While not exactly morning-esque, the best part of the work day has got to be lunch time.
Not because it’s a break in the hustle and bustle of the day. Not because there’s good eats (although there usually is some good food).
But rather, it’s because of the hilarity that ensues. Every day the conversations swiftly end up at the “Boobs and Butts” department. Without fail.
Best part? It’s always the women that instigates the convo derailment.
So it’s a completely new experience, me and this Mac, but incidentally it doesn’t stop at home.
I had been experiencing the dreaded squeaky spacebar and for a while, I thought I’d just live with it. I googled ways to fix the issue but didn’t feel daring enough to pluck the spacebar off myself. I came close as the squeakiness was driving me batty, but I’ve learned my lesson from my previous laptops.
I just couldn’t live with it and decided I’d try my hand at taking my Mac to the Genius Bar at the Ala Moana Apple Store. I signed up for a time on the web using their concierge service the night before. When I got there, the Apple Store was buzzing with activity. Folks from all walks of life… or should I say all points on the fashion scale—pop, retro, j-tourists, geeky (me), etc. frequented every spot in the store. Lots and lots of techy eye-candy and it took all of my willpower not to buy stuff.
Anyway, at the bar, they called my name (woot to reservations!) and I asked if they could help unsqueak my spacebar. The Genius then took a look at my Mac, scanned the barcode (probably to see if it was on warranty or if I signed up for AppleCare, which I did). After a bit of checking out their system, he took my laptop into the back. The wait was fine since I had lots of nice things to look at. Spare batteries, wireless travel mouse, stereo systems you can plug your iPod into… Apple swag. And when it seemed my shield of no-buy-stuff was about to crack, the Genius came out with my laptop with a triumphant grin. My Mac squeaks no more!
I had wonderful service and didn’t have to pay a dime. But while I’m pretty happy with the service, some folks aren’t too happy with theirs. Maybe it’s because I live in Hawaii and the people are, mostly, different. Maybe I came on a good day. All I know is, I had a nice experience and may even go back some day, and without the hesitation that I initially had.
Want to settle a dispute? Like beef? Fine den! We go to the wii and tv and settle this like men!
Rawr!
I need to unlock the Time Mage job. I mean seriously… where did all the time go?
One minute I’m booting up “Everquest 2″:http://everquest2.station.sony.com/ at around 7:30pm and the next moment it’s 9pm! I really don’t think I was playing that long. Then, I’ve finished a good ham and rice dinner and instead of time passing to 10pm, it’s 15 to 11!
Whoa there Time Lord, hold up a little bit. I’d love the weekend to come by quickly, but could you only speed up work hours and not personal hours?
Please? Pretty please with “Mithra”:http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=Mithra&btnG=Search+Images&gbv=2 on top?
While I haven’t made a complete switch to the Mac (PC for games!) I’ve gotten pretty close. Here I am, fighting a bout with insomnia with my MacBook Pro, which has recently been souped up. I’ve got the “usual”:http://unsanity.com/haxies/shapeshifter “mods”:http://www.panic.com/candybar/ and “tools”:http://quicksilver.blacktree.com/. I also have wonderful “utilities”:http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/system_disk_utilities/onyx.html and “fluffy”:http://www.orange-carb.org/SBM/ “stuff”:http://www.charcoaldesign.co.uk/magical.
After joining “MyBlogLog”:http://www.mybloglog.com/, I went off to look for some techy and hip blogs. Considering “recent events”:/archives/2006/11/20/lose-ctrl-gain-command/, most of my focus in the techy department had mainly been on Mac stuff. In my search, I came across “Tips for Switchers”:http://www.tipsforswitchers.com/. Lots of great stuff for newbies and would have made it much easier to settle in had I found the site much earlier. There are still some new information that’ll I’ll have to take time to digest. Fun fun! 
“Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal_Gear_Solid:_Portable_Ops is pretty fun once you get used to the controls. The sound based radar in the game seems to be a nice balance between knowing exactly where enemies are (and what direction they’re facing) and not having any intel.
So far… my only gripe is the sneaking suit. While I hated the camouflage system of Metal Gear Solid 3, I did like the “normal” uniform Snake initially wears. But hey, I can control Snake’s squad mates and they’re in normal battle dress.
The comic book style cutscenes are pretty nifty too.
I read an article today at Wired concerning the Cult of Mac and it’s got me thinking.
Does the author have a point that the Cult is seeing the time of its passing? iPhone is getting the attention of Apple developers who were working on the new OS X upgrade. Is the change in focus for the worst? Personally, I don’t think so.
I thought to wait for the “iPhone”:http://www.apple.com/iphone/ before syncing up my phone and laptop. But decided not to wait. Instead, I bought a copy of the “Missing Sync”:http://www.markspace.com/ and paired up my “Cingular 8525″:http://business.cingular.com/businesscenter/8525/index.jsp with my MacBook. They communicated so nicely, it’s kyoot.
What’s pretty awesome is, I initially used “gmail calendar”:http://www.google.com/calendar/ before iCal. But all I needed to do to get iCal synced up was plug in the URL of my calendar and it pulled in all the necessary information. Finally, I fired up Missing Sync and _zap!_ my cell phone’s synced up.
Just another hat tip to ease-of-use technology. And it’s oh so much fun.
I’ve had this constant crackling sound coming from my speakers. At first I thought they were getting old, but after doing a couple of experiments, it turned out to originate from my sound card (Audigy 2 ZS). Googling up results, it’s interesting to note many others have had similar problems.
None of the solutions worked for me so I activated the onboard sound. Everything seemed to go ok until I fired up “S.T.A.L.K.E.R.”:http://www.stalker-game.com/ Sound was good up until a certain point, then it seemed to cut off. Reloading didn’t work. I had to exit out of the game and restart it. Well, it happened a second time, then a third.
“Alright. I’ll go back to the crackling sound. At least then the sound didn’t cut off,” I said with an exasperated sigh. Go back to my BIOS and deactivated the onboard sound. Problem. Oh wait, I just gotta re-install the drivers. What do I get? A blue screen and memory dump.
What did I do? Did I forget to mention I didn’t remove the Audigy card when I switched to onboard? It’s been so long, I don’t know if that mattered or not. Might have or might have been I didn’t take enough precautions against static discharge.
Anyway, moral of the story? Don’t mess around with crap until you read up and know exactly what you’re doing.
So, firsthand experience concerning the “Get a Mac Security Ad”:http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/getamac/apple-getamac-security_480x376.mov is fun to go through. Sorta.
As I had to install all my games and such, I got the security pop-ups on a near constant basis. Grr, argh!
But as it is now, with things settling down, I haven’t been queried.
The “You must supply Administrator credentials” (or whatever the wording is) that I get when modifying files, deleting/removing items from the Programs list is a bit more irritating, mainly for the fact that the account I’m logged into at the time HAS administrator rights.
C’mon Vista, you should be smart enough to know that. Or! Instead of just giving me a dialog box to click Continue when you want me to supply Administrator credentials, ask for my password and only do such on “mission critical” items. Not the stupid empty game folder that didn’t get removed when I ran through the uninstall.
I need to admit though, the games that do work are running more beautifully now thanks to the upgraded system.
There’s been “some discussion”:http://www.hawaiithreads.com/showthread.php?t=12550 on a “community forum”:http://www.hawaiithreads.com/ I lurk about in concerning Macs and PCs and the differences betwixt the two. Folks have chimed in why they have one or the other (and some even use both, like me for example). There’s even some remnant of the Ye ‘Olde Mac vs. PC. While it’s pretty, for lack of a better word, superfluous, there’s really nothing wrong with people strongly biased for either or. Heck, I was a hardcore PC person back in the day and wouldn’t be caught dead with a Mac. Oh, if that Past Arlan knew what waits in store for him! hehe
Anyway, it’s not surprising that the discussion would fall into similar patterns from other talks when comparing a Mac and a PC. For Macs, it’s always easy to use, fast to set up and just get going but it’s pricey. For PCs, it’s easiest to customize, repair and you can get “more bang for your buck,” yet it’s harder to use.
Now with Vista and purchasing an out of the box system (not building or upgrading your own). Is it still the same pattern? Possibly.
