My most recent ‘series of unfortunate events’ has touched upon several areas this week. But in considering the extent of the ‘unfortunate events’ that many throughout the world (and even within my own community) have to face, my problems seem not so monumental and I’ve limbered up a little this week emotionally (or am I just EXHAUSTED?), which has enabled me to ‘roll’ with the punches a little better.

Tues morning I was rudely awakened by a blow to my nose -- one of my cats used my face as a springboard for a bold leap to the floor...leaving me with a badly bruised and sore nose and a huge, unsightly gash across the bridge of my nose which looks as though I may have had a run-in with Freddy Krueger during the night.

Moving on to my geek affairs, some vague and intermittent ‘weirdness’ with my computer that began over the weekend began to escalate into an all-out heyday of weirdness, when I booted up to find my Norton Antivirus auto-protect disabled (and I wasn’t the one who disabled it). Not only was it disabled, but it would not allow me to ENable it again. Nor was I able to connect to the Internet (horror of HORRORS!). Assuming some sort of stupidity on my part, I began finagling with all sorts of things in my efforts to recover from the weirdness...all the while, trying to ignore the possibility that I’d been hit with a virus (indicated by the fact that my security software was the first line of attack). I ran myself around in circles all week with this computer, only to find that with each reboot, the weirdness only continued to escalate. Desktop icons began duplicating themselves and were no longer useable, all my restore settings disappeared (there were no more previous ‘healthy’ states to return to), my computer was telling me I was missing built-in hardware, it was not recognizing USB devices, etc. Fortunately, I had an extra, virgin hard drive on hand. After backing up critical files to CDs (the DVD/R was no longer being recognized), I swapped out drives. Verdict confirmed...whatever the issue, it was all about the hard drive, as the virgin had no problems whatsoever (there are some things to be said for the state of ‘purity’).

As a result of some research done online today during lulls in the workflow at the office, it appears that I likely fell victim to one of the newer viruses spreading like wildfire these days. Likely, my only hope at this point for saving the old hard drive is to reformat it and reinstall Windows XP...(not to mention all the OTHER programs, fonts, etc. -- just what I needed, something ELSE to do).

All this aforementioned PC aggravation only reinforces my recent decision to return to Apple. Early last weekend, I’d actually placed an online order for a new top-of-the-line Dell laptop. To justify the expenditure, I thought I’d sell my old Mac G4, so I booted it up (I’ve rarely used it at all since getting the PC laptop) so I could collect some info from it that might help me sell it. To my surprise, as I browsed about the good old mac interface, I was absolutely blown away by how much faster the old G4 blazed through my demanding graphics applications. Just to convince myself, I actually performed some of my own ‘benchmark’ tests to compare each machine’s abilities at processing data in graphics files...the old G4 actually ran CIRCLES around the Dell!

Needless to say, I cancelled the Dell order and ordered a new 17" PowerBook G4 instead. The configuration I chose was loaded...MORE computer than the ‘top-of-the-line’ Dell, for a few hundred dollars LESS. Researching the product, I found several ‘real’ benchmark test results between the PowerBook G4 and the Dell I’d originally ordered...the Mac was 1.3-1.7 times faster at running ALL the graphics apps I use regularly, and more efficient at running several programs at one time. All this, together with the mac’s traditional immunity to the most common viruses...after having fraternizing with the PC enemy for 3 wasted years, I now humbly return to the superior Macintosh with my humiliated tail between my legs (proverbially speaking).

I will no doubt keep the old Dell around. It has been a faithful and serviceable companion for the past 3 years and there are always those archaic programs that are still too prehistoric to provide a Macintosh platform, so it is good to have a good PC on hand. But the PowerBook G4 has won my heart back from the dark side. Being the sharp and savvy lady that she is, Monicoo followed my good example and ordered her one too. Hers is scheduled to arrive the day after mine...we are sooooo excited!!! We’re are considering getting together over the weekend with our new toys and having our own private geek party. I know Jim will be proud of us...