It’s a Rescue Mission, Technically

After years of building large collections of digital music and picture files, I recently decided it was time to organize it all in a meaningful and remarkably tedious way. Looking back, this is a job that should only be attempted after winning the lottery, eradicating all crime and doing away with world hunger, each of which would be easier and less time-consuming than organizing your digital photos.

Having transferred my iTunes library onto my newly purchased portable hard drive, or “floppy disk” for those of you still donning a beeper, I began the process of moving my photos to a single location. Throughout the process, I looked forward to seeing the pictures I took on a trip to Paris several years ago. Hundreds of CDs and folders later, no France pics.

Well, as it turns out I thought of the last possible place I could have the pictures stored. The laptop I used back then was essentially dead, sitting in my bottom night table drawer. I tried to fire it up last night and see if they were there. As I suspected, it wouldn’t start up. That’s when I took the little mini screwdriver to it and disassembled the entire thing looking for the hard drive. Keep in mind, my technical skills where it relates to computers can be summed up in three words: “on/off switch.”

After removing approximately as many screws as I believe come in a standard space shuttle, I had a pile of random parts, any of which could be the hard drive. Considering all the parts were hard, this was a difficult elimination process. My first step was to rule out anything with blades. The ‘fans’, as we computer geeks call them, resemble a little itty bitty version of one of those old 400 watt box-style fans that my dad used to put in the window on hot days to save money when he was too cheap to put on the air conditioning (note, it was cooler outside than in the family room). So with the fans out of the way, I began to systematically search each individual piece looking for a sticker, a label or a heat stamp marked “hard drive.” Keep in mind, these parts are extremely small. When you get inside one of these things, you begin to realize why they need tender little 6-year-old Chinese hands to assemble them in the first place.

Having located no such markings on any item, I took the next logical step, which was to walk around with the magnifying glass I needed to see the parts and show everyone in the house how big my eye looks when I do “this!” After completing that useful step, I refocused my attention on what I refer to as “The Real Housewives of Orange County” for approximately 42 minutes. Spoiler alert: this show sucks – and Billy should get rid of Quinn before their brains begin to interact and create a dangerous black hole of dumb.

Back at my workstation, I ruled out my next piece of computer – the DVD drive. This was easy to spot given the fact that it had since fallen on the floor and opened to reveal the contents I forgot to remove. As a side note, I’m selling a copy of Fletch Lives on DVD (no box) in case you know of anyone who might be interested. Next, I set all the parts out on the table in size order, starting with the screws measuring about three atoms across and working my way up to the frame of the screen, which only my dog was able to disassemble further.

After laying out every part – minus the two parts I had already discarded – my nine-year-old daughter walked over and asked, “Daddy, isn’t this the hard drive?” I smirked, kind of shook my head a little, and responded, “don’t be silly, honey, I KNOW that’s the hard drive. I’m trying to make sure there are no parts here that need to be recycled.” Another note: the hard drive was attached to a piece of the laptop body that was simply removed with a pressure switch – no need to remove so much as a single screw.

Hard drive in hand, I made my way to Best Buy to find out how the Geek Squad could rescue my files. I suppose I could have simply taken the entire laptop with me and saved a lot of time and aggravation, but then I wouldn’t have gotten to play with the magnifying glass.

Upon my arrival at the store, the clerk at the door insisted on tagging my hard drive (size: 2.5 inches x 3.5 inches – no Jewish jokes, please) for a return. I had to explain that I was gentile (I’m in the Bible Belt, for crying out loud), and that this was not a return, but a job for the Geek Squad. I made my way to the back of the store (where the Jews are forced to go for ‘de-lousing’) and found a geek to talk to. He explained that their fee for any data recovery would START at $99! “$99?!” I exclaimed, tipping my Jewish hand just a tad too much for comfort, in retrospect. “Or you can buy this ‘hard drive enclosure’ for $51.99,” he added, showing me how simple it would be to install my laptop hard drive in it and connect it to my computer with the USB. How those little barcodes connect things to computers I’ll never know.

“$51.99 is a little more than I really wanted to spend on this project,” I explained.

“Well, we do have a pretty liberal return policy; 30 days with a receipt,” he whispered with a wink. Looking at his name tag, I realized he was speaking my language.

“That sounds like a swell idea, Mordechai.”

I took possession of the loaner and made my way back home.

Just a few minutes later I was browsing the files from my dead, and now mutilated laptop. Lo and behold, I found a file folder: “pics to burn on CD.” Empty. After searching further, I located a folder called “work.” A few clicks later and voila… the dog pees on the floor. Several seconds go by and I realize nobody else even knows about it, and it ain’t gonna clean itself up. I get the paper towels, Spot Shot, Clorox wipes, Swiffer and a mop. I know there’s a way these things can work in concert to create cleanliness. I call my daughter, the one who gave me the assist on the locating the hard drive. She runs into the room excited, only to find out that daddy has made a bigger mess out of a puddle of pee and a handful of cleaning products than he made on the kitchen table with the old laptop, which by the way, didn’t need to be disassembled at all to begin with. She took hold of the cleaning process and let me finish the manly task of trying to locate my pictures from Fwonce.

In a flash, I drill down through the work folder ‘Work/Scott/Ruder Finn/Air France/Events/Press Trips/Lacroix/Pictures.’ There it is! Success! A folder full of a couple hundred pictures from the trip to Paris. I quickly copied them to my digital file folder and burned a CD of them just in case.

At that point, I removed the old laptop hard drive from the loaner enclosure, boxed the loaner back up and prepared it for its return from whence it came. The pictures are safe.

Which is more than I can say for Billy. He has no idea that Quinn is ready to have “the talk.”

If He Says It’s 150 Inches, He May Not Be Lying

Every year there is one place every consumer wants to be but few have the opportunity: freezing on a line outside Best Buy to see if they will have a Nintendo Wii so their kids can be less disappointed about what they didn’t get on Christmas morning.

A scant few weeks later, the electronics industry takes over in Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show (a.k.a. Bill Gates’ platform to inflate his ego only slightly less than his checkbook). Here is where they unveil new products of all shapes and sizes that cost more than most of the people talking about them make in a year. Among other things, here is where you will see the next game system consumers won’t be able to find in stores for at least 26 months.

In order to gain admission to this extravaganza of over-hyped and ultra-expensive gadgets and gizmos, you must meet strict requirements, which solely include breathing. I was lucky enough to qualify for credentials along with what seems to be the entire population of the states of Maine, Delaware and South Dakota, including pets.

This was the first time I visited the show, and I’ve learned a few things which may be helpful for those of you out there who plan to attend in the future.

• If your credentials don't arrive in time, the only electronics you will see on day one consist of mobile communication devices attached to the ears of angry would-be show goers complaining to friends, spouses and co-workers about standing in a miles-long line waiting for their passes. As a rule, this line is not designed to move in any way. Considering the town we’re in, many people were disappointed to find that there was no buffet when they got to the front.
  
• Automotive technology, as far as I can see, has advanced at an astonishing rate. For reasons nobody fully understands, every single product is designed in the form of a very hot female. For some reason, these females are always situated in front of some sort of visual device that generally contains a map on a screen.
  
• The sales people, or exhibitionists, at each booth distract from the real purpose of the trade show floor: collecting swag. In fact, there are people who go to the show for the sole purpose of getting corporate branded pens, flashlights and hats from the exhibiting companies. The wheeled suitcases these people drag around the show floor make it easy to spot and trip over them.
  
• Car stereos now come with embedded purple neon lights, thus completing the visible spectrum of colors. Finally.
  
• Televisions are getting larger. Some companies unveiled plasma screens up to 150” in size. Nobody, with the exception of Bill Gates (more on him later), has a wall big enough to handle a screen of this size. Nevertheless, consumers will buy them just to have them. The companies know this, and are appropriately developing a 300-foot screen for next year so consumers can open their own drive-in theaters.
  
• Bill Gates still has way too much money. This fact is evidenced by the size of the Microsoft booth at the show. For reference, the booth is approximately the size of four football fields, if the football fields were each the size of the former polar ice caps.
  
• Speaking of cold, I’m almost certain that Las Vegas is not really located in the Nevada desert, but rather in Nome, Alaska.
  
• Moving about on the show floor requires precision timing and a willingness to ‘go with the flow’, especially when you’re in near an area that’s particularly popular (Las Vegas). Successful navigation is based on your ability to break off from one throng of people and join another moving in a different direction.
  
• Wear comfortable shoes. I do not recommend Bass Elite dress shoes for men.
  
• Small Chinese electronics companies looking to break into the US market will take a small booth at the Consumer Electronics Show. For some reason, every single one of these companies includes the name of the town where they are headquartered in their name. For example: Ying Ho (Shanghai) Electronics. Imagine Micro (Redmond) soft or XM (Washington, DC) Satellite Radio.

These tips should prove useful to anyone who can’t find a way to avoid coming to the Consumer Electronics Show in the future. But before I go, I think it would be a great disservice if I didn’t share a few pointers about Las Vegas in general:

• When you land at the airport, you will get your first expensive lesson as you pass the slot machines – and get to the taxis. The beginning fare is somewhere in the double digits and they charge by each 1/11 of a mile (this is totally true). The good thing is that some entrepreneur somewhere is working on finding a way to turn taxi meters into gambling devices.
  
• No matter how short the Strip seems to be, walking the entire thing on foot is an all day affair. And it’s a walk that causes blisters the size of cherry tomatoes on your foot.
  
• Vegas shows, like any of the 77 different versions of Cirque du Soleil in town, will run you approximately two months’ salary. Taking your girlfriend out to one of these shows legally qualifies you to become engaged.
  
• Slot machines still don’t pay out much in the way of profits. If you’re looking to walk away with money from a machine in the casino, I recommend the ones marked ATM. They’re not nearly as glitzy and exciting, but they have the best payout percentage in the casino.
  
• The Wynn is one of the nicest new casinos on the strip. Given its ultra-elite status, Steve Wynn is considering charging a cover just to get in. Keep this in mind when you walk by the small, seedy gambling halls as you look for a nice place to play.
  
• Las Vegas is, according to the map people, in the middle of a desert. You wouldn’t know this by the millions of gallons of water you will see in fountains, Venetian canals and mirages in front of every hotel. Georgia governor Sonny Perdue should consider building casinos all over the state in order to solve its current drought issues.

All these tips are designed to help you plan your trip to Las Vegas and future trade shows held at the opulent Las Vegas Convention Center. The best thing I can do for the public is to share these tips with my readers in hopes that you will someday do what I did and skip the mortgage for three months prior to coming out.