computer redo

With the help of E, I took time this weekend to backup and then erase/reinstall my Mac because it has been so sad lately.  First, we did some extra tests to really be sure that one of my sticks of memory was bad like we thought, and it definitely was the case.  So I'm at 1.25 gigs instead of 2 still.

We completely wiped everything out, and when it came back up after a lot of system updates (from 10.4 on the install disk to 10.4.11 and everything else that had to be updated took a long time), things were working well again, including Safari which hasn't opened for the last few weeks.  I'm so happy this worked!  This will keep me going on this machine for a while longer to hopefully see the next best thing Apple will announce (hopefully a better version of the Mac Mini, or maybe they'll have something completely new in the coming months).

For fun, here are some of the essential things I had to get set back up after the clean install.  I did everything one at a time rather than just copying in my library folder in case something there was causing problems.  This took more time but I think things will be more clean and right this way.

• iPhoto - restored photos and reinstalled the Flickr plugin that I use (FlickrExport)
• iTunes - restored music and reinstalled the last.fm plugin for sending my music data (scrobbler).  Also got the standalone program iTunesPublisher which is helpful for making html copies of my purchased music.
  
• Mail - restored mail and the settings/rules
• Firefox - first thing I downloaded!  I also re-grabbed my favorite extensions, All-in-one Gestures, Del.icio.us, Tab Mix Plus, and some designer tools: Web Developer toolbar, Colorzilla, and Edit CSS.  I restored my bookmarks for this and Safari at the same time too.
• I also found the Safari View extension when I was getting mine, and this is something I looked for in the past because I've always appreciated the IE View extension on my PC.
• I was using the Whitehart theme before, but I think I want to try something new.  I'll have to browse for a bit to find what I really want.
  
• NetNewsWire - I owned a copy of this, but now it's free.  I synced with NewsGator and all of my feeds were back intact.  The new version is actually nice, there's some cool new features.
• Quicken - restored data file.  I'm so tired of this software, but still need it's data, so I keep using it.  My favorite alternative I've found is iBank.
  
• Disk Inventory X - this is really handy to see where the space on my disk goes to, so I reinstalled it.
• LinoType Font Explorer - for managing my fonts, which is a much smaller list of them than I used to have on my PCs.
  
• Dashboard - grabbed my favorite widgets: NowPlaying, Volcano Cam, AccuWeather.  I also re-set up my 4 weather locations (Vancouver, Portland, Loma Linda, and San Francisco)
• Age of Mythology - my favorite game I have for the Mac.
• Restored databases for iCal and my Address Book.
• Restored the data in my Documents.
  

I still need to get my Adobe suite back up and running, but must find the files first.  I didn't re-download Camino or Opera, but I barely ever used them.  I used to have SubEthaEdit, but now I've found it's not free for personal use any longer.  I owned a copy of Transmit, but I couldn't find the original file, so I need to research that; same for MarsEdit, back when it was still run by Brent Simmons.  I held back on re-installing QuickSilver, Growl, Adium, Twitterrific, and Google Desktop for now.  I didn't get NeoOffice again, but it was frustrating me so much, and I'm looking at either iWork or the Office 2008 for Mac.

So now I'm just about back to normal, and skimmed through my TV news I'd been missing for most of the week in NNW.  It sure is nice to have a smooth moving computer again :)