Well, that was easier than I thought it would be. I’ve got a whole lot more respect for the Apple hardware designers. The metal back of the case isn’t epoxied or glued in place, even though it feels completely solid. There are some locking mechanisms between the edge of the metal and the plastic front of the case, and it just pops off with the special tool (and pops back on with some gentle pressure). Very cool design.
Read MoreIt’s hard. Much harder than I would have guessed. I was upstairs the other night, gathering Evan’s laundry to throw in the wash. The laundry was in the hamper in the home office. The computer was just sitting there, begging me, pleading with me. Just check your email. See if someone’s commented on your blog. Check a couple of blogs. What harm could it do? Who’s gonna know? Come on…. You know you want to….
Read MoreMy new FastMac battery for my 3G iPod (a TruePower battery) arrived here today. It was on campus yesterday afternoon, but just missed the on-campus delivery truck. That’s amazingly fast delivery from California to Calgary, even adding some time for the package to be opened/searched by Customs at the border.
I’ll try upgrading my iPod’s battery tonight, and will take pics of the process to show what it looks like when a total hardware upgrade amateur tackles it (I’ve upgraded RAM and hard drives in Powerbooks, but that’s about it…)
Read MoreThe Tips for Large Projects post I made earlier makes more sense as a wiki page.
And now it is one. Enjoy.
Read MoreA brief photographic interlude… Again, pretty darned easy to see where my head is lately…
I was just chatting with Mike, from FastMac, about that iPod battery failure post I wrote up a while back, and the follow-up attempt to buy a new battery. Apparently, FastMac can ship to Canada for something like $10, express! Other guys charge more than the cost of the battery to ship it up here, but FastMac has a network of Canadian resellers or something, so it’s much cheaper. They haven’t updated the website with this info yet, so check back with them later to see what the official story is for shipping to Canada.
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As part of the ADCE blogging project, we apparently get thrown some new stuff to try out (and likely to review). The first thing that came my way was Webstractor - a cool sounding app that is kind of a combination between Safari and DevonThink. It acts as an offline searchable cache of web pages you surf, and generates tables of contents for sets of these pages.
Read MoreUpdate: I’ve wikified this list to make it more useful.
Some notes I’ve gathered while working on some Very Large Projects™ over the last couple of years. Some of the projects have done some of these things, and some have done few/none of these. Live and learn… I’m just documenting them here so I can refer to something quasi-concrete on the next big-ish project that comes along.
None of these tips are written in stone. They are also not necessary for a project to get done, but these should make things much easier on everyone. YMMV. IANAL. YHBH. Wait. Not the last one…
Read MoreJanice just dared me to go a whole month without checking the computer while at home. Apparently I’m a little addicted to checking in (RSS feeds, email, writing blog posts, etc…).
So… I’m going to give it a shot. No non-work-related computer access from home for one month. I plan on leaving the Powerbook locked up on my desk at work.
Unplugging until Monday morning…
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Following a link from one of Josh’s friends’ blogs, I took the “What SF Character Are You?” quiz.
John Sheridan
An experienced survivor who has maneuvered around many obstacles, you are looked up to by those who rely on your good judgment.
I suppose I should be flattered. John Sheridan was pretty cool. A bit too straight-laced, though, but cool. At least I wasn’t that green dancing chick from Star Trek (or worse)…
Read MoreIt would be really cool if Technorati or Bloglines (or Google, or BlogBridge, or Antarcti.ca, or PlumbDesign, or someone else) created a visual relationship mapping tool for the connections between individuals online.
I suppose it would have to be “Identity 2.0” driven, since people may have more than one online presence (a primary blog, a work blog, a personal blog, a Flickr account, a Del.icio.us account, etc…) and the value is showing relationships between people and not software.
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On this day, in 1918, marked the end of The Great War. The War To End All Wars. Later, to be known simply as “World War 1”. My grandfather served in that war, and luckily survived both the war and the flu pandemic that it quickly spread with returning soldiers. I had family serve in WWII as well, and thankfully all returned home safely. Millions of others (on both sides) were not so lucky.