When Bunnies Attack

Seriously. The last few days have been spent downloading all sorts of things from iTunes. I like supporting iTunes as much as I hate DRM. But the point is that I’m catching up with a lot of music I wish I had in my library that I just really didn’t.

I thought about it the other day: if I’m willing to buy all sorts of handbags and jeans that are kinda not cheap but I’m still reticent about completing my media library, something is wrong. I ran the numbers in my head: $200 pair of 7s = 200 songs. That’s a lot of songs. That means I get my old Del Tha Funkee Homosapien (Mistadobalina, anyone?) as well as Richard Cheese along with Ingrid Michaelson, and there’s still change left over.

But, what’s up with Jason Mraz’ latest deluxe album: it’s $19.99. Most albums are $13.99 or less but this one is a cool $20. Geez!

Weird. While driving around yesterday the iPhone decided to discharge all of its battery power in a little over an hour. It was sitting in my car’s cupholder in locked mode, and every time I checked it the battery level was rapidly draining. I took it out of its case and it was actually running really hot too. I’m going to take a guess that it’s not the battery that has a problem but that something went awry on the iPhone (like a process was maxing the CPU) but it is only temporary. Let’s hope it’s temporary.

Oy, this is so annoying. I’ve lost about two days worth of working. I finally made it down to the Apple Store and they confirmed a couple of things:

1) my battery was not giving adequate power output, and
2) my filesystem was pretty corrupt

The general consensus is that FileVault is bad. The guy at the Genius Bar basically said that since the property files need to be read from the system and decrypted (perhaps even partially), the files sit in a weird state. So when complete crashes occur FileVault cannot write the encrypted files back to disk thereby corrupting them. What exacerbated this problem was that my faulty battery would cause the computer to shut down spontaneously without allowing FileVault to clean up. So the advice was to remove FileVault. There’s only one problem: I have a huge amount of data in my user directory.

The solution to this was not a pretty one: copy the entire user directory out to an external hard disk, Erase And Install the Mac OS back onto the drive, and reinstall all settings from there. This has caused a whole ripple effect. I spent probably 3 hours backing up my data, 1.5 hours reinstalling Mac OS, and 45 minutes patching it back up. Now comes the really painful part: copying all of the data I backed up back to the proper places. Oh, and I still have to reinstall everything.

OK, I’m getting really tired of this. I was typing along with my Macbook with it running on battery power when at 50% battery life it just went POP and then shut off. Blank screen. Stopped hard drive. Complete crash. And when I started up again all my settings were GONE. AGAIN. All of my iPhoto photos, all of my iTunes tunes, all my Thunderbird mail settings, all of my directory and OS X settings GONE. I’m so f’in tired of this.

Do you remember the Ellen Feiss video? You must:

And I was like “nnnnmmmm???”. Yeah, I hear you. I was like “oh no not again”. This is the SECOND time I have had my Macbook just quit on me and destroy my settings. See, it’s horrible. iPhoto keeps your modified and originals in two separate folders, and if the file that links them together is corrupt then forget it. Your settings are just GONE. Observe these wonderful pictures after my computer came back to life:

I mean seriously. When Windows XP crashed it was bad but at least the settings files were there. When my Mac crashes it takes out data. And I might add that my WinXP didn’t crash that often.

UGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!

In a way this is almost worse than a Windows registry crash. With the registry you can back that up periodically. With the Mac all the config files are all over the place. And, for example, the iPhoto config files are inside the iPhoto directory which is impossible to navigate using Finder. You have to open up a Unix shell to get at the files. It’s horrible.

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Update 2007.10.08 01:47:
- Running Rember 0.3.4b: tests passed

Me and My Mac (25 Jul 2007)

“Other than that, I cannot see much of a difference between the Mac and PC. It’s a computer. It runs the same old applications (more or less), and it gets the job done, albeit somewhat more elegantly.”

That’s my general concensus too. My first computer was a Texas Instruments TI-99/4A, then we had a Tandy 1000 (PC Jr. clone), then we got the 386, then a 486, then I had a Pentium Pro, an AMD Athlon tower, then the Fujitsu laptop, and now a MacBook Pro. In between I’ve been subjected to using Macs, iMacs, IBM ThinkPads, and other various technologies. In the end it all comes down to one thing:

How can I get the computer out of the way so I can get something done?

I spent most of my time on a web browser or inside a Unix-like shell. I don’t really care what frames my apps or how nice the computer’s housing is. I just want to see stuff on the screen, manipulate it with a mouse or my Wacom, and send the work on its way to the server, client, or whatever. The only real reason I got the Mac is the software: I wanted to see what other Mac users were seeing on their screens and the face I can run Parallels helps so I can still test for WinXP. (I could get Vista but I see no point at the moment.)

Now I have this iPhone thing. I use it check my mail, get maps, and text other ppl. Oh and call someone once in a while. ^_^ The point is, I use the device as a device and then I put it down and move on. I can’t wait until all computers and devices are as dead simple as any pocket knife. Instant on, a clear indication of what state it’s in, specific tools on it for doing specific things well, rugged, just enough UI to figure out any advanced options, and that’s it. I want to spend more time writing music, taking photos, or hanging out with friends.

Me: I still think it’s weird using iTunes to sync a phone.
Friend: yeah
Friend: hahhahahaha
Me: They should just change it to iOwnYourLife
Friend: exactly

So I was bored and I decided to make a batch of iPhone (320×480) wallpaper. Here’s a few of my favs:

(All of these were taken with either a Canon G2, Canon SD550, or Canon SD600.)

Yesterday I took the plunge. That is, my bank account took the plunge.

Yes, that is an iPhone in a pink leather case. And it’s mine! Muahahaha!! 8GB of space for music, videos, data, and other flotsam that will probably find its way on this phone. It really is more of a mini-computer than a phone. The interface is quick. The display is one of the most beautiful things I’ve held. And it feels good-sized in the hand.

Activation and choosing the rate plan was so darned easy I couldn’t believe it. And since I’ve been using iTunes for a couple of years now the data management on it was very easy too. No learning curve at all. However, I did have to retype all of my contacts from my old phone and e-mail into the iPhone. One thing that greatly helps Mac users is the integration with iCal, iPhoto, Address Book, and iTunes. If you keep all of your contact and media data in these four apps, the iPhone can see them all and suck them into its memory with ease.

So it’s the Mac Way of doing things. If you’re on a PC, I’m not saying you’re S.O.L., but it’s going to be more tedious. The bundled equipment are few, but really it’s a phone. You get the Super Earbuds with the little talky-clicky mic thing—I haven’t tried it yet. There’s a cute little power adapter now for the iPhone. There is no software since you are required to have a computer and download iTunes 7.3.

To learn how to use it, I’d say go watch the iPhone videos on Apple.com, or find one of the bazillion tutorials cropping up on the Net.

After a day of usage on it I have to say it is a very nice phone overall. The web browsing over EDGE is slow, but not abysmal—when you’re home or at work on wireless it’s darned fast. I nitpick about the lack of cut-and-paste abilities because I do a lot of that. The SMSing is OK—I can do without cutesy chat bubbles. The iPod playback is amazing, but coverflow doesn’t do much for me. The time/alarm system takes a second to get used to flicking up/down a series of wheels for hours and minutes settings. I’m glad you can passcode the phone and your V-mail! I haven’t gotten any visual voicemail yet so I’ll write up on that later.

As for stability, well, hm. I was playing back a song today and the phone totally crashed. Crashed HARD. I mean holding the home button did nothing. Holding Home+Sleep did nothing. I plugged it into the Mac and iTunes didn’t see it. I mean, I was about this close to running off to the Apple Store to get it looked at. I tried holding Home+Sleep again for a longer time (about 15 seconds) and FINALLY it came back. Rebooted itself in about 30 seconds and I was back, no loss of data. Still, that’s unnerving that the phone can be crashed so easily. I rely on the phone to work all of the time and I don’t want to miss calls if it silently crashes in my purse.

Big note: Absolutely get a case. I know it adds bulk and ruins the “sleek” look. But I’ve seen these things dropped already and the dents are very obvious on the phone. I choose the leather because it adds a little bounce to it.