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It took a bit of wrangling but I managed to get Windows 7 installed on my MBP in BootCamp.

It was nearly impossible since my optical drive isn't working properly. It flat-out refuses to read any DVD media but it WILL read CD media sometimes... and this model of MBP won't boot a Windows install disc from an external drive.

My solution was to make a WinPE boot CD since that fits on a regular CD. I then put the actual install files on a USB flash drive.

I also had to put the BootCamp drivers on a flash drive. Unfortunately, I installed 64-bit Windows 7 which isn't supported by BootCamp on this system, or so the setup.exe tells me. By drilling down into the actual driver directories, though, I was able to get it all installed by running the 64-bit MSI directly. It all seems to be working fine now.

I retract anything negative that I may have said about Time Machine. The Mac shop couldn't get my wife's data back, but slapped a new TB drive in her laptop and a Time Machine restore got back everything, up to the Word document she had left open when she last shut down. Fantastic news, and it saves us an expensive interchange with the high end data recovery folks.

Grats, CS. Win7 64bit is nice on my MBP. Or a lot nicer than 32bit XP, anyway.

Really, really not liking Mail for Lion. And going back to "classic" layout isn't really an option since it's incompatible with WideMail.

Here's my use-case-based reason. I don't trash emails, but use the Inbox as "need to remember to do something about" before filing into folders. I'm very, very bad with the "out of sight, out of mind" thing, and so many of the emails are such small things that they don't fall well into the "make list/action items/calendar it" GTD method. So Lion's Mail basically forces me to 1) remember to scroll down and down and 2) scroll. One is a cognitive task, the other is an interaction, both are things I didn't need to do in Snow Leopard and before Mail.

ETA: the select file dialog that pops up when you want to attach a file? Empty. Though I know I have files on my Desktop.

ETA: aaaaand now Finder is listed as "Not Responding" in Activity Monitor. Are these two things just because it's still settling in or something? Spotlight re-indexed hours ago.

ddt



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/24/2012 02:34PM by ddt.

So, a DVD drive is recommended for boot camp? Oh well, we don't need wintendo either...

Newer Macs can do Boot Camp installs from USB flash drives or external optical drives. Mine is just too old.

Anyone used any doohickeys like this thing?

http://www.etoncorp.com/product_card/?p_ProductDbId=1517029

Do you really believe the world will end in 2012?

I've got a crank-powered flashlight, and a crank-powered shortwave radio. They work fine, though the cranks feel a little flimsy. One does get tired of cranking after a few go-rounds. Best left for emergency use.

They're great. KQED, our local public radio station, offers these as pledge gifts, and as part of earthquake emergency kits (it doesn't take the end of the world for the power to go away and emergency info to be critical).

ddt

dpbd: Porruka, are these guys kind of competing in your project's space? http://www.authenticjobs.com/jobs/12415/badass-ui-ux-designer-front-end

ddt

That's an interesting one, ddt. I need to look more into it.

Any Darwin-level kernel hackers around? What is the best way to get the sources en masse? Not for executable compilation but primarily to have bsd-level headers as used in the given version of Mac OS X...

I don't know of anything but this.

This looks more complete, but is ancient.

Thanks John... that's where I am right now, but it's only piecemeal (unless I'm blind). I'm not looking for a specific header at the moment, I'm hoping to download a large blob that is likely to have anything I'm looking for at a given source category level.

Well, there's this, but gods only know how far they've wandered from true Darwin.

OK. It's time to get my oldest daughter a cell phone. I want to giver her an old iPhone (3GS) and put her on a family plan with her mother, but it seems that there are problems with this.
1) I'm assuming that she'll need massive minutes and massive text allowance, because this girl's normal conversational speed is that of an auctioneer on meth, and the quantity matches the rate. This is expensive on AT&T, or anywhere except one of those local companies (Cricket in our area) that sell unlimited talk plans.
2) Because her parents use them, iPhones must suck. She wants a phone with a keyboard. Also a browser. And apps. Which means Android or Windows 8.
3) I know nothing about Android phones and synching them with Macs. I don't really want to know. My routine tech maintenance has really been eating into my free time lately, what with my wife's MBP drive failing, the new Fastback virus, and two kids who cannot be bothered to plug in or even shut down their laptops.

I want a cheap, maintenance-free Android cellphone with a decent screen, a keyboard, cheap texting and data, and free local calls. I'm assuming that I am not going to find all these in one phone/carrier, but any thoughts as to a Mac-friendly Android phone with a keyboard suited for small hands would be welcome. I think I'm just going to have to browse Cricket's store and see what they have. If there are no cheap options there, she's getting an iPhone 3GS and she can deal with it.

Wow. I'd be adopting the "you'll get what you're given and you'll like it (and take it to whitewhine.com if you don't)" approach.

phone with keyboard --> smart person! :)
all of ours are like that. (Thanks Ton!)