overpriced, but they were quite good quality and very easy to set up, and automatically being able to plug in a drive for Time Machine was worth its weight in Glod.) If you don’t have Apple stuff, you may need to do a little looking around, but networked Time Machine on an SSD is magic.
Ridanasays
It’s May Day. NO SHOPPING.
I thought it was just no buying? For more expensive things like computers, it usually takes me a week or two of shopping before I decide what I want to buy, unless I’m in a huge hurry. No less than a day even then.
Ridana says
Shop online while you still can! Good luck! o.o’
HappyHead says
I feel for you. My laptop killed itself two weeks ago, and I’ve been doing remote system administration on a unix cluster from the keyboard and mouse I plugged into my home media system while waiting for the replacement to show up. (Oh yay, today they actually printed the shipping label… but didn’t put it on a truck… maybe next week?)
Hopefully it won’t take as long as that for you to get something else to work on. Good luck with the backups and data recovery!
PZ Myers says
It’s May Day. NO SHOPPING.
Ray Ceeya says
About two months ago my CPU cooler spun a bearing and my CPU got cooked. I was able to swap in a spare cooler and get it running, but the damage was done. I had to limp by at about 50% throttle for a month until another CPU arrived. Everything is fixed now and it got me to clean my desk and redo my cabling. Four years of “I’ll just plug it in now and straight out the cabling later” left a real rats nest. I even found the charger for my ex-girlfriend’s laptop. Oops.
whheydt says
Raspberry Pi for backup system.
John Morales says
Ray, PZ uses Apple stuff. Not so simple to fix.
wzrd1 says
What trouble is the computer giving you, PZ? It it’s the hard drive, hopefully you have a time machine backup, which makes restoring data ever so much easier!
I still have my time machine backup for my stolen macbook pro, just in case I manage to get a replacement.
nomdeplume says
You could turn that into a poem PZ…
unclefrogy says
well years ago when I was working in construction inthe union I would be out of work for a while and it never failed upon starting a new project part or all of the first check went to repairs always.
I don’t know if received your “stimulus check” yet but sounds like you already have a place for it to go. Oh well!
I do not know what is wrong with your confuser and it is not close to you but it might be something to look in to, that would be the Rossman group , its a small company I discovered on YOUTUBE, they do apple repair down to the board level including data recovery from HD’s as well as flash drives and dead Iphones they are in New York and take mail in repairs and are levels more fair and reasonable then Apple are.
here is a link to the page https://www.rossmanngroup.com/.
you can check him on the Youtube as well. not an add on my part just trying to help by sharing some info. good luck
uncle frogy
wzrd1 says
@unclefrogy, thanks! My original macbook pro suffered from an overdose of wine and I was wondering about a quality and reasonable repair shop! I’ll bookmark them for when things are more sane and income exists again.
chigau (違う) says
PZ
If the ground by you is unfroze, start planting.
Any dark coloured beans, peas, carrots, parsnips, potatoes, …
plant anydamnthing you want.
it is really early in the growing year, if something fails, plant again
The Vicar (via Freethoughtblogs) says
PZ: do yourself a favor for the future — get a network shared drive of some sort (preferably an SSD) which can be used for Time Machine. Your laptop will back up to it automatically whenever it’s plugged in and the drive is available, and you never have to worry about rescuing stuff again. If you have an actual Airport Base Station of any later generation, you ought to be able to just buy a bus-powered USB drive and use that. (Sadly Apple has stopped making them — I know they were somewhat overpriced, but they were quite good quality and very easy to set up, and automatically being able to plug in a drive for Time Machine was worth its weight in Glod.) If you don’t have Apple stuff, you may need to do a little looking around, but networked Time Machine on an SSD is magic.
Ridana says
I thought it was just no buying? For more expensive things like computers, it usually takes me a week or two of shopping before I decide what I want to buy, unless I’m in a huge hurry. No less than a day even then.