Over the years as a troubleshooter, I’ve developed a keen sense of what is likely to cause trouble and what might prevent said trouble. Along the way, I’ve generated my own unwritten rules of thumb when it comes to fixing or upgrading computers. One such rule is a very practical one: Never, and I mean NEVER, do any significant installation or upgrade in the latter half of the workday. It’s just asking for trouble. Anyone who has made this mistake knows why.
If you really want to have a life and be able to go home from the office at a reasonable hour, you will understand the importance of complying with this rule. Many times as a youngish techie have I made the mistake of trying something like a major update in the late afternoon. Well, after the dial on the clock spun a few revolutions and it was closer to beginning the next day’s work than the previous day, you know it’s VERY LATE!
Why does this happen? You might call it the Murphy’s law of computer troubleshooting. No matter how easy or simple an update looks, whenever the process begins near the end of the workday, it will mean one thing – you WILL be working late that night trying to figure out what went wrong. And something ALWAYS goes wrong. Why, because the computer just KNOWS you want to be punching the time clock and heading for the parking lot and ride home. “They” are able to sense when the troubleshooter just wants to finish up quick and then be elsewhere as soon as possible. Once that happens, it is the computer’s job to wreak untold havoc on the techie, thereby ruining any hopes for an ontime departure.
For my Leopard installation, I kept this rule firmly in mind. So…. I wisely started the process at 9:00am. I figured I would be safe, right? What could possibly go wrong? I went through the special installation procedures. Everything went smoothly. No hiccups, nothing. After a little while, the installer finished its job and the Mac rebooted. Good bye Tiger, hello Leopard!
Leopard Desktop
That’s one cool looking “cat”!
It’s nice to see something new for a change, no matter what it is. And Leopard certainly qualifies as being new after working with Tiger for 2-3 years. Not that there was anything wrong with Tiger, just that it was time to move on and up. After getting settled down, I waited for my Mac to implode. It didn’t. Good sign.
So let’s check out the new place. Lots of new eye candy to view. Impressive. But seriously, that will last for what… a day, before I get tired of it? Whatever…
Onward… the next step is to see what “broke” if anything. I had made copies of my critical files ahead of time, so I knew I’d be ok if anything proved unfixable post-installation. So far, nothing appeared amiss. That’s strange. Usually there’s at least SOMETHING that isn’t quite right. I kept looking around and testing things. No, really, everything was working just fine. Some minor things caught my eye, but those were basic things I needed to clean up, nothing crazy.
A quick check of the clock. Hey, it’s still morning, and I’ve got a new operating system! Could things be any better than that for a Mac techie? I started to relax while continuing to explore the Leopard universe. OK, I need new printer drivers. No biggie. Those go quick, thankfully. Yup, worked just fine.
What’s left? Oh yeah, let me catch up on my mail since I’ve been off-line for a few hours. Can’t wait to see the new features Apple dropped into the newly revised Mail application. I fire it up and I’m waiting for it to pull in the new mail. And waiting… and waiting… and waiting… Hmmm. Where’s my mail? Uh, oh!
Houston we have a problem!
Looks like we had a false start on the launchpad. OK, let’s do that again. A “force quit” and relaunch, and… nothing – again! Double hmmm. “This isn’t good,”mutters the Mac techie to himself. On a scale of 1-10, with 1 being a “no biggie” to 10 being a “time to pack it in and find another line of work” type problem – a loss of thousands of emails would easily qualify as a solid 10.
It was now a crisis situation…