it’s being fixed.
for FREE!

I brought my Macbook Pro into the local Apple store genius bar. (Had an appointment) I told them I wanted them to run a hardware diagnostic because my laptop wouldn’t boot but only show a checkboard pattern over the grey Apple logo. (See my previous post)

They plugged in a USB drive, booted from the drive. It ran some program that checked my graphics chip, saw that was defective. This defect was covered beyond the normal warranty. They took my information and sent my laptop off to their repair depot to be fixed.

Looks like I may get it back before the end of the week too.

Good customer experience.

I think the picture says it all, but my laptop may be dead. If it is, I hope my time machine backups actually work.

A added a new page with a list of Mac twitter clients.

If you have any thoughts on which of these are better, post them in the comments.

Twitter Clients for Mac

Drove out to the cape for the shuttle launch tonight to the Max Brewer Memorial Parkway (406).
It was a quick drive out there, but the way back was extreme gridlock. I ended up heading driving a big loop to avoid traffic. First out east on the 406 and up north to A1A, then south to I-95, and finally, back west on SR-46.

The launch was absolutely stunning. With the setting sun shining on the exhaust plume from the shuttle you had reds/oranges and whites framed against the blue of the sky. This pictures don’t do the sight justice, but I hope you enjoy.

Does anyone know of a good free Wordpress blogging application for the Mac?
On my iPhone i use the official Wordpress application.

Currently on my Mac I just use the web interface. It works, but would like something that could browse my photos in Aperture more easily.

Even though May 19th is an important date in our family for other reason, I would bet that my wife is going to be asking me if I can bring home EA SPORTS Active from the work company store.

I always like games that come with accessories. Although is it still a game if you get a workout while you’re having fun? I don’t know, but it’s close enough for me. Either way, it comes with accessories, and I think they are a simple but innovative way to use the Wii controls.

By the way, what is it exactly that makes Bob Greene so popular?

There is a page of videos if you want to know more.

Henry Hatsworth is a fun and novel game combining an action platformer with a puzzle game. It’s one of those games that isn’t quite like anything you’ve played before. If you haven’t heard about it, check out EA’s marketing site:
EA: Henry Hatsworth.

It’s bound to at least be a cult classic. If you like innovative games, please help spread the news and give it a chance to be much more than that.

Thanks

Apparently when it’s a specialized browser.

Hulu just asked Boxee to remove Hulu. What’s next, will they ask Safari to remove Hulu?
http://origin-blog.hulu.com/2009/2/18/doing-hard-things

I never watched Hulu before Boxee. I don’t expect to watch it after. I like to watch tv shows on a *gasp* TV. But hey, go ahead and turn away your fans. There will be plenty of other services to take your place.

There are so many people with phones that have cameras and internet connectivity these days that pictures like this are starting to seem common place.

A picture of the US Airways flight that landed in the Hudson taken by someone on the ferry to go rescue the passengers.
There’s a plane in the Hudson..

So my iPhone has been really buggy recently.
It won’t let me re-install several programs that had disappeared at the last iPhone firmware upgrade.
I even tried deleting them on both the iTunes and iPhone end, even going in and removing the applications from the iTunes folder. However, when I re-download them from iTunes and then try to sync them I get an “Unknown error” message. If I try to install them from the appstore on the phone it appears to download and start to install, the progress bar gets all the way to the end, and then it fails giving a message that the application can’t be installed on the phone and that I have to use iTunes.

So I’ve decided to take the nuclear option and do a full restore of the phone and see if that helps anything. I won’t be surprised if it doesn’t help. I also won’t be surprised if the iPhone doesn’t restore my data properly like after my firmware upgrade.
But I’ve created a duplicate copy of the backup folder to give me some measure of safety (since Time Machine is defective by design and doesn’t back up that folder).

Wish me luck…