More Mud, Please.

So between three guys, two days, and twenty sheets of drywall, there are still gaps in the walls in the bathroom. I knew I wasn’t hiring the A-Team here, but the lackadaisical approach to, um, completing the job has been a bit frustrating. They’ve got the majority of it hung, and there’s tape on half of it so far, but I had to have them remove one panel because they screwed it in over an outlet box. As long as I stay on top of them, things should turn out alright.

In the meantime, I’m waffling about what I should do with my old MacBook Pro. Originally I was going to sell it, but the pictures I took for Craigslist disappeared off my camera. At that point I thought about installing Plex and making it into a media server, but talking it over with a friend made me realize I couldn’t hook it up to our shitty TV if I wanted to. So now I may go back to Craigslist and see if I can get $500 for it.

Wake on LAN: don’t let sleeping Macs lie

Here’s a great article on how to wake up a sleeping Mac (provided you’ve set it up correctly): Wake on LAN: don’t let sleeping Macs lie.

iWill.

Dear AT&T: Fuck you. Unless Verizon has negotiated some draconian sort of data plan, or pre-installs shitty apps on each phone (According to Ars Technica, this will not happen), I will be on line on the 10th of February with cash in hand to bounce, bounce, bounce off your lousy network.

Love, Bill.

PS. Verizon? That page design sucks donkey dicks. Really? Who’d you hire for that one, the accountant’s kid brother?

Brick your Phone

Dear AT&T: From what everybody says, Verizon is going to announce that they will be offering the iPhone tomorrow. And when they do, I’m going to ditch your shitty service as quickly as possible. And then I’m going to buy this phone cover.

DYNDNSDONE.

After several attempts over the last eight years, I finally sorted out and set up remote login to our home server here at IdiotCentral. To begin, I set up rules for AFP (Apple File Protocol) port forwarding on our FIOS router and created an account at DYNDNS.org. Back in the day their setup was ridiculously obtuse and there was no real good way to confirm things were correctly configured, but things have gotten a little easier. Now, they provide a couple of handy tools to test connectivity and open ports from outside one’s local network, which is a huge help. Once I’d set up the account and tested the open ports, I used a VNC account on a client’s machine to test the connection, and presto! I mounted my drive from their machine.

The next step was to shut down all open ports except for SSH (secure shell) to tunnel AFP and VNC using a method I found here. On first test from work this morning, It didn’t work, but that was because I’d set up one of the port forwarding rules up incorrectly. It’s now working correctly, and I’m connected remotely via SSH, which makes me very happy. Welcome to the new century!

In the future, what I’d really like is a copy of Leopard Server so I could set up proper share points and define users and groups, all of which would add layers of security to the existing setup. For now, what I may do is use the router’s built-in scheduling to close everything down after business hours so the port is only open for a short while.

MacBook Pro Video.

My colleague Aaron let me know about a recall program for some MacBook Pro models, which may or may not be the source of my video woes. I’m going to make an appointment at the Apple Store early next week to bring it in and have it tested, in the hopes that the video card issue is the root of the problem. If it is, and we can get it fixed, I can give it to Jen for use as a utility laptop and backup machine, which would be fantastic.

Update: My video card isn’t the Nvidia model covered under the program; it’s an ATI 1600. Oh, well.

Rebirth?

I purchased a used display inverter off eBay a week ago, figuring I’d give IdiotCentral (My 17″ MacBook Pro) one last shot at usefulness before putting her up for sale. This morning at work I took 15 minutes to crack the case and drop the part in, and closed everything back up with my fingers crossed. Upon first boot, the lower half of the screen was still obscured, but after about thirty seconds all the lines disappeared and I was looking at my Dock for the first time in eight months. I just ran some updates and plugged it in to charge the battery, and now I’m wondering what I should do with this thing. The lines might come back, which makes me a little hesitant to try and sell it, but I don’t want it crapping out on us again. I’d love to hand it off to Jen to use as a backup machine for presentations and travel, which is what I’m leaning towards right now, but I’m afraid it’ll start acting up on her right when she needs it the most. What to do?

(I’m also realizing how much I like the new keyboard style better than the old. What a difference!)

Random Musings.

The new AppleTV looks very tempting. We are currently paying for the FIOS triple-play as part of their 1-year promotion, so once our contract on that expires I’ll be looking for ways to ditch cable altogether and move to a more internet-oriented TV delivery system. AppleTV is now based on streaming vs. buying, which means there’s only 24 hours to watch a show or movie multiple times. I’m thinking this isn’t a huge deal for Jen or I (especially since we already have a Netflix account, which is supported in the new AppleTV) but for Finn, who will most likely want to see shows or movies multiple times, this could be a challenge. It would also mean giving up a few channels I’d like to have for her, including the kids’ music channel and Disney-free cartoon channels (in the rare event we let her watch TV).

I think the other thing I’d do with it is drop another terrabyte drive into our media server and load our DVD collection on there, along with as much kids’ programming as I could get my hands on in order to stream it to the TV. It would be so nice to retire the DVD player completely and subtract a big box from the TV stand; apparently there is a way to use the XBOX as a DVD player but I need an “XBOX DVD Movie Playback Kit” to do it.

Speaking of Apple, Jen’s new iPhone should be arriving on Friday, which is excellent news. Her old Motorola will be relegated to duty as Finn’s new toy, which is, sadly, about all it’s good for.

Still Borked.

I got a little time yesterday afternoon to take apart my 17″ MBP, which has been suffering from screen-itis for several months now. In January I purchased a new (used) display cable, hoping that was the root of the problem, and attempted to install it at work with a new inverter board, but was foiled by unclear directions and the clutch cover refusing to come off. This time I was more successful, and had the entire thing swapped out and replaced in 15 minutes. unfortunately, though, the screen is still only half-visible, which probably means the replacement inverter board I put in has gone bad.

No luck yet on selling the Jeep, either; I had a nice guy come and look yesterday (after a lot of near-misses due to scheduling conflicts last week) but he balked when his advisor told him he’d realistically get 2-3 years of use out of it. I don’t really know what he was expecting, considering the price I’m offering it for (I knocked a bit off the advertised price during negotiations, actually) and its age—it’s 12 years old, and I plainly stated “AS-IS” in the ad. I’m not giving the fucking thing away for free, sorry. I gave him some time to think it over, but I doubt he’ll bite. We’ll see.

Shiny and New.

I got a beautiful new MacBook Pro delivered to the house via FedEx last Thursday, and I’ve been spending most of my free time migrating all of my important data over without crufting up the OS with years of legacy gunk. It’s light, it’s fast, it feels solid, it’s not blisteringly hot, it doesn’t feature the whine of cooling fans, and it’s paid for. The trackpad is an absolute joy to use; whatever Apple did to improve the sensor, it’s a magnitude of difference better than the old style (which, admittedly, was getting wonkier in part due to the battery swelling) and ten times more precise. The keyboard is solid and I appreciate the addition of volume and playback controls in the top Function keys (where the old model had brightness controls and two unused keys), although I miss the monitor switching key, forfeited to a Dashboard hotkey (ecch). I got the model with a glossy display, and it’s not as distracting as I thought it might be. The display itself is bright and even, and has a slight bluish tint out of the box. I’m going to use the calibrator on it tomorrow to warm things up and build a profile.

Next on the to-do list will be taking IdiotCentral down to a bare shell in order to swap out the inverter board cable, and see if that will solve the screen issues once and for all. If it works, I may consider selling her to recoup some of the money spent on IdiotCommand here, and if it doesn’t, she’ll become a production machine relegated to my desk.