Sep
29
Back in action
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I got my macbook back last week, finally! It took two weeks for them to repair and send it back, how ridiculous! When I spoke to the store manager at the local store, she apologized for the delay but she was happy to let me know that if I relied on the macbook for my business, I should really buy two of them to be safe. I bet you do think that, don't you lady? *growl*
Chris and I went to California, but I think it turned out to be kind of a dud. The conference was good, but we didn't hear anything we didn't already know. We also found out that our ideas with Steelpixel were probably a bit lofty when it came to podcast advertising. That led us to our decision to pull back on some stuff and just focus on our business as it is - we are going to continue to do what has made us popular (blogging and podcasting). I will probably post something about it on the Steelpixel blog, if you are really interested.
I am really shocked, I have been working from home for two full weeks now and I really thought it would equate to more blogging - I was wrong. The new job is going well and I am just starting to really get into the swing of it. If you are interested, we are going to continue to slowly take on freelance clients as well.
Sep
9
Mac mini issues
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You know, despite my recent hardware issues, I love me some MacOSX! Mashall Kirkpatrick hit it dead on when he posted he doesn't want to live without his mac. I have been trying to use this mac mini to fill the void while my macbook is out for repair. I installed xcode (had to let it run overnight) and snagged darwin ports. I tried to install subversion, it took over an hour to download/compile everything! My macbook was WAY faster. After digging in a few days with Firefox with all my "web 2.0" apps, I knew something was wrong - this mini isn't THAT old.
I snagged istat pro tonight to check out real time cpu usage (sure, top could have done it, but I like the pretty blue), lo and behold 85% and pegged. A quick ps aux shows me that the mac mini is trying to run a print job, I unhooked the printer and moved it weeks ago! I peeked into the printer panel under system prefs and sure enough, 3 jobs queued. Firefox has been way better since I killed those jobs. OSX really leaves a lot to be desired in the printer category, imo.
Perhaps SoundTrack pro will be usable now for me. I am sure everyone wants to hear Ze Frank make fun of us :).
Sep
6
Bye bye macbook
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Yip, I sent the old piece of crap in for repair. Ever since I installed the SMC firmware update it started the Random Shutdown Syndrome (RSS as you may see on other sites). The problem got WAY worse over the weekend, shutting down between 10 and 20 times a day. It has become completely and utterly useless to me. Reports are starting to crop up everywhere now they may have found a fix. Too bad I sent mine for repair last night :(.
Honestly, I have been very dissatisfied with Apple's customer service on a whole. I tried to take the macbook to the apple store on Saturday - by far the worst day for the RSS issue. So I hop in the car @ 7pm and head down to the only apple store in Cincinnati, only to find out I can't book a genius bar appointment, they are full for the evening. So I find the *EVER* so friendly store manager and he informs me that I should sign up before I leave home and that they are ALWAYS full within two hours of the store closing. Well, don't I feel like a stupid dope for expecting service on a laptop that I bought an extended warranty on? Thanks for being OH so friendly Pez, really - I guess it is expected after our last run in.
The saga continued the next day when I made an appointment first thing in the morning and took it down to the store. The "mac genius" that I spoke too didn't even bother to look at the laptop, he just wanted to send it out for repair, 7 days minimum he told me. This macbook is my lifeline to my money making, how could I go without it?!? That apologized and reffered me to a local apple authorized repair center and told me they might be able to do on site repairs. Given that it was Sunday of course the other place was closed when I called. I thanked them *again* for their lack of help.
My next move, which I was so sure would help me get this resolved, was to call apple care. Boy, was I wrong, but one can always hope for something better from a company whose slogan is "Think Different" and has commercials about how their machines don't crash. I explained my issue to the phone tech and she seemed baffled - this can't be uncommon, I have seen hundreds of stories on the net! The tech puts me on hold for like 3 minutes and then comes back and asks "Did you get the apple care warranty for your macbook?", I replied "Of course, I like to make sure my primary business tools are protected". I guess that was the wrong answer, because they needed the freakin' code off the warranty. I was in the car, I didn't have it. Besides, this work would fall under the regular 1 year warrenty, why do they need the code. The tech informed me she couldn't help without that info. WOOOO! More great help from Apple, right?
So I called ComputerDNA on Tuesday (Monday was labor day) and they said it is a common issue on the macbook and Apple is doing the repair directly, but ComputerDNA could ship and receive it for me. They told me they had been seeing a 3 day turn around on repairs. Finally, some real help! So I hop in my car to take the macbook down to ComputerDNA, lo and behold my car dies on the highway. I never made it before closing. I ended up taking it back to the "genius bar" last night and they actually took a look at it, I was able to get it to crash in two minutes. They gave me the same 7-day spiel. Fine, send it, I need it ASAP. They offer to have it shipped directly to my house to hopefully save time after the repair.
I leave for a very important Steelpixel business trip next Tuesday, so this is horrible timing. I really need the macbook to finish up transpondr to a beta state so we can show it off on this trip. I guess I will have to go back to my windows laptop since apple has been so crappy up to this point. I find it sad to be in this situation, but I worry it will be worse once I go freelance on my own in two weeks. Guess I will have to keep at least two mac machines around just to ensure I can work when I need to, sad indeed.
Sep
4
Selling stuff online is nothing new, places have been doing it for years since the net opened up. Being a single person and trying to sell something online can be a new and daunting venture, to say the least. I ran across Etsy while reading Seth's blog. I immediately thought of my friend (Wendy Allegree) who loves to paint, sew, craft, etc.
I immediately got to work with helping her find someone to do some blog design, Natalie Jost. Natalie ended up doing a fantastic job on Wendy's blog (much better than my first or second attempt at design) and her blog was off and running. She started blogging and commenting on other artist's blogs. A small amount of traffic started pouring in. But Wendy kept asking, how do I may this my day job like other people?
She has sold some art via etsy (30 pieces now) and it is picking up every day. She wants help on how to find buyers and how to grow an audience interested in art and raising children. If you have ideas or you are interested in art, check out her blog. Tara has given a few suggestions to her in the form of throwing an "ArtCamp" in the Barcamp style model - encourage her to do this, I think it would be awesome!
If you have ideas, feel free to leave comments for her on her blog.
Sep
3
I am not sure what we did to deserve this treat, but it seems fall may be starting early in Ohio. I guess the combination of tropical storm ernesto combined with some other cool air system coming from Canada have combined to give us an awesome labor day weekend!
The season change brings with it the need for warmer clothing, so I made a trip to target yesterday. Brayden now has a brand new wardrobe ready to go, when I get him back on Wednesday. I love shopping for him, it is so fun to pick out all the cute stuff he gets to wear. The joys of being a dad :).
I, on the other hand, won't be needing much in the way of new fall clothing because it looks like I have found a new job! I still have to decide when I am quitting at Avon, but it appears this new job is legit. I will be contracting for a firm in NYC, while working from home. Perhaps I should invest in a new pajama wardrobe?