The World of Joel

So for those of you who use Mac OSX Leopard, you know how great and useful Time Machine can be. For those who don’t know what Time Machine is, it is a built in backup system for OSX which synchronizes your data at specific intervals to an external drive. It’s great for someone like me who does a lot of writing, and e-mails and doesn’t want it all to go away with one bad save or trashing of a document. When I first upgraded to Leopard I had no issues running Time Machine, I bought an Iomega 500GB External Drive from Apple, and felt as though I was not going to have to worry about my backup any longer. Well I reinstalled OSX a few months back because I was feeling the clutter of a year old notebook, and I had my data backed up and when I reinstalled OSX I recovered all of my data and began to use Time Machine like nothing had happened.

One day out of no where I got an error message saying that Time Machine failed to complete my backup, I thought it might be a fluke so I tried it a few more times with the same results. I read online that people were having similar issues so I followed their advice and reformatted the hard drive. Two months later and 30 different methods later I am still not able to use Time Machine. If anyone has any idea why I can get only 50% or so of my backup done followed by an error message that would be great. All I know is that its frustrating as heck. I am trying to be good, I want to backup, I have been foolish in the past, and even when I want to be good Time Machine won’t let me!

UPDATE: As soon as I posted this my next stop was at Digg.com, and low and behold there is a Mac 10.5.3 update that was released today that was suppose to help reliability on Time Machine! When I get home today I will test out the new update (which I have already installed) and see if that helps my Time Machine predicament.

UPDATE #2: After installing 10.5.3 which was to fix some areas of Time Machine I am still having the same issue, it is still telling me that it unable to complete my backup. Back to the drawing board.

It has been a long time since I waned to reformat my hard drive and start clean. In fact I have never done it on my Macbook, but was doing it all the time on my old Toshiba notebook. I was noticing in the last few days that my system was compacted with a lot of junk, a lot of programs I didn’t use, and just a lot of other things that I didn’t want to go through and try to get rid of. So I decided to go the route of a clean install, a scary feat as all of you know. I do have an external drive with Time Machine running and so I have backups of pretty much everything, but I wanted to re-do the backups and made some DVD’s as well as some other copies. I have had problems in the past with not being fully prepared to re-install the operating system so last night I made sure I got through all the precautions.

So after backing up everything last night, I through in my Leopard disc, and clicked the infamous button of continue and went along with the install. The actual install took about 1 hour or so, which was not to bad, I remember times where Windows would take 4-8 hours and way back when on Windows 95 all day. I have to tell you, after reformatting it once again reminded me why I don’t miss Windows. The transition was seamless, after the hour install I did all of the updates for my system which took 30 minutes, and was able to then start installing my software.

Wondering what software I installed? Well here is the list in order of what I installed right when I got my Mac back up and running on a new clean drive.

1) iWork 08 (Pages, Numbers, and Keynote)
2) Firefox (Plus Plugins)
3) Thunderbird (Plus Restored Old Profile)
4) Photoshop Elements 4
5) Cyber Duck (FTP Client)
6) MSN Messenger

So I am back up and running. I can get back to work on some of my sites, and get back to using my Macbook in a much cleaner and faster fashion. I really should try to keep my computer a bit tidier from now on.

I can’t believe I have gone two weeks without letting everyone know that I got an iPhone for my Birthday. Yes that’s right I took the plunge and went to the next generation of communication with the iPhone. Ok so maybe its not the next generation but it is actually a pretty cool phone. Like many things there is no denying the “Wow” factor when your walking around town and people see you pushing away on the touch screen or just seeing the Apple Logo as you walk by. Sure you will get a few questions from people but in all it is definitely an eye catching device. In terms of usability as a Cell Phone it is great outside the fact that its AT&T which has to be the worst wireless provider around. I never dropped calls on Verizon but with AT&T the service is rather spotty in my area.

Needless to say I have had a great time using the iPhone, the features are amazing, watching video as you can see below looks amazing, listening to music is great, and using the maps feature on the device is fantastic. I have found movie times, directions to events, and got reservations in ways that I never would have with my other phones. One thing I need to be careful of is keeping it clean, being that it is a touch screen it gets a lot of smudges and finger prints. There are a lot of nice little features like the alarm clock which has some great features, the calculator is solid, and Safari works well. I however don’t plan to use the Mail service, its just more inconvenient then anything.

For those on the border on whether they want to get an iPhone, I would say go for it, take the plunge. It is a solid cell phone, and a great iPod. I like having both devices in one and thus far I have really enjoyed the transition to using the iPhone. Now we just need to work on Ringtones and bringing iChat to the iPhone.

Sure the new Apple iPhone is expensive, but I have to say that as much as I dislike Cingular, I am really thinking about investing in an iPhone. After watching this commercial on just how impressive this phone is its hard to be anything but impressed. This looks like it could be a big breakthrough again for Apple. Critics throw down your guard for thirty seconds and watch this video and tell me it doesn’t impress you just a little bit.

In the process of working on revamping a lot of my own websites I have officially opened an account with HostMonster.com a rather reasonable hosting company that should do the trick for my upcoming and current sites. From what I can see thus far I have quite a bit of confidence in them as a host and I hope to see 100% uptime from them, unlike my last hosts. I am planning to move this blog to those servers in the near future, possibly this weekend. I am a little nervous about doing it but it should be good to get on a much faster and more reliable server. I already have my brother Jake’s blog (FullofJake.com) hosted on my server space as well as some of my new TV sites that I will be working on once summer rolls around. So far I have been impressed with HostMonster’s customer support who have already helped me with a few of my own questions. I’ll let you know how it goes, plus I got a free domain with signup, gotta love that!

Here is my new favorite in the line of Apple commercials. They are really putting down Vista. I haven’t tried it yet, but I know some who have and it doesn’t sound to good. I am hoping the Leopard does release soon, it seems to have some nice new features, I know I will update to it!
[youtube]PxLgBx3W9Ss&NR[/youtube]

Well as many of you I have had a big problem with my Macbook, the screen cracked pretty good and was not covered under warranty. I will post a picture of the screen later today! Anyways to make a long story short I got reimbursed for the repair by my new favorite company, American Express who has there awesome Purchase Protection Plan. I digress however and want to get into a little “mini-rant”. I sent my Macbook last Friday in for repair they received it on Monday which was April 23rd and now for the whole week it has been on hold for “part order”. Now my problem with this is not the time it takes for repair because the damage was pretty bad. However the fact that a “repair center” that repairs notebooks on a daily basis doesn’t have the parts in house shocks me. So your telling me no one else cracks there screen? Come on now, I hope the turn around time speeds up a bit my productivity for my websites and school work has gone way down. We shall see, I will keep you up to date.

I want to start by clarifying that my life is not anything I can complain about, in fact I quite possibly am the luckiest guy in the world. I have the most amazing girlfriend in the world, I have great family and friends, I have a job in which allows me to review video games, and a good “real” life job that allows me to live as comfortably as a college student can live. However with my recent transition to UC Irvine which I knew was going to be challenging in its own merits, has come some unfortunate events that have happened in literally a five day span.

Case #1: It all began on Thursday April 12th when I was ready to go leave for work (Bank of America) when I found my Hyundai Tiburon wasn’t starting. It has 30,000 miles on it and sure enough the battery died. So no big deal, my parents let me borrow there car and I was off to work making it in time. My parents were also nice enough to buy a new battery for me and install it. So that was not a big price tag and thus not a bad deal.

Case #2: The same day of Thursday April 12th I brought my brand new less then two month old Mac Book with me to work, so I could do homework at my break. Like I mentioned I had to change cars and I think I was in a rush and through my backpack into the back of my parents Honda Pilot. No harm no foul right? Well I got on break and was on the phone with Jenn when I opened my Mac Book and saw a major crack at the bottom of the screen. Now I have 3/4 of my Mac Screen un-viewable. Now I call up Apple and they say it to the Genius Bar to get it serviced. I thought it might not be under warranty but the sticker shock of how much they were going to charge me to replace the screen could basically buy a new Mac Book. Luckily I was with Jenn who asked a question of what else we could do and the guy asked if I bought it with an American Express. Luckily Jenn recommended me to get a Gold Card which I did and bam I find out they cover accidental damage to products for the first 90 days. So now I am in an ongoing effort to get American Express to cover my repair of my Mac Book. More information on this will come, I am just praying that American Express covers it.

Case #3: So you would think my unfortunate events would stop there right? After one of the best days of my life when Jenn came to surprise me on Friday the 13th of April, we decided to drive my Malibu which sits at the train station back into Riverside as we had missed the Train. The drive home was great and the evening was topped off with a great meal. I left my Malibu at the train station in Riverside to drive back to Irvine Monday morning. Well of course my luck hasn’t been going to strong and the car began overheating right when I got on the freeway. I managed to get off the freeway without stalling and got towed back down to Riverside to the dealer. Let’s just say the news wasn’t good from the mechanic and it looks like I busted my block (not sure if that’s right). I was happy to hear that it doesn’t seem to be cracked which would have basically meant I would have wanted to dump the car. In short the Malibu is going up for sale and I am going to be looking for a new car all together. I am thinking of a Toyota Prius Hybrid. We will see.

Case #4: After what seemingly was all of the bad that could have happened, the unthinkable happens, something else stops working. So I was just ready to go to bed last night and I had my cell phone in my shirt pocket. I bent over by the sink and bam there goes my cell phone into a nice pool of water. I rushed to get it out of there, probably was in there for a split second tried drying it off. The cell phone seemed fine, and I gave a sigh of relief. Walk into our den and bam it turns off. So I fiddle around with the battery and it seems like it might turn back on and now it’s completley dead. That’s right my cell phone has now been damaged and is dead. It is an old phone, one I didn’t spend a lot of money on, however the fact that my plan has 6 months left means I need to get a cheap phone for time being. Just another expense!

I am not asking for anyone to feel bad for any of this .As I mentioned before I am truly blessed, in fact the more I think about it I am so blessed to even have these problems to begin with. When you see the terror in this world like what happened at Virginia Tech or anywhere around the world where people are being massacred, I have nothing to complain about. I am writing this mainly so one day I can look back and remember this time in my life and laugh. Also I figured it would give you all a little insight to the outlook of my life right now.

Well to my great surprise and enjoyment Apple shipped my Macbook the same day I purchased it and it arrived on my doorstep the very next day. The greatest part is, I didn’t pay for overnight shipping I just went with there free shipping which was FedEx ground and it still came the next day so I am really impressed by that. So here are some of the pro’s and con’s of the Macbook and my impressions on the notebook. Just a quick disclaimer before I get into them. I have been a Windows user since the beginning of my computer use. I do own a Mac Mini but can’t say I really ever used it as a primary device, but instead just used it as a tester to see if I wanted to go to a Mac with my next notebook.

Pros:
- Design is gorgeous
- Battery life seems to be around three hours which is great
- ISight Camera is Built In and Works Very Nice
- Mac OS just feels really smooth and makes for a nice workspace
Cons:
- Taking sometime to get used to not having all of my windows keyboard functions
- Trying to get my old Thunderbird e-mails onto the Mac is becoming very tricky

So far though I am really enjoying my use of the Mac. I am really glad I splurged a bit and went for the Mac. More then anything it is just a nice change of pace. I will let you all know as I continue to use the notebook how it performs.

Since I graduated in June of 2004 I have had one of the worst experiences with Compaq notebooks that I think anyone can imagine. My first notebook which I got as a graduation gift was sent into to service 3-4 times and I was sent two or three replacement AC adapters and finally I was sent a new refurbished more up to date Compaq exactly a year ago. Now a year after being sent a new notebook I have already sent this current notebook in twice and they told me that last time was my final repair and that I only had thirty days in order to report any problems otherwise I would be charged for repair. Now about 4-5 months after the last repair my Compaq notebook has had its last breath. It started randomly shutting down yesterday and now it has completely shut down and I am finding no way to turn it back on. So I give up, I am done, goodbye Compaq notebook it has been a terrible ride and I am thrilled to get rid of you!

Luckily I just got in a nice bonus notice from Bank of America and last weekend did my taxes and got a nice little sum coming back to me all of which is going to my brand new MacBook ($1299 version) which I bought today and shipped today and it looks like should be arriving at my house tomorrow! Thats what I call good customer service! Anyways I will give you an update tomorrow when I get my MacBook!