So, a friend and I went out for the night after working on assignments all afternoon. We left our computers (my PowerBook, his iBook), amongst other things, at his place and headed for the pub. It was excellent - we drank some great beer and played some pool.
Then we got home and my friend had a quizzical look on his face. I looked around the room and noticed a lot of empty space that wasn't there when we left. It turns out that someone had broken in and stolen the following:
The PowerBook in my signature
His 14" 1.33Ghz iBook
His Digidesign M-Bag and my Targus notebook case
His 20GB 4G iPod
His Digidesign MBox
DVDs
An ADSL modem
Ironically, they didn't take the microphones that were strewn across the couch (we're both Audio Engineering students) - they would've gone great with their newfound MBox/PowerBook home-studio setup
.
The loss of our most valueable posessions doesn't bother me as much as the fact that we both had a lot of work on those computers and our last day of polytech is 5 days away. In my case, I had a fully mastered EP that was about to be pressed/released and no backup (I still have the multitracks and final mixes backed up, but mastering it all again is going to be a drag) as well as a lot of irreplaceable independant music, movies, etc. In his case, he had a series of commercial podcasts that he'd recorded, assignments, etc.
I'm sure insurance will cover everything. New Zealand insurance companies actually help out in these situations (unlike some of the US insurance company horror stories I've heard). But a lot of that data was priceless. We both feel crap for not having backed it up, but I guess that's just one of many lessons we've learned this evening.
So, here's where you guys come in
First of all, what details should I/can I give to the police? They're coming 'round in the morning to dust for fingerprints (which I'm guessing is just a formality). I guess all I have is my serial number, but I doubt they'll try to sell it as my PowerBook was password-protected.
Secondly, is there any way they can access my data? The second they open it, they're going to be greeted with a password field, but I haven't bothered with FileVault or anything. I know that you can reset the password if you have the installer discs, but is it really that easy? Will they lose all of my keychain information if they're savvy enough to do this?
And finally, I'm guessing that my replacement will be a current 15" PowerBook, but do you think I should try and get my hands on another Rev. D? I really don't like the idea of not being able to access the processor performance from Energy Saver as I do a lot of recording in places where there is no power supply and I really need to suck every last hertz out of my processor. Has anyone found this to be irksome? Or are the better screens, DL-DVD drives, etc a fair trade-off?
Ok, sob story over. At least I have my G3. Unfortunately, I'm typing on the original 1999 keyboard and I'm using the hockey puck mouse. I never realised how reliant I was on the PowerBook keyboard and trackpad scrolling!
Then we got home and my friend had a quizzical look on his face. I looked around the room and noticed a lot of empty space that wasn't there when we left. It turns out that someone had broken in and stolen the following:
The PowerBook in my signature
His 14" 1.33Ghz iBook
His Digidesign M-Bag and my Targus notebook case
His 20GB 4G iPod
His Digidesign MBox
DVDs
An ADSL modem
Ironically, they didn't take the microphones that were strewn across the couch (we're both Audio Engineering students) - they would've gone great with their newfound MBox/PowerBook home-studio setup
.The loss of our most valueable posessions doesn't bother me as much as the fact that we both had a lot of work on those computers and our last day of polytech is 5 days away. In my case, I had a fully mastered EP that was about to be pressed/released and no backup (I still have the multitracks and final mixes backed up, but mastering it all again is going to be a drag) as well as a lot of irreplaceable independant music, movies, etc. In his case, he had a series of commercial podcasts that he'd recorded, assignments, etc.
I'm sure insurance will cover everything. New Zealand insurance companies actually help out in these situations (unlike some of the US insurance company horror stories I've heard). But a lot of that data was priceless. We both feel crap for not having backed it up, but I guess that's just one of many lessons we've learned this evening.
So, here's where you guys come in
First of all, what details should I/can I give to the police? They're coming 'round in the morning to dust for fingerprints (which I'm guessing is just a formality). I guess all I have is my serial number, but I doubt they'll try to sell it as my PowerBook was password-protected.
Secondly, is there any way they can access my data? The second they open it, they're going to be greeted with a password field, but I haven't bothered with FileVault or anything. I know that you can reset the password if you have the installer discs, but is it really that easy? Will they lose all of my keychain information if they're savvy enough to do this?
And finally, I'm guessing that my replacement will be a current 15" PowerBook, but do you think I should try and get my hands on another Rev. D? I really don't like the idea of not being able to access the processor performance from Energy Saver as I do a lot of recording in places where there is no power supply and I really need to suck every last hertz out of my processor. Has anyone found this to be irksome? Or are the better screens, DL-DVD drives, etc a fair trade-off?
Ok, sob story over. At least I have my G3
. Unfortunately, I'm typing on the original 1999 keyboard and I'm using the hockey puck mouse. I never realised how reliant I was on the PowerBook keyboard and trackpad scrolling!
