hellziggy

I am posting this from my new shiny MacBook Pro! Yay!

Also, I repaired Chiana earlier today. She wasn't charging or running off the plug-in anymore, just battery. I ordered the part and changed it out myself. I basically had to open her up and remove everything but the hard drive and the CD drive. But I did it and got her put back together and she works! The wireless still doesn't work because that was a different part, but I did get her up and running again!

Now I just need to get stuff transfered from my other computer to this one.

October 6, 2003.
That's almost 4 1/2 years ago that my shiny baby came to live with me. She is definitely feeling her age.
Her HUGE 60GB hard drive hasn't had less than 50GB used for a looooong time, and usually more like 55GB.
Her internal wireless gave out.
She's been through 3 different batteries, and a couple of power cords.
Now the AC input is starting to go again. Every now and then she'll start flipping between using battery and charging. When this happens, not only is the battery not charging, but it is also wearing down faster because of the switching. And the screen gets brighter or darker each time it switches. It's happening more frequently and it isn't worth the price to fix her with as old as she is.
*sigh*
As nice as the shiny new Macbook Pro I'll be getting will be, I really will miss using Chiana.
She was both my first laptop and my first Mac.
But, she's not quite dead yet, and the new one isn't ordered yet. But it is inevitable and will be happening in the near future.
*pets Chiana*

And of course, there is no one out there who can express geek feelings quite like Jonathan Coulton:

A Laptop Like You
Here you are at last
To bring my cold lonely soul sweet release
From my weary past
Always searching, the one missing piece was you
And I beg you, come away with me
And together we will find a place to call our own
I can’t wait to see what I can do
With a laptop like you

It’s not your CD slot
Or the Unix on which you are based
You make my lap hot
Cause underneath your aluminum case there’s love
And I forgive your strange one-button mouse
I forgive the way your keyboard leaves marks on your screen
I can overlook a fault or two
For a laptop like you

We will always be together
In love in spite of everything
Hang on tight through wind and weather
Heaven knows what time may bring

In a year or two
You will seem big and heavy and slow
I will carry you
To wherever it is laptops go to die
And don’t think it won’t be hard on me
How’m I ever gonna find a way to justify
The money I will spend on something new
For a laptop like you
For a laptop like you


The title is linked to a downloadable mp3 of the song. A Laptop Like You is released under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike Creative Commons license. If you like the song, go give Jonathan Coulton some money.

Well, I've had Leopard installed on Chiana for about 4 or 5 days now. Here are some of my early thoughts:

The Good:
I like the way the rounded corners on drop down menus look.

I also kinda like the new look of the dock.

The new Spaces function seems pretty nifty. Haven't really played with it yet though.

I like the "iTunes cover art" view option in finder.

I have to use an external airport card because my airport stopped working this last summer. I used to have to select my local network everytime I opened my computer back up. Since the upgrade it now remembers and reconnects me on its own, just like the real airport card did.

The Bad:
Blue Screen of Death after upgrading. Apparently the main cause of this is Application Enhancements (APEs), i.e. everything Unsanity puts out. The fix was easy to find and easy to do, but there were some moments of nervousness.

There are rumors that it doesn't play well with Adobe's pre-CS3 stuff. Hasn't been an issue for me yet. Let's hope it stays that way.

Both XJournal & Delicious Library didn't work the first time I tried opening them. A new versin of XJournal and a fix for Delicious Library were easy to find though.

The Ugly:
The opaqueness of the menu bar is annoying with many wallpapers.

I really don't like the new folder icons.

I hate the way it deals with folders on the dock. Instead of the icons I have assigned to folders, on the dock it is a teeny tiny thumbnail of the first thing in that folder alphabetically.

The Really Really Ugly:
Because I had to deactivate Candy Bar because of the BSoD my system icons I had changed are back to the Mac defaults. I can live with the boring waste basket if I have to, but my Finder! My Finder is now the stupid Mac square face again! *sob* For over 4 years I've had Spike with his killer cheekbones as my Finder icon. I don't like having the non-Spike square head!!!!



I'm sure there are other things that I haven't thought of... Oh well, I've got to get back to my homework!

When I get off work tomorrow at 3:30 I head on home and when lucky13charm gets here we hop in the car with hellbob and head to Siren, WI for a weekend of pajamas, games, hot tubs and geeky conversations!
I stopped at the mall tonight and acquired a new pair of pajamas.
I also got new stickers for Chiana.
And I stopped at Games by James. I picked up 10 Days in the USA. I also asked if they still had any of the newest Killer Bunnies promo because I can't find the one I got when I bought the khaki booster. The girl at the store was sure they still had a bunch of them, but she couldn't find them anywhere behind the counter. I think I ruined the poor girl's night because when I left she was still determined to find them and was still looking. Heck, she's probably STILL looking. :)

The part isn't in for my laptop yet. I called the store. It's apparently now being transferred from another store but it's already in transit. WTF? Why was it at another store? Did they ship it to the wrong one? Did the other store have one in stock all along? If another store had it I would have been more than happy to go to that store, frickin' buy the part and take it to Southdale myself! It's not a warranty repair so I'm paying for the part anyway.

So, now I have to go to the campus computer lab tonight and work until they close and still not have enough done on my newsletter for class tomorrow. Grrrrrrrrrr! I took Chiana in on Thursday so that I would have her for the weekend! I work full time. Sunday is my main homework day. It's also the only day the campus labs aren't open.

So, hellbob, I'll call ya later but don't expect me home before 10:00. :(

We are now only two weeks from OmegaCon!
Roll call! Who is going????

*exciting news*
hellbob is going to attend for the first time ever!! Yay! Hey, lucky13charm, if we want hotel sex, can we kick you out of the room for a while? *grin*


Hot tubs & games & shiny food! Yay!

I will be back in my usual room again, the Grey (or maybe Red...) Squirrel room, renamed last year by L13C, 7thstrange and me The Godzilla Grouse room!

If any of y'all see Birdchick/unclebastard before then and you are given a "I *heart* watching porn" sticker, do not be alarmed. It is for me to put on my laptop because the back piece where I already have one is being replaced. It's fun to see the looks people give me when they see it, and I'm pretty sure it helps keep Republicans away, kind of like garlic does for vampires.

*sad news*
Chiana is hiding in the back room at the Apple store and won't be coming home until tomorrow. But she will have a brand spanking new casing around the display! Yay! And I get to keep the old on. Any ideas what I should do with it?