{"id":6053,"date":"2011-07-20T19:35:09","date_gmt":"2011-07-20T23:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/?p=6053"},"modified":"2011-07-20T19:35:12","modified_gmt":"2011-07-20T23:35:12","slug":"far-from-the-tree","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/far-from-the-tree","title":{"rendered":"Far From the Tree"},"content":{"rendered":"

To quote Kip Dynamite, “I love technology.”<\/p>\n

I’m not a super<\/em>-geek, but I am a geek. I admit it. I like neat gadgets. During our trip to Louisiana last weekend, my mother-in-law asked me how I knew about the Kindle and the iPad and all this technology. I was stuck for an answer. I couldn’t exactly say, but I also couldn’t imagine not<\/em> knowing about this stuff.<\/p>\n

Along those same lines, my father-in-law is really good at carpentry, home repair and the like. I play along, but feel pretty inadequate about my own skills in that field. But when I installed a wireless router at their home last Christmas and tried to explain how to troubleshoot it, his whole tone of voice changed and he sounded . . . pretty much what I<\/em> sound like when he<\/em> starts talking about carpentry.<\/p>\n

Now, it’s not like I’m always buying the newest and greatest stuff. I don’t play video games (I have too addictive a personality), I never adopted Blu-Ray, and most of my computers are from Apple’s refurbished store (same warranty, decent discount). And I tend to ride devices into the ground. I virtually never trade up unless a device is near the end of its service life. This has put me in a conundrum.<\/p>\n

I use an iMac for my desktop computer at home. It’s a 24″ refurb model from mid-2007 and it runs perfectly fine (although it’s a little pokey trying to deal with my ridiculously outsized iTunes library). Amy uses it for her photo processing, and I do writing, research and general webbery on it. It’s outlived its 3-year AppleCare warranty window, but doesn’t show any sign of impending failure.<\/p>\n

I’ve been pretty happy with the old machine, and figured I could keep riding it for another year or two, but I’ve just discovered that this computer is too old<\/em> to run Lion<\/a>, Apple’s new OS.<\/p>\n

That’s right. Mr. Tekmology owns a machine that’s too antiquated. So now I have to decide whether I should pick up a new (refurb) iMac just to be able to use all these neat features. Can I just keep rolling along with the perfectly functional oldster, or will I start giving it resentful looks, irked that it can’t keep up with the hot new model?<\/p>\n

(Cut me some slack: my old man’s mid-life crisis consisted of motorcycles, Corvettes and 18-year-old hairdressers, okay?)<\/em><\/p>\n

BONUS!<\/strong><\/p>\n

While trying to find some info on my current iMac, I found the site where Apple keeps a list of all the devices I’ve registered with them over the years. (If you have an Apple ID, you can find yours at supportprofile.apple.com<\/a>) Holy crap, has it been a pricey decade:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n