39% of the purchase of a MacBook 13.3/2.4/2x1GB/160/SD-DL - White, (the beefier version).
My 2005 iBook is currently dead. I took it apart to replace the HD and after putting it back together (four times) it won't power up. I surrender, I am going to take it to my local after-market Mac Shop and ask them to repair my take-apart (nothing was wrong with it when I first put a torq-driver to it,I wanted to replace the HD, so in theory the "repair" should just be a matter of taking it apart and putting it back together correctly, let's hope), unless the estimate is more than it is worth, or I inadvertently shorted something out. I have a buyer for it when it is working, so that may cover a large chunk of the other 61% once I pay for the fix.
I couldn't live without a mac. It's official. I hated coding on Windows, I couldn't sync the iPod, etc.
I do not recommend you attempt to take apart an iBook. I know heart surgery, I've scrubbed in on heart surgery. Heart surgery is simpler and has fewer parts. A friend provided me with the "take-apart" manual for this model (late 2004 iBook G4) from Apple. I should note at this point what I really needed was a "put together" manual.
I bought an apple black stick.
I got the ice cube trays to keep the screws.
I plugged everything back in.
I have successfully taken apart as reassembled numerous Dell, Toshiba, Gateway, and Fujitsu laptops without the benefit of any kind of a manual. I can take apart and reassemble standard PC's in my sleep. I am not without skills in this regard, or so I thought.
Fortunately, I did a Time Machine backup right before I started. I will never attempt this again. Apple repair techs have my awestruck admiration now.
Setup Assistant applied everything to my new machine seamlessly (even though the old machine was PowerPC), I am back in my old environment, except I have a 16:9 screen instead of a 4:3 now. RIght now I am applying the Software Updates, next I'll be grabbing my 253 downloads waiting at iTMS.
Anyway, thanks again for the Gift Card (the 39% calculation includes the "late" contributions I have yet to actually have in hand, by the way, thanks for that). When the insurance claim is paid off I will be replacing my burgled iPod boom-box, the burgled LaCie drive, the burgled extra AC power supply, and purchasing AppleCare for the new machine. That list is what I really intended to use the GIft Card for, I just needed to get back to coding and I was tired of battling encoding-fu with Windows, so I jumped ahead a bit and got the MacBook to replace the ThinkPad T22 I lost in the burglary early. I'll get the rest of the stuff when the insurance money arrives, I promise.
Thank you all so much. It is good to be loved by so many. I can't express the depth of the meaning this has for me.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
You guys are the very best
So, I get home tonight and find a FedEx package with the mail. btlzu2 and I have been exchanging e-mail messages for the last few days about it's delivery. I don't use the apt number in my address because all of the mail for the 5 apts in my converted brownstone use the same slot. The mail just gets dumped on the floor inside the front door and one of us picks it up and sorts it on the table in the foyer.
FedEx, however, requires an apartment number (mine is #1, for the record, and a very unimaginative whois query will get you the rest of my address) before they will shove their envelope through the (only) slot, so that delayed the arrival. I knew something was coming from btlzu2, but I didn't know what it was, I figured he was returning the Taiwanese porn DVD's I lent him the last time he was in NYC. He wanted to tell me what was on the way, but I declined to ask him to spill the beans.
It's an Apple store gift card from you guys, a very large one, and I am floored by your loving generosity and kindness, and impressed by your wisdom in choosing the Apple store as the proxy benefactor. I indeed need to spend at least this much money at the Apple store in order to replace my burgled items, I've just been waiting to settle the insurance claim first, and this gift card covers 95% of my insurance deductable, so you guys made me whole.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. I can't stop smiling, I can't stop the tears either. From the bottom of my heart, this means so much.
FedEx, however, requires an apartment number (mine is #1, for the record, and a very unimaginative whois query will get you the rest of my address) before they will shove their envelope through the (only) slot, so that delayed the arrival. I knew something was coming from btlzu2, but I didn't know what it was, I figured he was returning the Taiwanese porn DVD's I lent him the last time he was in NYC. He wanted to tell me what was on the way, but I declined to ask him to spill the beans.
It's an Apple store gift card from you guys, a very large one, and I am floored by your loving generosity and kindness, and impressed by your wisdom in choosing the Apple store as the proxy benefactor. I indeed need to spend at least this much money at the Apple store in order to replace my burgled items, I've just been waiting to settle the insurance claim first, and this gift card covers 95% of my insurance deductable, so you guys made me whole.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. I can't stop smiling, I can't stop the tears either. From the bottom of my heart, this means so much.
Reason #254 why Apple rocks.
I sent Apple support a message (using their on-line form at apple.com) concerning the fact that I had lost my iTunes Library because of the simultaneous burglary (of the external HD and spindle of back-up disks) and iPod failure kindly requesting that they allow me to re-download my purchases.
Today I Fire up iTunes and I have 253 downloads pending. I guess that's everything.
Nice to know that Apple has my back.
Today I Fire up iTunes and I have 253 downloads pending. I guess that's everything.
Nice to know that Apple has my back.
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Blocking ads in Google Chrome for Windows
Here's a slick little hack.
Download and install Privoxy, a non-caching web proxy with advanced filtering capabilities for enhancing privacy, modifying web page data, managing HTTP cookies, controlling access, and removing ads, banners, pop-ups and other obnoxious Internet junk.
Click the wrench, choose Options, Under the Hood, Change Proxy Settings, which opens the control panel applet. Choose LAN Settings, set your proxy settings to 127.0.0.1 port 8118.
Flush your caches and cookies. It's not perfect, but it is good enough to make me not miss AdBlock in Firefox.
Click the wrench, choose Options, Under the Hood, Change Proxy Settings, which opens the control panel applet. Choose LAN Settings, set your proxy settings to 127.0.0.1 port 8118.
Flush your caches and cookies. It's not perfect, but it is good enough to make me not miss AdBlock in Firefox.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Hurricane Ike
Link
Just checking out the auto-link service for my weather information service provider--wunderground.com.
This storm is forecasted to boomerang back across the US. I don't think I've seen that before.
Just checking out the auto-link service for my weather information service provider--wunderground.com.
This storm is forecasted to boomerang back across the US. I don't think I've seen that before.
Seven years ago today
I was in New York City.
That evening, I wrote e-mails to my friends and family, mostly in Texas, and I learned later that these e-mails had been read to schoolchildren in Houston, printed-out and posted on bulletin boards at West Point, and published in newspapers in various locations, I lost track of exactly where.
If they are remarkable, it is because it was my little experience as a regular New Yorker on that day, not someone at ground zero, not someone involved in the tragedy or the rescue, not someone who knew they had lost a loved one (later I discovered I knew two who died there), I was just a regular guy living with what happened in my City.
I wrote one e-mail a night for four days.
September 11, 2001
September 12, 2001
September 13, 2001
September 14, 2001
This year is the first anniversary during which I work in lower Manhattan. I normally walk past Ground Zero on the way to work, I couldn't this morning because they have the perimeter blocked-off for the observance. There are fire trucks, police cars, garbage trucks, and ambulances parked everywhere on the streets, and there are firemen, police officers, sanitation workers, and EMT personnel all walking around looking somber.
It really brings it all back for me.
I am wearing a copper bracelet engraved with "FF Francis Esposito, FDNY Ladder 79" today, as I do every year on this day. I didn't know him or his family, it was a random choice from those available in the months after the attacks. I wear it in solidarity with everyone's loss.
Thanks for reading. Be well.
That evening, I wrote e-mails to my friends and family, mostly in Texas, and I learned later that these e-mails had been read to schoolchildren in Houston, printed-out and posted on bulletin boards at West Point, and published in newspapers in various locations, I lost track of exactly where.
If they are remarkable, it is because it was my little experience as a regular New Yorker on that day, not someone at ground zero, not someone involved in the tragedy or the rescue, not someone who knew they had lost a loved one (later I discovered I knew two who died there), I was just a regular guy living with what happened in my City.
I wrote one e-mail a night for four days.
September 11, 2001
September 12, 2001
September 13, 2001
September 14, 2001
This year is the first anniversary during which I work in lower Manhattan. I normally walk past Ground Zero on the way to work, I couldn't this morning because they have the perimeter blocked-off for the observance. There are fire trucks, police cars, garbage trucks, and ambulances parked everywhere on the streets, and there are firemen, police officers, sanitation workers, and EMT personnel all walking around looking somber.
It really brings it all back for me.
I am wearing a copper bracelet engraved with "FF Francis Esposito, FDNY Ladder 79" today, as I do every year on this day. I didn't know him or his family, it was a random choice from those available in the months after the attacks. I wear it in solidarity with everyone's loss.
Thanks for reading. Be well.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Things I've learned from my burglary - Part 1
1. You friends don't know what you own.
My house was burgled while I was in Dallas for my mother's mastectomy. I asked two friends who had keys to go to my house and see what was missing. They told me that my things had been rifled through but they couldn't tell that anything was missing.
The count of stolen items thus far: 3 laptops, 1 17" LCD display, 1 250GB external HD, 1 belt (odd, but the burglars left me a t-shirt, so maybe that was a trade), 1 alabaster ashtray (a family heirloom, almost worthless to them, priceless to me), 1 set of PowerPC Leopard install disks, 1 iPod dock/boombox, 2 pairs of iPod headphones, two laptop bags.
2. My burglars were not in a hurry.
They took at least one shower, they went through every storage box, they went through my sock drawer, they went through everything. They clearly had no concern whatsoever for being discovered.
3. Off-site backups are important for personal data as well.
They took my external HD and my spindle of backup disks. Gone is my entire iTunes Library (in an unrelated but remarkably bad timing event, my iPod died during my trip as well and the data on it are unrecoverable), all of the web design work I have done since 1997 (except live code, obviously), all of my pictures, my own writing, everything. I was real proud of the fact that I had everything organized so well on that HD.
Fortunately I have been a PGP/GnuPG user since 1997, too. My privacy has not been seriously compromised. I am a diligent encryption user.
4. They're just possessions.
I'm bummed-out, but not heart-broken. I actually like the way my apartment looks with all that stuff gone. I had my most valuable possessions (the iBook, the broken iPod) with me. My cat is still with me. I hate what has happened, but in comparison to the litany of losses I have had in the past two years this is no great tragedy.
If anyone has a set of Tiger install disks for the PowerPC architecture they can loan me, I need some. I ordered a bigger HD for my iBook and now I can't install it because I can't restore the OS. I have a Tiger upgrade disk. I don't know why they didn't take that, it was out in plain sight.
My house was burgled while I was in Dallas for my mother's mastectomy. I asked two friends who had keys to go to my house and see what was missing. They told me that my things had been rifled through but they couldn't tell that anything was missing.
The count of stolen items thus far: 3 laptops, 1 17" LCD display, 1 250GB external HD, 1 belt (odd, but the burglars left me a t-shirt, so maybe that was a trade), 1 alabaster ashtray (a family heirloom, almost worthless to them, priceless to me), 1 set of PowerPC Leopard install disks, 1 iPod dock/boombox, 2 pairs of iPod headphones, two laptop bags.
2. My burglars were not in a hurry.
They took at least one shower, they went through every storage box, they went through my sock drawer, they went through everything. They clearly had no concern whatsoever for being discovered.
3. Off-site backups are important for personal data as well.
They took my external HD and my spindle of backup disks. Gone is my entire iTunes Library (in an unrelated but remarkably bad timing event, my iPod died during my trip as well and the data on it are unrecoverable), all of the web design work I have done since 1997 (except live code, obviously), all of my pictures, my own writing, everything. I was real proud of the fact that I had everything organized so well on that HD.
Fortunately I have been a PGP/GnuPG user since 1997, too. My privacy has not been seriously compromised. I am a diligent encryption user.
4. They're just possessions.
I'm bummed-out, but not heart-broken. I actually like the way my apartment looks with all that stuff gone. I had my most valuable possessions (the iBook, the broken iPod) with me. My cat is still with me. I hate what has happened, but in comparison to the litany of losses I have had in the past two years this is no great tragedy.
If anyone has a set of Tiger install disks for the PowerPC architecture they can loan me, I need some. I ordered a bigger HD for my iBook and now I can't install it because I can't restore the OS. I have a Tiger upgrade disk. I don't know why they didn't take that, it was out in plain sight.
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