Boring

Do not read this post while driving, operating heavy machinery, or taking medication that may cause drowsiness.

I can, I will admit, be a bit compulsive about backing up my files. Particularly my working files, that represent a significant investment of time and effort, but there are letters, and photos, and memories I'd be loathe to lose. (And you'll never know when something will prove unexpectedly vital.)

I have an older computer — a dual-processor Power Mac G4 that, once upon a time (six years ago), was the most powerful Mac one could buy (for $2999!) — that now sits on a shelf in my garage, having been put to use as a rudimentary file server. (It has a fan that is mostly quiet, but always on, so I put it where the noise wouldn't be a distraction.) It serves silently — at least, I don't hear it — as additional storage and a destination for files to be regularly backed up to.

It worked, but it was s-l-o-w. I'm not sure if that was the age of the computer, or sending so much data over the wireless network, but I hoped it might work better if I connected the G4 to my wireless router with an Ethernet cable. But to do that, I'd either have to move the G4 upstairs, find a way to run a cable up through the garage (a completely ridiculous idea I considered longer than any reasonable person should) or move the router and the cable modem into the garage.

So I moved everything into the garage. It was largely on a whim, a sort of "I wonder if that would work?" moment on a Monday afternoon.

The end result? Everything is better. Backing up files is now significantly faster, so much so that it frequently happens without my even being aware of it. And my Internet connection seems much faster, as well, now that the cable modem has been moved one splitter and perhaps a hundred feet closer to the source. This morning, I put up a small shelf to position the wireless router just so, to ensure the best coverage for the entire house. Tomorrow, I'll install another 500 GB hard drive for additional storage.

(I told you this would be boring.)