Itkovian.net

I've traded my old amplifier for an Airport Express with Kenneth. Yesterday he also provided me with a power plug, because the Airport comes from the USA, and thus came with the wrong power plug. And I cannot seem to locate mine that came with my PowerBook, nor the one that came with Veerle's MacBook. Sadly, I seem to misplace a lot of stuff lately ;-)

Clumsy me has left his iPod (ok, Veerle's iPod) in his pocket, when throwing his pants into the washing machine. I left it to dry, but probably not long enough. The reason might be that Veerle insisted she had to have an iPod when she goes running. As I also prefer listening to nice tunes on the train, instead of hearing people rant about their latest misadventures (such as dropping hi-tech gear into the washing machine), I decided it was high time to buy a new iPod. The iPod Touch is a bit too costly, so I went for the revised Nano.

As pleased as I am with the iWork'08 suite, the new kid on the block, i.e., Numbers, does lack some things I like, or better, that I need. Performance issues aside, Numbers is quite a nitfy tool, provided you let it do the thinking for you. Especially with respect to charts.

Consider the following problem. Given a set of data, containing a few outlying values, create a chart that zooms in on the majority of the data, leaving the outliers off the plot. Cannot do. The Numbers Help has this to say on the matter:

To format the value axis:

1. Select a chart.
   

Today is the first time OSX bailed on me. The circumstances were the following. I usually let my new battery drain completely before plugging in the power cable. This morning, I hooked up my iPod nano, and had the machine run on battery. After a few hours, the system gave me a warning to plug the machine in or it would go to sleep. I decided to let it proceed. After the battery was sufficiently drained, OSX automagically went to bed. Upon plugging in, and waking up, OSX told me that a device had been removed prematurely. Obviously I had forgotten to unmount the iPod.

Come to think of it, how likely is it that I'll be allowed to take a spare battery on board of an airplane? After all, I cannot immediately prove that the battery is genuine. It might be a bomb in diguise, no? I would have to turn my laptop on and off, with both batteries before officials might believe the truth: I am simply carrying a real spare battery. Still, there is no way I'm leaving my €129 battery behind.

Apple issued a major battery recall, due to the fact that, apparently, the same batteries that have wreaked havoc among Dell users, are also used in the iBook G4 and the PowerBook G4 (12" and 15").

We've been playing with the new MacBook for a few days now, and thus far everything seemed very cool. After reinstalling MacOSX, we gained a lot of disk space because we ditched most of the printer drivers, garageband and a few other space hogs. We installed Adium, MplayerOSX, configured Mail.app, set up the home-banking stuff, etc. So, all was well. Or so we thought.

I received a call at about 13:22, from IT-Pro. Short and sweet was the message they delivered. `You ordered a MacBook? I'm calling to say it's in and you can pick it up.' At 13:38 I was there, and at 13:44 the payment went through.

I hope my girl is very happy with it. Pictures to follow soon.

Update: Pictures

I did it. Order a MacBook, that is. White, 2.0GHz Core Duo, Superdrive, Glossy screen, 1 GiB RAM, 80GB Hard Drive, Localised Keyboard. The Glossy Screen because I refuse to flood the Apple banc account even extra for a Black MacBook with a Normal Screen. The Localised Keyboard, because the machine is a present (albeit paid from the common savings account) for my woman.

Let's hope she'll enjoy it. Now, the waiting period begins...

After trying a few times, it still seems as if my Powerbook will not connect to my phone after the initial setup connection. Each time I pair the two devices, I am able to connect via e.g. BluetoothFileExchange. iSync works then in 50% of the cases. After the first disconnect, my Powerbook claims it cannot validate the phone anymore and refuses to connect to it. Needless to say that this is annoying me immensely.