Persistence pays

My old Mac desktop computer (Titanium Tower G4) finally died yesterday as an Apple tech support gal (Jami) and I were trying to figure out why the Airport signal from that computer to my new iMac fluctuated enough to knock me offline so many times. At first I'd thought the problem was due to the new cable modem that had been installed and I worked for an hour with those tech support people. (One of them named Farris was incredibly condescending, but that's another issue.) Not getting satisfaction there, I called Apple to have them help, and after resetting the PRAM, the poor Tower just wouldn't load its OS. We tried restarting, using the original cd, using Disk Utility (which did the repair and said nothing was wrong with the hard drive) and talking sweetly to Mac Mama, but she'd given up the ghost, sitting at the gray apple with the bite out of it. Fortunately, when she'd had a seizure several months ago, I'd been able to resuscitate her and offload anything important to an external hard drive I'd bought to use for backups. Therefore, I wasn't devastated when I had to acknowledge this lost computer. 

While Jami waited on the phone, I removed the parts of the Tower from the computer desk, and I moved the new iMac to that location so the ethernet connection could be made to it. She hung with me while I tested the connection, helped me with paperwork, listened while I explained how I'd set up the network that allowed me to access the internet without a router, and was as cheerful at the end of the two-hour conversation as she was at the beginning. I made sure to explain that in the follow-up email that Apple sent asking my opinion of the experience. She'd even given me the name of a local Apple technician who might be able to help me recover some of the information lost in the dead computer. I emailed the technician to find out when I could bring my poor dead computer to him and maybe purchase an Airport base station because I hadn't been able to get the laptop to connect to the iMac after an hour or more of attempts. I was all set to spend a couple hundred dollars on computer things today. However....

I am proud to say that I'm typing this from my laptop situated in my newly cleaned den, not from the iMac in the dining room. How? It took me a while but I finally set up the Sharing between the two computers correctly. My fried brain yesterday had neglected to look at one particular setting, leaving it the way it had been when the iMac was sharing the internet connection from the Tower which was backwards from the way it now needed to be. I'm not sure I could teach anyone else how to do it or even duplicate the process again now, but I seem to understand the principles and that's what matters. I connected the backup drive to this laptop and found a few crucial files that I'd want from the dead computer, and that made me happy.

So... I've decided to take the Airport card out of Mac Mama and let her rest. I now don't need an Airport base station because I've established a working network here. I'm thrilled that I don't have to spend any more money on technology....at least not now....and that's a Very Good Thing!