Today my iPhone told me “No SIM Card Found”. D’oh!! It was at a really inconvenient time; it always is. Luckily, the SIM card just needed to be replaced. No need for additional support or waiting to have it fixed or replaced by Apple. Dodged a bullet there!

Check out the Editions BIM website right next to the Apple Store online. See a similarity?

In Apple's most recent operating system, 10.5 (Leopard), a very useful application/utility was added: Time Machine. The point of Time Machine is that it automatically backs up your computer on a regular basis. With a laptop this is less easy, but we have our Airport Extreme Base Station connected to our external hard drive so that we don't have to manually plug into the hard drive. This works semi-automatically; we have to log-in to the hard drive via password. If I forget to log-in, then I don't back up. I usually do each night, but I neglected it for a a few days. This week, on Wednesday, I woke to a dead computer. I tried everything I knew: boot from disk, disk utility, Disk Warrior, etc. Nothing worked. I ended up driving the two hours each way to Des Moines to go to the Apple Store. They did a few tests and determined that the hard drive was, in fact, bad and subsequently replaced the drive. While they had the case off, they replaced the "top case", which is the keyboard, trackpad, and the plastic surrounding it, since it some cracking. This all took place in about 45 minutes. When I got home, I just had to install the OS and restore from my Time Machine backup. My computer looks exactly like it did last Sunday! I lost a couple of assignments from this week, so I have been busy redoing them. It could have been much worse if I did not have a regular backup situation, so thank goodness for that. My professors have been very understanding and were flexible, in some cases with due dates. This will be a busy week to ten days, but after that, it's downhill!

This is a REAL internal Microsoft video. Be forewarned: This will make you sick to your stomach.

The Apple Store

Seriously!

Check out this story from Cosmopolitan

Cheers.

For any iPhone users out there that might be reading this site, I have now added a custom icon. If you have updated to Firmware 1.1.3, you can use WebClips to create a desktop link to www.jsayreallen.com and you will have a snazzy new icon.

Over at babygotmac.com, they review some of the new features of the upcoming 10.5.2 that was seeded to developers last week (insert Steve Ballmer's "Developers, Developers, Developers....." here)......

Among the features returning (was in the beta, but not in final release) is remote back-up via Time Machine and Air Disk. This is one of the features I was most excited. Kate bought be an Airport Extreme for my birthday last October so that we can use this when Leopard came out. Then, it didn't ship with this feature enabled. I am happy that they are bringing it back.

Well, it's kind of obligatory now.....



Steve Ballmer is the new CEO of Microsoft now that Bill Gates has stepped down to do full-time philanthropic work through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

While listening to the second movement of the Wagenseil Alto Trombone Concerto in the car yesterday, my iPod starting clicking quite loudly. Since I was on the way to pick up Kate at work, I stopped in at the Apple Store just a few doors down. They would not see me, which I understand: retail stores are always busy on Friday nights. The thing that I found to be most strange was that I was not able to set an appointment for Saturday. You have to do it by the day. Very strange. That was ok, I had the Halloween Concert Friday night anyways. Late Friday night/early Saturday morning I set an appointment for Saturday when Kate was working, so I only had to make one trip.  I simply let the genius know that the hard drive was toast. He looked at me like I was an idiot and says "that doesn't happen". So, I handed the "genius" the iPod and let him play with it. After about two seconds, his eyes popped open and he says "yeah, that doesn't sound good". I simply said the exact same thing I had before with identical inflection "The hard drive is toast". He fills out some paperworks and then goes to the back to get a replacement. The one he brings out looks a little thicker than mine, so I say "I think that is the 5th generation, not the 5.5 like mine". He says "no, this is the right one." Ok. As he types the serial numbers into his computer, an error message comes up that he isn't familiar with, so he had to get someone else to help. The 'help' states that the error means that he got the wrong iPod from the back.  Jonathan 2: "Genius" 0 He went back and got me another iPod and all is well. This bizarre customer service situation was nothing more than comical. I am amazed that such basic skill as listening to the customer completely failed this individual.  Genius? Not today