Did I say total convert to Mac?

Oh, boy...well I am because I now own a lot of stuff.  But the commercial showing a Mac and PC (people as a Mac and PC) making fun of Vista (PC operating system) should be making fun of the newest Mac OS! 

Leopard can't print.   I am kind of sick right now.  Waiting months for printer drivers to be available is NOT an option.  

Total convert to Apple

Ok, I got an IMAC, it was a super machine but since I REALLY push my computers very hard with graphics and huge scanned files, I found I needed a bigger bite of the APPLE.

Also, we found a program after a long involved series of posts to the external hard drive manufacturer's troubleshooting tree. The program worked. It saw this back up drive. I am in the process of restoring these files and am so relieved. We made many previous attempts to recover these files using other programs ad methods. Hate to say it but guys don't ask for directions even when doing things like file restoration. So I decided to try the manufacturers' troubleshooting site. Finally, after what seems like dozen of exchanges, I got an actual email with a link to a program. The program wasn't free, but the fee was reasonable and forensic restoration is very expensive!

Now, to get back to real life! AND most importantly to painting!

Also had a great experience with a company I decided to have pack my paintings for shipping to the gallery. Oh, did I mention gallery representation? This is another post.
The packing/shipping company is PakMail. The store manager is an artist also. He does graphic design. On bad days, experiences like I had with PakMail make things right.

PS, everyone I have spoken with at Apple has been wonderful, too. Most are young people with great professional attitudes and an abundance of knowledge.

Virtual Disaster

It has been a long time since I posted on my blogs.  This year has been good as far as emerging goes, but I am very distraught at this time.

My wonderful (formerly wonderful) custom built PC with a RAID and back up external drive crashed.  It has crashed in the past, however this crash killed it.  I thought I was fine because despite some important data file loss (my stupidity), all of my paintings were photographed or scanned and saved in a couple different formats on my external drive.  It was a shared drive on our network, in that my husband's computer could also access it.  

The bottom heartbreaking line is that now despite hours of restoration attempts using a forensic program my old PC seems to be totally dead.  The external hard drive is not visible to our other PC and my new system; a MAC, can copy the drive but cannot see the files.  Now it is possible to read the same files on a MAC but because the drive isn't formated for a MAC I can't access the drive.  

It is a nightmare.  No matter what media you use for back up.  Back up on OTHER media.  Back up your back ups and back them up some more.  

It is possible that some way we will recover the files, but it will take more time or energy than I saved by not being triply redundant (she said redundantly).  I am honestly ill.