So let's start with the "Good". I finally went out and bought a new MacBook Pro! Wahoo, I'm really super excited! It's been something i've been putting of for over a year now. And with the recent unexpected refresh of the MBP line earlier this month that introduced a new speedy little 13", I'd been chompin at the bit for a new one! Yet even still, i'd still been trying to ride out my five year old G4 12" pushing it to it's limits! You know, I've just been tryin to keep financially responsible and all!

Which brings me to the "Bad". Now, I'm not talking about David Carradine, Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson or even Billy Mays. The "Bad" is that my old laptop kicked it last night...it's been a really tough time for me..:( Which brings me to the "Ugly".

Since I knew it was just a matter of time before my old G4 would surf it's last online wave, I bought an external drive to back up all of my family pics, videos, music and even applications. "So why is that 'Ugly' then, Mauro" you ask? Well because my computer actually died when performing my regularly scheduled backup. Which means, it partially overwrote my backup file on my external drive wiping most of my pics and applications! That's right, I lost over 3,000 pictures!! Luckily, I have a few online resources like this blog, flickr, shutterfly, facebook, dropbox and others, so I at least have low-res copies of some of my favorite pics. I was also able to find some lingering within folders that were somehow saved. But I essentially lost the last three years of parties/events, birthdays, vacations, holidays, excursions and more. What makes it so excruciating for me is that I had a back-up in place for this exact reason, and it failed.

So consider yourself warned, you can't rely on simple hardware for important information you can;t do without! Remember to always backup online as well!