Archive: 2004-10
Letter to Apple
Whilst waiting for my iBook to come back, I decided to buy a new one with the intention of selling the old one when it came back. It didn’t go well. So I wrote a long letter to Apple’s European HQ in Ireland. You can read it below:
The ultimate workstation?
This is my new workstation, with three 17” TFT monitors running off two graphics cards to give a total resolution of 3840 by 1024 pixels. It’s running Ubuntu Linux. It was a little tricky to get triple monitors working under X11, but well worth it for the result.
Religious quote of the day
Quote of the day:
iBook Yo-yo
My iBook came back the other day from its second holiday at the repair centre in the Netherlands, about four weeks after I first contacted Apple. First, the good points: it works, and, this time, the specification is as it should be—900 MHz. The problem, however, is that the machine has been reassembled so badly that the entire bottom half of the machine is significantly and visibly warped, bowing downwards in the middle. It appears that the metal chassis is actually bent. I’m at a loss to understand how they did it. I can’t imagine that exerting that kind of stress on the internal components is going to do anything positive for their longevity.
Sourceforge tip
When downloading a file from Sourceforge, it can be pretty annoying. First, what looks like a link only gets the mirror selection screen; then it tries to download it in the browser, which is inconvenient if you only want to grab the address to paste into a console on a remote machine or wherever.
Type and download at the same time
Abolish the apostrophe
Whereas the Apostrophe is most grievously abused these recent years;
Back to Apple again
The UPS driver has been here so often recently that he remembers me. He asked me if my computer didn’t work. I explained the problem. C’est pas normal, he agreed.
EuRuKo 2004 Part I
Other people have written detailed accounts of what went on at EuRuKo, so I’ll, er, leverage their effort by skipping the minutiae here. Nonetheless, here’s a quick run-down of what happened on the two days.
Spamanoia
If you’ve had enough of poorly-targeted h3rba1 v!agr4 and breast-enlargement spams, I have bad news. Even the paranoid are now turning to bulk email to get their incoherent rants across to a wider audience. The following excerpts are from a very long message posted to the ruby-talk mailing list. The mailing list addresses the Ruby programming language, which makes this message extremely off-topic!
Apple update
After my latest bad experience with Apple, I sent an email to MacInTouch. I’m gratified to see it posted on their report today:
More Apple incompetence
Good news: I finally got my iBook back from Apple, repaired with a new logic board.
EuRuKo
Good news about my iBook
I called Apple again yesterday morning, only to discover that they had failed to dispatch my box for the second time. The woman with whom I spoke assured me that she would follow it up this time, and ensure that it actually went out.
Still waiting for a box
Eleven days since I first called, and four since my follow-up call, I’m still waiting for the box to arrive from Apple in which I am to send my computer back for repair. At this rate, actually repairing it is going to be a very minor part of the total time taken.
Weasel balls?!
Weaselballs.com has the funniest marketing pitch I’ve ever seen:
Ruby on Rails
Someone (a fan of my socialist-propaganda-influenced graphic style) suggested that I should make a logo for Ruby on Rails. Apparently, David Heinemeier Hansson (known for obvious reasons as DHH), the developer of Rails, is paying someone $1000 to design a logo.
New design
I’ve been working on a new design for this site. It’s a slight evolution, but I think that it’s a bit more stylish than the current design:
Free energy
Via a text ad on Google, I came across this interesting, albeit dubious, site: Spin Wave Technology from the Vasant Corporation. They claim that their research “concludes that a few devices could generate economically free energy”.
Rotten Apple
After waiting a week for the box to ship my iBook for repair, I phoned Apple again today.