Everything I used to bore people on newsgroups and mailing lists with, now in one inconvenient place.
I’d like to make a suggestion for Apple: If you’re going to sell an HP Printer/Scanner/Copier PSC 1510, you should make sure that HP bundles drivers THAT WERE WRITTEN IN THIS FUCKING CENTURY! No shit – I hit the “Scan” button, and it launched “Classic”, the backwards compatibility program that allows it to run programs written for the old OS 9. It then fired up some limited edition of an ancient version of Photoshop.
Come on, you guys.
As reported in Rants and Revelations : The Computer Doctor is IN, I did some major disk swappery when Stevie’s iBook died a few months ago. I put Stevie’s hard drive in Vicki’s iBook, and Vicki’s hard drive in a 15″ Powerbook Titanium that she borrowed from work. Well, Stevie graduated, and as a graduation present she was given a MacBook. So it’s time to reverse the surgery, putting Vicki’s hard drive back in her iBook, and the original hard drive back in the Powerbook.
Time to haul out the Torx and Phillips screw drivers, and most importantly the Fixit Guilde.
Putting the hard drive back in the Powerbook is pretty straight forward, except taking the ide cable off the hard drive is a little brute force for my liking. Only 9 screws, all the same head and general size. And after a little coaxing and swearing, it went back together and booted.
Putting the hard drive back in the iBook is a real pain in the ass. Lots of fiddly crap, including a bit where it says
Breathe deeply. Trying times are ahead, but we promise the lower case does come off.
and another bit where after about 30-45 minutes of work, you get to the bit where it says
Remove the following 16 screws:
But at least they put handy little loops on the ide cables so that they could be removed without bending any pins.
This is about that stage. (As you can see, I’m a firm believer that a clean organized desk is obviously a pre-requisite for doing good work.)
Actually, it was a lot easier having done this a few times now. But I still held my breath as I booted it up and make sure the fiddliest bits, the trackpad and speaker cables got hooked up correctly and it boots properly. And it did! Yay for me!
While dis-assembling and assembling this iBook, several of the Torx screws were getting very rounded off – I had a hell of a time removing one or two of them. I have my doubts that I’ll be able to get the screws off again. I guess next time it breaks, Vicki will have to get a MacBook too.
After wrecking my Treo at Pinckneyville, I decided the replacement (that goodness I bought insurance on it) needed a bit more protection. I got the Innopocket Magnesium Case for Palm Treo.
The case appeared to be ideal, with strong clear plastic over the screen and strong magnesium everywhere else important. Even better, the case has a good double hinge so you can get the front out of the way to use the whole device. The reviews warned me about one drawback – there is a nubbin on the back to clip into the belt clip, and when you fold back the front the nubbin touches the clear screen protector. And sure enough, there is a bit of a wear mark there. But then again, better wear on a replaceable case than on the Treo itself.
The design of the case seems to have placed a premium on access to all the extraneous bits of the phone, like the SD card and the camera. That can be handy at times. But it has also lead to a couple of drawbacks:
The belt clip is an interesting design and works pretty well, except when the clip itself falls off my shorts.
Not a complaint about the case itself, but more a simple observation: a couple of times I’ve forgotten that the case was closed and attempted to “touch” on the touch screen. Doesn’t work through the screen protector.
In summary: I like the case, and can overlook the small flaws. I hope it will protect the Treo, especially since Cingular cancelled my insurance for having the temerity for making a claim against it.