13 steps

Here’s one for the mac fanboys who are still wondering why Apple is lagging in the businesses.

Last thursday my MacBook croaked with a dead DVD burner after only a month. In addition to that I also had the lovely case discolouration problem. So first I had to call Apple. They registered the call and told me the nearest Apple service centre was 40 miles away and gave me the address.
I drove there the next morning and got told it was the wrong address, they didn’t do tech support, I should have dropped it off at another address. But I could leave it there anyway. Gee thanks Apple.
Today I could pick it up at the other address. Everything was apparently fixed, at least the case was replaced. So happily I drove back to work, turned it on, inserted a disc and heard really bad squeeks and clicks coming from the drive and actually saw the keyboard lift for about 5mm. Lovely. Called Apple again, they told me I better take it back (no shit). Called the place I picked it up from and they said they only took in machines between 1pm and 5, and even funnier, they didn’t do tech support, that was the first address…. riiight. So I called the first address again and now I can take it back there tomorrow. To be continued.

Now here’s what happens when one of my Dell machines throws a fit:
I call Dell. Done. Within 4 hours I’ll have somebody with replacement parts at the door fixing the damn thing.

See the difference? Kind of hard not to. And with this kind of business support there’s no way in hell we’ll ever switch the rest of the company over to Apple and the joys of Os X.

I can remember stating I’d wait for this, several years ago. Because of a ton of team changes and other things happening it just kept getting postponed. It was starting to feel a lot like Duke Nukem Forever, but thank goodness, it’s out and it’s official.
Keep your fingers crossed that the beta cycle goes smoothly so we can see a first Release Candidate soon, the betas lack an upgrade script for phpBB2 alas.

All the doubts I had about the goodness called MacBook have disappeared after watching this movie, where you see a MacBook run OsX, Windows XP and Ubuntu Linux simultaneously and switch back and forth between them with a wooshy cube effect. The software used is Parellel’s Desktop for Mac and I think I may have to register while it’s still in beta…. it’s cheaper now and this does look like must-have software.

Haven’t had nearly enough time in the past week to stay up to date so here’s all the things that caught my interest today as I checked all the feeds I’m subscribed to;

Apple’s quietly released their revised MacBook Pro as the first versions had quite a few bumps with the screen humming, the fans being too loud and miscellaneous other stuff.
Then there’s a new blog devoted entirely to telling the story of someone making the switch from Windows to Os X. I hope it’ll be good and give me a few pointers, lord knows I’m sick of the ‘Apple rocks and does no wrong’ crowd as much as the Linux or Windows fancrowd. At least he’s a 30 year old techie like me so I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
And while we’re at it, another reason I want to use Os X for the server which will host the new (and current) site. Why doesn’t Linux have apps like this to manage services?
Something to drool over, for me at least; Optimus Prime CGI. Damn that’s sweet. It’s good enough to almost make me forget the sacrilege of Beast Wars’ Optimus Primal.
Ajax time! And this week, we’re learning how to code our own Ajaxified pop3 client. That’s yet another tutorial for the evergrowing todo list…
And speaking of Ajax, Lightbox, the awesome image script hits 2.0 and by god it’s gorgeous. Check out the image set example. I hope this will get wedged into K2 somehow, it’d be a match made in heaven.
This made me laugh because it’s totally recognizable. Each and every point. I should add a link to this entry for my IM list that opens as a popup with a ‘do you accept this’ button forcing people to read the rules before they even think about adding me. Mwahaha! Or something. Thank you Bryan for making me laugh.

Here’s a fun read about the trouble someone had to go through to report a bug:
Clicky clicky.
They’ll probably refund the $35 now that it’s getting a lot of linkage, but I doubt they would have otherwise.
And I’d love to use to opportunity to do a little senseless Microsoft bashing if I wouldn’t have been getting increasingly annoyed with Linux and its inability to handle decent size backup tgz’s at a remotely tolerable speed… had to restore a users home drive from a 2GB tgz, it took about 10 minutes just to open the damn thing. Pathetic.

So I wrote an entire entry about how XGL is yummy and how my previous attempts failed until I came across BOK’s blog who tried the exact same distros until he was successful with Kororaa. But then Wordpress decided to bitch about the fact that I wasn’t using the comp I normally post from and it ate my entire entry. Lovely. So just grab the Kororaa LiveCD if you have an NVidia gfx card, burn it, reboot, and drool.

In other news; my contract expires in 3 weeks. Funness ensues.

Ah crap, they did what I was hoping for, the new Mac Minis are out, one with a single Core at 1.5Ghz and a Core Duo at 1.67Ghz. Added Front Row, 2 more USB ports and I really can’t think of any reason why I wouldn’t want one, money permitting ofcourse.
It’s the perfect desktop, and it’d make me a perfect mini webserver.

Still, you’d have to buy it stock, because adding any options whatsoever and the iMac soon becomes a much better deal.

The windows exodus hath begun.

Today’s random bits which are of interest to me;

First up is one of the best examples of ajax put to good use, AjaxAMP. It’s a plugin for my favourite music player, Winamp. When activated you get a full winamp interface running in your browser, playlist, drag and drop and everything else included. It’s fun to play with and useful too. (we use it at work to listen to internet radio and not having to bother eachother every time to switch channel or change the volume whenever someone needs to make a call). Version 2.0 has just been released with several bugfixes and support for the media library.

Today’s fun with Apple link is someone who built his own mini server network using 3 Mini’s. It looks damn sjweet to say the least (although I think I’d hang them against the wall, mmm) but the way he set it up is also excellent.

New webservice of the day is cocomment. It’s flashy, it’s beta version, it’s invite only, so you know it’s Web 2.0 (le hype). But unlike the dozens of other new services each day this one actually makes sense, to me anyway. Seeing as I leave comments on quite a few sites and blogs all over the place it’s hard to keep track of everything, especially seeing as a lot of blogs don’t use a subscribe to comments feature so you at least get a mail when there’s a reply. And that’s exactly what cocomment adresses; keeping track of comments and conversations and letting you know when there have been updates.
Unfortunately I can’t make a comment (no pun intended) about the actual working of the service seeing as I don’t have an invite. Le sigh.

The last bit of news could be simply summarized as ‘drool‘.
Either that or ‘look out OsX, here we come’, in terms of fancy desktop graphics on the linux desktop anyway. Check out some of the videos at that link. Go Novell!

everyone, including me, seems to busy again. It’s quiet on the forums.
Ah well.

Random bits of news;
Zimbra has been ported to Debian. Hooray, maybe this will finally make me test it.
GPL 3 will kick DRM butt. Amen. I’m still surprised how few non-techies understand the implications of how DRM can fuck up our privacy. Read it.
Web 3.0, interesting read because it not only manages to explain the 2.0 ‘phenomenon’ in plain english but also raises a few points about the whole new bubble I’ve also been getting sick off. It would be so much nicer if everyone could just get back to having fun.

Right… back to being busy.