So last week I had an unexpected problem with my MacBook Pro when it just stopped working… Uh oh:
I guessed based on what was going on that it was a problem with the hard drive and decided to schedule an appointment with the “Geniuses” at the Apple Store [Mistake 1].
I was running late due to an accident on the highway, so I politely called to say I’d be a few minutes late [Mistake 2], the nice woman I talked to said:
No problem, I booked you a backup appointment in case you can’t get here on time.
So I showed up about 5 or 10 minutes late for my appointment and I wasn’t listed as still having an appointment at that time, but instead for 2 or 3 hours later. I explained the situation and the “concierge” said they could still get me in at my original appointment time because the woman with an appointment before me wasn’t finished yet… Nor did her appointment finish for a while. So I sat there waiting patiently… fast forward a 1/2 hour and the “Genius” tells me that since I missed my appointment he would try to fit me in between his next appointment… Which of course, is wrong, because he was running 30 or 40 minutes late for my appointment. I explain the situation, he looks at my Mac and says:
I think it’s the hard drive
Umm, really, Genius, me too. Got anything to help confirm that suspicion?
Well I could try a boot DVD or drive?
That would be great since I’m here and all, and by this point I’ve been here about an hour. For the next hour or two he tries this to no avail, asks me if I brought the original Leopard install disk with me [mistake 3] and of course, I didn’t. He explains he can’t confirm it’s the hard drive without taking out the hard drive (?) and if I want the repair it’ll cost upwards of $300, at which point I said I’d be happy to do it myself. My only real reason for bringing it in was to confirm it wasn’t a logic board or something worse, nevertheless, I left went to Best Buy and bought a new hard drive (after googling it myself since the Best Buy staff had no clue what size hard drive fits in a MacBook Pro).
So I take the laptop to the office, install that boot DVD the goofball from the Apple Store told me about and tried to restore from my Time Machine backup that I had from about an hour before my Mac crashed, waited three and a half hours and… nothing.
Why? Well since I’m running Snow Leopard, I can’t restore from a Leopard install disk. Thanks again guy at Apple Store.
So after another 3 hours of booting from Snow Leopard install DVD, success, MacBook Pro is working, good as new (faster / bigger hard drive, better Wireless antenna).
What did I learn in this process? Well a few things:
The Apple Store does not really employ geniuses
It’s not that hard to fix items on a Mac yourself (if you are a techie)
Time Machine alone makes a Mac worth the cost (my Vista laptop’s backup process – ugly and horribly slow)
So if you’re a designer and you’ve ever had to create a Microsoft Word or Powerpoint template for a client, you’ve felt this pain.
One huge UI improvement that would make my life easier is the ability to swap out one image for another but keep everything else the same. Size, layout, placement, etc.
If I need to export a new image in Illustrator or Photoshop because the client decides they want the color to be different (or if it doesn’t look right printed, or whatever), I end up having to reset all of these settings, by hand. Every time.
Instead of just choosing a new version of the image in Word, I’m forced to do a screen scrape and paste them in Photoshop just to be able to try a new version of the image. This is stupid and should be fixed.
Here is the screen grab of my settings in Photoshop with my feelings on the matter:
The recent bing launch has been fun to watch. Not only is Microsoft getting slammed by fans of good design for the bing logo design (also see here), but as they apparently ripped a design for their microsite from another company (quote from Daryl from postmodem’s blog post which can be found here):
The rebranding car wreck doesn’t end there though. Not happy with just creating a shockingly bad logo for bing the designers of this launch micro-site (which I assume is being used to herald the new dawn of Bing to the world) have blatantly ripped an idea from this site: dragoninteractive.com. Of course, it goes without saying that the Dragon Interactive site is far superior in many ways – but why have Microsoft so obviously not invested time in the design of these sites let alone the bing logo?
Also Microsoft apparently ripped off Kayak.com for their travel search features. You would think a company with the resources of Microsoft would be able to create unique and better designs. Also, they have this creative company that does some ads for them just in case they need some help, they are pretty well known. Maybe you’ve heard of them? (Hint: their name rhymes with Crispin Porter + Bogusky)
The bing search engine itself actually isn’t that bad, but that matters little when their competition is google. Microsoft would likely win more converts if they didn’t piss everyone off by using bad or stolen creative.
Tangent thought…but every time I think of “Microsoft design” I can’t help but think of the great: “If Microsoft designed the ipod packaging” video which is embedded below. Enjoy
So I had a typical Apple-hating response on Twitter to something I retweeted.
GaneshaXi’s response was basically: “My $50 phone is better and you’re a sheep for buying an iPhone”.
So instead of taking the old internet advice of “Don’t Feed the Troll“, I decided to make a ‘just-for-fun’ list of things I do (regularly) with my iPhone:
Make and receive calls (duh, it’s a phone).
Send and receive text messages.
Send and receive emails (and using IMAP, so my MacBook Pro email shows if I’ve read them or not).
Update contacts and calendar without synching (via the magic of mobileMe). So if I add, edit or delete a contact or calendar item on my Mac or on my iPhone, the other one receives an update.
Take pictures, send pictures to this blog, facebook, twitpic, etc.
View twitter, write tweets, respond to tweets, etc using Tweetie.
Update all of my chosen social sites (Facebook, this blog, typepad, FriendFeed, LinkedIn, etc) with Ping.FM using Pingle.
Review and accept / reject comments on this blog and on Spoken Whirred using the WordPress app.
Listen to music, buy new music, create playlists (while still being able to accept calls during the middle of a song, very useful when I’m out on a long bike ride).
Check baseball scores and listen to MLB radio (via MLB app).
Check my fantasy baseball daily stats and update my team (via CBSSportsLine app).
Surf the Web (mostly stltoday.com/sports and vivaelbirdos).
Read the Bible.
Read eBooks.
Watch full length movies, usually on a plane (currently on my iPhone is Iron Man, which I’ve watched like 50 times).
Listen to my favorite music from Pandora.com (via their free app).
Check the weather, view radar and view The Weather Channel forecast, using their app.
Get turn by turn directions and if lost find out where the heck I am.
Skype IM to friends (and sometimes calls).
Take notes.
Browse and view YouTube videos. Usually to show off something I’ve posted up there about Gabe.
Search for something (usually a store location) while driving using voice activated search (Google app).
Set and snooze alarm clock (usually when out of town).
I’m sure there are more I’m forgetting, but I think you get the gist. When I make a tongue-in-cheek comment about my phone being superior, it’s not because I’m a sheep. It’s because it is. I’m a tech guy (a former full-time software developer) who uses his phone for everything. I’ve had two Windows Mobile phones, they were fine, but not this good. I’ve also had a couple palm based phones (Treos), again, not this good. And I’m sure your blackberry could do half this stuff, maybe more. But again not this well. Because I haven’t even mentioned the intuitive touch screen yet (the one every other device is trying to copy without breaking apple’s patents) or the fact that it completely replaced my iPod.
Even better than all of this is that when the phone starts to get outdated, they just update the OS software so it can do more, unlike Microsoft who won’t update their mobile OS to carriers, because the carriers want people to buy a new phone.
