Tidying up
Aug. 3rd, 2014 08:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gerisullivanMy elderly 27" iMac desktop computer has been showing its age and then some of late. I've endured the waiting, waiting, waiting spinning disk for a few months now and finally reached my "okay, I simply must try to do something about this" breaking point this afternoon. Yes, I need rather strongly to be working on two other significant projects, but 1 click followed by 2 minutes of waiting isn't working, it's futile.
After unmounting all of the attached devices and confirming that the problem's with the computer rather than its interface with one of them, I've been using my laptop to search various Apple support and other forums for ideas. While I'm not down to 10% disk availability, the 1T internal drive is holding onto considerably more than it should need to. So I'm working on that.
The super-sluggish computer just took about 1.5 hours to uninstall Adobe CS3. To keep from going utterly mad while it worked as best it could, I turned my attention to the kitchen. After dealing with the dishes, I moved onto another source of ongoing annoyance: the drawer of plastic containers.
You see, yesterday's impulse purchase at Costco was a new 30-piece set of Rubbermaid containers. Enough with the constantly reaching into the drawer for a container then trying to find a matching lid, and the ever-challenging problem of the drawer over-filling with more and more different sizes and brands of containers. So now all is tidy once more, with space for things to get jumbled...for a few months, at least.
The former residents of the drawer have been removed. I'll store containers with lids that fit in the fan room party kit for future convention use, and discard the orphans.
Old inventory:
Ziploc square:
7 containers, 5 lids in red, green, & clear/blue
Rubbermaid take-along square:
2 containers, 2 lids in opaque white
2 containers, 2 lids in clear/red (different shape than above so they don't nest even though they're the same size)
Glad medium round:
2 containers, 2 lids
Glad small round:
4 containers, 4 lids
Ziploc small round:
1 container, 2 lids
Old unbranded containers I despise:
1 small square, 3 lids
Unbranded small rectangle:
1 container, 1 lid
Extra lids that don't match anything:
1 high-quality Rubbermaid round (new containers are square)
1 small Ziploc round
1 Glad rectangle
1 Hillshire Farms rectangle
Not as bad on the containers vs. lids as I thought. Too many different brands, the fact that the Rubbermaid take-way lids don't fit each other and the bases don't nest, and the mix of square, round, and rectangular containers all contributed to the chaos, as did the random one-offs.
Twelve pieces of non-recyclable plastic, mostly lids, are now in the trash. The matched containers are now stacked in a tidy, organized fashion and stored in the box the new containers came in. And the high-quality, Rubbermaid round lid? It's going back in the drawer where it will no doubt breed the next drawer-full of chaos.
Resetting the SMC (System Management Controller) appeared to have some benefit as demonstrated by speedy (i.e., normal) responsiveness from the finder upon restart. But I'm back to super-slow copying of files off to an external hard drive as an extra safety archive before deleting them. (They're already on Time Machine & my other regular back-up drive.)
Time to start a load of laundry, and to continue doing other things that take me away from watching the slow loris of a computer make its way through the rest of the 16.62 GB of data it's currently dealing with.
Onward.
After unmounting all of the attached devices and confirming that the problem's with the computer rather than its interface with one of them, I've been using my laptop to search various Apple support and other forums for ideas. While I'm not down to 10% disk availability, the 1T internal drive is holding onto considerably more than it should need to. So I'm working on that.
The super-sluggish computer just took about 1.5 hours to uninstall Adobe CS3. To keep from going utterly mad while it worked as best it could, I turned my attention to the kitchen. After dealing with the dishes, I moved onto another source of ongoing annoyance: the drawer of plastic containers.
You see, yesterday's impulse purchase at Costco was a new 30-piece set of Rubbermaid containers. Enough with the constantly reaching into the drawer for a container then trying to find a matching lid, and the ever-challenging problem of the drawer over-filling with more and more different sizes and brands of containers. So now all is tidy once more, with space for things to get jumbled...for a few months, at least.
The former residents of the drawer have been removed. I'll store containers with lids that fit in the fan room party kit for future convention use, and discard the orphans.
Old inventory:
Ziploc square:
7 containers, 5 lids in red, green, & clear/blue
Rubbermaid take-along square:
2 containers, 2 lids in opaque white
2 containers, 2 lids in clear/red (different shape than above so they don't nest even though they're the same size)
Glad medium round:
2 containers, 2 lids
Glad small round:
4 containers, 4 lids
Ziploc small round:
1 container, 2 lids
Old unbranded containers I despise:
1 small square, 3 lids
Unbranded small rectangle:
1 container, 1 lid
Extra lids that don't match anything:
1 high-quality Rubbermaid round (new containers are square)
1 small Ziploc round
1 Glad rectangle
1 Hillshire Farms rectangle
Not as bad on the containers vs. lids as I thought. Too many different brands, the fact that the Rubbermaid take-way lids don't fit each other and the bases don't nest, and the mix of square, round, and rectangular containers all contributed to the chaos, as did the random one-offs.
Twelve pieces of non-recyclable plastic, mostly lids, are now in the trash. The matched containers are now stacked in a tidy, organized fashion and stored in the box the new containers came in. And the high-quality, Rubbermaid round lid? It's going back in the drawer where it will no doubt breed the next drawer-full of chaos.
Resetting the SMC (System Management Controller) appeared to have some benefit as demonstrated by speedy (i.e., normal) responsiveness from the finder upon restart. But I'm back to super-slow copying of files off to an external hard drive as an extra safety archive before deleting them. (They're already on Time Machine & my other regular back-up drive.)
Time to start a load of laundry, and to continue doing other things that take me away from watching the slow loris of a computer make its way through the rest of the 16.62 GB of data it's currently dealing with.
Onward.
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no subject
Date: 2014-08-04 09:00 am (UTC)I have a very similar iMac, which I still absolutely love, and found it started running slower and slower until I had the drive replaced. Actually I had it replaced before the recall, and Apple refunded me for the replacement when they put out the recall.
no subject
Date: 2014-08-04 12:26 pm (UTC)The UK website link says "Your iMac's hard drive is no longer eligible for a free replacement under this program." And closes with "The program covers affected iMacs for three years after the first retail sale of the unit. Apple will continue to evaluate service data and will provide further updates to this program as needed." The page is dated as of 2013-11-22, which was four years after I bought Giving Thanks on Black Friday when my laptop's graphics card died while I was on another trip to the Midwest. We're coming up on five years now. My computer is registered with Apple and I didn't receive notice at the time. Given how long it ran like a charm, I'm really not complaining if the drive is flaking out at this point. But yesterday's experience and the improved experience point more to the need for better housekeeping. Ir'a nor perfect, but the computer is now operating the way it did several months ago, before it decided to get my attention by impersonating a slow loris.