Powerbook woes

You know it's going to be one of those days when you come into the office and find that the backlight on your laptop is dead. Big sigh. Things I've discovered so far:

• When you call the local Apple Store, do not press the button that says you're calling about a hardware problem. That throws you to general Apple support, and you then have to go though their entire voice system to find out that you have to hang up and call again to get the local folks.
  
  
• OTOH, it wouldn't have been a bad idea to stay on the line with Apple Support, as the local folks can't do anything about it anyway. Actually, that's not entirely true: they can generate an order for a box, and then ship the laptop out to Apple on Monday, whereas Apple phone support can get a box shipped to me on Monday to arrive on Tuesday or Wednesday, which could then go back to Apple on the same or the following day. While I like the idea of gaining a day or two this way, I would lose that same amount of time on the other end, as they can't send the box back to me, only to the store.
  
  
• It doesn't appear that I have this 10.3.8 backlight problem, as I don't have it set to use the ambient light sensor. Which is a darn shame, as it would have been nice to have it be something that simple.
  
  
• My external monitor still works just fine.
  
  
• If I set my monitors to mirror, the big (external) monitor only shows a maximum size of 1280x854, the resolution of the internal monitor. That's just way too small for me.
  
  
• If I set my monitors to not mirror, things keep wanting to be on the small monitor that I can't get to. Or at least that was the case, until I figured out how to arrange them: the small monitor is now (virtually) below the big monitor. I use the top, right, and left sides for various things, but I don't care about what's on the bottom.
  
  
• When talking to Apple support, I found out a few things: I can keep my mouth shut when someone repeatedly uses the word "helded" (which is the really past tense of "held," I guess), because I don't want to piss her off and have her send my laptop on a one-way trip to Bangalore. Also, telling her, "hey, while it's there, can you also fix the white spot problem?" isn't necessarily a good idea, as it now falls into two different and unrelated categories of problem. Consequently, I skipped also complaining about the short battery life, as who knows what could have happened.
  
  
• She didn't think that there would be any holdup due to parts being on back-order. Let's hope that's actually the case.
  
  
• I'll be cloning my hard drive between now and Tuesday. Of course, I have a nasty deadline this week. Never fails, huh?
  
  
• I told her that I'd increased my RAM. Is there any good reason to pull out the increased RAM and reinstall the old one, or should I trust that it will come back the way I send it?
  
  
• If anyone has any ideas on things to try to fix this before the box shows up, let me know, please!

Misc notes

I should be working, not blogging, but I want to put these things down. So, they're all getting dumped into one post to get them out of the way:

• I've been maintaining a list of Sonoma County weblogs (look over to your right) for a few years now, and I'm happy to keep doing so… but it's gotten away from me. Every so often, I've been looking around on various search engines to see who ought to be added, but it had been a while since the last time. A new search came up with too damn many! Do I add everyone here? Or from here? Or here? The answer: I'll add anyone who asks to be added — but they have to ask. I'm not going to spend any more time finding hundreds of sites that have updated once, ever.
  
  
• One of the weirdest parts of the above searches was seeing how many of Sean's classmates have blogs and livejournals. And it was pretty clear that their parents weren't reading them.
  
  
• This page is a nice Flash app showing the new Miata. It looks pretty sweet, but it appears that it won't come in the British racing green that I promised myself for my next car.
  
  
• Tara pointed me towards Women & Wine: The Ultimate Retreat For Women Who Appreciate Wine and Travel. It's a shame that they don't have any tours coming to Sonoma County, but other than that, if you like the idea of women-only touring with a focus on wine (and what's not to like there?), it sounds like a lovely concept.
  
  
• We've gotten hooked on a prime-time crime drama on TV. Yes, us. The same friend of ours who for years told us that we were insane for not watching Buffy told us a few weeks ago that we had to watch Numb3rs. Yes, it's a stupid name, but once again, she's right (and the name's no stupider than Buffy, the Vampire Slayer). I mention it because CBS is replaying the pilot tonight. Set your TiVos to record. You won't regret it. It's smart, it's funny, and David Krumholtz is my new Friday night boyfriend. And Tom's okay with that, because the show also brings Sabrina Lloyd back to be his Friday night girlfriend.
  
  
• Go here to find 230 Gb of Dr. Demento shows online. 1275 shows. Time to warp Sean's brain the same way that mine was warped at his age. Heh heh heh…

syncOtunes

I buy music. Tom buys music. As I understand it, we both legally own all of it, and so, can put it on both our Macs. What we've needed: syncOtunes, which syncs two iTunes libraries. This is going to save me a serious amount of time.

Return of Publish and Subscribe

I have tons o' respect for Adam Engst, but his piece on LinkBack: Son of OpenDoc? gets it wrong. LinkBack isn't the return of (the thankfully dead) OpenDoc, it's the return of (the sorely missed) Publish & Subscribe.

So far, it's supported by Nisus Writer Express, OmniGraffle, OmniOutliner, and ChartSmith but given that it's just been announced, who knows who'll be next?

iPod Shuffle: First thoughts

I ordered a 512 MB iPod Shuffle from Amazon back on February 8, and it arrived today (about two weeks ahead of Amazon's original projection). I'd seen them back at Macworld Expo, of course, but this is the first chance I've had to spend much time with one. So far, I like it a lot. The sound quality through the included earbuds is quite good, even though I'm not a big fan of earbuds. On my 30 GB iPod, I usually use other headphones, either my Koss KSC-35 earclips (thanks to Dan Frakes for the recommendation) or an old Sony sports headset.

When you have the Shuffle connected, iTunes has one feature I hadn't heard of: there's an option to automatically convert higher-bit rate music to 128-bit AAC for transfer to the Shuffle. That allows you to get more music on the device. And though it's touted as holding 120 songs, that's just an estimate that varies with the length of your particular music; mine contains 131 songs at the moment. Of course, it weighs practically nothing, and the lanyard is comfortable. I'm looking forward to trying the Shuffle out at the gym.

Creating Pissed-off Authors

About six weeks ago, I wrote a post called Fix Bugs First, about how Amazon was holding an invitation-only Developer's Conference to talk about cool new stuff, while ignoring the same old bugs they'd had for years. Kathy Sierra's been bit by some of the same bugs, which she discussed today in her post Creating Pissed Off Users.

But Amazon is spectacularly screwed up right now, most noticeably in how it handles new editions of a book.

Yep, that's about right.

Apparently all the publishers are mad as hell at Amazon

Nope. They aren't. Some might be, but they're not as mad as they ought to be, and some don't appear to be mad at all.

Example A: notes from a talk by O'Reilly Media's CTO, given at the above Developer Conference. Lots about cool stuff that's on the horizon, lots about cool stuff that alpha geeks are doing… and nothing at all about how Amazon is screwing with publishers and authors.

Okay, maybe this was the public talk, and the bitch-slapping Amazon so richly deserves was given in private. But considering that it's six weeks later, and the book that Kathy's referring to is one of O'Reilly's top-selling titles, I doubt it. I have to come to the conclusion that the "we're not happy with the situation either, and we're pressuring Amazon on it" is just BS. This would have been a perfect time to give them the very public reaming that they have asked for so many times, but no.

Things will be fixed when publishers actually start putting real pressure on Amazon, and not a minute before.

PS to Kathy: we just figured out that Sean's going to be taking Java programming in school next year, so we told him that he should make life easy on himself by actually learning it over the summer instead. Is the 1^st edition of your book (which I already own) sufficient, or do we really need to get the latest-and-greatest?

PS to everyone else: yes, I have a title that directly competes with Kathy and Bert's. If you get the idea from the previous graf that I think highly of theirs, you'd be correct. Which doesn't mean that you shouldn't also buy mine, of course!

Free ice cream!

It's Yahoo's 10^th birthday, so we get free ice cream. That works for me.

Is printing evil?

Scoble says:

I believe that anything that changes the linking behavior of the Web is evil. Anything that changes my content is evil. Particularly anything that messes with the integrity of the link system… The fundamental building block of the Web is linking. Linking is MY EDITORIAL CONTENT.

Question: is Scoble saying that printing Web pages is evil? After all, that removes all the links from his content, right? Discuss, and support your answer.

Barrel Tastings this weekend

Carolyn Tillie (whose Ultimate California Wine Blog I linked to a couple of days ago) reminded me in my comments that this weekend is the 27^th Annual Russian River Barrel Tasting Weekend.

Out of pocket cost: $5 gets you a souvenir glass, which gets you tastings at over 100 wineries (so there, Napa! charging for wine tastings — sheesh).

The wineries are also accepting canned goods, which will be donated to the Redwood Empire Food Bank. Or, you can purchase this poster for $10, and $5 of that will go to them.

If you're going to be at any of the tasting rooms on the Healdsburg Plaza, or at Simi Winery (i.e., if you're going to be within 100 yards of me), let me know. And if you're thinking about making a weekend of it, I've got plenty of recommendations for lodging and restaurants well worth your patronage.

2005 Oscars

Multi-award winning movies:

• The Aviator: 5
• Million Dollar Baby: 4
• The Incredibles: 2
• Ray: 2

And that's it for this year's Oscar blogging. The women mostly looked gorgeous, the men mostly looked like they worked at a bank, the speeches were short, and the host didn't offend anyone except Sean Penn. That's about as good as it gets. See you next year!

That may have been one of the shortest Oscar telecasts in history. Not only did it end before midnight Eastern, it ended waaaay before midnight eastern. Ending with a suckup to the Academy to come back next year wasn't terribly classy, but overall, I think that Chris Rock did a great job, and much better than a lot of other first-timers did.

Best Picture: Million Dollar Baby, making Clint a very happy guy. I guess I cursed The Aviator when I talked about it sweeping earlier, because it hasn't won one since.

Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand. I don't know what they'll say, but I'm sure it'll be embarrassing. They're doing the best picture award.

Best Director: Clint Eastwood for Million Dollar Baby. I hear the film is good, but I still think that awards like this are given because every actor really wants to direct. Wow — Mom's in the audience at 96. I guess we'll (yay!) have Clint around for a few years yet.

Julia Roberts comes out to give the best director award. How long ago did she have the twins? That's just unfair. I still haven't lost my baby weight yet, and it's been almost 17 years.

Best Actor: Jamie Foxx for Ray. Terrific speech. Unlike last year, it's been interesting this year how the awards have been spread out over a larger group of movies.

Charlize Theron, looking stunning as always, although maybe a little too Gone With The Wind, gives the best actor award.

There's only three awards left. Are we actually, for the first time ever, going to end early? Man, I probably could have won some serious $$$ in Vegas betting on that. Oh, it looks like they're going to fill up the time with commercials to make sure it doesn't happen.

Best Original Screenplay: Charlie Kaufman for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. That was a surprise; I was betting on Hotel Rwanda. They've got to give it at least one.

Samuel L. Jackson's not wearing a tux, but he's cool enough that he doesn't have to. So there. He's giving the award for best original screenplay.

Best Foreign Language Film: The Sea Inside, Spain.

Gwyneth Paltrow: good hair, good dress. Some years she makes it look effortless. What pisses me off is that, if genetics count for anything, she's still going to be gorgeous 30 years from now. She's giving the best foreign film award.

Best Actress: Hilary Swank for Million Dollar Baby. My guess: it's just so she can remember to thank her husband this time. And once again, she's wearing a dress that emphasizes that she's a beautiful female, because her roles downplay it. But on closer look, I have to say that I'm not that impressed with the dress. Tom thinks she's got it on backwards.

Sean Penn: no tie. Sheesh. And no sense of humor, either. Seriously, Sean, you don't have to defend Jude Law. Working as much as he does is its own reward. He's giving the award for best actress.

Best Song: "Al Otro Lado Del Rio (To the Other Side of the River)" from The Motorcycle Diaries: Jorge Drexler. Drexler sings just to show the Academy what they missed.

"Academy award winner Prince"? Just the sound of that scares me, almost as badly as the pink snakeskin pants I've been told he's wearing. He gives the award for the best song. Tom thinks he looks "oddly androgynous," I think that he looks less so than Annie Lennox did last year.

Sean (Puffy/P Diddy) Combs comes out to give an award. Why him? He introduces the best song nomination for The Polar Express. What, Beyoncé again? Who did she sleep with? She's better dressed here than her last two tries, but I'm still hoping this is the last we see of her.

Has Annette Benning ever looked anything other than elegant and beautiful? Her hair looks terrible, but she still manages to somehow look amazing introducing the clips of those who passed away in 2004. Yo-Yo Ma? Good choice.

We seem to have reached a lull in the show, so feel free to pay a quick visit over to The Vidiots, who are also liveblogging the show. This would be a lot easier if I had an entire staff to do it, too.

Martin Scorsese, always a class act, gives the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award to Roger Mayer.

Best Original Score: Jan A.P. Kaczmarek for Finding Neverland.

John Travolta, wearing a suit, gives the award for best original score.

Chris: "Next year, they're going to give out Oscars in the parking lot."

Best Documentary Short Subject: Mighty Times: The Children's March.

Natalie Portman, not yet wearing her cinnamon buns, gives the award for best documentary short subject. I'm not sure I like the dress, but I admire someone trying something a little different.

Salma introduces another best song nominee. Even if we have to have interpretive dance numbers again, I say we should just have a medley of all of them and get it over with. Antonio, as a singer, you're an actor.

Best Sound Editing: The Incredibles.

I take back any compliments I've made about Penelope's dress. Butt bows automatically disqualify you from looking good. Now they're giving the award for best sound editing.

Best Sound Mixing: Ray. That was my pick for this award, which means that The Aviator doesn't sweep 'em all.

Chris Rock introduces Salma Hayek and Penelope Cruz as "the next four presenters." Sheesh. Although it's not like we've never made remarks like that before. They're giving the award for best sound mixing.

So far, The Aviator is sweeping. Will. It. Go. All. The. Way??

Best Cinematography: The Aviator. Huh. I thought that The Passion actually had a chance at this one. Note to the Academy: following a guy's heart-felt tribute to his desperately ill mother with the theme from The Terminator is, well, unfortunate.

Kate Winslet: four nominations, no wins, nice dress (it's nice to see some color for a change), giving the award for best cinematography.

Best Animated Short: Ryan.

Laura Linney could look much better than she does night. Bad hair, bad makeup, so-so dress. She's giving the award for best animated short.

Best Live Action Short: Wasp. Best quote of the night, "I think this is the dog's bollocks."

"Comedy superstar Jeremy Irons?" And what on earth is he wearing??? He's giving the award for best live action short, but we're too busy arguing the pros and cons of his outfit.

Emmy Rossum, of the widely-panned The Phantom of the Opera, announces Beyoncé (again) singing. Better outfit, but who on earth thought all that fake jewelry made sense?

Al Pacino comes out looking like a shlump to give the lifetime achievement award to Sidney Lumet. If he can't wear a tux, at least he could have shaved or brushed his hair. Nice clips; I hadn't realized that he'd been behind so many great movies. Lumet gets a standing ovation; I'm a big fan of giving these awards and tributes to people while they're still alive and around to appreciate them.

Fifty minutes in, the president of the Academy finally deigns to show up. Whatever happened to the president opening the show?

Best Visual Effects: Spider-Man 2. Hey, another film we saw!

Jake Gyllenhaal and some unknown Chinese woman [later note: Mark tells me it was Ziyi Zhang, star of many films, one of which I've actually seen (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon)] give the award for best visual effects.

Best Adapted Screenplay: Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor for Sideways. It's probably just the Academy throwing them a bone, but as people living in the Wine Country, we have to say, "Yeah!"

Adam Sandler and Catherine Zeta-Jones? There's an odd couple. Except she doesn't show up, not that I blame her. I'd skip having anything to do with Adam Sandler, too. The chit-chat between Adam Sandler and Chris Rock makes it clear it was a setup. Snore. Sandler gives the award for best adapted screenplay.

Why are there so many empty seats in the balconies? Do seat-fillers only work the floor? Did that many people not show up, or did everyone use the song as an excuse to take a bathroom break?

Mike Meyers looks like a shlump and introduces Counting Crows, who then make him look like Pierce Brosnan. White guys should never wear dreads. Just don't do it.

Best Film Editing: The Aviator. Martin Scorsese starts to look weepy.

Tom likes Kiersten Dunst better as a redhead. I remind him that he likes all women better as redheads. We disagree whether or not Orlando Bloom is wearing a bow tie; Tom says he isn't, I say he is but has it tucked under his collar. They're giving the award for best editing.

Best Documentary Feature: Born Into Brothels. It usually goes to the most socially important film (when there isn't one about the Holocaust), and this year is no different.

Leonardo DiCaprio is giving the award for best documentary feature, wearing a suit. The usual scoffing ensues.

A tribute to Johnny Carson hosting the Oscars, and rightfully so. Now there was a man who knew how to wear a tux properly.

Best Supporting Actress: Cate Blanchett for The Aviator. Still looking stunning.

Tim Robbins gets scoffed at for his politics, and laughs it off. Good for him, considering he's wearing a peace sign tietack. He gives the best actress award.

Best Costume Design: The Aviator.

Bond music starts playing, so I start hoping for Sean Connery. It's actually Pierce Brosnan, but he's wearing a tuxedo, so that works for me. All the nominees for best costume design are up on stage, and Pierce gives the award with Edna Mole. Is Brad Bird doing the voice? I hope so.

Scarlett Johannson looks better than anyone has a right to. She gave the SciTech awards, and the winners were probably happy to just get a chance to spend two minutes around her.

We both like Drew Barrymore better as a blond, but that dress is as good as it gets. I'm not going to have much to snark about if all the women keep looking this good. Beyoncé immediately relieves me of that problem; since when is a short dress appropriate? Bzzzz. She also loses points for the horrible green eye shadow. (Tom: "It makes her look moldy around the edges.")

Best Makeup: Lemony Snicket.

Cate Blanchett's giving an award from the audience. I'm not sure I like this whole in the audience thing. But damn, she looks gorgeous. This way, I guess, they can show everyone nominated, without having to bring anyone up on stage.

Best Animated Film: The Incredibles. Yay! Brad Bird is wearing an Incredibles lapel pin. That is so geeky. As if thanking Steve Jobs isn't.

Robin Williams is giving the best animated film award. Tom says that he was supposed to sing, but that that got cut yesterday. Drat! We're rooting for The Incredibles, and not just because it's one of the few films we've seen.

Tom and I both want to know why they used the theme from Star Trek as outro music? According to this page, it's because at some point in the past, one of the Star Treks (#1 or #4?) won Best Score.

Best Supporting Actor: Morgan Freeman for Million Dollar Baby. I'm guessing that it's an overall-career award, something the Academy loves to do.

Renee Zellweger: love the dress, hate the hair. How on earth do you walk in a dress cut like that? She's giving the award for Best Supporting Actor. What movie is she currently working on where she needs to be a brunette?

Art direction: The Aviator. Since when do they bring up all the nominees? From what I hear, there's going to be a lot of things done differently this year.

Halle Berry: gorgeous dress. But since when do they do art direction first?

Initial bad move: Chris Rock, for not wearing a tux. As I said, if it's not a bow-tie, it's not a tux. Opening monologue: good job, and much better than some of the ones I've seen in the past from first-time hosts. He got the mandatory Bush-bashing in, but with good humor, and he ended just when it started to get a little long.

Lovely opening montage. Who's the narrator? Tom says it's Dustin Hoffman. Cute ending with Chaplin and Shrek.

I'm running a couple of minutes behind, but feel free to ping me if you want to chat about the awards.

Early note: looking at the previews of the dresses, it looks like the women all (or mostly) had great taste this year. The guys have mostly broken rule #1 ("I don't care if you call it a tie, an ascot, or a cravat: it doesn't work with a tuxedo. Wear a bow-tie with that tux, or I'll scoff at you") and will be laughed at in turn.

Technorati's watching the Oscar watchers

You can watch Technorati watching the bloggers who watch the Oscars .

Pre-Oscar blogging

Oscar™ blogging should start right around 5 pm Pacific, and here's a few notes for those who are interested:

• Previous Oscar blogging can be found here:
  • 2002 Oscar Blogging
  • 2003 Oscar Blogging
  • 2004 Oscar Blogging
  making this the 4^th annual such post here. In Hollywood, that means we're virtually an institution.
  
  
• I've seen fewer than ever of the nominated films. Live with it.
  
  
• I don't care if you call it a tie, an ascot, or a cravat: it doesn't work with a tuxedo. Wear a bowtie with that tux, or I'll scoff at you.
  
  
• I don't know of anyone else planning on doing Oscar blogging. Let me know if you are, and I'll add a link to you here. Reciprocation would be appreciated, but it's not required.
  
  
• If you're in the chat, try to keep the spoilers to a minimum, okay? I'm usually running a couple of minutes behind to give me time to post, and everyone yelling, "YAY!" when LotR wins a major award confuses me. Especially when it won eleven, like last year. My bet is that it'll win zero this year, so it won't be quite such a big deal, but still, give me some time to catch up.
  
  
• Oscar blogging here is a single lengthy post, with the newest at the top. Keep reloading the page if you want to see the most recent stuff.
  
  
• If you have a problem with reading snark about the outfits and hairdos sported by the presenters and award winners, this isn't the place for you. And that's before I get started on the godawful crap on the women…

Yum

Jef Raskin: 9 Mar 1943-26 Feb 2005

RIP

More info here, here, here, and here.