Monday 23 July 2012

Yeah! Apple rocks!

The solution to all yesterday's "issues" came to me as I lay awake fretting last night, namely buy an external CD/DVD reader/writer, which I snapped up for a very reasonable £39.99 at Curry's-PC World (I'm not going to spend another penny in an Apple Store, not ever again, ever). It's USB powered so you don't need to faff about with yet another power cable.

The system graciously allowed me to re-load Office for Mac (version 2008) and will allow me to make MP3's from audio CD's using iTunes. All I need to do now is install Neo-Office (which I have used to create lots of charts and stuff) and I'm back where I was four days ago.
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UPDATE: now I set it all up nice and new, I've a nasty feeling that there was nothing wrong with the old Mac Mini, it was just the monitor that was on the blink (I must have been using it for seven years or so, maybe longer?), as it keeps shutting down again (it was fine earlier on). I'll throw another £70 into the bottomless pit of Curry's-PC World tomorrow and see what happens.

18 comments:

A K Haart said...

"I'm back where I was four days ago."

I used to get that feeling most Fridays.

Anonymous said...

Do you pay for NeoOffice?

Mark Wadsworth said...

AKH, and then one day you wake up and your boss is giving you a gold watch and your P45.

J, It was 5 years ago I last installed it, you could make a voluntary payment, I think I sent them a fiver via PayPal. I've yet to find out what the rules are now.

Anonymous said...

Oh, does that mean you're still using version 2...? Now you need to pay for the latest version but they make the second latest free. I'm using a leaked v3.2 but as they are working on v3.3 now, hopefully they will release 3.2 officially for free soon

Mark Wadsworth said...

J, I can't find out what's on the old Mac mini because I can't plug a screen into it any more. But version 2 sounds about right. Or probably version 2.2.2.2

Jesus Boom said...

I might have a solution to your old Mac Mini issue and what was on it...

I connected my old man's iMac, which was on the blink, to my Powerbook and ran the iMac as an external hard drive which allowed me to see all the files and what not on there and lift them off to a 2nd external hard drive.

I had to do so by connecting them together via Firewire. I don't know about the Mac Mini and Firewire, or even if you can do the same proceedure, never used one, but it's worth a shot. I think I found the details on how to do it on the Apple site.

Hope this helps,

JB

Jesus Boom said...

Sorry, I forgot to add, that I didn't need the screen to come on, to do any of this, which is why I think you may be able to do the same without the use of the monitor. I'm guessing you can use the new Mac Mini to run the old one.

Take it easy,

JB

Mark Wadsworth said...

JB, thanks.

In the booklet for the new one, it explained how to drag stuff off the old one, but you have to download some software onto the old one first (and I neither had a Firewire handy I don't even know if the old one has the required socket nor could I be bothered to faff about setting up a 'wireless network') which requires a screen.

Furthermore, there wasn't really anything on the old one as I've always saved my actual files on an external hard drive*, all I need to reinstall is Mac Office (done) and this evening, armed with a screen which actually works, I shall download Neo Office and I'm away.

* The old one survived ten years and outlived two or three computers, I hope my new one lasts as long.

Sarton Bander said...

Might I suggest using DropBox or GoogleDrive in future just in case the external HDD goes down. Where do you back it up to?

Mark Wadsworth said...

SB, do you mean store it all on the Interweb? Fair enough, but I'm happy storing it all in an aluminium box about six inches by three inches, it's worked well for me over the last decade (admittedly I recently upgraded from an 80 GB to a 2 TB aluminium box).

Tim Almond said...

Mark,

NeoOffice is a port of the free/open source OpenOffice.org for Mac, so you don't have to pay anything. You could also take a look at LibreOffice which is also a port of OpenOffice.org and being very well supported.

There's a few websites out there for generating charts if you don't want to install software.

Mark Wadsworth said...

TS, I don't know whether you "have to" pay, but I can't begrudge them a fiver or something. And yes, of course there is better software, there's always something better, but I also cheerfully admit to liking what I know and knowing what I like.

Anonymous said...

TS, as I said above NeoOffice wants you to pay for the latest version, though there are ways around that. And NeoO 3.2 is far better than LibreO 3.5 or whatever is the current mac version. OOo sucks after oracle took over.

MW, echoing SB, I would recommend 3 copies of anything you can't afford to lose, whether it's online or a second aluminium box. They can fail at any time without warning.

Woodsy42 said...

And keep the second aluminium box in a different place.
Better still buy an ordinary PC where you can plug stuff in easily and if required remove the internal drive and fit it elsewhere to read it.

Tim Almond said...

Mark,

Fair enough.

I often donate to developers that have given me some useful free software. Moq (don't ask) has saved me thousands of pounds, so sending the guys a small gift for their work seems reasonable.

Lola said...

I must say that I am getting a bit of schadenfreude like delight at all this.....

Mark Wadsworth said...

L, correct, seeing as it transpires that it was only the monitor which was on the blink :-(

Tim Almond said...

word of advice... avoid Currys/PC World. If you want retail and advice, John Lewis are better (and similar prices). Or go mail order.