Lotusblog

Finally managed to extricate myself from Facebook, so if any of you are wondering what happened, I did it deliberately.

I found that I seldom “used” Facebook- in fact I never even look at it since I just don’t have time. I figure if you don’t use it, you don’t need it. You can get rid of it.

So my Macbook (otherwise known as “The World’s Breakiest Computer”) came back from the computer hospital today.

For those of you who don’t know what happened…

Put a data DVD in it a couple of weeks ago. Copied the data. Tried to eject the DVD, it woudn’t come out. Made an appointent to see the Apple Store’s Genius Bar, and the “genius” said after 20 minutes, “The DVD is stuck. We’re gonna have to send this in for repair. It’s going to cost 10,000 yen just to look at it.”

I left the Apple Store and took the ‘book to Sofmap, from where I had purchased it 1 year and 363 days earlier.

Sofmap quietly and politely filled out an incident report. Took the ‘book. Told me to wait 2 weeks. 12 days later (today) the ‘book arrived by courier. With the following…

1. New DVD drive

2. New top case

3. New screen bezel

4. New HDD Guide (not sure what that is)

5. New protective seals on my trackpad and clicker button

6. New Keyboard

Now, I am not complaining here, but what’s the deal with numbers 2 to 6? I only had a DVD that wouldn’t eject! The cost of all these repairs was 64,000 yen.

The cost to me: ZERO!

The moral of the story is thus:

If you live in Japan and you buy an Apple brand computer, buy it from Sofmap. If it’s new you can get a 5 year warranty that beats the pants off the laughable “AppleCare”, and if it’s used, then you get a 3 year warranty that covers you for this sort of thing (mine was bought used).

This Macbook is now exactly 2 years old, is onto its 3rd DVD drive, 2nd battery, 2nd keyboard, 2nd top case… and none of these repairs has cost me anything.

And it feels great to have it back.

Yesterday I had an enormous amount of grief trying to send emails. And that’s supposed to be the world’s easiest thing in the new information economy, right?
Every single message I sent came back several minutes later telling me that since my mail server had been blacklisted (for spam) and that all emails from me were being rejected.
This sort of thing has happened before. From my limited understanding of the issue, a computer on the same network (this is probably the wrong word, so if you can correct me, please do) was sending spam. The reaction of every other mail server on the internet, then, was to blacklist the server I was using it, and reject email from said server for 24 hours (during which time the spammer would have given up and moved on).

The outcome of all these shenanigans can be summed up as follows:
1. Spam still gets sent. It always does.
2. Innocent users get inconvenienced.
3. I get really angry and write a pointless blog post about it.

So please, if you happen to meet a spammer, please politely ask them to refrain from their nefarious deeds.

It’s now 2009.

January the third, in fact. Happy New Year.

I have spent part of my New Year’s holiday to port my blog over from the incredibly crusty old skool iBlog to something a bit more modern- WordPress. And I gotta say, this version of WordPress rocks.

Unfortunately, all my previous posts have to be imported by hand, so it’s going to take me a bit of time. In the meantime, take notice! Lotusblog is back!

S reminded me recently of the (computer) game “Quake II”. We played online the other day as a team- and boy did we kick butt. What a fun game. It’s so ridiculously violent, so over the top, such a schoolboy fantasy game and so juvenile… but I love it. It’s the perfect antidote to what’s going on around me at the moment.

It’s quite addictive to play by yourself (I recently had a day off, and spent three hours in bed with my iBook, killing aliens and robots and searching for power cubes, data CDs and special keys). But it’s the game equivalent of crack-cocaine when you play online with friends.

I just took a couple of screenshots. Check out the polygonal blood!
Yeah!

Anyone else think Tiger (OS X 10.4) is really slow and annoying? I have thought this ever since I installed it. But I can’t deal with it any more. It’s doing my head in. Is this a ploy by the maker of the hardware I use to upgrade to a newer machine?

I spend half my computer life looking at a spinning beachball. This is absurd.

… is pretty darn funny. Not having a TV I am out of touch with commercials, and while I am sure that 99% of them are still nonsensical, I guess there always is the 1% that makes you crack up. Kind of makes you want to be a stuntman (again). Check it out here .

I think I may have finally fixed my RSS issues that I had (with my blog entries not showing up in the Mixi-sphere). So this is a sort of test post. Can any Mixi users tell me whether this is working?

Simon called me this afternoon with some good music news. However, I am unable to elaborate. Sorry.

It was 13:30 and I was still in bed. This is the first time in absolutely ages that I have still been in bed after noon. And it feels kinda good. Last night after graf, Satoshi and I went to a good Chinese restaurant in Shinsaibashi (no, different from the one I went to on Tuesday) and then headed over to Kae-chan’s bar to celebrate her first year in business. It was fun; old friends, new friends. I haven’t laughed that much for ages. Ended up coming home around 04:00. Ate an Aussie beef rice bowl and fell asleep shortly after.

I still don’t have slick tires.

I am supposed to be doing my tax return today- but I got side-tracked trying to install Salling Clicker onto my Nokia 6630. Unfortunately, since Vodafone Japan crippled the phone, installing software is very tedious. You basically have to do this:

1. Download the software you want to install.
2. Use the Symbian .sis expander software such as MacUnsis to expand the file on your Mac.
* you have to make sure your Mac is in Japanese mode at this time otherwise unstuffing won’t work
3. Mount the memory card from the phone onto the Mac desktop by using a card reader.
4. Put the unstuffed files in the relevant folders in the memory card.
5. Unmount the memory card, put it back in your phone.

And this is where I have stopped. I presume that you would want to install the app onto the phone itself, rather than running it from the memory card. I guess to do this you would have to use something like FExplorer.

How stupid. How time-wasting.

And I still haven’t imported my contacts into the phone. This is another time-heavy process that, unfortunately, I am going to have to do later.

Oh, and that reminds me, only about 7 people know I have changed phones (and phone numbers). I will get around to mailing you all, but in the meantime, if you want my new number, drop me a line and I will get back to you straight away. Oh, and if anyone has any spare time lying around (say a few days) and you don’t need it, then can I please have it. Please.