I’ll bet you didn’t know I owned Apple. No, not AN apple. This isn’t a post about an epic journey to the grocery store. This is the story of something I wanted to do for a long time: buy stock in my favorite computer company. This isn’t a story of buying low and selling high, of market savvy, or mad money. This is a love story. If you’ve been on Apple train for the whole Jobs reunion tour – you get it. If you’ve been on the wagon since ’84, when the first Macs rolled off the lines, you definitely [...]
Computer
It’s 5:19 and I still have my MacBook
My MacBook wasn’t well. Its trackpad wasn’t quite right. I made an appointment with the folks at the local Apple Store to give it a look. That was at four this afternoon. I was expecting I’d have to leave it there – possibly for days. I did have to leave it there, after talking to the Apple tech and diagnosing the problem (and the solution: replacing the trackpad) – but it was less than an hour. Oh my, I think I’m gonna swoon…
Trial, tribulation, and error
A few weeks ago, heresy showed it’s ugly face in the Kauffman household. Evil found a foothold in one of my vulnerable children. By now you know that when I speak of heresy I’m speaking of one thing: computers. Beth asked for a cheap Windows laptop. In the name of Jobs, The Woz, and The Lost Partner, I beseech you: where have I gone wrong? Because my parents were over at the time, my dad in particular, the collective shudder was almost enough to bring down the roof, bringing this insanity to a tragic end. This has nothing to do [...]
Ahead of schedule
Oh you few, you lucky few. Some of you are seeing this post ahead of schedule. My projects aren’t supposed to work like this. My rule of thumb is to take my first guess of how long it will take, and take that number to the third power. Or, that’s what Cheryl would have you believe, once I explained the math to her. Ouch! Score one for the husband who will be sleeping in his car for the next month! Here’s the scoop. I’ve been doing business with dirty, slow-daddy, relying on them to host this site for the last [...]
The cash stampede
I didn’t even know it had a name. I’d never seen it before my Beth’s PowerBook started having problems last month. Apparently there is a screen of death on a Mac, the dread blue-screen equivalent: the GSOD, or grayed-out screen of death. I can’t blame you if you’ve never heard of it. It’s rarely seen in the wild, confined mostly to secret labs, under highly controlled circumstances, with experts trained in the clandestine arts of infiltration and subversion. But sometimes it does find it’s way out. Even the experts don’t know how. Anyway, I’ve run hardware tests and software tests. [...]
Keyboards, revisited
A while back I questioned the wisdom of the redesigned Apple keyboard, shipping with the (then and now) new iMacs. The Aluminum Apple Pro Keyboard If you’ve been with me for a few years and you’ve got a keen mind (allowing you to remember the most pedestrian of posts from a mediocre blogger) you may recall this post – post chemotherapy. Well since then Apple has gone all bluetooth, all the time… but the look, and more importantly – the feel – has remained the same. I picked up one of the bluetooth beauties to use my MacBook as an [...]
Why you always backup your stuff
I’ve got a post I’ve been working on for a couple days now, off and on (doing a lot of thumb typing on the phone in my spare moments). There’s a picture I wanted to include in the post, but I thought it was lost. It’s a favorite of mine, taken back in the dark ages when people used something called “film” which you then had “developed,” giving you your pictures – a racket not unlike the printer market these days. We’ve got way too many prints for albums, so we have photo boxes instead. I’ve had this picture out [...]
Windows again
I set out to talk computers, causing dozens of people to reach frantically for “the next feed.” I didn’t learn anything from defiling my iMac with Windows Vista. I did it again with my MacBook. I wanted to try out Google’s new web browser: Chrome, so I got out my install disks and went at it. I forgot there were so many warning messages in Vista. I must have repressed the memory. Honestly, it was more than just Chrome. I did it for work too. It was a disappointing. The single text field for searching and entering URLs was the [...]
MacBook first impressions
The spacebar makes too much clicking noise, but I like the illuminated keyboard more than I thought I would. I do most of my writing after dark, and while I can type, it’s still nice to be able to see the keys. I’m going to miss the PB keyboard overall though (dark or not). The trackpad is simply huge. The scheme of making the back half physically clickable (the whole thing pivots slightly), is a great idea in practice so far. Just that allows the thing to have at least a third more trackable surface, and it’s wider and deeper [...]
Another worry
I was going to label this post “heartbreaking news” but I thought that might worry too many folks (however accurate it may be). I think the hard drive on my beloved PowerBook is about to fail. I keep duplicate copies of my critical data on the iMac, plus an online server. Plus, I keep duplicates of all my photos and music on both computers. Just in case, I just did a backup of my home folder, in case I’ve missed something over the years. I’m not worried about losing any data, just a member of the family. Yep, those ominous [...]
