The personal thoughts and meanderings of Chris O'Rourke, a 35 year old self confessed geek living in Portland, Oregon.
// December 2nd, 2006 // Comments Off // Apple, Stuff
Every day through the end of the month you can get a free piece of software for your mac. Lots of amazing stuff being given away. If you’ve got a mac and want to maximize your productivity without spending a fortune then this is the site to get tons of amazing software for the best price of all. Free.
// November 12th, 2006 // Comments Off // Apple, Stuff
Just stumbled across this while catching up on my far too large list of daily reads (I really need to pare this list down). Anyhow this site “Macappaday.com” is giving away 31 different applications. A new one everyday for 31 days. This has been an incredible couple of months for Mac users getting free or cheap apps. First My Dream App then MacHeist and now this. I cannot wait till Dec 1st to see what the first app is.
MacAppADay is your free source for apps for your mac. Throughout December, each and every day, we’ll give away 5000 copies of a popular mac application. Even if all the apps were only worth $5.00, that’d be $150.00. And some of them are worth a lot more. Oh, and this is not a competition. Everyone gets every single application. All you have to do is remember to visit the site each day from the 1st December. And there’s a bonus on New Years! We’re not joking.
If you’re a Mac User enjoy the apps, if you’re not a Mac User get yourself one for Christmas (and pass the link on to your Mac using friends.
// November 9th, 2006 // 2 Comments » // Apple, Stuff
From the Macheist site:
Welcome! If you’re reading this, you’ve been invited to what’s becoming the Mac shareware event of the year.
MacHeist is an event for Mac users who are addicted to great software. The event centers around the safe. Each week, you will undergo a heist, and on completion, receive a combo code to unlock the safe. The reward? Free, cool apps, and money off the final week’s bundle.
We’re not saying what’s in the bundle yet. But, frankly, it’s the best Mac software bundle that’s ever been put together, and if you participate in the weekly heists, you’ll be able to grab it for a rather ridiculous price.
Pretty cool. I’ve got 3 invites to give away on this so if you’re a macuser and you want some free stuff as well as some deep discounts on other shareware then let me know soon.
// November 8th, 2006 // 2 Comments » // Reviews, Webdesign
Something Ventured » The Almighty Logo by Zack Jenks
Over at http://www.someventure.com the day by day blog about a new web startup has finally given unto the masses the logo of the new business.
While the logo can be found at http://www.grapeshow.com aside from a pair of grapes, some nifty mac-isian (yeah I made that word up) reflections and a signup form there’s still not much in the way of what grapeshow will be. I for one can’t wait until he reveals what the site actually is. I’ve got a few suspicions but nothing concrete.
// October 24th, 2006 // Comments Off // Firefox, Reviews, Stuff
for those of you completely bored with the so called “next gen” browser IE7 news, go get Firefox 2. Just released today (to capitalize on Microsoft’s “patch Tuesday” perhaps?) Firefox 2 has even better anti-phishing technology and a much more verbose stable of stability and function than ever before.
I’ve been running the beta for about 2 months now and each update and bugfix released as gotten me more and more excited. If you’re sick of the tired Internet Explorer and want the best browser go get it. It’s a dream come true (again).
My absolute favorite new feature is the spell check. Finally I can type these blog posts in wordpress proper without needing to use other means to spell check. I suppose the next version of WordPress likely won’t even need a spell check function. I digress however. This is everything a browser should be and in many ways everything IE is not.
Stop listening to me gush praise at the Mozilla folks and go get it.
// October 5th, 2006 // 4 Comments » // Apple, Stuff
About 5 weeks ago I wrote about how my gorgeous powerbook had overheated and burned my pregnant fiance Zoe. Well after two months of red tape and quite a bit of runaround between the local Apple store’s “genius” in charge of my problem and the tech support line I finally managed to get a solution that worked out well.
The entire issue started with it overheating enough to cause a small burn on Zoe’s hand. After 3 trips to the apple store and being told “there’s nothing wrong with it”, Apple recalled the batteries of an additional 1.5 million units. I went back to the store and let them know yet again that an injury had taken place and was told to “call tech support” again.
Well knowing full well that I had a planned trip to San Jose I realized that I could just drop by the Apple campus and plunk myself down in the lobby until the issue was resolved. Initially I was put on the phone with someone from the “office of the CEO” named Melissa who said that my only recourse was to call tech support. I gave her my number to have someone call me that day and then went back to the lobby desk and asked for someone to meet with me face to face. About 20 minutes later I was called by Nathan Phillips with Corporate Executive Relations who came straight down to the lobby once he discovered I was still in the building.
I explained the entire story to him and gave him the paperwork and reports I had regarding the initial overheating problem, the response from the Genius bar at my local store as well as showed him the red area on Zoe’s hand (2 months after the burn). He let me know that Apple was not happy with the way I was treated and contrary to protocol took my powebook in order to get in the hands of engineers as quickly as possible.
He let me know that in the event it could be repaired that I would get a new machine. With a quick handshake and a promise to get to the bottom of why an injury claim was processed in an expedited manner we went home.
The next morning around 9am I got a call from Nathan asking if I would mind going through the very lengthy checklist of questions regarding the battery issue and the injury as well as letting me know that it would take Apple’s engineers 2-3 weeks to start examining the unit, so would I be ok with waiting that long to get some sort of resolution. I made sure to tell him that since I hadn’t been able to use the powerbook for two months waiting another month was unacceptable. I said having a working machine as soon as possible would be necessary. He promised to try and figure out a solution and would call me back.
After that call I went back to packing up all of the gifts Zoe received at the baby shower we were in San Jose to attend. About 10:15 in the morning Nathan called yet again to ask if it would be acceptable to get a 17″ machine in lieu of a 15″ macbook pro since I had an 8x superdrive and the 15″ macbooks did not have that feature. I of course said “that would be fine” and after asking a few other questions said he’d call me back.
A few hours later while out at lunch he called to let me know that a 17″ Macbook Pro with all of the options would be waiting for me at the Santa Clara Apple store. I then asked him about getting a new case since my old case liner was for 15″ powerbooks or smaller. He said that it would be unlikely and he was already at the limits of what he could do. I got to the Apple store and identified myself to the manager Ron and he handed me my new Macbook as well as asked if I needed a case to go with it. I said that would be great.
So after all was said and done I did manage to get the issue resolved, Zoe’s hand is fine and I have a brand new $3000 piece of gorgeous dual booting (yay base camp + vista) Macbook Pro as well as a neoprene case to transport it in. Yesterday I received a call from the store manager from the local Apple store to ask me who I dealt with at the store that dropped the ball. I received a very heartfelt apology from her as well as a free year of .Mac service plus Apple Pro Care for a year as well. I’m still waiting though to discover if any data can be recovered from my powerbook and the 2000+ photos in iphoto I hadn’t had a chance to backup once it died.
Thanks to Terry @ the Portland Apple Stores, Nathan Phillips at Apple and the 3 folks at tech support I spoke to. in resolving this, now if you’ll excuse me I have older backups to restore as well as my ipod to connect to the new machine.
Here’s one of the “unboxing” shots I took while opening it:
// September 6th, 2006 // Comments Off // Apple, Stuff
So the internet is abuzz with yet another “surprise” Apple event coming September 12th. Sites like ThinkSecret, Gizmodo and Engadget among others were predicting everything from the iphone to a media center mac. Most of the smart money was on the 23″ iMac being unveiled as the big Macdaddy (sorry I felt I had to) of the line. Well in a move that is presumably marketing ninjitsu to further fuel the rumor mill Apple released the iMac 24″ today. Not only is it an extra inch but it’s a full week early. What will Apple do to top this?
My predictions (based on absolutely nothing concrete or even overheard) is that Apple will release a new iPod, a new updated Nano, the iPhone will make it at the tail end as part of the trademarked “One more thing” and then Steve Jobs will reveal he’s an Alien. er wait I’ve got my money on Apple releasing the iHydrant to help put out your flaming batteries. Ok that’s not right either. To be honest I expect that Apple will make everone be amazed by releasing an updated iPod that also adds in limited pda functionality (stylus is a for sure on a touch screen pocket device. They may have dropped the ball with Newton but ever since the name iPod entered the vocabulary I’ve thought that music/video delivery was too tame for Apple. But what do I know?
Anyhow You can check out the 24″ iMac over at Apple.com:
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