Speaking of Buckets....

I almost tossed my computer into one yesterday.

In the midst of my usual morning mail/news/blog/message board routine, while switching between windows -- suddenly, with no warning, and for no apparent reason -- ALL of the saved mail disappeared from my email program (Macintosh Mail, for those who may want to be made aware).

My reaction? BLAWK!!!

Maybe you're like me. Maybe you store your LIFE in your email program. Maybe your email program acts as one mondo filing system, nicely partitioned out into separate mailboxes for different correspondents, a place for important memos, an Inbox that acts like a daily agenda. (Oh, yes, I still need to take care of that little task today.) I'm always telling people .... Need my attention on something? Need me to do a favour for you? Email me. The mail sits in my Inbox as a constant reminder until the task is completed, and then into the Trash she goes.

My next reaction? BLAWK!!!!!!!

First attempted solution: Restart the program.
Whew! Thank goodness....There's all the nice little mails all tucked into their nice little mailboxes again. However, perhaps a quick back-up is in order? N'est-ce pas?? :)

Diligently, I go about the task....and before even five minutes has passed..... BLAWK!!!!!!!!!

Yup, all the mails have disappeared again. Well, lucky me....I've managed to drag them all onto the desktop JUST....IN....TIME!!!

Restart the program. Um. Okay. Macintosh Mail opens as though I've never ever used it before. Aaarrggghhhhh..... The only thing it has retained is the account information, and it proceeds to download 800+ emails that have been sitting on my Yahoo server for the past month. But ALL of the older mails are gone...gone...gone....

No problem, right? :) I'm a good little computer girl, and I have my handy-dandy back-up disk right here, plus the newest mails that haven't been backed up yet are sitting pretty on my desktop. All I gotta do is import them back into the program and I'm back in business. However....Macintosh Mail has one more nifty little surprise for me. It refuses to recognize ANY of my backed up mail files. Nothing....zippo....nada. "These aren't the files I need," the program tells me (well, not in so many words, but you get my drift). Thousands of saved emails. Completely useless and unreadable.

My reaction? Yup. You got it. BLAWK!!!!!!! (I used up an awful lot of "blawks" yesterday....lemme tell ya.)

I fought and struggled and punched and argued and turned blue in the face, and it made no difference. The backed-up files would not return to what, for all intents and purposes, seemed to be a newly installed program of the exact right category. All of my old mail files were utterly useless. May as well be tossed in that proverbial bucket right alongside the computer that will no longer read them. CLANG!!

To make a long and frustrating story short(er), an intensive internet search for help finally turned up a nice little "factoid" that the Apple people failed to tell me about. The currently available operating system that I'm using (OS X, Version 10.4.9, aka "Tiger") stores backed-up mail in a new format that isn't recognized by the Mail program that the computer comes prepackaged with. Now....is it just me, or is this a rather bizarre thing to do to your enthusiastic new customer??

This morning, I have found a tiny little gadget that has now transformed all the unrecognizable .emlx files into the older .mbox versions that Mail knows how to read, and the old mails are safely reinstalled again.

Moral of the story? Just because you're a diligent backer-upper-er-er-(er?).... it doesn't necessarily mean your data is safe and/or recoverable. I bet that really makes you a happy camper this morning.

And yes, I'm in the market for a new email program. Anyone got a recommendation?

Listening to: The yelling inside my head. (OK, guys, cut it out....I can't hear Diana Krall when you keep shouting like that.)
Frustrated about: Losing a writing day and needing to navigate the learning curves of a new email program.