apophenia :: techno doom

January 22, 2008

darn thee european internet

I'm in Switzerland. The internet is atrocious and hella expensive so I won't be online (or handling much email) this week. Bear with me.

Update: Conference center has reasonable WiFi but no power... Figures.

Category: techno doom

   

Posted by zephoria at 2:29 PM | Comments (9) | TrackBack (0)

December 21, 2007

do NOT upgrade to Leopard (why I'm offline)

I foolishly decided to upgrade to Leopard five days ago, at the beginning of my trip east for the holidays. This was the worst idea ever so for everyone waiting for me to respond to anything, please be patient... I won't really be online until I can get back to LA and wipe my machine and start over.

For the geeks, here's what's going on with Leopard:

• I cannot seem to run more than 3 major apps (Word, Mail, Firefox) simultaneously or else one freezes and the entire machine halts to a stop, requiring a restart.
• No major app seems to be able to quit without requiring a "Force Quit" to get it to stop. Restarting seems to freeze midway through and require a hard reboot.
• Opening a folder in Finder seems to take a good 20-30s and results in a freezing of applications, making multitasking impossible.
• And then there's Mail... When I open Mail with no other apps open (on network or off), it's a disaster - trying to open each message results in a beachball. The activity monitor doesn't seem to indicate anything strange - no hanging or anything, just regular opening of mailbox, moving and saving to mailboxes, syncing, etc. But it's impossible to open messages because they hang for 30s before they'll open. I don't have the patience to wade through my thousands of message with this level of hanging. I went through all of the Apple Support notices, updated my DNS servers, and am at a complete loss.

Anyhow, if anyone has any clue, I'd be happy to provide more details and try whatever. But I can't balance this and family and holiday shopping and hotels and keeping sane, so I'm just going offline until I get home. Plus, I need to do a proper backup before I can feel comfortable turning this thing over to anyone else. Le sigh.

Update: Thanks everyone for your comments! I ended up re-installing my machine and it's a much happier camper. I realized that I've been through 7 machines and 4 OSes without ever cleaning anything out - all I do is firewire to the next one. So far, so good. But damn is email overflow daunting.
PS: Sorry about my blog... apparently the spam killed my quota and thus caused a hiccup in the comment section. Ironic, eh?

Category: techno doom

Tags: leopard

   

Posted by zephoria at 11:44 AM | Comments (12) | TrackBack (0)

November 15, 2007

algorithms for dumb security questions

I share David Weinberger's irritation with dumb security questions, albeit for slightly different reasons. My irritation stems from the fact that they are often culturally insensitive, require brilliant memories, and assume that favorites don't change. Maybe I'm not normal, but I have no foggy clue who my 1st grade teacher is, I couldn't name a single sports team, and my favorite movie changes depending on who I'm talking to let alone how I'm feeling that day. (Today, I think that The Matrix will do.) David gripes about the fact that people's favorite tastes are quite common; my problem is that we know damn well that people are dreadful at this, but that it works quite nicely as a way of marking identity on online dating sites. Which reminds me. Why are security questions the same as the information that you put on your public MySpace page? Dumb dumb dumb.

So you know that people write down their dumb answers and then lose them and then they're screwed. I've decided to approach this from a different angle. I've instituted a consistent tactic for answering stupid security questions. It's an algorithmic approach. The basic structure is:

[Snarky Bad Attitude Phrase] + [Core Noun Phrase] + [Unique Word]

Although these are not my actual phrases, let's map them for example:

• Snarky Bad Attitude Phrase = StupidQuestion
• Unique Word = Booyah

Thus, when I'm asked the following question: What is your favorite sports team?

My answer would be: StupidQuestion SportsTeam Booyah

And when they ask: What was the first car you owned?

I'd respond: StupidQuestion Car Booyah

It's easy to remember a snarky bad attitude phrase and a unique word that you use consistently. And then to make sure you're answering the right question (cuz they do have scripts that check that you're not answering all questions the same way), you just have to be able to pick out the noun phrase each time.

Of course, the fact that I have to do this just pisses me off to no end. And I still can't figure out why they can't ask me to write my own question, store that in cleartext, encrypt my answer, and then offer me back my cleartext question rather than a stupid list of 8 questions that boggle my mind and remind me of how heterogeneous the world is. I realize that it's the difference between a byte and a string, but when we're talking about security, is that really a big deal? Grumble grumble grumble.

Category: techno doom

Tags: security passwords

   

Posted by zephoria at 9:15 AM | Comments (17) | TrackBack (0)

September 9, 2007

blotchy burns on my legs from my Macbook

I acquired my black Macbook late in the spring and was doing a lot of traveling until mid-July. Since then, I've been at home working on my laptop all day and all night. I purchase laptops because they're LAPtops (regardless of Apple's avoidance of that term) - I need the machine in my lap so that my hands can be at the right angle to prevent my carpal tunnel from flaring up. This is why I haven't owned a desktop in almost a decade. (Managing my CTS is a longer story, but laptops are the only thing that I've found to work.)

Much to my horror, a burn started emerging on my lap this summer. It's just like the woman who reported this last year. It's kinda creepy actually. The burn is all blotchy and it shows where my laptop clearly sits. I didn't feel it happening, but it's noticeably there and very much in the shape of my Mac. (And it makes it clear that I angle my Mac funny on my lap.) In fact, when it first started to appear, I ignored it because I thought maybe I had done a bad job with the suntan lotion on my thighs. But it got worse and then it dawned on me. I had heard about this problem, but I thought they had fixed it with some firmware upgrade. But it is distinctly the shape and size of my Mac. And it most definitely happened this summer and I have done all of the upgrades requested.

The eerie part is that it's not going away. I went to Burning Man (which meant 5 days without the laptop) and when I returned, I found a wooden lap-seat to place the machine on, but it still hasn't gone away. (In the meantime, the burn I got from getting seared by the Temple embers has gone away, as has the slight sunburn.) I'm starting to get a wee bit creeped out. What kind of burn is this? Did my laptop cause more damage than I thought? Are people who aren't seeing the burn still being affected by whatever is causing it? I never thought that my Macbook was that hot - it was always comfortable in my lap with my yoga pants on. The burn happened without me noticing pain. And there's no dreadful sound or anything. Just a creeping blotchy ugly burn that doesn't show any signs of going away.

(Photos not getting posted cuz my thighs are *not* my sexiest feature.)

Category: techno doom

Tags: macbook burn laptop apple heat temperature

   

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August 16, 2007

airport extreme wifi failure: help?

The Apple stores near me have no appointments so I thought I'd see if anyone out there might have suggestions before I camp out at the store for a few hours. My Airport Extreme was working quite fine until this morning. I see my network in the list of networks, but when I try to go to it, I'm told that there is an error joining it. I'm able to connect to the Extreme via a tethered Ethernet cord. I updated the firmware and I restarted it. The light is green and it's in my list of networks but I can't actually join that network (nor can my Airport Express). What on earth am I doing wrong?

Update: and the prize goes to DK for suggesting that I just needed to tell the router my lucky number and all would be well. (Tx to Dan and Joe and Jacob for taking the time to help me debug. Another techno doom averted!)

Category: techno doom

Tags: apple airport extreme

   

Posted by zephoria at 10:37 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0)

August 9, 2007

javascript features make reading a nightmare

For as far back as I can remember, I have highlighted words while I read on the screen. I don't know why. It's kinda the equivalent to moving my finger along the written text. Apparently, this is not a common practice. If I highlight words at the NYTimes and accidentally click on a single word, the NYTimes tries to look up the word with a new window. I really don't need a definition of "the" and it just makes me lose track of what I was reading. Lately, I've noticed that blogs are starting to sport these annoying javascript-y in-page popups that block text with information about the links that I've accidentally scrolled over. Again, I lose track of what I was reading. Usually, I just give up and quit any blog that has those annoying things. Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I really don't want to see a screenshot of a website when I mouse over the link. A mini-picture of a page full of text does nothing except annoy me. It's not additional information; it just feels icky. Le sigh. Am I alone on this one?

Category: techno doom

   

Posted by zephoria at 7:51 PM | Comments (45) | TrackBack (0)

January 12, 2007

a practice broken, another silo solidified

I know i have some quirky habits but i really really really hate when web companies break them with their latest updates. One of my weird ones concerns getting directions to a place (which i do 2-3 times a day). For years now, i've thrown the address of the destination into google toolbar. Up would come the address (recognized by Google as an address) with three links: Google Maps, Yahoo Maps, Mapquest. I would always click Yahoo Maps. From there, i'd click on the "To Here" link and then choose "home" and click. I'd then copy/paste the directions into an email that i'd send to my Sidekick and then use that to navigate while in the car.

A while back, Yahoo Maps broke this path by going all web2.0-y. While it sure is pretty, it makes getting directions more difficult and you can't copy/paste the directions. So i saved the "classic" style in the preference and didn't sweat it any longer.

Today, Google broke the process completely. At first, when i searched for an address, it wasn't found. Apparently, the Google search engine got a bit more picky and required me to know if it was Street or Road and required a comma between the city and the state and couldn't cope with a 9-digit zipcode. This was never an issue before (and part of why i loved it - it let me be lazy). But even worse, they've gotten rid of the three choices and now only have their map with a box for me to put in the "start address" to get directions. This infuriates me because there's a reason that i don't use Google Maps. Their directions are *atrocious* AND you can't copy/paste the directions once you have them. And it completely pisses me off that the "email" button tries to email me a link not the content of the page. (This is even worse on Yahoo where it has the nerve to send a text message with a link when you send to phone.)

I'm grouchy. I realize that this is a subtle thing but it really makes me quite unhappy. Plus, i'd always touted Google's willingness to link to both Yahoo Maps and Mapquest as a sign that not every search company has to focus on being a silo. Google broke that today, signaling that it does indeed prefer to be a silo than to offer choice that the consumer might want. I know that i can work around this but it requires more clicks for a practice that i do so often it hurts (yes, i'm always lost). Le sigh.

Category: techno doom

Tags: google yahoo maps

   

Posted by zephoria at 7:24 PM | Comments (21) | TrackBack (0)

August 31, 2006

oh dear cute chumby

I told myself that there was no playing with the chumby until i finished unpacking my new apartment. But then, in the midst of unpacking, i realized i had no clock. Since i knew that was the default application, i decided to unpack the chumby. I figured, what harm could be done in just using it as a clock, right? OMG, cuteness. It talked to me. It showed me an adorable little octopus. And then it found my network just like my Mac. And it made me register it. And then it told me that someone else had put together a Cute Overload application for it. So now there's cuteness on cuteness. And there are Flickr photos. And news. And ooooohhhhhhh..... Sooooo cute.

I will not play with the chumby until i unpack, i will not play with the chumby until i unpack....

Category: techno doom

Tags: chumby

   

Posted by zephoria at 12:10 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)

August 28, 2006

change in feed and other blog bits

I've just added a Feedburner feed for my blog. It would be great if you'd be willing to switch which feed you're subscribed to but if not, that's cool. I'm doing this for two reasons. The obvious is having something resembling statistics for my own curiosity. The other is that i'm hoping that if folks primarily use Feedburner, i might get a reduction in bandwidth from readers grabbing the feed.

Although i've been using del.icio.us for a long time, i mostly use it for myself. I decided to create a special tag of things that are relevant to others: 4blog. I've added del.icio.us to the sidebar of my blog. I'm not mixing my del.icio.us feed in with my regular blog feed because i just think that's rude. So, if you want to subscribe to that separately, here's my del.icio.us feed.

While i'm on the topic of my blog, does anyone have a good chunk of Javascript that might reduce the archive clutter over there on the left? Ideally, i could just list years and then you could click to open up the months per year. Except maybe the current year which would show all of the months. I keep procrastinating taking care of this so i thought i'd see if someone else has done it already.

Category: techno doom

   

Posted by zephoria at 9:22 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0)

May 19, 2006

PC recommendations

I love Macs, but i desparately need a smaller computer. I went and visited the new 13" today and realized that i can't use it. It's too big, too heavy and the keyboard is too problematic. ::sigh:: So i'm starting to look around for a PC. :-( My big needs are <12", <5lb, cheap and above all else, a 90% keyboard (85-95% range... 16mm... *not* full-size) that is soft touch (i.e. it clatters rather than trying to be silent). I used to have a VAIO which i loved. Does anyone have any good suggestions?

I'm very sad to need to switch back, but my hands never liked the full-sized keyboard and it's really catching up to me. I'm sad that Apple won't be going smaller than 13" and i'm even sadder that i will be forced into dealing with Windows, but i really need a smaller computer. Beh.

(For those who think an external keyboard is the answer, if you find me one that is 90% and lighter touch than a laptop keyboard, i'm down... but i've never seen one that is both.)

Category: techno doom

   

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April 1, 2006

::wimper::

First, it lost all of its SMSes. Then it started shutting off on its own mid-IM (requiring being plugged in to turn back on). Then it started flickering, changing all sorts of colors and making all sorts of 1950s-TV style line static. And then it crashed completely, leaving behind those crazy colors on its screen (even when off).

I'm going through severe withdrawal. Anyone who knows me knows that i start twitching without that toy in hand.

When is the Sidekick III gonna be released? Eeeek. Must replace toy. Can't handle withdrawal. Must replace toy.... Thank goodness for a particular gadgety gal who is kindly going to lend me her II until it comes out. Cuz seriously, toy death is way way way too sad.

Category: techno doom

Tags: sidekick

   

Posted by zephoria at 12:19 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)

February 6, 2006

how DRM fucks academics

One of the cardinal rules of doing ethnography is that you keep everything. Normally, this concerns the physical world so you keep letters, receipts, photos, anything that you can possibly get your hands on. We're all still trying to figure out what this means in digital land. During my work on Friendster, i was terrible about keeping records. I should've kept copies of Profiles; i didn't. I should've kept copies of funny videos and other such stuff; i didn't. I very much regret this, because so many of those Profiles were deleted and now i have no record of what all happened. But then again, i didn't think i was doing research. Mistakes made, lessons learned.

So, now, i'm really doing research. And i'm trying to keep copies of things that i analyze. Of course, saving every webpage is difficult so i fully admit that i'm doing a poor job of this. But my bigger problem is that i want to keep copies of the video that i run across. The bulk of it is on YouTube locked down by DRM. Although there are ways of getting this out of YouTube, going from flv to something usable is a bitch on a Mac. And damned if i can get .flvs working on a Mac.

The thing that is going to kill me about all of this DRM bullshit is how it completely eliminates fair use. I should be able to keep copies of these videos and mark them up as artifacts. Instead, i'm locked out. Unfortunately, explaining the DRM problem to committees who want to know why you aren't storing the artifacts is impossible right now. Gah. Frustrating.

Category: techno doom

Tags: drm

   

Posted by zephoria at 12:34 AM | Comments (12) | TrackBack (0)

May 26, 2005

ah, the magical touch

I know better. I know better. So, when i started down the path of bouncing my mail for vacation, i figured it had to be easy. This is me.

So, started out with SIMS bouncing per the suggestion. Nope, didn't work. Why? Couldn't get formail to get called to save my life. So, switched plans, figured out how to get vacation working so that it sent messages, overrided the time stamp and the To/CC rules. In the process, killed my procmail file which spun 600 messages into chaos. This was great except that everything forwarded from Netspace to SIMS (a.k.a. all danah.org messages) sent vacation to Netspace which was bad.

OK. So i tried to set up vacation on Netspace to mimic SIMS to do all of the danah.org messages. Vacation doesn't exist on Netspace. So we went back to formail which worked there.

In the process, of course, i was fucking around with my procmail files and managed to fubar everything. Procmail was going into autoloops, mail was going goddess only knows where, LINEBUF was filling up, bounces weren't getting sent. OMG.

So, getting everything set up only took a total of 16 hours and the unbelievably awesome help of Glenn, Adam, Greg, Kevin, Kevin, and Thomas. Oh, and a lot of bitching support from everyone else. Needless to say, this is not something i should've been doing today. But dear god.

The end result:

:0
| (formail -r -i 'From: Mailer Daemon Angel ' -i 'Subject: Returned mail: see transcript for details'; cat /home/grrl/.vacation.msg) | sendmail -oi -t

(and)

:0
| /usr/bin/vacation -t1s -j dmb

with a .vacation.msg that says:

From: Mailer Daemon Angel
Subject: Returned mail: see transcript for details

----- All mail to danah is currently auto-deleted -----
Bounced: <$SUBJECT>
(reason: danah needs a break)

----- Transcript of session follows -----

procmail: Refused to save
550 5.1.1 .... User exhausted

Daemons have decided to destroy danah's mail so that she may rest without fear of returning to the dreaded INBOX. All messages sent to danah from May 29-July 3 2005 will not be delivered. If it is still important, contact danah again after July 3. Perhaps, if you feel so inclined, invite the Daemons to visit your server so that you too may rest without email.

----- Do not resend until after July 3 -----

Say bye-bye. Your message has just found a new home in /dev/null. ::wave:: bye bye cute message.... bye bye....

Category: techno doom

   

Posted by zephoria at 10:13 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack (1)

May 21, 2005

vacation + plea to unix geeks

I wanted to remind folks that i will be departing next weekend for one month; there will be no email. If there's anything i need to take care of before i go, please let me know now.

Also, can i get a little help from the unix geeks out there? I have most of my procmail set up. All mailing list messages will be sent to /dev/null and that works like a charm. What i can't figure out how to do is get the bounce line working for everything else. A friend suggests that it's a combination of formail and sendmail and sent me this to plug into procmail:

:0
*
| (formail -r; cat "danah has turned off email for June 2005; please re-write in July if it is still relevant") | sendmail -oi -t

I feel lame because i don't know enough about either formail or sendmail (and the manpages aren't getting me anywhere - more lameness). Since that doesn't actually work, what do i need to do? Help?

(Once i get that working, i'll post it for all of the rest of you who want to kill email during vacation. There's no need to come back to hell and void your entire relaxing break.)

Category: techno doom

   

Posted by zephoria at 9:25 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0)

May 17, 2005

iPod help needed... automount issues in Tiger

I plug my iPod in, iTunes does it's thing and then it auto-unmounts. The problem here is that without it being mounted, Audioscrobbler doesn't let me update my iPod to tell it what all i've been listening to. This used to work but i have a sneaking suspicion that Tiger does everything via automount/unmount so that i can't stay connected to my iPod since they're afraid i'll steal something.

How do i manually mount my iPod so that i can run Audioscrobbler scripts on it?

(I've read the Apple docs but they don't solve my problem and are outdated.)

Category: techno doom

   

Posted by zephoria at 11:24 PM | Comments (220) | TrackBack (0)

technical updates

Yes, it's finals time. This means that i've done some sorting of my data resulting in new colors on this here blog. Also, i added categories although most of my entries don't have categories in them which is a bit of a problem. One day...

The main reason i did all of this is because of my alterity blog where i'm attempting to record some of the readings i do (although am reading faster than recording).

Also, in an effort to solve my increasingly problematic spam problem, Jay Allen installed a pseudo-captcha. Basically, at the bottom of my posts, it's going to ask you to answer a question that is obviously answerable. This should also work for visually impaired folks. If you have any problems with this, let me know!

Category: techno doom

   

Posted by zephoria at 4:20 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack (0)

May 3, 2005

crashing Tiger, hidden dragons

I should know better than to upgrade things. I was all proud of myself for succeeding in getting Tiger working, no problem. I had heard all of the Mail.app problems but given that i had already destroyed Mail.app on my Mac and had never succeeded in getting it working, i didn't let this bother me - i'm still using pine. I love the Dashboard, i love the iCal/Addressbook connections. I still don't get Safari RSS but so it goes. Everything seemed fine, seemed totally cool.... And then it didn't....

Firefox and Safari both seem to crawl trying to load pages and i can't figure out why. OK. This is irritating but so what. And then the worst thing happened. I can't print. I try to print from Preview or Word and down they go, crash bang booom death. Why? Why on earth can't i print to any IP printserver? It reminds me of when i used to crash the fileserver using Photoshop - it just crashes the program and doesn't explain why or what's going on. Grrrr. Is anyone else having this problem?

Category: techno doom

   

Posted by zephoria at 11:02 AM | Comments (17) | TrackBack (1)

March 14, 2005

more blog problems

Alas, my blog is once again doing weird things. Comments and trackbacks no longer get emailed to me. They also don't rebuild the entries even though they're there - i just have to manually update. And the front page doesn't get updated with the numbers of comments/trackbacks. Argh. Any idea?

Category: techno doom

   

Posted by zephoria at 2:28 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)

February 27, 2005

my life as a techno-idiot (and why constants suck)

Once again, i managed to find wacky behavior in technology. I went to create a blog entry this morning and only half of it uploaded. It didn't save to database and crash like normal - it just saved half. It was weird. I flipped out (like always) and whimpered (like always). Boris once again came to the rescue.

It appears as though my comments template has a lastn of 5134 (which y'all exceeded). And it appears that my Atom template is trying to find 1M entries (which i haven't written yet). What's up with the constants? Why do we need constants in code. ::groan::

The wireless in my apartment still isn't working right even though my angelic roommate has spent a bazillion hours trying to hack the firmware to amplify the antenna and now he's trying to buy a new antenna because it can't reach to the other end of the apartment. I feel completely clueless.

Everyone around me is obsessed with camera phones and i still can't figure out how to take a goddamn picture and get it to send. Worse: i have zero motivation to take a picture.

I realized something this evening: in terms of techno-capability, i'm your generic user and completely techno-clueless... I am not capable of using any interface and i think that the black box should just work but it never does. The only difference is that i adopt early and pay attention to what people are doing, even if i think it's completely pointless. But i don't have the mind of a technologist and i can't figure out how anything works (or, as my roommate likes to tell me, i refuse to try).

Category: techno doom

   

Posted by zephoria at 10:25 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack (1)

December 11, 2004

irritation with audible.com

I have been an avid audible.com supporter for well over a year. I've been patient with the horrendous website. I bought numerous subscriptions for others last holiday season. But i'm bloody fed up and frustrated with them. It's impossible to navigate the system. When i was traveling, i found that i couldn't get audible to download. Now that time has passed, my subscription doesn't roll over and so i lost a month worth of downloads. This has happened plenty before and i'm just tired of it. I have patience for wacky interfaces at the beginning, but not over time and not when i feel like i'm getting screwed out of money while they fuck around. Frustration.

Category: techno doom

   

Posted by zephoria at 1:19 PM | Comments (9) | TrackBack (0)

December 4, 2004

bringing down the network

I know that i'm good at breaking technology, but this is absolutely ridiculous and i would love some insight if anyone knows how i'm pulling this off.

My cable modem is connected to a 4-port hub which is connected to two Netgear wireless routers. I can consistently bring down the Netgear router doing the following things:
1) Safari - Open all in tabs with > 35 tabs
2) Terminal ssh to SIMS, open pine. Copy/paste > 1 page worth of text from local to pine [Using pine since Mail is still fubared]

Task 1 is a request for a large quantity of packets simultaneously. Task 2 is sending a large quantity of packets simultaneously.

Resetting the Netgear brings it right back up, but this is just weird. Is it a problem with my Netgear? With my Mac? Why on earth is this happening?

This so reminds me of when i used to bring down Brown's primary server using print from Photoshop. I was banned from printing. I don't like the idea of being banned from copy/pasting and open in tabs in my own household.

Category: techno doom

   

Posted by zephoria at 11:06 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0)

October 5, 2004

Help: Apple Mail people

Now, i know that i hate email and i know that it hates me, but our standoff has reached new levels, creating absolute chaos. I know that many of you are Mac people so i could really use your help since Apple's site is oh so not helpful.

I use Apple Mail. It's connected to an IMAP server at school. There's a procmail process remotely that moves various messages into various folders. That procmail process also forwards certain emails off to my Sidekick.

Apple Mail has never automatically updated those folders so, instead of "check mail," i've always right clicked and selected "synchronize folders." I read email, i move it to other folders. It stops being "new" and when i reply, it gets a little arrow next to it. This is normal.

Well, something has gone terribly wrong and normal no longer exists. Now, when i "synchronize" a random assortment of "old" messages reappear in each box. Most are marked as "new" and some are not. Some of the moved ones are in the folders i moved them to; some are not. Some of the ones i reply to have the arrow; most do not. Messages that i swore i sent are not in my sent directory (nor in my drafts or out directory).

I'm completely baffled. Help?

[Or perhaps this should be a sign that i'm never going to catch up on email and i should quit now.]

Category: techno doom

   

Posted by zephoria at 11:40 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack (1)

June 14, 2004

iPod fixed: why physicality matters

In the last episode, our heroine tried every idea presented by her kind audience, trying desperately to unlock her beloved iPod. To no avail. The telephone people said it would be $70 to answer a question. Our heroine was left in despair (well, not really, since a kind one from Apple volunteered to take a look at it if i could get to Cupertino).

On a lurch, our heroine wandered into the Apple Store, lured by the promise of an Airport Express (which won't be in stores until July... foiled). She mozied up to the Genius Bar, drawn in by the big screens with interesting facts. After waiting as a poor man never managed to get his guitar to talk to his GarageBand on his particular machine, our heroine told the genius of her woes. He asked if she'd done this; she said yes and noted that she had done that and that and that. He was startled. He attached the iPod to his machine. No avail. It was closing time. He handed her a refurbished one and told her to be good to it. She was ecstatic.

To be noted: our heroine was also smiling because she overheard the best nugget ever from a random Apple employee:

... I had a different device from ... oh, wait... err, i can't mention them here.

::giggle:: I guess you can't talk about competitors as an employee at the Apple Store.

Category: techno doom

   

Posted by zephoria at 7:11 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

June 6, 2004

my iPod won't unlock - help?

::grumble:: Mac won't help me restart my iPod without paying them $60 so i'm hoping someone here might be able to help.

My iPod's software thinks that it is on hold (even though the slider at the top says otherwise). It fell under this magical state in the first week of April. I web-searched and someone on the web said to let the battery die to nothingness. I did this. To no avail. Whenever i plug it back in to power, it's still on hold.

There's no way to do the restart via the three buttons because it's on hold. Isn't there a manual restart somehow? Like one where i can erase the whole disk and get it to restart?

I have to admit that i'm *really* cranky with Mac about this one. You'd think that a noticeable defect in the software (documented by others on the web) would mean that they'd support you in fixing it. I'm a bit resentful by being demanded to pay $60 to fix it when i was thinking of upgrading at the end of the summer. Now i'm just questioning whether or not it's worth upgrading because my iPod has been broken for half the time that i've had it.

Category: techno doom

   

Posted by zephoria at 6:11 PM | Comments (426) | TrackBack (0)

March 19, 2004

trying out ecto

Trying to post from Ecto to my blog. I love the idea of being able to blog offline and just upload.

Although i have a feeling that this might also encourage me to revert to writing more semi-personal entries... It reminds me so much of my LJ days. Hmm... Is that a good thing?

Category: techno doom

   

Posted by zephoria at 3:49 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (1)

July 8, 2003

my ability to break everything

I could never switch webhosting services because no one but Glenn (Netspace) would tolerate my ability to break everything consistently (and hog huge amounts of their bandwidth with my Ani DiFranco lyrics site). And always through what seems to be a quiet, calm, non-intrusive tasks. It's not like i'm writing scripts that are getting out of control, or anything.

Today, i needed to find a few emails from my 2002 mail archive. So, of course, the first thing i do is gunzip. Well, i'm too close to my quota so it barfed. I wanted to untar it to find out what i had destroyed in the process. Couldn't untar in my directory so i moved it to /tmp (forgetting that i should move it to /var/tmp instead). tar -xvf and it pukes. I think it's all corrupted, but really, it just used up all of /tmp. Oops. So, i sent a message to see what i had done wrong. Yet, apparently, my abuse of /tmp caused a bunch of processes elsewhere on the system to fail and eventually caused a httpd process to spiral out of control and hog everything else on the system.

::sigh:: What's a girl to do?

Of course, last time, a small glitch in my .procmail crashed the entire box continuously. OOps.

My favorite was that at Brown, i used to be able to crash the main file server by printing. Of course, they sysadmins there responded by creating a printing script which basically said "if uid='dmb' { break; } else { print(); }"

Category: techno doom

   

Posted by zephoria at 11:41 PM | TrackBack (0)