Sometime last week my Macbook kept flashing a little warning on my screen to inform me that my startup disk was almost full and files would have to be deleted. I didn’t even know I had a startup disk, much less that it was almost full.
I’d gotten that same warning about six months ago and took care of the problem by deleting a bunch of old pictures and maybe some important software that shouldn’t have been deleted. (More on that later) But this time I decided that I didn’t want to go through the hassle of burning a bunch of pictures to CD’s and it might be a better idea to buy a flash drive and put everything on it.
(Because it’s not enough that I have hard copies of all my pictures and that they’re all uploaded to Shutterfly, I need to have everything in triplicate because I am neurotic and what if Shutterfly ceases to exist and I lose all the albums I’ve created since Caroline was a baby?)
I bought a flash drive but wasn’t really sure about memory and full startup disks and gigabytes and whether or not the jeans I was wearing made my bottom look big. So I did what I do in most tech emergencies, I called my friend AJ who just happens to be in town this week.
God bless her for not hanging up on me every time I start a conversation with “I was wondering if you could help me with…”
I explained my full startup disk dilemma and told her about my flash drive purchase. She responded by asking me how many gigabytes it would hold and I replied that I had no idea but the flash drive cost me $29.99 at Office Max so I assumed it could hold about $30.00 worth of memory. Which makes total sense because dollars are real whereas gigabytes are just something that people made up about five or twenty years ago.
And then I mentioned that I liked the flash drive I selected because it is the prettiest shade of purple even though I’m not normally a fan of purple. At that point, AJ suggested that I probably wouldn’t want to share the details of our conversation with too many people (so I’m writing about it on the internet) because people might mock me for not understanding gigabytes.
But to those people I say that I don’t think their pocket protectors really work with the shirt they have on.
Fortunately, AJ volunteered to come over last night and help me figure out the issue with my startup disk and why it overfloweth. She also explained a concept to me that involves an external hard drive and suggested I might want to invest in one that holds between 500 and 1,000 gigs. Which kind of makes my four gigs seem a little pitiful even though they came in a festive purple color.
She also explained that all the movies I’ve saved in iMovie take up a lot of space and I should get them off the computer, but I told her I didn’t know what to do with them and asked if there was some way I could automatically burn them on a DVD that would play in my DVD player. AND THERE IS. I have been surrounded by this technology ALL THIS TIME and had no idea. I totally should have read the manual that came with my computer.
We began looking through all my movies so I could figure out what I wanted to keep and what needed to be deleted forever because it may have involve Caroline videotaping my rear end while I paint the backhouse.
While I looked through the iMovie files, I came upon a few video clips I’d totally forgotten about. They were videos of Caroline when she was just two years old. And I realize this is the equivalent of asking someone to please look at the slides from your vacation to Niagara Falls (the scenery is AMAZING!), but I had to share it.
Little Caroline from Big Mama on Vimeo.
OH MY HEART.
I would’ve totally dissolved into a big pile of sloppy tears and sentiment right at that moment, but AJ had moved on and informed me that I needed to get my Mac mail account up and running because Entourage is going to be non-existent in about a year.
The only problem is I deleted my Mac mail software the last time I tried to free up space because my startup disk was full. AJ didn’t even know it was possible to delete Mac mail off your Macbook, so I guess she learned something technical from me for a change.
Granted, it’s not something anyone really wants to know and definitely isn’t something you’re supposed to do, but I’m claiming it as an accomplishment anyway. I’ll take my tech victories where I can get them.
Although they won’t be sent through Mac mail.
Oh my word, look at how adorable she was (is?)! She’s like a… little version of herself now! Too cute. She still has the same little voice. 🙂
so sweet! it always breaks my heart to look back at old photos and videos. they seemed so “big” at the time and now looking back, they were just tiny babies!!! she is adorable!
-erika
theurthmama.com
Totally adorable! She’s always liked to be in front of the camera, huh? 🙂
She was a ham early on wasn’t she? Too cute!
What????!!!!! Entourage is going to be non-existent????? I am DOOMED!!!!!!! DOOMED!!!!!! Does AJ do telephone consultations? Why is it going to be non-existent? I am terribly worried about this! (But the post? Entertaining, as always.)
I need an AJ!!!!!!!!!!!
I know just enough about gigabytes and such nonsense to be dangerous…to myself and my computer, that is! If it weren’t for my college kids bailing me out of my technology crises, I don’t know what I’d do. I must not allow them to move too far away…
Okay, too precious! She looks so much like your hubby in this video.
Okay, first my confession…I have an external hard drive named a Blueberry. I picked it because I have a Blackberry and I thought it would be funny. So, that said…
We have never been able to make it work. Ever. Not even my tech savvy husband. Anyway, we have a computer that died many years ago and it’s filled with pics from 2003 to 2005-ish…which is my kids’ childhoods. The hard drive has sat there, doing nothing, until DH took it to a computer guy who is going to remove everything for us. He said it would take 4 discs or we could buy an external hard drive. We gave him the one we can’t figure out. So now I’ll have all of my pics on something I can’t use. But at least they’ll be safe and happy, right?
I need an AJ…
Ah man. That baby. I can just see her in her tiny duckie costume quackin and quackin. For my money, best halloween costume of all time.
Oh, Big, that is the most precious thing! And what a little smart thing at two!! Just adorable! I think she tried to do a little beat boxing! LOL
I too share your insight to the mac-world. At least you had someone to help you before the Big Crash! I lost EVERYTHING! (((sighs))) You should look into the Mobile Me Account. Back up to an offsite location.
Very funny post! I can so relate to techy problems. Ugh. Caroline is adorable.
You should offer AJ’s technical services as a blog giveaway. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind. 😉
Caroline’s video is soooo sweet!! I can’t bear to look at our videos other than when I put them all together on a VHS to send to my grandfather. Time goes wayyyy too quickly.
Also, I don’t really know what gigabytes are either. I know the more gigabytes you have, the more room you have for stuff. But they could be tiny little elves inside my laptop for all I know.
If you ever purchase a new Apple, they have this amazing thing where you can get a one hour one-on-one lesson with an Apple trainer every week for a year. They teach you anything you want to know plus things you didn’t even know your computer can do. It’s really a lot of fun. I think it’s $100 but that is for the entire year (52 hours total) and so worth it.
Your posts always brighten my day…thanks! Does Caroline still enjoy grocery shopping? Or has she learned to avoid it like her mama? You crack me up!
Oh my gracious! You sound just like me when someone asks me a compugter question. “UM, I need one of those little thingees that you stick in the computer to save stuff on please. Do you have one that is green? That’s my favorite color.” Then they ask me some technical question and I just give them the confused look and say “I don’t know!”
They grow up sooo fast, don’t they?
How sweet! Love it when Caroline starts singing the Wiggles song!
Oh my…she was a character even though, huh? And she sounds exactly the same. Love it! Too cute.
That video is absolutely the sweetest thing EVER!! 🙂
She reminds me sooo much of Ava at that age.
Livi has asked me the past two evenings if we could watch more Caroline videos. I shot her down, because I have actual, real, important things to be doing on my laptop.
Maybe you could make us a DVD.
She’s exactly the same only shorter! And now her vocabulary is more extensive.
Okay…I totally meant to say “even THEN”. Oops.
I, too, have a MacBook that pretends to be my friend, but secretly is giggling at me behind my back. Gigabytes?? What are those??
Wanna know something creepy?? I had you on my mind last night. I didn’t know what time it was because when your awake in the middle of the night, does it really matter what time it is? But while my eyes were so very wide awake, I wondered if you were sleeping and if it was possible to give your insomnia to someone you don’t even know who lives way far away. And if I found out you did in fact give me this insomnia, I’m never coming back to your blog again!!!
I’m holding out on Mail, even though J has already made the switch. I don’t think it’s as useful as Entourage. That could possibly be b/c I have no idea to use it, but I prefer not to blame it on my own technical ignorance.
Caroline’s video is adorable. Nice shout out to the Wiggles, too. Is it sad that I recognized that “Quack, quack, quack, quack, cock-a-doodle-doo”?
It’s nice to see she hasn’t changed a bit! Cute!
Awww, she is so sweet. It is funny seeing her at two. I love that age.
Oh, and you will love having the external hard drive. DH bought one for me for Christmas and we are just getting it straight. We are scared too that we will loose all our pictures and videos.
Y’all have a great day!
My husband laughs at my lack of knowledge of computers. I know how to blog, how to check my mail, how to take care of my little virtual farm and spend way too much time surfing the net. But gigabytes? No idea. And apparently, there is something called a “terra-flop” or something like that that’s better/bigger/who knows. So don’t feel bad. You aren’t alone!
You have probably been told this already, but if you still have the original install disk for your computer you can re-install your mail program.
my mac had been giving me the same alert about the startup disk. of course my response was to click okay and pretend everything was fine. then my husband saw it and threatened to go through my 16,000 pictures (seriously, 16,000) and start deleting blurry pictures of our four kids. he realized that i was about to cry, so instead, he took my computer to the genius bar and came home with a my book (i think it’s just an external hard drive) with several tigabytes of storage. then i left the room while he transferred my pictures and movies because i was afraid i’d cry when the last 6 years disappeared. thankfully it worked though.
Can I encourage you in the Mac Mail department? I used to use Entourage, but switched over a few years ago when I got brave enough to figure out how to “POP” my e-mail into mail. (Ask AJ.) I love it. Really, really love it. I think you will, too! With that said, I’m off to view your little Caroline, and remember my little Caroline when she was little, too.
I’m back. Oh. my. word. She broke into that ridiculous song from the Wiggles there at the end. When my twins were that age, I thought I would lose my mind with the “Quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, cock-a-doodle, doodle.” Thanks for the trip down memory lane!
She is just to stinkin’ cute!
I totally had to Google Steve Jobs.
AFTER watching the video, of course. Precious!
I just watched 2 year old Caroline with my 2 year old Avery who now loves “the girl” and wants more “the girl.” We’ve now watched the videos up to the shooting video (her dad can’t wait to get her a gun) and I got her to take a break so I can shower. I’m sure we’ll be watching more of “the girl” soon. Avery was very impressed with Caroline’s grasp of the alphabet and numbers. Very inspiring. Oh, and the jumping rope. Avery LOVES to pretend everything is a jump rope. I think “the girl” is her new hero. At least Caroline is an appropriate role model for my little munchkin. Good luck with the mail and gigabytes and… stuff.
Did she watch “The Wiggles” much at age 2? Her little chicken/duck (?) impersonation looked like something straight off the wiggles and has me smiling from ear to ear.
Too Precious!
Glad you got your disk full thingie all straightened out!
Oh, Lordy. Who could even be concerned about gigabytes when you can look at cute videos of Caroline as a baby? Wasn’t she adorable?! Thanks for giving me a grin today.
I would advise against an external hard drive as I’ve had a bad personal experience. Our motherboard (brains) on our computer went out a few weeks ago and also damaged the external hard drive at the same time. All the info we had on there was lost – pics, music, etc. If we had it stored on flash drives or DVD-R we wouldn’t have lost it. A 10pk of DVD-Rs is not very expensive – $5-$10 – the exernal hard drive was $100 and it didn’t do the job even though we had everything backed up properly. I know several people this has happened to.
I love your blog!!
You are hilarious!!
Your daughter is ADORABLE!! (And trust me, I know adorable……I have four kids.)
I was watching the video while my 2 1/2 year old Charlie Faith was sitting next to me, and when the video ended she said “More girl! More girl!” I know why she wants to watch this video of Caroline over and over again: because for her it’s like looking in the mirror…even sounding the same way. Lord haver mercy.
Caroline is one of my favorite ways to start the day!! I love how they are themselves from the very beginning.
And, since someone mentioned the duckie costume, I have to tell you that I hope I can find one! My 3 month old daughter will be just over one for halloween and I plan on totally ripping off your idea!
Caroline is precious!
It was so good to see you in Houston!
You really need a few more of these, kids not gigawhosywhatsits! You’re such a good mother.
curious….how did the puter dying mess up the external HD? once you transfer data and unplug it the puter shouldnt be able to damage anything….
I have tons of pics backed up on flash drives, but want a portable hard drive badly. waiting for the price to come down just a lil more.
Steff
steff
Hilarious post and something all the tecno-geeks should read to see how the real people live.
I’m waiting for the post when Caroline sees you on the computer and says…”Mom, you’re doing that all wrong. Here let me do that.” and she proceeds to click away losing you by about the 2nd click.
Trust me, that day will come. Kids are amazing with technology. It’s almost like breathing to them.
You may wonder why I’m saying this…oh maybe because my son just got my new iPod Touch up and running last night, with all my music, email and facebook. I have no idea what he did.
Oh my, that was absolutely precious!!
I *totally* get it. Stumbled across an old photo of my girl yesterday (at about 18 months). Sat and my computer and cried.
I mean, sat *at* my computer and cried. Carry on.
My little ones were standing nearby watching the cute video of Caroline. They had all manner of questions about her brothers and sisters. Upon learning that she didn’t have any my oldest girl said, “Well she needs to put a baby in her Mommy’s tummy!!”
I’ll not wish it for you at this point. Going back to diapers, bottles, carseats, and sleepless nights would be torture.
She was born to be in front of that camera. How cute.
>>>But to those people I say that I don’t think their pocket protectors really work with the shirt they have on.
OH SNAP.
aaaaaand I’m pretty sure it’s a snap to get MacMail back on to your computer.
(pushing my glasses back up onto my nose)
So glad to see that she has come out of her shell! 🙂
Be still my heart! – she has grown up so much! What doll she was then and still is! Can’t wait to see her in a few weeks.
Oh my goodness…so cute. I’m glad to see I’m not the only one who picked up on the Wiggles song! Hilarious.
“Oh my heart” is right! It was amusing to read the post about Caroline dressing herself right at the same time I read this one. It was like life was on fast forward. Well, I guess it is, sadly.
So today I videotaped Brennan taking off walking. The next thing I know, I’ll let him do some boyish thing the equivalent of Caroline’s picking out color-blind hobo outfits. But because I’m a girl, I have no idea what that boyish thing could be at the moment. And that’s probably a good thing.
What a cutie! I’ve been doing that same thing, except my kids are now TWENTY SIX AND TWENTY TWO!!!It’s not so much of oh my heart, but make-sure-there’s-a-defibrilator around! Could you PLEASE PLEASE tell me the name of that techno thing-a-ma-jig you used to get your videos off the computer? My daughter was just lamenting the other day about losing all the stuff she has on facebook, because facebook is almost dead to her now, as it has become “full of crap”, her words, not mine. Mine were that it was crap to start with, but anyhow…ALSO, my husband has taken to talking in bad language to his PC, claiming that it’s got too much junk on it. Lets make it clear that this is the computer that ONLY HE works on and ONLY HE piles junk on, but to hear him tell it gnomes come in during the day and just randomly load stuff on his computer causing it to “slow down”. I would like to be able to say “you need to get a 36 gigabyte kicker speed drive whangdo for your extra stuff” and wow them with my computer knowledge. Esp. since I had to call my son the other day to find out if you could type exponents on a Word document.
Her hand gestures are even the same! LOVE!!
Sooooo sweet! and who knew the Easter Bunny went “quack quack quack cockadoodledoo quack quack”?
Seriously…oh my word. She is so adorable! I thought she was going to break into a little rap session there for a minute. You are such a great mom!
That’s SO cute! And funny – i’ve been reading your blog for a while so I’ve seen a lot of pics and stories about her and from that little video you can tell she had the exact same cool little personality even then. And little did she know a special painted pink gun was in her future *grin*
Thanks for sharin’ and makin’ me smile 🙂
This post made me laugh out loud. You are so funny.
Oh my. I haven’t commented here in a long while. But good gracious, this post was hilarious. Even made my cramps go away for about two seconds, it was that funny!
If you’re gonna own a Mac, at least get the name right. It’s MacBook, with a capital B.
“Is that so hard?”