How To Trash A Mac In One Easy Step

Posted on April 11, 2007
Filed Under /dev/null/ | 143 views |

sad_macI’m not going to ruin Matthew Bookspan’s article And They Said the Mac Was Intuitive since the punchline’s pretty good - you ought’a head over and read it before continuing with this.

He has the graces to concede that the fault was his (strangely while seeming to blame Apple at the same time). But I don’t want to beat up on him, we all make mistakes and they can be painful (I have long lost count of the number of Mac OS installs since OS 7 that I’ve managed to mangle). Rather, a number of lessons can be learned (or remembered) from Matthew’s escapades:

  1. Computers are complicated. The window dressings on top most of us use to manipulate them simplify greatly the machinations of an otherwise incredibly complicated device
  2. There is such a thing as a state of “normal operation”. Pushing the limits of this without adequate knowledge will take you into dangerous lands. Be prepared
  3. Strange things are strange. Beware of strange
  4. Hidden parts are hidden for a reason. If you suddenly find yourself staring down something unfamiliar, google it. Deleting strange things on a computer is rarely ever the correct first action
  5. Google it! Always, for everything, forever. And then google it again - the first guy was probably wrong
  6. Back it up. Seriously, in this day and age with drives so incredibly large for so incredibly cheap if you don’t have an automatic backup solution in place you’re playing russian roulette with your computer to save yourself a hundred bucks. Is it really worth it?
  7. Know your limits. In Matthew’s case he was a bright enough guy to set up a NAS, set up a dyn-DNS account, presumably configure his web server, and feel confident enough about his abilities to delete strange things without following any of the steps above - he just didn’t realize the moment he stepped beyond his limits
  8. Software is just software. There’s no magic to it, usually it works, sometimes it doesn’t work, and on modern computers it can behave incredibly unpredictably. Be prepared for that, ’cause it’s just how it is
  9. If you’re going to publicly and erroneously blame software or another party for your mistake the world will not be too kind. Appropriate fire-retardant undergarments will be needed

As one would not stick one’s fingers into the innards of a running automobile without having a great deal of specialized knowledge so too should one not do so with computers. Things get lost that way, precious things.

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