All of the Apple “Get A Mac” ads are awesome, but this latest one takes a pretty funny jab at the new security features in Windows’ latest OS, Vista. Too funny.
If you want to see all of the Get A Mac ads, just go to apple.com/getamac/ads
Enjoy π
Category / Technology
A Nifty Mac Trick
Saw this podcast this morning, and tried it out on my computer and thought it was neat enough to share on the ol’ blog. If you’re a Mac user, try it out. It’s pretty “nifty” (as the title suggests…) π
More soon, I would think… (Life is still very busy – work wise. That’s good!) π
Free Stuff at iTunes?
You may not be aware of this, but iTunes has been offering songs and videos for free for… well, perhaps since the iTunes Music Store made its first appearance! Well, not long ago I discovered a page that has all of the (updated weekly, or more) content at the iTunes store! Just thought I’d share here. It’s usually updated on Tuesdays.
This week, I grabbed the song Lonely By Your Side (haven’t listened yet, it’s just the free single of the week) and the president’s State of the Union address. There are more songs and shows and stuff up there. Not a great selection this week, but defintely a link to hold onto.
So, without further ado…
Broked – Part II
OK… If you’re following along at home, you might think that last week’s troubles ended with the PowerBook hard drive failing (or perhaps you might even think they ended last week?) π That is not the case. So, the saga continues with another trip to the Apple Store on Thursday night, following the failure of yet another hard drive!
Thursday morning I was hoping to have a more successful day… just really hoping to finish the crazy week with a normal, quiet day. Wednesday night, Jen & I spent a little time going through the iTunes store to choose some music for her to use her $15 gift card on. That was fun, and after some tough choices, she settled on just the right songs to spend her gift money on. I sent the links up to the computer where we store our iTunes music library on Wednesday night, and made the purchases that following Thursday morning.
After all had downloaded, I went to get Jen’s iPod, and connected it to the computer. It mounted, and started updating, just as it always does. But right as it finished, it gave a little error message. Something like, “Unable to write to disk” or something. That sounded bad, but I assumed it was some strange glitch, and just unmounted the iPod drive and then re-connected it.
That’s when everything got broked again.
The iPod decided not to show up as it is supposed to. It thought it was updating, but iTunes (nor my computer) did not see it. I tried a few things, but eventually it just froze up my two applications that handle mounting iPod hard drives. I tried to force quit both of those, and nothing happened there… so I eventually decided to just unplug the iPod.
It didn’t like that.
It tried to restart, and was not successful. It restarted, then crashed, then restarted, then crashed… until the battery finally died. π It was a physical hard drive failure. We had just had that happen not 3 months ago! So, the best part was, I assumed it was still warranteed, and we took it up to the Apple Store (our second visit in as many nights.)
I need to make this long story short, so here are the highlights:
1) Long wait at the Apple Store… grumpy Genius handled my troubled iPod
2) “You’re out of warranty,” says grumpy Genius.
3) “How far out of warranty?” asks Greg. “I can’t tell,” replies grumpy Genius.
4) I notice on the paper that the 90-day warranty began on 10-18-2006. It was 1-19-07 that night. ARGH!!! Thankfully, the manager whom we know was working that night, and she took care of us. π
5) They ship back our iPod, and order a new one for us, free of charge.
So, that kind of worked…
Friday morning, I had to restart my computer because Tuesday night the iPod crash had frozen up my disk utility program. So, when I got the chance, I restarted. BUT… for some reason, it spun up my external hard drive, and then would not quit. After waiting a very long time, I decided to force it to shut down. When the external drive is spinning, and you do a forced shut down… that makes a very very bad sound.
I spent the next 45 minutes I think doing all I could to save my 500GB external drive from a hard shut down. Thankfully, that actually worked! Was my luck changing? Were things technological going to begin to improve for me?
Guess not.
Sunday we got the call that the iPod was in and we could come pick it up. Jen did, and when she returned I went up and happily connected it to the computer, so we could load all 25GB or so of our music on there.
It didn’t show up. The computer, and iTunes were not recognizing it. I tried several different things. Nothing. I unplugged it (not recommended) and tried again… again nothing. Finally, the third time I unplugged it, I got the bad, BAD sound again! It fell right back into that loop the last one had done. Restart, crash, restart, crash…
You get the point.
Yes, folks. The REPLACEMENT for the REPLACEMENT of the REPLACEMENT … CRASHED! The FIRST TIME I CONNECTED IT!!!
It has been a very bad technology week here. π
So, we’re headed to the Apple store tonight to have them order another one for us. It’s warranteed… but come on. This is ridiculous!!! Hoping the curse has run its course….
I’ll let you know in episode three…
Broked
Tuesday morning, I awoke to a few phone calls, a couple IMs and an e-mail or two from a client (and friend) of mine who had woken up to find his website was down. That happens… so I wasn’t too worried. We had just spent 9 straight days getting him up and running on a new server – MAJOR craziness – and all was going well for a week… untill… his account just disappeared from the server. Gone. No trace of it ever having been there.
Thankfully, with some great help from several sources, we got his site up and running again within 24 hours. That was a bit of a miracle, you could say. It was quite welcome news this morning.
This afternoon, after a few more minor things were not going well… I went to check a web page I was working on over on my PowerBook, and I noticed I could not access it. The mouse was still moving, but I couldn’t click anything. I couldn’t get out of it any way I knew how, so … I just shut down the computer and tried again. Unfortunately, it just kept getting worse and worse… until, I was fairly certain I had lost all hope of recovering any of that drive π
I am very good at backing things up, but unfortunately this time, there were DAYS worth of work on that computer that had NOT been backed up. Gone. Lost. No trace of it ever having been there.
Oh! And I almost forgot… I have some old gaming systems (Nintendo NES, Sega Genesis, TI 99/4a) and I had created the entire current Sabres team on the Sega Genesis NHL ’96 game! It’s awesome! The boys and I have enjoyed that. Last night, I played two games, and at the end of the second one, as I was about to shut it off… the screen froze. When it does that, you have to shut it off immediately, or you might lose the season, or perhaps other data. Yes… you guessed it. Not only did I lose the season… I lost every player I created, and all traces of it ever having been there.
Goodness… I’m in a pretty serious rut here…
At one point this evening I wanted to just completely eliminate all things that can break from my life. Mainly I was thinking electronic things… but then I just thought, how about EVERYTHING that can break. No more frustration then, eh? π
Sadly… I do realize that everything breaks. Servers, hard drives, old computers, tables, couches, houses, and yes, even people π That’s the way it is.
Still, I can’t help but think that some of the great frustration I have endured this past week (and even this whole month so far I think) could have been alleviated had I a bit less dependence or involvement with electronic technology. The weird part is, that’s what I love! I love all the fun technology we have… but it does seem to cause me almost as much grief as enjoyment.
Perhaps a solution would be a technological sabbatical? What’s the likelihood of that? Me giving up technology???? It would certainly be different… π
SO, my PowerBook has been shipped off to Apple again, and it will come back brand new… covered under warranty. But I did lose all the data on that. And there are some other things that are working around me… but it’s only a matter of time before they get broked too.
That’s just no fun. Wish stuff didn’t get broked.
ο£ΏTV and The iPhone Becomes Reality!
I would love to go on and on about the amazingly cool products apple just released yesterday, but all I have time for right now are links and this photo. π
AppleTV
iPhone (Please don’t think this is just a phone…)
Watch the whole Keynote speech (A well-spent 2 hours!)
Enjoy! I’m sure I’ll write more later!
(And… if you’d like to get any of this great new stuff… click here then click here) π
Cyborgs, and the World Wide Mind
PBS is offering a series of shows on iTunes as a free download, and then asking viewers to vote for the best show, which will then become a regular series on the network. I downloaded the shows yesterday and decided to watch the one called 22nd Century first. I like futuristic stuff, science fiction and whatnot… so, I thought I’d check it out.
The show was about cyborg technology. Tiny computers that enhance people’s organic functions. There was a story about a man who completely lost his hearing, but with a small computer connected to his brain that could interpret the signals still coming to his ears, he learned to hear again! And then another story of people who are “locked in” and can not communicate with the outside world (though they are full cognisant of it), but with the help of tiny computers connected to their brain, they were able to just think a word or letter, and get a computer screen to show what they were thinking. The machine learns (and is programmed) to react to the different signals the brain sends out when the person was “thinking” of that specific word, letter, object… whatever. That one took some more training time, but was pretty amazing.
All of that was well and good, even the guy who wore glasses that had computers in them (and I think they were attached to his brain).. neat stuff. The totally insane part was some of the other folks who were suggesting that since we can tap into our brains like this, the 22nd century will be replete with Cyborgs – people and machines working symbiotically.
Is this a good thing? On an individual basis, why not? Obviously if it was required by others (like a government policy or something) that would be a very, very bad thing. But if you just wanted to enhance your body (though the validity of that statement could certainly be challenged) then go right ahead. However, this technology allows for individual “cyborgs” to be connected to other machines (like a computer network). Again, that’s not that bad… the main question there is who is in control? Is the person and their brain in control, or, does the machine have the capability of taking over? It sounds like sci-fi, but is it possible?
Certainly the possibility of a machine by malfunction, or even worse, by way of programming taking over the mind of a human being is not a desirable outcome of this technology. It’s rather a scary thought. But that was not the worst idea put forth by this 60 minute show.
The WWM (pronounced, “whim”), or, the World Wide Mind. The idea here is that as we have the internet now, which requires that we interface via keyboards and screens and such… we could have instant connection by having a sort of computer network in our brains. We would be “always on” the world wide web… in our mind. We would be able to hear, read, see, even feel what other people are thinking. IT’S THE BORG! π
While there may be a fascinating side to all this, and apparently many feel it is entirely plausible… the down side is just disastrous. It would be so easy to control another person who is “wired” this way. It would be way too easy to invade another person’s “self”. It’s just scary.
The world-wide-mind thing is a mystery to me as well. Why would we WANT to be connected to people in this way? I know we are relational, but why aren’t the built-in ways to relate good enough? π It seems that any benefit you get from linking to another person this way is FAR outweighed by the negative possibilites that come from such a link. There is no privacy, no … self! Anyone can “access” you any time they want.
Well, I finished the show just hoping this was some wacko’s idea of what the future could be. I’m all for integrating technology. But, we must be very, very careful. Technology is much easier to hack than the great “firewalls” God built into us. Yes, there are problems with those, too. (How could there be any deceit if we all knew what each other was thinking?) But I’ll take the original, thank you very much!
And, I’ll have fun using all of the great stuff we’re going to see in about 5 minutes from the Macworld conference in San Fransisco… π
Macworld Eve Predictions
I just posted an article on my Newsvine page about the upcoming Macworld conference, with the big Steve Jobs keynote tomorrow. Lots of fun predicitons. Didn’t know if anyone reading this blog remembered that I also post articles to other pages on occasion. π Couldn’t help myself today, so… here you go!
Lovin’ On Apple
I gotta love on Apple a bit. First of all, I got my $29 iPod shuffle today! It was my birthday present to myself, and a Christmas gift to Ian. π I told him I’d share it with him. It’s awesome. π
Second… here’s the quick version of the story:
Yesterday, my laptop power supply charger cord shorts out… sparks, smoke, almost flames… melting plastic. Bad. So I am sad I have to buy a replacement part. THEN, I am not sad when I remember I have AppleCare, which replaces things for FREE. Very nice. We like free.
I called Apple, they said, “Yep. You’re covered. We’ll have the part to you by the end of the week.” Awesome! So, I then remember my laptop needs a bit of maintenance.. but I could never figure out when to part with it for a week or so… until now! I called back and arranged for them to get my laptop. Very good.
A box for my laptop arrived Tuesday morning. Along with a box holding the new power supply!! WOW! That was quicker than “the end of the week”!!! So I packaged up my laptop and the old burned up power supply and called DHL to schedule a pick up. They didn’t come till much later that day, but it was alright. I figured I’d hear from Apple not too long after it arrived.
At 12:25pm today (Wednesday) I received an email from Apple saying that my PowerBook had arrived and was now scheduled to be repaired!!!! WHAT!???!! NY to CA in like 12 hours??! Wow!!!! That is just amazing.
It gets better.
The email included a link to check the status online. So, at 3:30pm or so (EST) I decided to check. THREE HOURS LATER the status was COMPLETE, shipping Nov 29. !!!! WHAT IN THE WORLD? How can Apple be this good???
So, I expect that I will receive my laptop back on my doorstep tomorrow morning. A full three days from when I called Apple. I think the only reason it took three days was that Apple doesn’t have their own shipping service!!!
Folks, if you don’t already own a Mac… what are you waiting for?
Report: Islamic site finds Apple store offensive
An islamic website is apparently taking on Apple for the clearly offensive designof their 5th Avenue Store in NYC. Religion is… fascinating.