My Mac has become increasingly sluggish over the past two weeks, so I wasn’t entirely surprised today when it took more than three minutes to boot up. I verified the disk permissions, tested the start-up items, and rebooted in safe mode. Alas … none of that helped.
The next step was to make more room on my hard drive. By far my biggest folder was the one titled “Photos,” which has doubled in size over the past year. I opened it with hopes of dumping at least 50 gigs. But how could I possibly delete my photos from Venice …
… or Florence …
… or Iceland?
Here’s the happy ending: I didn’t need to delete any photos. As it turns out, my PRAM was to blame. Ten seconds’ work, and my Mac was good as new!
And here’s the other happy ending: I’ve rediscovered a bunch of old photos that I’d long since buried in my hard drive.
So if you’ve been wondering about traveling to Kent in the fall or Reykjavik in the spring, you’re in luck. I’ll be posting a bunch of mini-travelogues in the next couple of weeks.
And if you’re having Mac trouble, here’s my best advice: Make an appointment at your Genius Bar. They’re some of the nicest people you’ll ever meet—and they’ll fix your Mac, too.
In the meantime, stay tuned … there’s lots more to come in the next few days.
HeideBlog 
Whew, I’m sure you’re relieved. Thanks for the tip on the Genius Bar.
You betcha, I’m relieved!
How is *your* Mac doing, anyway? I seem to recall that yours was having the hiccups as well. Drop me a note if that’s persisted: i’ve learned a few tricks that may help!
There is nothing more uncomfortable than thinking that you have a computer problem. Glad that you were able to recover all of your photographs! You are such a wonderful photographer, so keep em coming! I have an adorable Red Dell Mini Laptop and love it. I got an external hard drive that holds 11 GB for all of my photographs and I have thousands of photos on it, with lots of room for more. Getting this hard drive really helped with the speed of my laptop.
Hello, Nikitaland! I’m glad I’m not the only one with so many photos that an external drive is required. 🙂 It makes good sense to back your data up to external drives, regardless. One of my friends had a catastrophic hard-drive crash a couple of years ago and lost *all* of her photos and music — including every frame she shot during her year as a teacher in New Zealand. At least when my Mac was stuttering yesterday, I had the reassurance that my data was backed up. As always, thanks for reading … and keep shooting!
Hurray for mini-travelogues! I was already swooning over the sneak peek you gave us just there. (Italy I love, but Iceland I’ve never visited. Those colours are amazing!) So, where are we off to first?!
My beloved Mac has also been a bit off recently. It seems to have recovered for the moment, but I’ll remember your tips if I get more problems – thanks.
In your honor, DB, I think we’ll start in Iceland! It’s one of the most strangely beautiful places I’ve ever visited. I’ll explain later. 🙂
And sorry to hear that you’re having Mac woes as well. Hope it was just a temporary hiccup. (I *swear* that computers have good days and bad days, just like we humans …)
Yay, Iceland! Gorgeous 🙂
Thanks for the vote of confidence! Check back on Sunday, knotrune. I’ll try not to disappoint! 🙂