Day Two Hundred Fifty-eight: Evening of April 20th 2010

So a minor excursion into Mass Effect 2, seeking Archangel, a long afternoon errand, and then dinner.
So what was the adventure with technology today?
It started with a phone call from my wife. A sense of urgency was evident. A computer was down, and student's project was trapped on the hard drive. That project was important and of course there wasn't current backup (aah, teenagers). Troubleshooting for the computer had resulted in no improvement. The unit started, flashed a gray screen and ultimately shut down. My wife visited the Apple forum and FAQ support site to double check her troubleshooting procedures, tried a few additional suggestions, and then called me about the availability of a hard drive enclosure to salvage the data on the student's hard drive.
So the search began. I knew that there were plenty of enclosures, but I decided to to check out the price range. Offhand, I didn't think that she would have to spend more that fifty dollars. The search confirmed that. So, I texted her that she needed the basic specs for the HD - size (2.5" or 3.5") and type (SATA, PATA, IDE) to make sure we picked up the right case. From previous experience, I knew it would be a 3.5" SATA, but a double check is worthwhile. About twenty minutes after the initial post, I remembered that there were adapters the bypassed the enclosure and hold up to the 'naked' hard drive. I informed her of this and she was excited about the possibility of getting it. With it you can pull a drive out, collect the data, return it to the machine, and ship it off for repair if needed.
That evening after dinner, we went to a local MicroCenter and checked out the enclosures and file transfer adapters. As we walked in, there were two enclosures on shelves to the left of us. I think they were about thirty dollars. We studied them and then moved to hard drive section, knowing that if all else fails we could return to that shelf and pick up one of those enclosures. There was a large selection of enclosures. Prices ranged from about twenty five dollar to almost ninety dollars. Continuing the search, we found the adapters, and started looking through the selection. That became a problem, because we couldn't figure out which one to get. To further compound the problem, the price range was reasonable and very close from model to model. We picked one that had the Mac OS symbol on the box.
Of course we didn't leave, she needed a new keyboard, which we found in the Apple section of the store. Browsing is fun,and we had fun. She finally picked out the latest Apple keyboard, and we returned home. It was a successful excursion.
For as long as it's needed, I'll keep closing this way. Please check out a good organization that's providing aid in Haiti and make what ever kind of contribution that you can afford.
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