OS install...Format the HD

Ever had an issue with your hard drive? Ever had to install or reinstall your operating system (i.e. Mac OS or windows)? I have done it a few times. At work I have installed windows Xp on my laptop twice (once after replacing the hard drive) and on the desktop pc I use twice. In helping with other IT issues I have installed windows Xp other times as well. I have also installed windows Xp in Parallels on my MacBook. It is not a quick experience to install an OS (a windows OS). There are son many questions and steps to go through and then the final step of registration (entering the serial number) before MS disables YOUR machine that YOU paid for. Sometimes this is the only solution to problems. I know this because when I worked for HP many times the solution from the Pavilion support team was to reinstall the OS. When I worked for the Boise State University computer lab that was a solution that we used often on the windows boxes if they had issues. There was no reason to troubleshoot when you could not guarantee that it would be resolved due to all the variables involved with windows. We had the ability to rebuild individual pcs from a server so instead of messing around with finding the issue, we just "blew them away" and started from scratch. Hopefully the person had saved their information on their own disc. After twenty minutes the pc would reboot and be in working order.
On the Macs that we supported that was not something that we did that often.If there were issues usually a restart could resolve it (this was Mac OS 9). With Mac OS X there is not even the need for that. In my personal life I have bought and owned three computers, all Macs. I have NEVER reinstalled the OS on any of them. I have NEVER had to format the hard drive on them. The first computer I bought, the 1999 Blueberry iMac, has never had the HD erased or the original OS reinstalled. I have updated the OS, but never had to start from scratch and erase the data. I guess I am saying that from a support standpoint a Mac IS much easier. Another reason why there is no need to mess with windows... Once you go Mac you'll never go back!

Dylan McDonald...Update!!!

Dylan was on "New Horizons in Education" with Boise State President Bob Kustra. They discussed Dylan's book, "The Teton Dam Disaster". You can listen to an archived version of the discussion here.

Book Signing

Today there is a book signing for a good friend of mine, Dylan McDonald. He wrote a book about the Teton Dam Disaster. For those who don't know the Teton Dam was built by the Army Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation from 1972 - 1976. On June 5, 1976 at 8:30 am the dam collapsed and sent water throughout the Snake River valley. So today he is back in Nampa, ID for a book signing at a local bookstore. I unfortunately will not be able to make it (I am out of town for work) but I will see Dylan and his wife Karen tonight. I like to think that I had a little to do with him and the book as when we were roommates at Ricks College in Rexburg, ID we took a drive out to the dam site and saw where it occurred. Thanks to some good organization from the local church leaders, people were mobilized and only 14 people died. Many lessons were learned from this disaster. Dylan has brought much of this to light.

To continue on with the Mac stories...

The previous post talked about how I started using a Mac, so here is the next step.
While I was going to Boise State and had recently married I worked in the computer lab (I know that I mentioned that). The lab manager Stephen Henderson, was a Mac user. Not that he didn't use PCs he did and he was very knowledgeable about them, of course he was; he was the lab manager. While working there my wife and I decided that we would purchase a computer, our first. By this time I was using Macs all the time and knew that was the type of machine I wanted and my wife had grown up using Macs at home. So next was deciding which Mac to get. Stephen was a good resource as he had purchased Macs from catalogs and I had never bought a computer.
This was in January of 1999 and as luck would have it Apple had just released a great little home computer, the iMac. Now the original iMac was released August 15, 1998. We were looking at the 3rd revision, the "five flavors" iMacs. We decided on the Blueberry iMac. Once we ordered it then there was just the waiting. I have to admit I was pretty anxious, my wife might put it another way. On the day that I knew it was to be delivered I took the day off from work and when I realized the day before that it would not get there until the late afternoon I called the shipping company and arranged to pick it up at their office near the airport. Yes, I was pretty excited.
The price was $1299 and it came with a 266 mhz g3 processor (about 500 mhz Pentium) 32MB RAM and a 6 GB hard drive. It shipped with Mac OS 8.6, it has been updated to 10.3.9. I installed new RAM as well once to 96 MB then up to 320 MB. It is an awesome machine. We still have it, use it as a print server for our wireless network. You can still surf the internet and do some basic word processing. I would like to see how many people are still using the pcs they bought in 1999. More to come...