CatCow’s Computer Dungeon

I’m a bit of a computer nerd, but most of my experience is with older hardware(hey, nothing wrong with a 386…). I’ve built more recent PC’s from parts, but it’s not one of my strong points. I blame CompUSA for this whole thing. If that 500GB SATA drive hadn’t been on sale, I wouldn’t have ended up buying all the parts to use that drive. But it was so cheap, I couldn’t resist. So here I sit with a nice little 500GB drive. I MUST have something to put it in! So begins one of my more annoying adventures.

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So I finally went in to one of the local Apple stores(Washington Square to be specific) and talked to someone at the Genius Bar. Showed them the busted iPhone, he took it in the back for a while. He comes back out, goes back again, comes back again a few times… And finally hands me a brand new iPhone. Sitting around for a few minutes while they get everything sorted out sure beats spending $250 on repairs! It seems they are just replacing iPhones that break, at least some of the time, but they said that it will stop soon and everything will have to go back to Apple.

I also installed iTunes 7.4 and reinstalled my old custom ringtones without the annoying hack part. OK, so I still don’t have the Apple logo instead of AT&T in the corner, and no FieldTest application sitting there, but it’s a start.

I’m also looking forward to this $100 Apple store discount mentioned in this iPhone open letter from Steve Jobs. Time to get one of those new 160GB iPods! I just wish they still had Firewire.

OK, spending all night at the SLC airport was pretty lame. I bought a book and read halfway through it, ate some food, sat around half-asleep for most of the night. Finally got onto the next flight at 10am, with a stop in Boise on the way. Finally land in Portland, get out of the terminal, hop in the car, and close the door. *CRUNCH* Hmm, the door didn’t close. What’s in the way? I look down, and there’s my iPhone on the ground next to the car.

Yep, the glass is nearly completely shattered. The LCD and digitizer still work, if you don’t mind slicing your fingers up in the process. I’m trying to figure out a way to keep from killing myself while using it until I get around to calling a few places to see what it will cost to repair. Looks like the glass/digitizer/LCD assembly runs about $250. You would think they could just replace the glass front if nothing else was damaged.

One thing is for certain, though. The rubber case from speck that I’ve been using is going in the garbage. The rubber case kept it from getting scuffed up, but the belt clip part really sucks. The phone is held in by a small shelf that sticks out under the bottom(blocking the dock connecter), and is held in place by two small rubber knobs that fit into slots on the clip. I guess the rubber knobs are wearing down? It just doesn’t hold it in place anymore.

Wow, why am I doing this. I never wanted to fly a commercial airline. But facing an 18 hour bus ride, it seemed to make sense. Stripped of my usual gear that the TSA is afraid of, I enter the Salt Lake City airport and head for the gate. Just my luck, it took longer to get here than I expected. I get to gate B16, at the end of the concourse of course, out of breath just in time to see that ugly Southwest plane backing out of the gate 6 minutes before it was supposed to depart. Bastards. So what am I going to do while waiting for the next flight which is tommorow morning? Beats the hell out of me. I guess I’ll just try to figure out ways to harass the Southwest employees without getting thrown out of the airport. Oh, my lucky day. My iPhone is slightly low on power and I have no AC adapter. I’d better turn this thing off now…

It was bad enough when it all started. Box cutters? I still don’t think they could have hijacked a plane with JUST box cutters. But whatever. Knives? OK, they are actually semi-dangerous. Miniature scissors? Come on, I can’t do much damage with a Leatherman Micra. Fingernail clippers? Now it’s getting insane. Shoe inspections and no liquids? WHERE ARE THE RIOTS, PEOPLE! And now to continue with our informational series on deadly objects that no one realized…

http://www.natch.net/stuff/TSA/

Yep, this is one of the strangest news headlines I’ve seen in a while.

Groom Dies in Collision with Cow

http://www.koin.com/Global/story.asp?S=6750108

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Yes, I’ve dumped drupal. It’s time to try out WordPress for a while. I like how it works on GeeksRUs’s site, so now we see if it works here.

So I’m adding some old stuff in, I guess it doesn’t make sense to be posting stories about being buried in snow in the middle of July… Or fire stories from 4 years ago… But I’m too lazy to edit the timestamp right now.

I got an iPhone! The 8GB model. I can’t believe I spent $600 on a phone. Goodbye, Verizon. Goodbye, Treo 650. I arrived at the Washington Square Mall Apple Store at 6:50am Friday morning. I was number 20 in line. Steve had arrived a bit earlier and was further up in line. The person at the front of the line had arrived at 10:30pm the previous night!

The iPhone was released at 6pm. I arrived just before 7pm. That’s a long time to sit around doing nothing! Especially since I had left the headphones for my iPod at home, and the mall wouldn’t let us plug our laptops in(tripping hazard). My MacBook Pro died after about 3 hours of use. Steve had managed to arrange delivery of a fresh battery after several hours, so he was online all day.

We were in the first group let into the store at 6pm, and being in a hurry that turned into a mess later, I was back out pretty fast with my iPhone. At 6:09pm I was pulling out of the mall parking lot.

After I got home I plugged in the iPhone and started the activation process. I recieved an email telling me that my Verizon service would be terminated within 24 hours, and that the activation process was pretty much dead in the water until the number was ported over. That would have been around 6:58pm, at 12:13am I recieved an email stating that the phone was activated, and a half hour later another notification that the number porting was complete and my iPhone could now send and receive calls. I haven’t been able to put the thing down since.

This is simply the best phone I have ever had. In typical Apple fashion, the user interface is simply amazing. Everything is easy. Well, except maybe figuring out how to share my EVDO connection over wifi from the laptop. EDGE data can be a bit slow. The pinching in/out to zoom is incredible. Flicking to scroll is addictive. I find myself cursing at my MacBook Pro for not behaving the same way with its trackpad.

So, when does the next version with 3G and GPS come out?

Here I am, climbing my way to the Great Divide on Wolf Creek Pass. Lucky me - the weather is good, and the load is light. And I aint haulin no chickens!

Remember that huge snow storm that buried Denver? It trapped me in Albuquerque for a few days.

Parked on a street in ABQ waiting for I-40 to re-open.

A Swift truck stuck in the median on I-40 east of ABQ.

A street in Denver on 12/22