5.26.2008

macs are a sickness.

I just spent $3100 on a new computer. Thinking of all the money I have spent over the years on macs makes me feel sick, but at the same time, it's probably a sickness that makes me buy another one. It's a vicious vicious cycle. As they say, "once you go mac, you don't go back". Yup, it's true. But my stomach still hurts from the files I lost and the money I just forked out which make me feel even more ill.

At least the sun is shining, tomorrow is Tuesday and we leave for Chicago on Thursday. Things could definitely be worse, and now that I've lost files 3 times in the past 6 years, I'm taking it much better each time one decides to die on me. (Way to think positive, eh?!)

Happy Memorial Day. I know the week is going to get better.

(added: Question of the day -- why do you keep buying macs? Answers are in the comments. I should have made it a post. Thanks, Jenn, for asking. It got me to thinkin'!)

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ouch...that's a LOT of money. And if you do decide to not take it well, you can always come over and sit on my new deck and drink martinis with me (once I learn to make one that is).

Corie said...

I am SO sorry to hear this happened, yet again.
I would never thought this possible....
I'll cross my fingers that your new mac is in it for the long haul!!!

Alexis Jacobs said...

I am sorry that you have to deal with this again. :( Which one did you order? I have to say I am jealous of a new mac, regardless of the reason.

Jennifer said...

now I have to ask ya, why if you have bought that many mac's in 7 years..why would you buy yet another one? I have a desk top and a notebook and I have never had that happen...in matter of fact my last computer last more than 10 yrs. w/o no troubles...just wondering?

lost files too...ouch!

Sorry your weekend was so bad, thinking of ya girly. Hope you have a better week:)

Candi said...

Oh no!! I can not believe that happened. I'm hoping they can save your info---or have you already taken it to them and they can't??

Anyway, last year I got a MacBook Pro and I love it! Not too long ago my hubby dropped and broke his laptop and he was so jealous of my laptop that he bought himself pretty much the same one!!

Just curious--which Mac did ya get??

Unknown said...

Jenn,

Why do I keep buying macs?

Because even though I really hate them at times, I still like what they do 500 gizillion times better than any PC.

Macs are MADE for art people...photography and graphic designers especially...their systems are like no other. (I learned in school on macs, like most art schools do, and all graphic design firms that I know of all use macs as well as most of the photographers I know.) Also, the way they work so smoothly together (with other macs in my house -- i can snyc them all together) is unlike any other computer system.

seriously, once you go mac, you don't go back. I have tried many a PC and despise the ones I have tried no matter how hard I have tried to like them (After college I went from a mac to PC back to a mac). If you haven't worked on a mac, you don't know what you are missing.

Thankfully I have learned some hard lessons, to back up everything. The files I lost were email files. Not the end of the world, thank goodness. Now I back up my pictures x2 or 3!

I guess I need to clarify something, too. I don't keep replacing one single computer. I work off of 2 computers constantly. So it's one of the two that are needing replaced. And it's like Alexis said, I work them hard. I really do. I do all my photography work on two systems. One is 500GB and the other is 200GB. Both are almost completely full. When I really think about it that way, it's not a wonder that I've had so many crash. I really honestly probably need at least one more 500GB 'puter, but I can't afford it. Most photogs works off of at least 3. I have been "processing" some pictures tonight, a process that takes about 3 hours for my computer to do -- it's a long process and I can't do anything else while it's being done because it takes so much energy. That itself shows how much I'm wearing down my hard drive. Then I got a message saying my hard drive was almost full. So I had to remove some things. So, Alexis is right, I do really run my computers down. Literally to death! :)

That, in a nut shell (haha!) is why I use Mac. (There are many other reasons -- the commercials are all right!) I'd have to have 10 PC's to what my 2 Macs can do. I'd also be pulling out my hair because of how non-user friendly most PC's seem to be.

Candi, what I got was a Macbook Pro -- I have decided I must have a pro because of what I do, how much time I spend, and how much memory I use. The specs are: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz 4GB Ram 200GB HD Despite the huge chunk of money, I can't wait to get it. A new fresh mac is always so much fun.

Thank you, fellow mac-mates for your sympathy.

Candi said...

I was telling my husband that yours crashed again and he said the same thing about you working them hard. I was on my sister's blog and watching a slide show and I heard my fan kick into high gear--I'm guessing yours does that often!

I have pretty much the same Pro---just with less memory. I wanted a laptop to have something portable and told my husband it was pretty much up to him what we got because he is the one that knows more technical stuff than me. I didn't want a Mac, but he told me they were way better. It didn't take me very long to agree with him.

I don't remember why, but I was doing something on his old laptop (not a Mac) and it was so gosh darn slow I gave up!!

Oh--and glad to hear that you didn't loose pictures. We lost several months worth a few years ago and it still bothers me. We could have them retrieved, but it would cost several hundred dollars. My husband got us an external hard drive and this happening to you reminds me to take the time to save all of our pictures to it for safe keeping!!

Unknown said...

That is when my fan turned on, and it has never turned on on my laptop. I knew when I heard it I was in trouble. I was trying to open a slide show. My s-i-l's pictures of her family! When my desktop crashed, my fan turned on and it wouldn't shut off. Not until I shut the computer totally off. Then when I rebooted, the fan was still on. That's a sign people!! :):) But yes, my fan turns on on my desktop ALL the time. At least once every time I'm working on it in PS or LR. Those programs are powerful!

Losing pictures is something that is so hard to deal with. I lost a huge amount of personal pictures last year when this happened. I can still tell you every picture I lost. At least they're vivid in my memory. I wish I could just see them and print them. I won't remember them forever just by trying to picture them in my head. :(

Candi, I think you came to me here after I did some posts on saving to external hard drives. I have 3 (well, 4, but one isn't opened) that I'm saving to constantly. I also have a fast burner that I burn every set of pictures I do in raw files and then again once in completed jpg or tiff files. Thankfully I've became smart (by taking the hard road!) in one aspect of my computer systems! It took a long time for me to get to that point. But thankfully I did.

LiLi said...

Matt said you do run your macs into the ground, but it's the nature of your work. And you are so right, a pc will never do as much as a mac and they are worth every extra penny spent on them!

Anonymous said...

I'm in the market for a new computer...PC or Mac? Explain to me why it should be Mac, please. I want a computer just for photography work. I really want to learn and get serious. And I am completely ignorant.