Out of the iFrying Pan into the i...

[hrj]

Last night, the last thing I did before I went to sleep was set the laptop to pulling the pre-iPhoto-experiment-gone-wrong photo library file off of Time Machine and it was merrily chugging away on the bytes. This morning I found that the restored older version does, indeed have all the full size versions of my pictures (and I can save off a copy somewhere before experimenting on how to extract them into non iPhoto files). But I also found that I had no internet connection. It wasn't the usual DSL non-connection problem. Rather, at some point after (evidently very shortly after, from the time-stamp) finishing the restoration of my iPhoto backup, Time Machine (which also serves as my wireless router) shut down, lost power, died, something or other. At any rate, it's silent and cold. Plugging it into a different outlet did nothing. Sticking a paperclip in the reset hole did nothing. I haven't gone further on the troubleshooting trail than that at this point, and honestly I'm not sure what else can be done by an amateur. So the next step is an Apple Store appointment. It's a bit less than 2 years old, so it should be covered. I'm sure the proximity to the backup restoration is pure coincidence -- in which case it's nice that my luck held as far as getting the complete file downloaded before the failure. It may be a couple days before I feel confident about setting up an appointment to have it looked at, given how crazy work has been. But if the current intense investigation closes tomorrow (like the Powers That Be intend) then I'll have a lot more breathing space.

And unlike my periodic DSL connection failures, the internet is still as close as an ethernet cable.