Late Night Techno-Posting

Now here’s a how-di-do …

Now, I don’t know if you read my last post about it, but I’m something of Mac fan.

You’d probably guessed, hadn’t you?

I’m also wondering where that photo of James’ elbow can from … ?

But I’m digressing, here.

Like I say, I’m something of a Mac fan, having owned one model or another, for quite a while.

And, like many a long term Mac owner, I don’t ’alf miss the funky alerts that old Performa of mine had.

To the point where I managed to find, and download, a bunch of .mp3’s someone had managed to wangle from somewhere, and install on to both my Mini, and my mobile.

Great fun, actually, although I am thinking of shifting my Mail.app alert from Logjam.

To maybe ChuToy …

But I’m digressing again, aren’t?

Something I do as regularly as possible, is of course, back up my files.

I tend to rely on Time Machine, the Mini’s own back-up utility, to do so, but, of course, it’s always sensible to have other options. Which is why I’ve another exterior drive — where I also keep my backed-up DVD’s, — with extra copies of all my important files.

Which is why I’ve been thinking of something else.

You’ve probably also noticed I’ve run pub quizzes, as well. It’d be hard not to, at some point, wouldn’t it?

And, as I’d originally got hold of the Performa to write them on, it seemed logical to me to at least transfer them back.

Partly because it gives me a an extra place to store the .pdf versions of the actual quizzes, themselves.

But mostly to see if it can be done.

Which is where — at the moment — I may possibly have a problem.

I’ve already tried.

The Performa couldn’t recognised the CD.

Now, when transferring them from my Mum’s Windoze 98 machine — I’d written the first hundred or so it — to the Performa wasn’t a problem; the two OS’es were about the same age, and the Performa had features built to let it recognise any files on a floppy disc that had been created by a PC.

And transferring them to CD, to be used on the G4 I’d had was a version of the same; I had to transfer the ones on the original floppy, AND the ones on the Performa’s floppy, head to Brentwood Library to transfer them to CD — Brentwood Library having the only CD burner I could access.

Which was slightly more involved, but it got me some exercise, as a side benefit.

Burning CD’s with the files I wanted to transfer from the G4 to the Mini was easy, by comparison. Although maybe just plugging in an ethernet cable could’ve been a touch easier …

At any rate, having an unsuccessful first attempt to transfer files back has left me wondering why it didn’t work, and how to do it.

I’m thinking that part of the problem is simply age.

The first two computers I used to write my quizzes were — if you’ve been paying attention — a thirteen year old Performa, and a 12 year old PC.

Near contemporaries, in other words.

And I’ve used newer and newer machines, since.

What I’m thinking is that part of the problem is simply that the Mac Mini is using a newer version of what’s called the file system — one that the Performa can’t recognise.

Just to fill you in, a file system is basically a map. It’s how a computer records digital data — whether that data is a piece of music, a copy of a letter or a picture — onto things like CDs, DVDs, flash drives, or hard-drives.

The one you’ll most commonly see used these days is called FAT32, and usually used by most computers that run Windoze. Most computers are capable of reading from such a drive.

But, of course, not all operating systems use it.

So I’m thinking I’ll need to find an application that’ll run on Mac OS X, capable of burning a CD that’s readable by the Performa.

So what I’m planning to do is check out some of the open source CD burning options available to me, and let you know what happens.

Wish me luck!

It’ll probably involve a lot of learning …