About a year ago, I posted about an Apple repair where it was not covered by Applecare. We had a relatively new Intel iMac begin to malfunction severely outside of the one year warranty. It was a helpless feeling to know that fixing it would require spending some money and time at an Apple store to remedy the situation.
Well, it was a gamble and in that case it didn’t work out. Recently, I had the opposite experience. My own personal iMac at home began to malfunction in a similar fashion. It was fine one day, and unusable the next. The hard drive decided it was retiring from active service.
The first thing I did – after taking a deep breath – was to check if my iMac was covered by Applecare. I couldn’t remember for sure. I had to scramble to find my paperwork (computer stuff is filed together at home). What a pleasant surprise it was to discover that not only did I get Applecare with the iMac, but I was still covered for it!
As someone who works with both especially large and numerous files on a daily basis, “storage” is a very important issue. Working in a design studio, you quickly see how important it is to have sufficient storage to hold ALL the “live” files AND for adequate backups.
Although we do archive (to DVDs) and delete older projects periodically, it is quite staggering how many gigs of information we currently have in active use. As the company IT guy at Intrigue, it is my responsibility to make sure we have the storage space that we need and that all critical files are backed up on a regular basis. This is no small task as more files are created than deleted on a regular basis. This means that over time, our storage needs will always continue to increase. That requires a plan of action.
One task we find ourselves doing frequently is sending digital files to and from clients and vendors. I would venture to see, there almost isn’t a day that goes by where we haven’t needed to download or upload a file. It’s routine stuff for all of us here at Intrigue.
In the old days (pre-Internet), it was more difficult and time consuming to get software patches and updates. Usually, it meant phoning or writing a company and then siting back and waiting for them to mail you a small floppy disc or two. Amazingly, most applications were small enough that you could fit the installers on just a few floppies. It was quite a tedious chore to sit there listening to the drive chirping away during installation until the computer asked you to change the disk. Perish the thought if one of those floppies was missing or damaged! It sure wasn’t fun when that happened.
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