Techie (Not Wanna Be) for a Day

Speaking of favorite Apples, I can't believe I almost forgot to tell you about my most recent DIY project...

My iMac, whose hard drive died the same hectic week Princess Artiste got her concussion and my mother-in-law went to be with the Lord, now has a new hard drive and is up and running!  It's okay if you're surprised, because I actually thought there was a better than good chance I'd spend the $130 ordering a new hard drive, only to have it not work for some other tiny, electronic, highly technical reason that I could never hope to understand, let alone diagnose.

The first step was to try to read all the tiny numbers and letters specifying the model and other special designations on the bottom of the foot under the monitor.  This took some interesting maneuvering to heft the awkward beast.  It also required sharper eyesight than I have at this age and time.  

This is pretty much what it looked like to me...
but darker

I tried a flashlight, but that wasn't enough help, and I even tried to take photos, but the display was too small and I obviously couldn't upload the photo to the computer to see it!  Thank goodness for young, healthy, eagle-eyed children on the premises.

With the help of iFixIt.com, based on some of those numbers I'd collected, I was able to determine what hard drive to order.  (Of course I paid a little extra for expedited shipping, only to let it sit on the table in its box for a week, while I got the nerve to do this job.)

At that point I followed the iFixit instructions (complete with photos) for getting the hard drive swapped out.  They also had a video on YouTube that, although dealt with another model of iMac, filled in the blanks when questions arose about the written instructions.

It took some crucial, but mostly basic, tools to do the job:

Detached screen with 'suction cup thingies' still holding on
in the background

New hard drive.  More storage and faster, so helping make lemonade out of lemons.

Towel for lying the computer on its back.

Laptop with page open to iFixIt.com instructions.

Suction thingies, size large, to remove the screen, which, who knew, attaches to the computer/monitor face by strong magnets.






Torque screw drivers, size tiny and tinier 
(specifically size T8 and T10) for the several small screws that need to be removed and replaced during the process.











We should probably have started with a clean work area.... but we didn't.  Life is like that around here sometimes most of the time.

Vacuum cleaner for sucking out amazing amounts of dust that somehow found it's way into the tight quarters-- probably via the fan system?

Screen cleaner so dust isn't caught between the display and the screen during reassembly, forever aggravating all users.












And the most important...

Intelligent, mechanically-minded teen with keen eyes and knowledge of where torque screw drivers live.

I actually did my share of the work.  My smaller fingers and existence of fingernails came in handy.  Some of the connections were so small!

Hard drive identified at the top of the list.  Phew!

It only took us about a half hour, I think.  Then it was time to turn it on.  

The sign of success was, while trying to install the operating system, that the new hard drive was recognized.  

It wouldn't let me rename it, so it still tells me the startup disk is called "Untitled."  Since that's the extent of the problems I had, I'll deal with it!





Oh, and I want to remind you... Back up your hard drive!  Thanks to my recent external hard drive purchase, due to Prince Stoic's encouragement, I was able to have everything on the new drive just as it was on the old... Only the operating system and a few odd programs had to be updated.  But the rest... my desktop, my photos... everything... all back in place as if nothing had happened.  YAY.

Gifting through the Years

Hubby, raised with only brothers, was not big on gift-giving when we got married.  Apparently, the brothers never gave gifts to each other, and rarely to their parents.  Conversely, I LOVE gift-giving and even though they were usually handmade and/or quite inexpensive, we always gave gifts to each member of my family, showing our love and working to choose 'just the right thing' to thrill each recipient.  Hubby did not know the joy of giving gifts, and I've tried to teach him...

This year he tried a sweater and earrings again

The first few years, because he had no idea of how this concept worked, we'd go "Pointing."  He and I would wander the mall, and I'd point out earrings and sweaters I liked, then go to the car while he chose which earrings and which sweater he wanted to give me.  


Even though the lack of surprise was a bit disappointing, he knew the gift would be something I'd like and it worked.  I'm not sure why that practice stopped... Maybe when the kids came along we didn't have the get-away time to 'point.'  Plus, I was always hoping that through the years, he'd learn who I was and learn to take cues from things I said that would take over heading him in the right direction... That's still a work in progress.  


He would often buy me cassette tapes, and then CDs... But they were always ones he wanted, and which would quickly disappear into his truck or office!


Several years ago, and for a few years in a row, for some reason he got stuck on buying me cutting boards. All the same size and shape, but different colors.  I also received an additional, although dented, 13-quart stainless steel mixing bowl, because "It was only 99 cents in the Walmart clearance rack!" 

The kids were disgusted.  They also had tried to teach him the art/skill of gifting, through the nuances of what I liked and what I said, and the training obviously wasn't taking hold.  ;-)  


It eventually became kind of a joke, and he now always gets me some kind of kitchen item that prompts scolding from the kids, like this year's instruction by Princess Sassy, "Dad... From now on, show me the gifts you buy Mom, and I'll tell you whether to wrap it or just put it in the kitchen."  She thought the bag clips and garlic press I showed you yesterday were of the straight-to-the-kitchen variety.


A differently funny thing happened to us for this Christmas...
I've mentioned a few times that we don't have cable, and use antennas to watch local TV stations.  Both of our antennas were not great to begin with, and in addition, were missing one of the 'ears.'  The downstairs TV was extremely irritating to try to watch, since with digital transmission, it was either on or off, so shows would go in and out at crucial moments, unlike the fuzzy, but watchable views we used to get with imperfect analog.  I finally was fed up and headed to Amazon to search for antennas with great reviews, and discovered the MOHU's USA-made, Paper Thin Leaf Indoor HDTV Antenna.  It had 489 highly favorable reviews, a reasonable price tag, the very intriguing low profile, and with no need to adjust it, it had lots of pluses.

The is the MOHU Antenna in our bedroom.  It doesn't
have to be quite that high.  It's white on the other side,
for a different option.  We can put things on the shelf
in front of it, or even put it down behind the TV without
affecting the performance.

I got one for the downstairs TV and it is amazing... Does a great job and gets us more stations than we could watch before.  So for Christmas (yes, back on topic), I ordered one for our bedroom TV and wrapped it for Hubby.  Meanwhile, he knew how fed up we were with the remote that no longer operated that TV's volume, and sometimes was unresponsive on other buttons, so he got a GE universal remote control... and wrapped it up for me!  I guess we were on the same track.   :-D