Whip Out Da Tongue and Squirt That Mofo!

A lot of my posts have been kind of Apple-centric lately (sorry to those MS fanboys & fangirls that might be out there), but what can I say - I work at an Apple-centric job and it's been moreso lately.

Anyway, today I got to take apart the LCD Screen on a 12" iBook G4. Wow. Man, it's really impressive how they orchestrate everything inside of those panels. The planning and coordination that goes on to make those things work as slickly as they do is really impressive. And I learned something - Apple was using Philips/LG flat panels when they made the G4 iBooks. Didn't know that - putting in the new one was lots of fun but, MAN....time consuming. Two hours flew by like it was 30 minutes. I get part two of the re-assemble, therefore, on Monday morning. I just couldn't wrap it up in one day.

The Stars dropped another game last night - was tough to watch, but I couldn't tear myself away. I just can't make myself believe that Phoenix is good enough to put up 10 goals against us in two games, but it's hard to argue with reality. But, so far on the four-game road trip, Dallas has gone 2-1, so the worst they can finish is .500, and that's not too bad for a Pacific Division road trip.

Time to get back to my iTunes library. Still trying to get it back in shape after the horrible accident. *sigh* All the music is there now, at least...it's just not in the Smart Playlists I had it in or rated. That's where more time at the computer comes in... Give it up for the big Pale Indoor Kid.

Oh - here's a funny for you: Word.

Apple Dinner

Today at work we had an impromptu visit from some Apple representatives. It was interesting, because I'm not completely Apple Certified yet, and don't have anyone that I work with who is...I am therefore at a loss, sometimes, as to how to use their help pages and support site. During the visit, they cleared up a bunch of things which was nice.

They also let me know about a "Bench Table Live" event that was going on this evening, and told me they would be doing some live demos, giving some explanations about the support site and providing food. Well, that was all I needed! It turned out to be a really nice event. The event was at the Palomino Hotel in Dallas - a relatively new hotel in a pretty nice area (right near SMU and Mockingbird Station). The food was VERY tasty, and the information was helpful. All in all, a good time.

Other than that - a quiet day. Thanksgiving is getting close, and A&E will be visiting. Mrs. Monkey and I are really looking forward to their visit. They're great friends and we have a great time whenever they're around.

Back to my hockey game and my beer... Oh, FU-D - you can get beer towers at several places around here, including Humperdink's (all their locations) and Blackfinn in Addison. Enjoy - and bring a designated driver...

Where's My Time Machine??

As I have been detailing (modestly and scantily) on this very blog, I have been growing my music collection on my Mac Mini (also known as Fred). Fred got a buddy last spring in the form of a 300 GB firewire drive, and some friends and I got together, shared our music collections, and promptly stuffed the firewire buddy to his gills. I do not exaggerate - I believe there was just over a gig of free space left when trading was finished.

Anyway, I have been transferring and consolidating music files...getting rid of duplicates, etc., etc. When I'm finished, I should still have nearly 200 GB in music, but there will be some space on the firewire drive to build a partition for back-up purposes. Then I can make sure I keep all of my music, photos, and other such important things. Just in time for Time Machine to come around on Leopard and make all of this tie together oh so nicely. Stay with me here...

So, this evening, I was wrapping up some of my "drive cleaning", and getting ready to outfit Fred with Leopard. I move over my pictures and document folders to back those up, and decide to give the disk a bit of a check with the Disk Utility feature on the install disk - make sure it's working okay and ready to handle the new OS. Here, we begin the fun...

First, as I'm verifying the disk, the utility starts spewing error after error at me - problems with several HP Laserjet printer descriptions or something to that effect. Kind of odd, since I don't use an HP Laserjet, and I'm not sure Fred has ever printed to an HP Laserjet. I'm sure it's some of the default descriptions they have on file so that Fred can be a Plug & Play wiz, but it's a pain that they've gone corrupt or whatever.

So, it goes through several thousand of those errors, and then locks up. Big Fat Beachball o' Death. Ugh. Not much to do at this point but to give him a restart and go in to run it again. This time, I get in there, and Disk Utility won't verify the disk. It starts and stops about 30 seconds in. Hrmmm....

Well, let's go back to OS 10.4.10, I say to myself. Let's REALLY make sure everything is backed up, and bring out the heavy diagnostic tools.... Ha, ha, ha. Of course not! Fred won't have it. Right during startup, Fred just shuts off. Going back in to the Leopard startup disk, the new installer won't even see the hard drive. It requires that I completely erase and re-format the disk before it will do any sort of verifying or installing.

Well. I could spend the lengthy (and probably costly) process of reclaiming the data through various outlets - there are options to get stuff off of dead/damaged disks. But, I really don't want to deal with all of that. And, aside from an iTunes Library file and some bookmarks in my Safari folder, I have complete backups of everything.

Things definitely could be worse. I could have NOT backed up my pictures and document folders before going in to Disk Utility. I have gone in there without doing so before. And, I could have no backup system in place, and be in a real pickle about what to do to recover my precious stuff. Really, what I'm left with is the realization of what a great advertisement this is for the new backup feature I'm trying to install on Leopard....almost makes you wonder if there is some conspiracy in place....to truly show you just how badly you need the product you are installing. Building consumer confidence through annoyance and data destruction! W00t!

Red Sox, Patriots and Leopards...Oh My!

It's been great to be a New England sports fan lately. The Boston Red Sox clinched their 7th World Series title last night after sweeping the Colorado Rockies. And, the New England Patriots have run their record to 8-0 after shellacking the Washington Redskins 52-7 this weekend. The sports pages are ablaze with disgruntled fans and offended, PC-geared, commentators who say the Patriots are "running up the score" on their opponents. Yeah, they are. Scoring records were made to be broken. Why SHOULDN'T the Patriots try to beat the other teams as much as possible. And to the Patriot opponents who have complained about the scoring, here's a tip: If you don't like it - stop them. It's that easy (or maybe it isn't, and that's why you're so upset).

Okay, so that's what's going on in the sports world, right now. At least, in my sports world. I'm working my butt off at my new job, trying to figure out PC mysteries and do my best to keep up with the Mac work we have had. Apple released OS 10.5, nicknamed Leopard, on Friday, and I've been doing my best to learn all the features. I haven't installed it on my Mac Mini, but I do have it up and running on my (work's) MacBook Pro, and it's been doing great on there. I like a lot of the features it offers, and it makes finding information on your computer pretty easy. I think once I have more things on this laptop, it will be a real time saver. Until then, it just kinda looks pretty.