finding a silver lining

On Saturday, very excited about the new apple OS Leopard, and dying to try out things like time machine, quick view and build stacks - I mean, who doesn't want a 3D dock with STACKS!!!! - I tried to upgrade my little iBook.

I suppose "little" is the key word. Or "outdated". Or "defunct". Either way, the upgrade crashed my entire machine. And after two days of trying every trick I could find online, I eventually went with the clean-and-sweep. You effectively overwrite the upgrade with your original OS - everything from scratch. There was a "previous system" folder which I think a higher power probably could have used to reinstall all my preferences and info. But with just 2G now left on my machine I opted for the clean up. And watched glumly as 15G worth of data was wiped out... *sheds a tear*

As you can imagine, what I was left with was a lot of nice clean fresh empty space. Not a single preference. Not an image. Not an email. Not an address. Not a wallpaper. Everything i've saved and customised over the last two years is gone.
And while on the verge of tears I started the job of bringing my beloved little iBook back to life - internet bookmarks, msn profile pics, mail setups - everything.

It's the kind of story that would send a shudder down any tech geek's spine. Losing all that data and info. Spending weeks remembering what it was you lost. And having to start again.
But I've found my silver lining. I'm treating it as a much-needed spring clean. I now have only the applications I really want, I'm filing stuff properly and finally see the value in apple's little colour labels for files. I'm making my machine better than it ever was.

So, apple, while you refuse to even ackowledge the existance of my little Acorn on your site (just try searching "ibook" on apple.com) mine has once again become my little companion I couldn't do without.
So there.