DON’T BUY PEOPLE APPLE GIFTS FOR CHRISTMAS BECAUSE THEY’LL ONLY CRASH AND CAUSE MASSIVE GRIEF.

Update: Ok, so it turns out that those music files weren’t actually deleted and I was able to recover them after re-installing iTunes. However, my head feels like shit because it felt like it was going to explode half and hour ago and it still feels swollen and muddy. So even if Apple didn’t destroy my music files they still stressed me out beyond the point of intense physical pain.

Hat-tip: Andrew Sullivan

Imagine that you have too many things to do and too little time to do them. Not very hard to imagine, right? For instance right now I have two essays to write for Friday, another one to do for Monday, an exam next Thursday, another essay the following week, etc… and in between all this I’m trying to study for a serious challenging GAMSAT exam, lead something approximating a normal social life, stay fit by going to the gym, and so on. It’s not impossible to do all these things simultaneously, and other people have things far worse (this isn’t a plea for pity), but sometimes it just feels like there aren’t enough hours in the day to get everything done.

Enter Time Gun. Time Gun is a revolutionary device that stops time, rendering everything on Earth perfectly immobile except you and whatever you come into contact with. Thus, with Time Gun I could stop time right now, write my four essays, study for the Kant exam, study for the GAMSATs, etc… and then unfreeze time, perfectly primed for the coming days.

If nothing else, Time Gun certainly represents a more appealing alternative to what I presently do when confronted with a daunting workload, which is to drink way too much caffeine, head to the top floor of the library, and then blog nonsense because I can’t concentrate.

The mantra I repeat to myself every time I’m heading out the door at home is ‘phone/wallet/pod/keys’. This serves as quick checklist for everything that I’ll usually need in the course of a day. The next gadget I want to buy is one that will do away with the need for such a list, i.e., a gadget that serves as a phone, a method of payment, an MP3 player, and my car keys. Such a device is surely not too many years away, and it would be monumentally helpful in freeing up pocket space.

Technically, this should be achievable. There’s already a phone/music player hybrid, so the other two features could just be built into this. A method of payment feature would work much like a laser of VISA card, except it would be scanned a little differently, or maybe it could transfer the relevant information itself to some receiver at the cash register (a noun which will surely sound anachronistic within a decade or so). As regards integrating a car key, I believe that this should be even easier to accomplish. I’m pretty sure that my dad’s car doesn’t have a key as such, but instead the device that typically serves as an remote control locking system doubles as the means of ignition. Obviously there’d be some issues with regard to different models of cars needing different programming, and of course the settings for each car would have to be a little different, but this could all be ironed out eventually.

So there you have it. When I’m replacing my Polo (which probably won’t happen for some time), I want to be able to operate my next car with a device with which I can also make phone calls, with which I can also listen to music, and with which I can also pay for things. Get cracking Apple…

(If the good people at Science Week want to consider this as an entry for both today’s and yesterday’s competition then they’re more than welcome to do so.)

It looks just like the iPhone. BBC News story on the matter.

This volume structure affliction may or may not explain recent problems with my Mac, such as downloads that do not download, megabytes of lost data (programs such as Firefox lost everything they had), and the seemingly random resetting to default of various applications and system configurations. Oh yeah, and the battery is now completely shot too, after working perfectly well only last week.

I called Apple about all this, and, having waited for the best part of an hour to talk to someone while rap music warred with telephone fuzz on the other end, I eventually spoke to a guy who arranged to send out a battery replacement. Unfortunately, barring an extraordinary stroke of luck, I’ll be sending the battery straight back with the rest of the MacBook, since I only learned of the volume structure problem after speaking to the support tech.

Finally, Apple rounded off its sub-par performance by delivering the battery to my Dad’s office today, while he was away, meaning I’ll have to organise the return of my current battery myself, since I couldn’t hand it over to the courier. If they don’t get their corporate paws on it in the next few day I’ll be charged over 100 euro for a replacement that’s meant to be free.

Apologies for moaning like this, but what are blogs for if not airing perceived unjust grievances? Also, would wiping the hard-drive and attempting to re-install Mac OSX fix this problem, or does it sound like there is something fundamentally askew with the hard-drive itself? Lastly, if anyone from the Apple PR department is reading this and would like to rekindle my affection for the company, I will fully retract these disgruntled sentiments if you can see to it that a sleek, new, black, LED-screen, 2GH (or whatever that abbreviation is, you know, the ‘speed’), 120GB hard-drive, 13″ MacBook wings its way to my door as a replacement for the hobbled, diseased one that Apple should never have sold to me in the first place. Rant over.

However, I have one major problem. Surprisingly, given that I have a reading age af a dyslexic eight year old when it comes to computer literacy, I was able to install Windows XP on it using Bootcamp without too much difficulty (which is not to say that there wasn’t some difficulty). My major problem is that, while Windows XP was indeed installed, an infuriating little reminder keeps popping up telling me that I have 30 days to register it before it becomes unuseable.

I should probably mention here that the version of Windows XP I installed was the exact same one that is installed and registered on our home PC. While I had no problem reregistering Microsoft Office on a second computer, it appears that it’s not possible to do the same with Windows XP.

So what am I to do? Will Windows XP really die on me, or is that just an idle threat? Is there any way to get around this problem?

1) Is it definetly the case that the new MacBooks offer you the choice of running either Windows or OSX every time you turn them on?

2) Will all PC compatible software be able to run of the Macbook when operating it via Windows?

3) How much does Microsoft Office cost for Windows?

4) Could Microsoft Office files from the Mac version be used (edited, etc…) on the Windows version.

5) How much is Windows XP to buy (or can I get it for free somehow, since I already have it for my PC)?

6) Would games that are not graphically demanding of computers (Civilisation 4, Championship Manager, etc…) run fine on a MacBook or would even these be limited owing to the MacBook’s lack of a deicated graphics card (or something like that)?

7) While it undoubtedly saves a lot of hassle in the event of disaster, is it necessary to buy one of those extended warranty ‘Protection Plans’? I mean, under consumer legislation the retailer should be liable for all defects in the product for a considerably longer length of time than just one year. If I do get a MacBook I’ll probably end up buying this, but frankly I would question how legally neccessary it is. The idea that you pay around 1,500 Euro (WordPress won’t do a Euro symbol for me) for only one year’s use of a laptop is absurd.

How do you right-click something while in Windows on a MacBook?

9) Is the fact that MacBook get very, very hot really that big an issue or just a minor inconvenience?

10) Is it worth paying an extra 100 Euro to increase the hard drive to 100 GB from 80
GB?

11) Will I be able to transfer data from the Macbook to my PC via memory sticks and other such devices?

12) Is there any other laptop that I should seriously consider before buying this?

Advice will be appreciated.