Zen of Tofu

After my hard drive died on me Thursday, I quickly found a replacement and it’s no slouch. At 7200 rpm, 16mb of cache, and 200GB of storage space, this new Hitachi drive is a good swap.

Thanks to Leopard and the Time Machine, restoring my system was just a matter of time, but the restoration was relatively easy and painless. It’s a whole lot better than having to reinstall all my software if I was running on XP or even worse — Vista. Thankfully this new drive has a three year warranty, and as long as I keep backing up my data, I’m sure I’ll be fine.

written by tofu \\ tags: Mac, Tech

To thee I drop this crimson rose,
To mourn the worn out head.
You served me well,
You took whatever I could throw at you.

Now you lay with data still in platter,
Now you spin without a stir.
May you remember all I transfered,
May you hold the secrets left in bits.

Yes it’s true. The 5400rpm hard drive of the beloved blackBook has “headed out” and refuses to be recognized. I write this on the dusty XP system, staring at the lifeless blackBook that is in desperate need of a hard drive transplant. It was the heart of all that the blackBook featured, and now it lies motionless.

Thank goodness I backed up its memories before they could be lost forever. Rest in peace little mobile drive, and may the computer gods use your platter for better purposes.

written by tofu \\ tags: Mac, Tech

This morning is a sad morning. I tried waking my MacBook from its deep sleep, only to be presented with the beachball of death. Seeing that I could do nothing else, I turned off my MacBook like I always do when there is a freeze (very rare). When I took the MacBook to school with me and tried to turn it on, after a few tries to access the hard drive, I got the even more evil flashing question mark! Noo!

From what I have read, this is due to either a dead hard drive, a corrupt system file, or a missing boot file. Either way, that beach ball of death was responsible and now I have to wait until I get home to see whether I can recover my system, recover my files, or if I’ll need a new hard drive. So sad.

On the bright side of things, my whole system was backed up thanks to Time Machine, so whether I can recover my system or not, everything will be back to normal and all my files will still be there waiting for me. All 70Gb of files.

Wish me luck!
- Slightly Scared

written by tofu \\ tags: Mac, Tech

It was another cold day today with temperatures barely above the cold-weather alert level. The homeless were offered shelter, food, and fashion has gone out the window in exchange for keeping warm.

The local highways have been flooded with auto collisions and everyone is dressing like Eskimos. Somehow this weekend, I let the weather get to me, and now some spell is looming overhead giving me a sore throat. I’m hoping my symptoms don’t get promoted this week!

written by tofu \\ tags: Toronto

Today I got the pleasure of calling in to Linksys tech support to help get a router set up to work with a portable Internet service. Quite tricky business. The portable modem wasn’t letting the router access the Internet because the router was a stranger to it. I had the basic firmware that came with the router and I tried tricking the modem by renaming the router the same name as the PC on the network. No go. So then I called in to Linksys and got a tech support agent to help me get this modem set up.

The tech support was great! Very informative, good English, and understanding. The agent was clearly trained properly and wasn’t just following some laminated sheet in front of her *cough* Bell *cough*. The problem was the firmware, which after updating allowed me to clone the MAC address of the PC so the modem would be tricked into thinking it was letting the PC access the Internet, and not the router! Overall, I’d give Linksys tech support a 9 out of 10. I’ve had bad tech support in the past over the phone, and it’s very easy to see when the other side knows what they’re doing or not.

For example:

• When a tech support agent tells you to reboot your computer and 5 seconds later asks if you’re ready for the next step, you should call back and hope to get a different agent!
• When a tech support agent can’t even pronounce an IP address, you should call back and hope for another agent!
• When a tech support agent knows that you too know a little of what you’re doing and are not completely hopeless, get that agent’s name and clearly say in the recording, “Thanks so much for your help!”

written by tofu \\ tags: Tech