Well it's been exactly a week since the click of death visited my house, and since then there has been a lot of waiting and frustration with other operating systems. I've taken a tour around the world of Operating Systems in the past week, and am glad that I call the Macintosh my home.

Things are returning to normal faster than I thought they would. All of my music restored absolutely beautifully thanks do Senuti, (http://www.fadingred.org/senuti/) and I'm slowly restoring all my programs and settings.

I'm certainly glad this whole ordeal is over, and I am enjoying the fresh start.

Have a good weekend everybody!

Well it’s been almost a week, and I’ll have my MacBook returned to me in a couple of hours. It’s been hard being without my white bundle of joy, but I have learned a tough life lesson that’s for sure.

As I said before, I lost all photos after September 12th. I’m a bit sad about what that means. I did lose quite a few nice winter shots that I didn’t get around to uploading.

What I really learned is that it’s not about the past. While I was having my mini-fit, my dad told me that you just keep moving forward. You take new pictures. Now that I think about it, half the fun is taking the pictures and seeing people’s faces when they see what you’ve done. If I had been working on joleblog for a month and had no backups, it would have been time for some real sobbing, but it’s a few re-writable documents here and there.

It’s about what’s happening now. The present. The only thing that’s important is what is linked to the present. Meaning: if I lost an essay that hadn’t been handed in, the present still matters. But really the idea that somehow all documents should be archived, sure, that’s nice, however it’s not important. It’s nice to look back at photos or pieces of writing, but you keep a few here and there, not all of it.

So as I get excited to go pick up my fresh start on computing, my (late) new years resolution is this.

“So I tell you, don’t worry about everyday life -whether you have enough food, drink, and clothes. Doesn’t life consist of more than food and clothing? Look at the birds. They don’t need to plant or harvest or put food in barns because your heavenly Father feeds them. And you are far more valuable to him than they are. Can all your worries add a single moment to your life? Of course not. And why worry about your clothes? Look at the lilies and how they grow. They don’t work or make their clothing, yet Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are. And if God cares so wonderfully for flowers that are here today and gone tomorrow, won’t he more surely care for you? You have so little faith. ofSo don’t worry about having enough food or drink or clothing. Why be like the pagans who are so deeply concerned about these things? Your heavenly Father already knows all your needs, and he will give you all you need from day to day if you live for him and make the Kingdom of God your primary concern. So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today” (Matthew 6:25-34)

Well it's been 24 hours without my MacBook, and it hasn't been very nice. I've been dragging by on my Ubuntu Box and Windows. In the past few weeks I have been thinking about Windows Vista and Linux as my primary desktop operating system, just because I've gotten a bit bored with how well (the OS at least…) runs on my Mac.

So I got forced into it. Now, when it comes to Ubuntu, I think it's great. Of all the linux distro's I've installed, it is by far the easiest, and the package manager is beautiful. It runs fairly fast on my 1.2 GhZ Celeron, and worked with my D-Link 802.11 card "out of the box" so to speak. Inkscape and GIMP run wonderfully, and even the OpenOffice runs pretty well. Where I ran into problems was with music management.

There has been lots of talk about Linux possibly taking over some of the desktop market, and it's entirely possible for it to do well in a basic office environment where web/email/wp is all you need. But any average user will want to manage their MP3 player and listen to music on their computer. To my surprise, Rythmbox, which is a GNOME music player bundled with Ubuntu (they even just call it "Music Player" for clarity) didn't even support MP3, nevermind AAC. Now I get where Ubuntu is coming from. They want to prove that an OS can be fully operational without proprietary software, and being a proprietary codec, they didn't include the MP3 library.

But honestly, who uses ogg-vorbis? If I had an MP3 player that played it and a software manager that worked well enough, I would. But my shuffle won't play it, even though I can download the latest episode of TWiT in Ogg format. To me that's a real set back.

Just in general Rythmbox didn't work very well. The error were vague, and often inaccurate. Linux is great, but this is why I have my Mac to balance out my media needs.

Returning to our family's PC, I watched as it slowly logged onto my user that I probably hadn't used in months. Chuga-chuga-chuga. It really doesn't run very quickly. The scariest part trying to fix Windows and speed it up, is that it's so hard to figure out what's going on. I won't even start on the registry this time, but similarly, is "svchost.exe". Yes, it's that nightmarish process that is always eating up most of your RAM and CPU all the time in your process list. But the worst part about it is every program in the world has it's own service. iTunes, F-Secure, and Adobe for example, all have "QuickStart" programs that sit there and do nothing.

This wouldn't be a problem, except that there's no way of tracking back these services. When Windows Update is screwing up the Download of Microsoft Office Vulnerability Rollup Pack 2007/01 (There's a great name right there), you only see in your process list "svchost.exe" is maxing the CPU. So you go into this huge list of "Services" that mostly just say "Don't turn this off or nothing will work" and are usually awkwardly named. (I've since figured out that anything starting with "fs" must mean F-secure) But how do you know which one is killing my CPU?

Unlike UNIX based OS's, Windows just groups processes together for no good reason. These things have been going on since NT, and being Microsoft they won't break compatibility for Adobe or whatnot who uses those service API's.

Anyways, I'm just pointing out that Vista will be a great improvement, and many Mac users are welcoming it with great praise as a much-needed upgrade to XP, but underneath it all, there's still the registry, svchost, and all those Windows nightmares that haunt XP and NT.

The withdrawal is on in full force. My knapsack feels too light without my 'Book in it, and I am missing my podcasts dearly. Waiting…

Throughout history, there were very few opportunities for ultimate loss in a short period of time. The only way to lose all of your information, papers, and life works, is through perhaps fire at the worst. However, even then, there is some warning attached to it. While running out of your burning house, there is the chance to grab that birth certificate or what not.

But with the development of the personal computer, all that has changed. Everyone in the world has felt it. The feeling of “Oh my goodness I saved that file to the wrong drive”, or “Crap I just emptied the Recycle Bin” or the ultimate “OMFG my hard drive is grinding”.

This, happened to me. I’m sitting browsing the web like a normal human being when all of the sudden a horrifying clicking sound comes from my hard drive. A sound that, to any computer-savvy individual mean death to data. A massacre has occurred on your disk platters, and if you weren’t backed up, it’s all gone.

Luckily, I did backup. I have learned from past experiences that hard drive backup is critical and that regularly backing up files can spare you from worse things. But what was salvaged wasn’t amazing:

• Photos post-Sept 4 that are not online are now gone
• Documents post-Dec 12 are now gone
• Websites are spared for the most part, as they are online, however some joleblog development was destroyed
• All Applications are gone (I can redownload them and re-install them, but still several hours of work)
• All Application settings are now gone
• Mail is gone

Great.

I want one. I am so getting one. Wow. Oh my goodness.

Apple iPhone

Well the New Year is upon us, and we all know that means MacWorld Expo.

There have been many rumors regarding this year's product launch. My expectations are:

• iTV (or whatever it's called)

• 802.11n
• Small Hard Drive
• Such a ridiculously intuitive interface your socks will start on fire

• Apple Phone

• Two Models
• Small candy-bar format iPod/Phone
• Larger Video-capable format with PDA capabilities (I HOPE!)
• Cingular. (What will happen.) Unlocked phone (What I want -> Canada-ness)
• More sock-burning UI

• iPod Video Full Screen

• If it does depart from he clickwheel, I doubt it will be touch-screen.
• Probably bezel-controlled, where you touch the sides.

• iWork & iLife

• iPhoto will have groups like in Aperture (I hope so!)
• iWork will have an spreadsheet program. If Google can, so can Apple
• iWeb will be more friendly to developers with FTP support, and raw code editing (Again, I hope!)

• Leopard

• Portable home folders on iPod/External Device
• Some sweet new GUI styling
• ZFS (so awesome)

I hope that there is some sort of Apple Tablet released, and that the iPhone is released in Canada as well. I really need a WiFi enabled PDA, and I'm thinking of buying a Dell Axim, but I would much prefer it if it integrated well with my Mac.

I've been updating the website a bit, and a new design is coming very soon! Enjoy the countdown! (Get the Widget!)

EDIT: I expect new Displays w/iSights too!