Bolted Down

Saturday night, I came home to find we had been victim to what must have been a power surge. Lots of blinking clocks, a dead VCR... and a semi-functional iMac. It starts up fine and operates great, but the Ethernet and modem ports seem to be dead, as are the two FireWire ports. The cable modem appears to be fine, as it can "see" the network, but it and the iMac are no longer speaking to each other. I tried using the USB connection as a backup, but Toshiba doesn't make a Mac OS driver. Argh. And all my high-capacity backup devices (CD-RW and ZIP drive) are FireWire. Double-argh.

So now, I have to decide: fix the 4-year-old iMac? Replace with a new desktop? Replace with a laptop (a purchase I've been considering for a couple of months)? Wait to replace with the inevitably-improved laptop/desktop that are likely to be available within a couple of months?

Bj asked yesterday if I really had to make the replacement decision immediately. After a day and a half, I'm still torn on the answer. That probably speaks volumes as to my Internet addiction. The first step is admitting you have a problem...

The dead VCR has been dismantled to retrieve a stuck tape. An older, shelved VCR has been brought back to service in its stead.