Oh, Apple... isn't this what got Micro$oft in trouble?

Recently updated iTunes and found this waiting for me in my MacBook Pro’s dock:



And magically an icon for Apples new App Store appears in my dock. Anti-trust much? :

Crash reporter crashed

Crash reporter crashed, originally uploaded by thepetecom.

How's that for irony? I love Macs and OSX, would definitely agree that they are generally more reliable than PCs, but they are far from perfect. Don't believe the hype.

OSX Leopard's Windowy Install Time

So, I'm installing Leopard on my PowerBook (Leopard is the new version of Mac's OSX operating system) and found further evidence of a theory of mine.

I was a PC person up until 2003 when I bought my first Mac. I loved it and am currently on my third Mac (only one of them died--the other I still use). However, before I was a Mac person I knew Windows machines pretty thoroughly and even built myself one. I've also done the equivalent of building at least one more (by upgrading other people's PCs). So, I could see the trend--and I saw the direction Windows was going in and decided 2003 was a good time to try out a Mac. I did and in the intervening years I've watched OSX become more and more Windows-like.

The longer it's up the slower it runs, the random conflicts with devices (most recently my brand new Netgear wifi router) and now installing Leopard I see that it takes three times as long to install OSX compared to Tiger (the previous version) which took just 30-40 minutes.

What's going on Steve? Each time your market share grows larger your product gets more and more like your competition. Seems like you're missing that whole "diversity" thing--and in a real bad way, too. If you're going to rip off you're opponent, rip off the good stuff, not the bad!

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Cats and Coffee: How OSX Leopard Doesn't Like Java

Reinforcing the classic pessimistic argument against upgrading, "if it isn't broken don't fix it," early adopters of Apple's OSX "Leopard" are discovering that the operating system won't run Java. Java, in case you weren't aware, is a kind of programming language. The reason people like it so much is because it is cross-platform. That is, it's supposed to be cross-platform.

Now, it turns out that a lot of people actually use Java on Macs. I, myself, use it to manage music on a Sony thumb drive Walkman I picked up on sale. However, programmers who work in Java are now thoroughly screwed until Apple can put out a fix and since Apple isn't used to putting out fixes as often as good old Microsoft is, who knows when a patch will become available?

As a RegDeveloper.co.uk article points out, "Apple marketing monkeys, trying to woo developers to OS X, like to refer to the OS as "the only major consumer operating system that comes complete with a fully configured and ready-to-use Java runtime and development environment.""

Whoopsie!

Kind of tough when one of the very things you put in bold face on the brochure you end up being unable to deliver.

Source: RegDeveloper.co.uk

The Crash Man Cometh--Twice in One Week!!

Man, I had this brilliant post on Cheney condoning "a dunk in the water" aka waterboarding aka torture but then, the Crash Man paid his second visit to me in less than a week and POOF it all went away before I clicked "publish". THANKS FIREFOX 1.5!! I was JUST about to upgrade to 2.0 when this happened. Literally--I had finished the body of the post and all I had to do was add a link to a video of a guy actually getting waterboarded, and that would have been it. But halfway through the waterboarding video (I had to watch the damn thing first) the friggin flash video crashed Firefox.

Ah well. My fault for not using [http://twilightuniverse.com/2005/04/twilight-autosave/|Twilight's Autosave plugin] for [http://wordpress.org|WordPress]. Needless to say, it's installed and activated now. Conflicts with other plugins be damned!!

Bear With Me...

Still getting the hang of the new schedule--well, that and getting used to having my soul sucked from my body 5 days a week. I'm sure once I actually start seeing money I'll feel better about wasting 40 hours a week on someone else's company. :D

Bitter?

Oh... a tad...

Hopefully I'll get back to posting more regular blogs, comics and media. Man, if only I could make money doing all of THAT stuff! SHEESH!

See you soon!

TheGraffiti at ThePete.Com

OK, so TheShoutBox kept getting spammed, so I'm doing this instead. Post anything you want (within reason, of course) below. I'll install one of those plugins that will split off the comments into multiple pages once there are too many of them.

This may not work in the end, but I just have zero time to keep that damn shoutbox moderated. Be sure to let me know what you think!

My Connection is Back

So, the official explanation from the guy Adelphia sent over to fix our 'net connection is this:

"Sometimes, the signal goes down a little bit and then, because you've got the signal split off to so many different TVs, that can make the signal too weak for the modem to take it."

Then I ask them "but how come it was fine a week ago?"

"It's just that sometimes the signal goes down a little," he replies.

"So, the cable signal is weaker now than it was a week ago?" I ask.

"No, it just went down a little."

"Oh."

Huh?

Effin' cable companies, man...

Although these guys weren't from Adelphia. They were from a company called Net Source. They were nice and friendly, but TheWife was told by Adelphia that we'd get a phone call 30 minutes before they arrived which we didn't, which is why I'm awake right now on an effing Saturday, the first day I've been able to sleep in after a week of returning to the world of the 9-to-5er job.

So, the short of it is that I get to spend the next few hours figuring out how to rewire my somewhat massive media setup so that 3 TVs two VCRs and a DVR still get a cable system with only a Y-splitter supplying two coax cables.

Good thing I'm such a massive nerd when it comes to video equipment. :)

Well, better get to it!

My Home 'Net Connection is Still Down

Yep, it's five days running now as I try in vain to keep my site updated as often as I usually do. Adelphia is a sucky company, what can I say? Anyway, just letting everyone know what's up. No connection all week. Adelphia claims they're replacing cables in the area but they could have at least warned us.

Anyway, I'm off to my dayjob now :( and won't be home until late tonight. Doing a little post-bday celebration at the Hot Wings Cafe on Melrose after work. :) Hopefully I'll be able to post some stuff this weekend. Got sooo much to post!

My PowerBook is Dead...Again

Another Apple Computer myth bites the dust. Apple hardware is ultimately just like any other computer company's hardware--flawed.

Two years ago next week I dropped $1600 on a PowerBook. It's a great machine and I love it to death. However, it hasn't been without it's problems.

For those of you who may not remember or haven't been around ThePete.Com long enough to know this, the PB was a replacement for an iBook that had more things wrong with it than any computer should ever have. It literally couldn't go 3 months without dying on me (logic board twice, hard drive once, Apple lost it in shipping in the end).

Finally, after a LOT of ups and downs, convincing and teeth pulling, I managed to get a refund from Apple for it. I added $200 to their check and got the PowerBook. One year ago, three days before the warranty expired, the hard drive took a dive. A year later (today, in fact) something else went wrong.

I don't know what.

The machine just shut off--though it didn't lose power. The screen was on, but nothing displayed on it and none of the buttons did anything aside from the power button, that is, which I used to do a forced shut down (not that there was much to shut down). Then, when I pressed it again, I did NOT hear the familiar DONG of OSX powering up, but instead heard 3 beeps and then the sleep-light flashed rapidly until I pressed and held the power button down again.

After some research on the Apple support boards, I discovered others who have had this problem (big surprise). It turns out the 3 beeps means I have bad RAM. Which is odd since it was working just earlier today. Regardless, I popped the 1 gig RAM chip I added out of the machine. Tried again, relying on the built in RAM.

This time I got my dong (yes, I know, but that's what it sounds like) only to have it followed by 3 beeps, the flashing sleep light and then nothing.

The funny thing is that I am typing this entry on my Toshiba Satellite 2065CDS--a Windows 98 machine I bought in 1998.

I've replaced the hard drive twice and the battery won't hold a charge, but the damn thing still runs.

What am I going to do about the PowerBook carion? Well, I already took the whole thing apart (thanks to ifixit.com) and put it back together again with no luck waiting for me at the end.

So, now, the only option seems to be to bring it into an Apple store and shell out the big bucks to have it fixed. It'll probably run me about $500 or so, unless prices have gone up since my iBook problems. So, let's add this to the list of crap I've been dealing with:

illegal lawsuit
my minicam breaks
my scooter dies
my PowerBook dies

Did I mention that I'm broke, my part time gig as a projectionist has retreated into being VERY part time and I turned down a scooter-driving gig in favor of a hopeful and more stable temp worker gig that ended up fizzling?

Sure, there are other temp gigs, but how do I get to them with my scooter dead?

Sheesh...