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Published On: Aug 08, 2007 12:32 AM
Total entries in this category:
Published On: Aug 08, 2007 12:32 AM
Weekend update
Decommissioning an iMac, a party, and
more swimming...
We got the iMac G4 (800 MHz) back in 2002, really in preparation for William's birth. We also got a miniDV camcorder at the time. The idea was that we'd be using the iMac, camcorder, and digital camera to document William's life from birth. iMovie, iPhoto, etc.
The iMac has served me well in the years since. I also had a separate Power Mac G4, which I later replaced with a Power Mac G5. I wanted to use the Power Mac(s) for work-related projects, or hobby projects or games, and I'd keep personal and family stuff segregated on the iMac. That way, if I hosed the drives on the Power Mac for whatever reason, things like family photos or family finances (Quicken and TurboTax are on the iMac) would be protected.
While the iMac has served quite well, in the past year I've noticed that it's starting to struggle with recent software and the load of media files I've put on it. The original 60 GB hard drive is insufficient to hold both my iPhoto library and my iTunes library, so I offloaded the iTunes library to an external FireWire drive. With my growing iPhoto library, however, I've now got only about 6 or 7 GB of free space left on the internal drive, and much of that often gets sucked up with swap space.
This highlights the real limitation of the iMac -- memory. The iMac RAM is maxed out at 768 MB. Later models could handle more, but being an early adopter (and racing against the impending birth of William to get stuff in order), we got one of the first models of the iMac G4.
For what I've been using the iMac G4 for, the old 800 MHz PowerPC G4 processor should be more than adequate -- e-mail, web surfing, web page building, photos, music, and the occasional iMovie. However, certain applications in their most recent incarnation suck up huge amounts of RAM -- I'm thinking of iWeb specifically -- and when 768 MB isn't enough, Mac OS X starts using swap space on the hard drive, which just makes things unbearably slow.
There are some things that the iMac can't handle. Some data analysis that I bring home can take up huge amounts of memory and CPU resources, for which I happily use the Power Mac G5. Also, iMovie HD (which I use with the new Canon HV20 camcorder) can't run adequately on the iMac, so I've switched movie editing to the Power Mac G5 as well. The iMac G4 also doesn't have USB 2 (just USB 1.1), so I've had to sync my new iPhone on the Power Mac G5 also.
So, last week, I came to the conclusion that the few remaining things I do on the iMac G4 I can and will do comfortably on the Power Mac G5. Plus, I'm comfortable enough with my backups as well as the stability of the Power Mac G5 itself that I'm less concerned about segregating family stuff. (That said, I'm still worried that the liquid-cooling on the G5 may eventually give way, so I'll be extra careful to keep my backups in order.)
Friday night, I backed up the iMac G4 internal hard drive twice, to two separate external FireWire hard drives, and I began transferring files and applications to the Power Mac G5. I even made DVD archive copies of the iMac hard drive. Then, I deauthorized the iMac on iTunes, and I unsynchronized it from .Mac.
A lot of work. My office is a mess... or at least messier than it was last week.
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We went to a birthday party today, after Mass. William likely won't be seeing many of these friends any more in a few weeks, when he goes off to kindergarten. The party was at Griffith Park near LA, and the kids rode the antique merry-go-round there.
While at the party, Hsuan was in conversation with a friend whose child was formerly at our daycare center. She commented that tuitions at our daycare are now so high that it's unaffordable to much of the Pasadena community.
Given that I'm primarily responsible for setting tuitions, it's something that I'm painfully aware of. Unfortunately, in the years I've been doing the job, I've seen how efforts to keep the school "affordable" have often made it impossible for the school to make payroll or pay its bills. For now, our tuitions are necessary just to keep the school running. Maybe I and the rest of the Board will think of a way to enhance our affordability in the 18 months or so left in my term of office.
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After the party, William and I went swimming for a couple of hours or so. After swimming, William rode his bike for a while. It was a very nice, sunny day today. (William also went swimming yesterday. After we noticed some chips in the plaster in the pool, I let Hsuan bring William and James into the spa while I mixed up some pool putty and fixed the plaster in the main pool...)
Posted: Sun - August 5, 2007 at 11:18 PM