Zut Alors!

Apple sells over 300,000 iPad devices on it’s opening day!!!!

Here are some more fun stats about the iPad
- Over 1 million apps and over 250,000 Ebooks were downloaded on the first day of sales
- Networks like CBS have already announced that it will offer episodes of shows for downloads
- Marvel, DC Comics and other publishers will offer comic book apps
- It looks like an iPhone on steriods

I don’t know how public transit commuters are suppose to add the iPad to the many things they already shlep on daily basis (laptop, lunch and the occasional extra pair of shoes)…BUT, I will admit that when it comes out in Canada I will most likely adore this thing to death.

I wonder if this will bring a revival to the literature industry? Tell us what you think!

i just noticed something funny… i’ve been checking my emails and replying to them before they even show up in my outlook inbox on the imac…

fun

edit: that’s a lie. when you check a message on the iphone, the server marks it read everywhere. i’m with stupid.

i was checking the latest ongoings at freedom fighter skateboards and i clicked a youtube video and had to turn the iPhone upside down to watch it. funny

so im new to the iphone thing and grabbed the new one.

i cant get over how much fun it is to drag the window and chuck it against the imaginary walll or try and drag the screen all the way off the page with two fingers. trust me it,s imppssible. ythat and the fact that you havr tto tap extremely lighyl on the keys.

- neil

Very interesting, according to the CEO of UBIsoft, Apple appears ready to launch a gaming console. What will this mean for the current generation of consoles? Well, if it proves to be true, we’ll be seeing a new Playstation, Wii and Xbox sooner than later.

Here’s a little tip if you’re missing the installation disks for your Mac and have another set handy from the same model or seriesl.

A couple of weeks back, a client asked me to reformat a couple of Macbooks. Both Macbooks were bought last year. The first was purchased in March 2008 (shipped with OS X 10.5.3), the second in June 2008 (shipped with OS X 10.5.4). Unfortunately, for me, the client had misplaced the installation discs for the Macbook he originally bought in March.

Not having the OS X 10.5.3 installation disks made reformatting the Macbook a much bigger headache than it should have been. While becoming increasingly frustrated, I forgot that installation disks that ship with Apple products (Macbooks, Macbook Pros, iMacs and so on) are all model specific. Upon reinstalling OS X, the installation disk will check your system to make sure it matches the embedded model profile settings on the installation disk. If everything matches, you can install a fresh copy of OS X on your Mac.

My problem is that I had two nearly identical machines, but only one set of installation disks handy. And for whatever reason, the installation disks that shipped with the Macbook bought in June of 2008 thought that the machines were different enough that OS X couldn’t be installed on the the slightly older Macbook from the available installation discs. I didn’t feel like calling Apple Care or heading over to the closest Apple Store to try to get replacement installation disks as I had had enough fun with Apple the last few months trying to get my iMac fixed.

So, I started to fiddle…

And how did I get around this problem? After fiddling around for a while and out of sheer desperation, I decided to connect the two Macs together with a Firewire cable, boot up the Mac purchased in March in Target mode and try to install OS X on the Target Drive. Thankfully, my little test worked.

Here’s a step by step of what I did:

1. Turned on the Macbook purchased in March (which didn’t have the installation disks handy) and booted into Target Disk Mode
2. Connected both Macbooks together using a Firewire 400 cable
3. I booted up the newer Macbook, loaded the OS X installation DVD and rebooted
4. Followed the installation instructions and made sure to install OS X on the Target Drive
5. The OS X installed disc checked the configuration (probably checking the hardware found on the local Macbook) and began to install on the hard drive of the Macbook purchased in March

Thanks Apple. You fixed my iMac. It only took 20 days at the Apple store to figure out what was wrong. I’m still not sure what’s been fixed. Apparantly my logic board and video card were exchanged. Beyond that, the Apple voodoo spin machine won’t tell me much else. I’m happy that my comp no longer crashes when creating large gradients in Photoshop or visiting Flash websites. It’s like I’ve finally got a computer that does what it’s supposed to do. Wait a sec, I do!

Ugh. The bane of my existence.

I’ve had my 24″ iMac for a little over two years now. I’ve grown to love OS X. I haven’t grown to love my iMac all that much. Where do I start? Well, in October of 2007 I upgraded to Leopard. After doing a straight upgrade I was left with one big problem: My machine wouldn’t turn off. No problem. I sucked it up and did a clean install, even wiping the hard drive to ensure that I’d be using a fresh, clean platform.

About a month into using Leopard I started noticing a weird problem when visiting certain websites. The site that I first able to document the problem on was (embarassingly) Goarmy.com (hey, the site is awesome!). While on the site after the main Flash movie had finished loading and the first content wipe was about animate on the site, my computer would instantly turn off. I’d be left with a black, blank screen with everything dead but the fans in the back which I would have to reset by holding on the power button for 10 seconds.

Anyway, as Leopard was updated and upgraded the black screen of death problem got worse. I’d go to a random site with embedded Flash content and my computer would crash. The same would happen in Photoshop when creating a huge gradient of performing tasks quickly. It was a really annoying quirk (especially if I hadn’t saved my work recently) and was something I couldn’t really explain other than being a problem with the version of Flash I had installed on the iMac, which I endlessly tinkered with.

In December of 2008 I finally hit rock bottom. I upgraded to 10.5.6 and upon restarting the iMac it couldn’t even make it to the login screen. My computer would crash and I’d have to manually reset it to boot it back up only to have to repeat the process at every login screen. During this ordeal I wasted hours and hours of time. I tried repairing permissions, running Disk Warrior and pretty much every trick under the sun. It was at this point I sucked it up yet again and decided to reinstall Leopard. The good thing is that I keep both a Time Machine back up and I regularly image my entire drive contents so losing valuable content really wasn’t a problem. The biggest problem was having reinstall every program and customise my Desktop with all my OCD custom folders and aliased folders. That’s a huge time waster.

So, finally, it dawned on me that it might be my video card (NVIDIA 7300) causing the problems. I validated this thought by booting Leopard from an external drive and trying to visit some of the sites that cause my computer to crash. Well, even booted from an external drive, my computer would crash when visiting Goarmy.com.

Again, I did a big reinstall and, again, encountered the same problems when visiting certain sites with embedded Flash content and performing certain tasks in Photoshop. So, I called Apple Care and went through their whole diagnosis scheme and was given an appointment at my local Apple Store.

Visit the Apple Store was a great experience because they were on time and the tech was on point and knew his stuff. We even booted OS X from one of their external drives and, lo and behold, when visiting Goarmy.com my computer screen went blank. Yikes. My computer ended up being at the Apple Store for about 10 days over the Christmas break, which was bad for working but good because I was taking the time off anyway.

At the beginning of January I got my iMac back after having the video card replaced (actually upgraded to an NVIDIA 7600 card) along with the Bluetooth module. On my first boot up I visited Goarmy.com and the computer didn’t crash and thought my troubles were over….

As I slowly but surely started working again I began to notice some of the recurring problems I had before. Photoshop didn’t like big gradients or fast movements. Websites like Engadget.com, The Palm Pre Promo Site, and The Windsor Star, just to name a few, cause the black screen of death.

So, as I sit here typing this post after another crash I think of what I have to do. I’ll need to call Apple Care again and explain my problem, tell them that it’s not fixed, go to the Apple Store and then leave my computer for repairs. This whole ordeal doesn’t sit too high on my list of things to do right now, mostly because of all the time resolving this issue will take and especially when I have a mountain high pile of work to do. I just hope that I can get this problem fixed once and for all and at the same time find any others with a similar problem and if they’ve had any resolution (so far, I really haven’t found too much evidence of my problem). Right now I’m almost certain there’s a flaw in the graphics card or Leopard’s video drivers because the black screen of death is constantly happening even with fresh, new installs and when booting from external drives.

Stay tuned for the results…

Update 01/31/2009:
Visited the Apple Store. Booted computer and was able to visit a site that caused me problems previously on the iMac and was successful in loading the website. Pushed the CPU and GPU with some terminal scripts. Went to Goarmy.com, iMac crashed. Tech assured me that Apple would thoroughly test the iMac, install a new logic board and NVIDIA video card.

UPDATE 01/31/2009:
Took computer back to office and decided to do a fresh install of OS X just to investigate. Before reinstalling OS X I erased and reformatted the hard drive. Initial installation of OS X 10.5.0 was successful. Upgraded to 10.5.6 through combo update, iMac informed me that boot caches would be updated once 10.5.6 was complete. iMac restarted and crashed upon hitting the login screen. Did a hard, manual reboot and computer crashed again. 3rd time, which turned out to be a charm, the computer booted normally.

UPDATE 2/01/2009:
Decided to do a fresh install of OS X again. Erased and reformatted hard drive. Installed 10.5.0 again. Rebooted to ensure I could boot up the computer had success. Then tried to upgrade to 10.5.6 and upon rebooting after upgrade computer failed. Could not get past login screen after 5 tries.

Reformatted and installed 10.5.0 again. Decided to do a combo update to 10.5.5. Had success in installing the update. Have had no failures while booting up since. However, computer will still crash when visiting certain websites.

UPDATE: 3/02/2009:
Wow. I’ve had one whole week without crashes. After taking my iMac to Apple again and having the computer in my hands for a week I can report that I haven’t had a crash since I got the computer back. Apparently my logic board and video card were exchanged. However, I couldn’t get any kind of straight answer from Apple as to what was done to make my unit work again. I’ll say Voodoo is keeping my iMac running right now. This is the longest I’ve gone without a crash since I upgraded to Leopard back in October of 2007.