Macbook surgery
iaian7 » blog John Einselen, 1.06.08Last week my macbook died. It was happily playing an iTunes playlist, then started randomly pausing. Then freezing. Then nothing, save for the clicking noises emanating from the hard drive compartment.
TimeMachine had backed up my files early that morning, so nothing was actually lost (save for application installations, which in my short sighted wisdom, I removed from the backup list to save space!). I think I’ve learned a little after losing 2-5 years of my life just a month or two ago in a freak hard drive format. Backing up is very, very important. TimeMachine makes it easy. If you have a mac running Leopard, use it! (Though beware the caveats below)
Since the hard drive clearly had to be replaced, it was finally the perfect chance to upgrade! I would have liked to go for a nice 7200.2 Seagate drive, but found a slower, larger (and perhaps more battery efficient) Western Digital on sale. My frugal scottish genes were happy.
Drive installation, unlike Macbook Pros, is really rather wonderful. I took out the battery, detached the internal compartment guard strip, slid out the old hard drive, attached the new drive to the sliding tab mechanism, slid it back in, closed everything up, and was done. The entire process took less than 15 minutes, though it certainly helped that I had a hex bit handy, and a decent set of miniature screw drivers.
Then came the challenge – when installing Leopard, you can easily restore users off an old mac, an external hard drive, or a TimeMachine backup. However, I’d stored my time machine backups on the second internal hard drive in my G5. Which is inaccessible via network during the Leopard installation. Booting the G5 into FireWire disk mode only helped a little – the macbook backups were somehow stored in a compressed volume, and only the G5 backups were visible to the Leopard installer!
The process was circuitous (and ended up involving the Migration Assistant and multiple user accounts), so I won’t bore you with the details, save for these suggestions: back up to an external drive, and if you can, use a different drive for each computer. It could simplify the process greatly.
Now that the painless hardware upgrade and painful software install is over, everything is finally happy again. All my documents, music, videos, emails, settings, and preferences are restored, and the Macbook is humming away happily with well over 3 times the hard drive space (Vista should be happier too, I doubled it’s partition size!). While it’s not a particularly speedy drive, it should suffice till its own untimely demise, and I can upgrade to something better suited for photo editing and video work. Perhaps by then the solid state drives announced last week will be cheap enough for a mere mortal to afford.
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Much less hair
iaian7 » blog John Einselen, 24.05.08
Since I no longer need to be growing my hair out for a faun costume, I took the liberty of cutting my hair the morning following the movie. From several inches of curls to 1/4 inch burr. Sadly, my old hair clippers are rather dull, and only just barely made it through the ordeal. Meijer had hair trimmers on sale, and this week I finally got a new set…
So I cut my hair down to 3mm. Definitely the shortest I’ve had in many, many years, possibly ever. Shocking, I know (and as always, more on Flickr).
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Macworld Live!
iaian7 » blog John Einselen, 15.01.08Well, macworld is in progress as I write this, and some reasonably cool stuff has happened already. The airport base station now comes in 500Gb and 1Tb models, the iPhone is seeing some updates, and iTunes is offering rentals. Sadly, a lot of websites are going down in the mad rush to find updates, but here are some of the live feeds still on the net:
MacRumorsLive is continuously updated via AJAX, and the only one I’m bothering with now. Text and pictures in a continuous stream!
ArsTechnica has several reporters writing updates and taking pictures.
Gizmodo and Engadget also have live feeds, though availability has been sporadic.
Here at Vectorform, bets have been raging as to what Air will entail… hardware, software, or service? My bet is on a combination, taking into consideration Intel’s WiMAX technology and the rollout of WiMAX in Japan and Germany. At the very least, Apple should be announcing an ulta-thin laptop, though I’m hoping for a tablet.
Well, now I’ve got to get back to reading live coverage updates… yay Macworld!
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Leopard
iaian7 » blog John Einselen, 12.11.07This past weekend I upgraded to the latest Macintosh operating system; OS X 10.5, nicknamed Leopard. It’s been out for just a few weeks, and in the interest of not crashing all of my computers with an untested OS, I updated just my macbook with a cleaned HD and fresh install.
The install process is much like any other OS X installation. The disc checks itself to make sure everything is there and uncorrupted (important, since heavy scratching could cause parts of the OS to fail during install, as is the case with one of the old discs at work!), then it runs through the rest of the installation process. If memory serves me correctly, speed was comparable to both 10.4 and Vista installations, though because OS X includes drivers, much of the installation time is spent just coping files for various printers. Once completed, it plays the “welcome” video, with the word repeated in various languages. In 10.3 it was set to the music of Royksopp, in 10.4, the user was greeted with a series of roving spotlights and textures. In 10.5 it’s a fly-through of stars and nebulae… a theme continued through to the default desktop. Enter your information, and the setup process is merrily on its way. iChat is greatly improved, with support for Gtalk and Jabber clients, as is Mail, which helps simplify the process of adding email accounts (Gmail requires hardly any setup at all).
While I can’t say Leopard is truly revolutionary, many features are undeniably great strides forward. Spaces, for example, lets you organize applications into separate screens… the desktop, dock, and menu bar at the top all stay the same, but you can quickly manage large groups of applications without succumbing to window-overload (and eventually depraved confusion). Quick Look, Time Machine, and other improvements make this quite the upgrade to older OS X iterations. The Finder introduces a new cover flow style browser, and there are tweaks to security and network connectivity, amongst a host of other changes.
Interface design, however, is a bit of a touchy subject. There are both massive improvements, inconsitent UI design, and a pathetic attempt at Vista-like “pizazz”. First the good; the entire mac experience is a little darker. Gone is the brushed metal! Things are richer, smoother, and in some cases, shinier. It feels like a much better interface to work in, especially as an artist. Inconsistencies do still plague the platform to some extent, especially with the introduction of a translucent menu bar, repeated nowhere else. Thankfully the similarly translucent menu system is consistent throughout all applications, and also rather beautiful. While UI design is roughly homogenous, details such as buttons vary from place to place. Unfortunate, though understandable in same cases. The bad? The default dock style. It’s horrific, cluttered, hard to read, and almost impossible to use quickly. The reflections are undeniably cool (it reflects icons, nearby windows, live video, everything), but the application icons and indicators quickly blend in with those reflections, and there is a large distracting swoosh behind the whole thing.
Thankfully, there are already several programs written to aid in customizing the dock. OS X has always had features that were accessible only by command line or third party application (the debugging menu in Safari, extra interface animations, etc.), and Leopard is no different. You can switch between 3D and 2D dock styles, and using simple PNG images, you can even skin it yourself!
Introducing Iaian7gray, a simple, clean, and, I hope, elegant redesign of Leopard’s 3D dock. If you are so fortunate as to be using a mac with 10.5, enjoy! If not, you really are missing out on a cool OS.
27.10.09: the dock has been updated for Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6), and now includes an iContainer for Candybar and an image collection for the free Dock Library.
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Hello Dolly!
iaian7 » blog John Einselen, 14.10.07My family has been working the past few months as part of a musical production at the Ford Theater (in the Honeywell Center, Wabash, IN). Ken, Cindy, and Lydia all sang (Dad also played the judge), Lisa helped with costuming (including the design for Ms. Money’s wild yellow dress), and Matthew worked backstage (even handling the coordination of on-stage food). Two friends from college were getting married this past weekend as well, so a trip to Indiana worked out great. Sadly, I can’t really travel that far more than once a month or so… Detroit is a bit further than I’m used to.
After leaving a little late for the wedding, I ended up lost till well after and just barely arrived in time for the receiving line. I have to admit, seeing friends from college, and their kids, is a little weird. I finally realized how long I’d been gone; two years isn’t much, but enough for things to change. Driving through Indiana and recognizing places along the way between Warsaw and Wabash brings back a lot of memories. Quite a few from my trip with Keith and Joanna up to Chicago (the two of them now happily married, as of this weekend!), and plenty of others from trips to see my cousin Sarah in Goshen, or my brother Mark in western Michigan. Hopefully I’ll get to travel a little more before the michigan winter truly sets in and I become snowbound.
Anyway, back to Hello Dolly! The show was great, and though exhausted, I think it was a lot of fun for everyone involved. While the rest of my family got out of their costumes and makeup, Matthew showed me around the back ways of the stage and theater. Taking pictures the entire evening, I unwittingly passed quite the road mark; my camera rolled over from 9999 to 0001! Though I’m not sure where I started, this would be at least 4000 pictures just in the past 6 months or so.
I’m really proud of my family. They rock. 
It’s nice to see the pictures since I didn’t make it personally to the show.
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Decision by default
iaian7 » blog John Einselen, 23.09.07It’s been a wild ride, but I’ve moved into Woodside…
Friday I had to transfer gas and electric services into my name, or I wouldn’t have been able to move in at all. I was still waiting for final move-in costs from Northridge, so proceeded to call them all afternoon, trying to get confirmation. The first time I called, the person on the other end hung up on me after unsuccessfully attempting to transfer me to another number or voicemail. The other 6 times I called, I just got the answering machine. I ended up leaving a message letting them know to drop my application and return the application fee as per their policy. So yeah… Woodside was happy to answer my call, and proceeded to finalize gas and electric confirmation over the phone. So much for my making a decision, seems things were made rather plain. Northridge didn’t get back with me till Saturday, after I’d already arrived in Detroit and signed papers with Woodside!
Thank you all for your input. I definitely agree with the advantages of in-unit washer and dryer, and while I’m disappointed about that, the Woodside location is tough to beat. Surrounded by trees and even forested aress, it’s closer to work and more peaceful than Northridge. Not to mention, they were the only ones that let me finalize the details in time to move on Saturday.
Thank you also to family and friends who helped pack me up, move my stuff, and unload here in Detroit. I cannot thank you enough! Especially when I had to leave early on Saturday to sign papers by 4:45pm at Woodside, you guys stayed to finish the entire process at Sanctuary Place, and even helped my dad load up the car and get on his way to Detroit. Praise God, things have worked out, albeit with nerve wracking timing.
Thank you, Crystal, Jeremy, Lydia, Matthew, and Dad!
Glad you’re moved in and doing well. Sounds like God opened and closed doors just in the nic of time for you. 
Nothing like making you trust. Love you lots and hopefully we can visit soon!
Could I get your new address so that I can get directions from here to there? Btw, I hope to visit you this weekend.
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Quick decisions
iaian7 » blog John Einselen, 20.09.07Wherein I discuss two rival apartments, and the factors leading to a decision stalemate. Click to see the pictures, read the details, and view all the votes and advice people posted!
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Travels and such
iaian7 » blog John Einselen, 18.09.07
The past few weeks have seen a fair amount of driving, with a couple trips up to northern Detroit for a job I’ll be starting shortly, and yet another one tomorrow to finalize an apartment. Nervous doesn’t cover the half of it, as things are coming down to the wire and I’m still hunting for a place to live.
I did get to go hiking this past Sunday, when a friend invited me to join him down at Big Bone Lick. It’s closer than I expected at less than 30 minutes from my place, and is nestled in a nice little valley full of trees. While it seems small for a state park, it does take a while to hike the perimeter! I ended up without a map and journeyed approximately 2/3rds around the entire park (you can check out my Flickr account for a few more photos). While I’d never pretend to have enjoyed my time as a “Kentuckian”, it is rather bittersweet to be leaving a place I’ve grown accustomed to. The real pain, though, is in leaving friends. 
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Old haunts
iaian7 » blog John Einselen, 12.09.07I failed to get pictures posted earlier, but over memorial day weekend I got to visit Indiana to hang out with my brother and cousins at Taylor. It was so much fun! I will admit to feeling rather old walking through campus… it’s only been a couple years since I graduated, but it feels like a long time.
While in Indiana, I drove through Marion and past some of my own college memories, including one of my favorite photoshoot locations just outside of town; a large train yard and power center just off the state road. The no trespassing sign seemed more prominent than I remembered, and there were guys working on some of the lines, so I tried to stay out of the way. The photos are actually from two different days, as I couldn’t help myself and stopped by on my way home as well.
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Jungle Jims
iaian7 » blog John Einselen, 9.09.07It’s funny, I suppose, how you don’t really visit the “cool” places in an area till it comes time to leave. It’s also funny that one of the “cool” places in Kentucky is actually a forty minute drive into Ohio.
I’d heard quite a bit about Jungle Jims, but never got to visit till this weekend… it’s an odd, cool, and sometimes creepy experience. Driving into the parking lot, it looks like a cheesy carnival or theme park, complete with various characters painted on wooden signs. Inside, it feels a lot more like a huge grocery store, but with giant talking soup cans (seriously). Just when you think it’s been a waste of time, however, you finally get to the international section…
I may have to go back just to get more tea… they have a lot. A whole lot, and from quite a few different countries. I have several Irish varieties now, along with more exotic green teas and such. While intriguing, I was somehow able to resist some of the more expensive monkey picked teas and blossoming tea packages. What I was not able to resist, however, were some of the vinegars, including an aged Balsamic that’s older than my brother.
Jeremy has posted a few pictures from the trip, along with a blog post where he gives more detail on the frighteningly unique bathrooms!
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Just can’t catch a break, what with the server implosion and hard drive failures, can you?
I feel your pain in any case, but I’m glad to hear you had everything backed up.
Also, hello short hair buddy!