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January 25, 2008
My unreliable MacBook has a brand new motherboard, thanks to The Computer Loft. Thank goodness, the intermittent failures intermitted while they were watching.
Much as I appreciate the loaner from the Berkman Center, I’ll be very glad to get my own back. Using a loaner feels like wearing someone else’s shoes. [Tags: macbook]
January 17, 2008
I no longer have a working computer and I don’t know what to do about it.
I’m not going to bother whining about Vista, although to make the case for my despair I do have to state for the record that Vista has turned a working XP machine into a useless pile of software failures. I cannot count on any application completing its task. And I’m not referring to Vista’s propensity to interrupt me with security questions. E.g., I spent most of yesterday trying to move 20gb of music from Vista to my MP3 player, hoping that Vista would move all the files before crashing. It took many reboots. App after app freezes or crashes. And I can’t play a graphically intense game, even after downgrading to DX9, without a fresh reboot and no other apps running. Even then, it’s likely to freeze while I’m playing and almost certain to if I leave it alone overnight. And keep in mind that this is on a high-end machine with lots of RAM and hard drive, and a high-end graphics card. So, well, I guess I am going to bother whining about Vista.
Vista is worse than I’d expected (at least in my experience), but what really has me down is that my MacBook — which in most ways I love — continues to be unstable to the point of unusability. I had hoped that Leopard would end the frequent app crashes. So I did a fresh install. Things worked well for a a few weeks. Now it is crashing and freezing frequently. Last night during a presentation, Keynote totally froze, even thought I had done a fresh boot and had nothing else running, and I had to present with slides. (No, that was not an improvement.) This morning, I was interviewing JP Rangaswami for a podcast and Audacity froze and then crashed, wiping out the recording. I continue to get seemingly random app crashes of the kernel error sort. My system is unstable, which is worse than being broken.
I have run every diagnostic I can find, especially looking for bad RAM. I have done a scrape-and-clean reinstall. I literally don’t know what else to do.
I feel like I’m out of options. I don’t mind an occasional crash. But I now don’t have a working computer system — one I can rely on to, say, record a podcast or sync an MP3 player — and I’m actually pretty depressed about it.
December 29, 2007
Jeez my MacBook is hinky. Basically, nothing works reliably on it. I thought Leopard would fix the problems, and it has brought a little more stablility, but I can’t count on using any app without it vanishing in a puff of kernel errors. My RAM tests ok, the CPU temperature is reasonable, my permissions are good, and I’m working out of a new, clean user account. Even so, I can no longer get advanced apps like Parallels or VMWare to work, and even good ol’ Quicksilver (oh, how I love it) seems to be cross-linked with other apps, sometimes popping up when I open them. The problems do not seem to be app-specific, since even little programs will end randomly. Usually, it’s just an annoyance, but since products like Keynote are too proud to do autosaves every few minutes (on Windows, I have Powerpoint set to autosave every 4 mins), the random puff of disappearance has at times cost me work. Not to mention that in the upgrade to Leopard, GarageBand, iMovie, iPhoto and iTheRest have vanished off my hard drive. Yokes.
So, I think I’m going to back everything up yet again – I am a man of many backups, although none seem to work when I need them – and take it back down to the bare metal: reformat, reinstall, re-hope.
Even so, and I want to be clear about this, I love my MacBook with an ardor that none of the many Windows machines I’ve had has ever inspired, including the big, honking box on which I am now running Vista. Vista is crashing left and right on me in ways that a new operating system with very few programs installed (and most of them Microsoft programs at that) ought not. Plus, everything about Vista requires thought. After all these years, I’m pretty good at Windows, but I don’t want to have to think about it any more. And if I were new to computers, I think I’d find Vista incomprehensible. It’s become Unix-like, which is ironic given that Ubuntu is making Unix/Linux easier every day.
So, I think I’m going to rebuild my Mac from the ground up. Consider it an act of love. [Tags: mac vista ]
July 7, 2007
Things have been going well with my MacBook (thanks for all the IM help, Britt) until yesterday. The pattern that’s emerging brings back the feelings of dread so familiar from my many years of Windows use.
First my terminal window stopped working. When it starts up, it shows me the following message:
Last login: Fri Jul 6 19:46:14 on ttyp1
Welcome to Darwin!
macdavid:~ david$
/System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/A/Resources/MacOS/JavaApplicationStub; exit
[JavaAppLauncher Error] CFBundleCopyResourceURL() failed loading MRJApp.properties file
[JavaAppLauncher Error] CFBundleCopyResourceURL() failed while getting Resource/Java directory
[LaunchRunner Error] No main class specified
[JavaAppLauncher Error] CallStaticVoidMethod() threw an exception
Exception in thread “main” java.lang.NullPointerException
at apple.launcher.LaunchRunner.run(LaunchRunner.java:85)
at apple.launcher.LaunchRunner.callMain(LaunchRunner.java:50)
at apple.launcher.JavaApplicationLauncher.main(JavaApplicationLauncher.java:61)
logout
[Process completed]
Then the built-in Web server stopped working. When I try to restart it using System Preferences > Sharing, it hangs.
This morning, Smultron has started crashing whenever I try to save a file. I lost a bunch of work, which is just damn depressing,
At least with Windows, I have enough experience to know how to try to fix it. With OS X, I’ve installed third party replacements for the terminal and Web server, but I fear I’m facing cascading system failures. Or is that just a Windows-based reaction?
In any case, I’m not enjoying this feeling of helplessness:( [Tags: macintosh macbook whines ]
May 18, 2007
Here’s how tired I am of being on the road: I’m actually looking forward to jogging tomorrow.
(I’m writing this while sitting in a broken seat on a US Air plane waiting on the tarmac for the Zodiac to wheel appropriately so that we are allowed to take off. I can’t tell the attendants about the broken seat – the frame has unwelded – because the flight is full and they’d probably kick me off. So I’ll mention it on the way out.)
April 30, 2007
Adobe Acrobat 7 is refusing to uninstall. So, following advice on a discussion board, I downloaded the Microsoft Windows Installer CleanUp, which is designed to remove the Windows installer configuration information about selected products that may be confusing the uninstall process.
When I try to install the the Microsoft Windows Installer CleanUp, I get the following messages (click on them to see them full size).
Oh ho ho ho. I laugh, knowing that I’m about to lose another hour of my life. O ho ho ho.
[Tags: windows acrobat software irony]
PS: I gave up on trying to uninstall Adobe Acrobat. When I checked the registry, there were over 1,500 references to it. So, I instead installed a free PDF viewer from Foxit Software and associated PDF files with it. I’ve just played around with it a little bit, but so far it seems terrific. I even filled in an IRS form with it. (There’s a pay version also that has some extra spiffy features.)
March 26, 2007
I’ve been using Google Docs to write documents that are collaborative. It’s a good first gen product, and I enjoy using it, but it would take a giant step forward if it let me apply a CSS style sheet to the docs I’m composing.
This is such an obvious idea that there must be something obviously wrong with it. [Tags: google css wrong_in_public_again]
March 23, 2007
I quite like Yahoo Local, and use it frequently. But try searching for “bargain department store” in “toronto, ontario, canada” (without the quotes). The site tells you that it couldn’t find any stores in Toronto (because it only knows about the US), but perhaps I’d be interested in Kohl’s Department Store near Marion, KS.
If you zoom out on the map, it becomes clear what’s guiding this seemingly random choice: Marion appears to be dead center in the US. Thus, it is statistically most likely to be near any randomly chosen point in the country.
While this may make probabilistic sense (Or maybe not: I was a Humanities major), it makes no common sense. Yahoo would satisfy more query-ers if it picked an area dense with population. Or it could just say, “Yo, moron! Toronto isn’t in the US…at least not yet, bwahahaha!!” Although I have to say, I find something charming about being redirected to a small town of geometric significance.
(Disclosure: Years ago I was on a little Yahoo Local advisory board that met once.) [Tags: yahoo local marketing maps]
March 19, 2007
Dear Logitech:
I’m looking forward to using your “cordless presenter,” especially because of its willingness to vibrate in my hand five or ten minutes before my allotted time. I’ve liked your other pointing devices as well, and over the years have bought dozens of ’em. It’s true.
But it’s going to take me a while to buy another because you seem so determined to keep me from using them.
I just cut my thumb opening the clear plastic Fortress of Solitude in which you’ve packed the cordless presenter. The presenter is a wee bit of electronics, not much bigger than, say, my middle finger, but you’ve got it wrapped in a plastic package that neither scissors nor Xacto can penetrate. You forced me into stabbing your product with a carving knife. Is that really the sort of “initial user experience” you were hoping for? And once you have managed to slice it open, the plastic separates into twin sharpened blades designed to un-man intruders.
Here are things that are easier to open than your packaging:
An unripe, fused pistachio shell
Please remove the pitbulls and razor wire from around your products. And if you don’t believe me, do us all a favor: Have your CEO try to open one of your packages. (No executive assistants allowed!)
Thank you.
A Bandaged Customer [Tags: marketing packaging logitech]
March 11, 2007
Here’s a new footnote in the anals of petty totalitarianism.
A few minutes ago, the guy ahead of me in the airport security line got literally “Tut-tut”-ed by a jovial TSA worker because he had put a 2.5 oz bottle of Purell into a scanner bin, along with his jacket and change. “You have to have all fluids in a clear quart bag,” said the TSA guy. “You can go back through and get one at Hudson News or you can surrender the Purell.”
Facing the prospect of going to the rear of the line, the traveler told the TSA guy to keep the Purell.
“I thought the purpose of the quart bag was to make sure you’re not bringing too many three-ounce bottles,” I said. The TSA guy nodded with a minimum of commitment. “It’s pretty clear that this three ounce bottle is going to fit into a bag,” I continued, syllogistically.
“I don’t write the rules,” the TSA guy said, throwing the little bottle into a bin full of little bottles, presumably the most dangerous bin in the world.
I know the TSA guy doesn’t write the rules, and he was friendly when he could have instead become a martinet. Nevertheless, he confiscated a bottle that he would have let through if it had been in a clear bag, as if the quart bag defuses explosives.
“They ought to trust your judgment more,” I said, feeling lucky that our little interchange hadn’t resulted in me being taken into a small room and being asked to bend over.
On the other hand, I am feeling more secure, knowing that an evil-doer couldn’t get on board and sanitize us to death… [Tags: security airports tsa kafka politics]
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