I spent too much time yesterday trying to fix my work computer. I hate computer problems because not only are the problems spontaneous, but the solutions usually are too. I mean, if the solution was to unhook the hard drive and hook it back in how could the connections get loose in the first place??? Anyway it’s working now, but I felt like tearing my hair out at the time. Oh and another step would be using Disk Warrior, but we don’t have a copy at my job.
Sorry, my camera is on the fritz again. I have to get it fixed or something 
I don’t know if the planets are out of alignment, but my crappy camera just crapped out on me. Of course no visible reason for this to be happening. I don’t abuse my electronics, drop them etc.
No photos until further notice.
Being a huge nerd, my computer obviously plays a large part of my life. So when it’s broken, it’s really like a thorn in a lion’s paw. It’s possible there’s very little you can do about it, and it just makes everything else around you extra irritating because you have this constant reminder of this pain that won’t go away. I don’t think I’m overdramatizing the situation. I get really pissy when my computer is broken, and any little annoying thing around me will be that much more annoying because of the mood. Though there were some things going on today that made me feel like I was in a movie.
Namely the workers outside of my window drilling into the building, which with all the vibration really makes me feel like they’re drilling into my skull. Plus the faster of the two elevators in my building wasn’t working, so I had to take the slow elevator.
Now this isn’t anything new but let me explain something about my building and this elevator. This elevator takes longer to go between consecutive floors than it does if it skips one. The long beep that happens right before the door opens takes far far longer between consecutive floors and it’s really annoying. PLUS there’s some faction of people in my building who aren’t at all satisfied with hittint he up button for the elevators when they’re on the first floor. So what they do is also press the down button, as if that’s going to help anything. Other problem is that if the other elevator isn’t working of course you’re going to get on the slow elevator once it comes. BUT the slow elevator is the only one of the two that goes to this particular part of the basement which has the mailboxes. So that means if you get on, and go down one flight you’re usually going to stop at the first floor again. This means going to consecutive floors TWICE, and you don’t even make any progress. Yeah, I hate this elevator with a passion. And despite the race I had with some people in my office to see who could climb the ten flights fastest, I still take it (Incidentally, it took me 41 seconds, I came in first for my particular bout, but the reigning champ opted out unless someone beat his existing record).
So my computer’s video card is all sorts of messed up right now. This weekend I was taking a nap, and when I got up to wake my computer the monitor looked something like this. So I went to the Apple discussion boards to find out if it was my monitor or not. Someone suggested reseating my video card which I did after much unneeded difficulty due to the fact that the AGP slot has some sort of plastic tab tha tclips a part of the video card and it’s very hard to unhook it, especially when you don’t know that you have to. I also almost bent off a protruding piece of the card, I don’t think I damaged that part though. Anyway, after I restarted my computer the distortion was at a bare minimum so I thought I had fixed the problem.
The following morning the problem was back and it’s still here now. I guess I just need a new video card. It would be cool to get an all sorts of spiffy one, but really what would the point be? Play games? HAH! Only thing is that this is an older monitor with an ADC connector which Apple has since abandoned. So I’d have to get an older card anyway because the newer cards are only going to have DVI connectors. Grrrrr… The battle continues. This just makes me wonder if this is going to happen to our work computers a few years from now. Not that I’m entirely sure I’ll still be around by then.
In a momentary lapse of judgment I got my hands on iLife ’06. Actually that wasn’t the momentary lapse of judgment, that was when I installed it. Actually I just installed iPhoto because I have no need for iMovie, iDVD or Garageband, plus I don’t have a .Mac account it’s really not worth installing iWeb. Maybe Apple does these incremental updates when they do because by then even the faithful have forgotten that software or hardware-wise (at least with the non-pro apps) NEVER EVER EVER BUY REVISION A.
If you go to the Apple discussion boards right now you’ll find tons of threads of people whose photo libraries have been decimated having installed the new version of iPhoto. I was one of the fortunate few it seems. Though the annoying glitch is that when viewing the photos the colors are over saturated. Something to do with the color profile of the image. If you open it in a 3rd party app it looks like it’s supposed to though.
Plus I read an article that iPhoto’s new “photocasting” feature creates invalid RSS feeds. Essentially, if you’re not using iPhoto, Safari or NetNewswire (which uses the Safari browser in it) you’re not going to be able to subscribe to anyone’s photo RSS feed. Basically it says that you should use Safari for the “best experience.”
Basically what a friend of mine has said for a while is continually being proven true. Microsoft is evil, but at least they’re up front about their ways of locking you in. Apple is more evil because they pretend they’re not evil.
The other evil thing they’ve done lately is with their video iPod. If you wish to connect your video iPod to a television or other monitor you need a cable similar to the one a lot of camcorders come with. One which has a mini jack and on the other end there’re RCA red, yellow and white connectors. However, if you just take this non-Apple cord and hook it to your iPod it won’t play out to the television. Well, I guess you’ll just have to buy the Apple one right? Wrong.
As pointed out by Life Hacker.com, all Apple did was swap some wires in their system. So all you have to do is switch the red and yellow connectors, after that it should work just like it’s supposed to. Originally it seems that Apple’s cord was about $10 more than your average joe connector, but a quick look to the Apple Store shows that it’s now about the same price.
I don’t understand to this day how the Mac loyal can go out and buy first generation Apple products. Because if anything they should be the ones saavy enough to realize that they always have terrible bugs with their revision A products, ESPECIALLY with hardware. I guess some simply can’t resist the white plastic.
Some say that mankind will eventually annihililate itself with its advanced technology. I guess how our technology will kill us is up for debate. I always find it funny when people get so angry they do something stupid like stub their toe then get extra pissed at this stupidity. When I do something like that I usually start laughing a bit because I know how it must look.
Actually, my computer was working fine when I got home from work today. I was going to end this strip at the fourth panel, but I’m not nearly that optimistic about the relationship I’ll have with my computer over hopefully the next few years. I have a feeling it’s just going to be like any relationship. You’ll have the good times and the bad times. Sometimes the bad times will make it difficult to remember the good times, and maybe when it’s really good you might not be paying close enough attention to realize it.
Whatever, next computer is still going to be a PC.
My computer crashed three times this morning when I was trying to watch a DVD. I didn’t get the dimmed screen with instructions on restarting which comes in eight languages, just a plain old frozen screen. Which of course Steve Jobs would believe us to believe never happens on Mac OS X. I tried repairing disk permissions and such but none of that worked. So when I got home from work my computer crashed again while I was reading my RSS feeds. Then I restarted again and scarcely a minute after I restarted it crashed again.
Again, so bitter with Apple. There’s really no way out of it at this point. Their whole Applecare Protection Plan is such a huge scam. They call it protection, but it’s just there because they know their stuff is going to fail after the first year of the warranty. A friend of a friend just had to buy a new iPod Mini because they didn’t have Applecare. Their iPod was only a little more than a year old. The kicker is that when she went to the Genius Bar the guy there told her that when you buy a new iPod you don’t even know if you’re getting an iPod that’s new, because sometimes new iPods are just refurbished iPods???? Stupid lousy planned obsolescence bullcrap.
I feel like this has only happened since their computers started getting shinier. At work our graphics department has a 800mhz Quicksilver Power Mac which apparently comes built with a faulty power supply and fan system that isn’t powerful enough for it. Since it’s a Mac there’s no way of getting a 3rd party power supply because they simply don’t exist. They fixed the situation by running the computer open with a store bought fan blowing directly on it. Otherwise it restarts without notice when it gets too hot.
At this point in time it just seems like there’s no perfect solution. You buy a Mac you have great software and a great OS, but crappy hardware. Whether it’s a Powerbook that gets way too hot, an iMac that gets so hot the back panel melts, a G5 which just plain sucks, and actually I haven’t heard big scandalous things about the iBook or eMac. Or you buy a PC with great hardware, but then you have to have Windows XP (I’m not even considering Linux, it’s too late in the game for me to learn) which gets infected by various spyware and virii after only 18 minutes of being connected to the internet.
Computer suck.
I actually haven’t sunken to spending late nights at work just to use the faster computers. If that ever happens then I think I’ll need to serious re-evaluate the priorities in my life. Though I did use the computer at work to download one thing from Bit Torrent, but that’s it. Problem with my G3 is that during my freshman year of college I got an internal CD burner that it turned out wasn’t bootable, so I can’t install OS X on it. Other problem being that I only have 320MB of RAM and OS X would suck on this computer. Though that means I can’t use VLC to watch anime. Not that I could even load the anime I have burned to DVD on the computer since it’s just a CD-RW drive, and a slow one at that. Such is life.
I got my first piece of fanart this week! From this guy who draws roughly the same way I do and posts his comic on his blog. I often wonder what kind of ways my character would be drawn by people who can draw better than I can.
I haven’t reached this stage yet because lugging this 40 lb monstrosity is a weekend endeavor complete with cab ride to Manhattan. In the past I have used my cart with bungee cords to bring it in, but I don’t think I’ll feel like doing that when I decide to bring it into the store. I think Jonathan Ive is a rich enough guy that he can just design Apple products without having to deal with nitty gritty details of actually using them. The handles on the G5 might as well not be there at all because it’s metal with sharp edges. Of course it is actually better that they’re there, but no one is going to want to use them for any extended period of time.
I don’t understand, since Apple already went through some changes with the handles on the computers in the past that they’re going through it again. My G4 has these plastic grooves on the handles that make it uncomfortable to hold. Two generations later on the quicksilver G4 they finally got them to be smooth, but now we’re worse off than when we started.
An amusing link my friend Mark likes to point out to me when he gets the chance is the Knowledge Base instructions on the offical Apple website on How to Pick Up your iMac G5. I think the notoriety of this article is roughly equivalent to the disclaimer on the iPod Shuffle page that said “Do not eat the iPod Shuffle.” It looks like that’s since been removed.
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