PC follies

So here we are fiddling FlagOut on Linda's 'pyooter.
This is because 4896 (the dreaded double-processor G4 MAC) is at Mac-Shack, the place I bought it.
Long-story-short (or rather story-time).....
For eons I was running OS 9.2; mainly because it was so much like the 8.6 at the mighty Mezz.
4896 also had OS-X, and we fired it up occasionally, but I stayed away from it because it was too unfamiliar.
But then the other day (over a week ago) 9.2 started being wonky - perhaps as a result of tossing 89 bazilyun photos that were on the 9.2 desktop.
Photoshop wouldn't open, Quark couldn't find itself, and Word and Excel were giving me an "insufficient-memory" message, and wouldn't open. At 1.2-gigs that is sheer baloney - plus they always worked before.
So we fired up OS-X and started driving it.
Viola; no problems to speak of. It's an operating-system, so what you're doing is pretty much the same as what was on 9.2; only much glitzier; plus it never crashed on me, and 9.2 did occasionally.
During the finding of hairballs with 9.2, we pulled the plug, after which a scan-disc is performed, and it was finding a disc-error about half-way through.
So we did a hardware-test (a CD) and everything passed with flying colors.
We then tried to reinstall Photoshop, and it wouldn't install - another disc-error.
But on the other hand, everything ran under OS-X, although in "classic-mode:" they're pre OS-X apps. So I have been driving OS-X for a week-or-two. No problem navigating - about all I've had to do was make new favorites for my two browsers: Netscape 7.0 and Internet-Explorer. (IE [5.2] is an OS-X app; Netscape appears to be classic.)
I also made "aliases" (Windoze "shortcuts") to the classic apps - which also appear on the OS-X "dock;" (I put them there - OS-X menu-item).
Yesterday (Tuesday, February 27, 2007) we attempted to reload the OS-X from the CD drive so we could use the OS-X "disc first-aid."
"Disc first-aid" is a utility that can be run without installing OS-X, and it determined there was an errant volume-address, so we tried fixing that; a utility fix. It said it was fixed, but the error was still there.
We decided to try to reinstall OS-X in hopes that would overwrite the error, but the reinstall hung; although apparently it got as far as renaming the system-file the machine boots up from.
Which leaves us nowhere.
The machine starts, but since it can't find a system-file, it can't continue.
We can reboot it from the CD-drive, but that takes 15-20 minutes. It won't reboot from the hard-drive - it's lost.
And OS-X hangs during attempted reinstall, because it's being hung by the disc-error; I guess.
So it's off to Mac-Shack, where they'll probably fix it with Norton.
We have a Norton, but it's so old it won't work with OS-X.
Plus I feel like I couldn't figure it out. Concentrating on documentation is beyond-the-pale for the brain-injured.

So here I am driving a PC, that like all PCs I've ever driven is unfriendly compared to 4896.
All my HTML-tags were AppleWorks macros, as were my red fonts. BALONEY ALERT! was what I used to make red type; all I did was overwrite "BALONEY."
The h-ref tag also is at Mac-Shack because that was a file on my 9.2 desktop; not a macro. Go down through the files in OS-X and you could get the h-ref file. (H-ref tags are what make hot-links.)

I predict a torrent of noisy blustering from West Bridgewater that entirely misses the issue, and recommends I "dump that Tinker-Toy at the Flint Landfill and trade it for a PC with Windoze XP."
FALLBACK ALERT. (Linda also said trading was rather silly.)
OS-X runs circles around XP, and with Linda's PC I get to wait 15 minutes while it boots up. (OOOOOOOOOOOHHHMMMMMM.......)
But that ain't Windoze (or is it?); supposedly it's all the MacAfee Anti-Virus and Google-Desktop that is running in the background.
The Bluster-King has often been off-line for entire weeks. One wonders how many times he's had to drag the whole stinkin' kabosh to Monty Python's Harley-emporium ("Toss another steak on the grill, Martha. Here comes that Hughes-guy.")
What began the switch to MAC was remembering how unstable the PCs were at the mighty Mezz, and how our MAC (at the mighty Mezz) was so much better.
Our first 'pyooter (here at home) was a Windoze PC - the 386-40 - but we switched to MAC to upgrade - the beige G3 desktop. That came after the mighty Mezz had switched to MAC, and was based on A) the fact MAC was so much more stable; and B) I felt like I should drive what the mighty Mezz had.
Years ago, at Rochester Rehab after my stroke, they had me driving an old Apple-II they had been given. It was a cartoon program.
"What is this?" I asked. The display was only about 400 by 600 - our 386-40 was 1024 by 768 (OS-X is 1280 by 1024; and will do much tighter).
"This is putrid!" I said.
"Well, what do you expect?" they said. "It was a gift. If you want better, give us your 386-40."
Seems the bluster-boy thinks Apple hasn't advanced beyond the Apple-II, but of course it has.
We've been hearing the same tiresome litany for the past 12 years. BROKEN-RECORD ALERT! (His kid drives an iPod. APPLE ALERT!)

4896 (a PRR GG1) is the desktop-picture I have on my MAC.

"FlagOut" is my family's web-site.

"The mighty Mezz" is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, where I once worked.

My all-knowing younger brother lives in West Bridgewater, near Boston.

The Flint Landfill is where our trash is dumped.