HALLELUJA

I've been having trouble with the iMac running really slow.
We bought it in 2008 and it had an operating system that most programmes that I tried to access recently were disinclined to oblige. Most warned me that I was a fool for using an obsolete system and suggested that I buy new programmes or, to be really safe, an entire new computer.

I gave up using the iMac which was a shame as it has a really big screen, has always in the past been very reliable and has all of our photographs loaded on it.

I contacted a computer guy who gave me a quote for upgrading. This was nearly $600 or, he suggested if the upgrade didn't work, he could sell me a new iMac.
In the email he sent me he broke down the quote into components. Admittedly $200 odd was for a memory upgrade but the rest was for an upgrade programme and labour. He mentioned the upgrade programme - Mac OS X Snow Leopard which was necessary to take me out of the dark ages (of 2008) and put me into a place that  our lord Apple would recognise for on-line free upgrades.

I purchased the Snow Leopard on-line for $29 including delivery. It turned up real quick so this weekend I uploaded it and then set about downloading the free upgrades.
As my operating system was so old this took a while until I reached the latest - El Capitan. Bingo!
It works and the speed is incredibly faster than before. I don't need the memory upgrade and can access all the old programmes - eventually.

After the upgrade I discovered that all of our photographs on iPhoto had disappeared - thousands of them. I was worried as The Old Girl has some treasured family memories amongst these. I tried for hours trying to retrieve them to no avail. When The Old Girl asked what I was doing I told her that the upgrade required a lot of smaller downloads of applications etc etc. She seemed to buy that. I trawled through the web and found hundreds of people who had the same problem after upgrading to El Capitan. Many of the suggested fixes just didn't work with some suggesting buying a programme from Apple (probably suggested by Apple salespeople).

I eventually found one common sense person who suggested a simple remedy and so today I managed to retrieve all of our photos. I was relieved and confessed to The Old Girl. She said that it was OK as it wouldn't have been my fault - very obliging I thought.

I'm now back in business and will probably be able to blog a bit more frequently (sorry about that) as using the lap-top or the iPad was difficult and annoying. It has also saved me over $500.