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| Home > iLife > Farewell to "Pearl", Hello "Luke" |
| Farewell to "Pearl", Hello "Luke" | | Date Created: Jun 13, 2005, 12:46 PM |
My previous laptop, an Apple iBook, finally expired her hard drive after a great 3 and 1/2 year run. I wasn't too surprised. I'd had it (her) with me through so many adventures from the very week I purchased it. It was one of the second generation white model iBooks, which I decided upon at the time due to it's portability, and it's incredible ability to handle movie making, photos, CD burning and DVD playing! As time wore on and I got a wireless Internet card, the dream of being able to create and entertain from any room in the house. Quite often, at the spur of the moment, I could think of something and need to look it up, and it was at my access. The iBook became a tool, more than merely a computer. It was a valuable resource.
We named it (her) Pearl, as Jen has a habbit of naming her computers and hard drives, going back to her college years. We chose "Pearl" because of it's gleaming white color, and as a tongue-in-cheek tribute to a character from "Starlight Express". Pearl was a good one. When we bought her, I asked what the average lifespan of a laptop would be, since I was actually buying Pearl to replace an older, clunkier, bigger, heavier laptop I'd had for 3 1/2 years. "Oh, about 3- 31/2 years", said the salesman quite honestly. I love the honesty at the Apple Store. We bought Pearl at the first Apple Store in the New York area, up in the Pallisades Center Mall. I figured that by then, I'd be ready to move on up to a pro model, since iBooks are really used by students and beginners all over the world. But at the time, they looked like they could withstand the rigors of use, so it was what I needed with all of the commuting I was doing.
So, as she passed the three year point, and fell out of Warranty, Pearl started acting up on me every now and then. As I had written about before, I had a few software and hardware issues. I had decided to wait upgrading to Apple's latest software release, TIGER, due to her age, but then saw there were many new features in "Tiger" that I needed to take advantage of.
She worked like new for a couple of weeks, taking advantage of her newly rebooted system, and some more memory and such. But every now and then, I'd hear a clicking sound in the hard drive. Her time was coming soon.
In the midst of working on an intense video project, she decided she'd had enough. Pearl froze and then failed to wake up again. It's very possible that there is still a chance to bring her 'back to life', but the reality was that it made more sense just to upgrade, as Pearl was way beyond "free" or affordable repairability.
So, with deep regret, I had to consider a new alternative. I tried living without a laptop for a week, but that become somewhat unbearable. The ability to write at a moment's whim is one of the main reasons I am a power user. Unlike a lot of people who simply use their computers for email and "chat", I use mine regularly to handle photos, movies, and other intensive duties. I really make use of the thing.
I eventually chose to replace Pearl with an upgrade, a nice new Powerbook G4, that has everything she had plus a whole lot more. Three times as fast processing power. And built in internet and memory. iLife and Tiger included. What more could I ask?
After a while of trying to decide what to "name" the new machine, Jen and I came up with a tribute to the man who made modern Sci-Fi possible. To remember the summer I bought it, we dubbed it, "Lucas", though you can call him "Luke".
And if you think that it's crazy to name a hard drive, then please explain to me why people buy toys for their pets.
Hopefully Luke will be with me for many more adventures. In the meantime, I'd like to thank Pearl for all the wonderful adventures. I'm gonna miss that machine.
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