So who needs a damn startup chime? I was getting nervous that my workhorse Blue & White PowerMac G3 had decided to stop with the familiar “BONGGGG,” so I googled around and got an erroneous helpful hint from a so-called Mac site that shall remain nameless only because I’m too lazy now to look it up. The remedy for the missing chime was to reset the Open Firmware, something all us big Mac guys do all the time, right?
Well, maybe. Not only did the unnamed Mac site give out the WRONG keyboard sequence to initiate the procedure, but even the “correct” maneuver turns out to be something akin to backing out of a supermarket parking lot at high speed without looking in your rearview mirror. Naturally I ended up with a computer that wouldn’t boot, and it took me NINE HOURS to put everything straight again. I had to re-install OS X, which worked fine, only then all my Macromedia apps wouldn’t launch (there’s a fix from the company). Well, it’s all done now, but it was one of those days. I never even put my street clothes on, or had lunch for that matter. Nice to have it all working again.
Still no chime, though. Where did it go?
UPDATE: Let me make one thing clear: I thoroughly enjoyed yesterday’s nine-hour “Save My Mac” escapade. I really do need to invest in a fat external drive and a new CD burner, however. But the fact is, I was able to resurrect my computer because a) it’s a Mac, not a shaky, brainless PC, and b) I’m really very, very good. 
The scary realm of “don’t touch it!” that so many Windows users live in continues to amaze me. The other day I burned some CDs for a client who works in an office with the latest and greatest PCs money can buy, but there was no easy way for her to get the job done in-house. And this is a very smart lady.
This kind of thing happens all the time. Two weeks ago I was with another client, compressing some Windows Media Video files [ugh! ptooeey! yechh!] on a spare Gateway laptop (GOD WHAT AN UGLY PIECE OF CRAP). It was running Windows Whatever, all very nice and shiny, but it took a while to get started because my client “couldn’t find” the relevant app on the Gateway. I mean, she (we) literally couldn’t locate it. And this is another very smart lady. I think the way Windows covers up everything on the screen is largely to blame for this: it’s so off-putting, so concealed and foreboding. Grace and beauty count for something, people, and OS X has it in spades.
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