Resurrection

I have been hiding under a rock the last month. Seriously, I have had many projects take precedent over other recreational activities... such as blogging, and yes, I have been missing writing on here, which incidentally only my mother and my two fans read regularly. I guess I felt like I needed a vacation from my routines.

It's funny because I really do enjoy writing, and was at many times the last month, motivated to write, but I just couldn't seem to find the time to sit down and really write something.

I am currently writing this post from a laptop (yes, the infamous iBook laptop), that has died more than one horrible death since I bought it some time in 2003. The last time I tried playing with this machine, I had it up and running for about 10 minutes, before the video all scrambled up.

Then, thanks to a post at Low End Mac, someone posted a how-to turn an old iBook with a dead video card into a server. "Ah!", said I, "I found a new use for my little old laptop that has given me so much grief over the years" -- at least almost the entire life of this blog.

So one Friday evening, I pulled out the old iBook out of the storage closet, plugged in the battery, and soon found out (after wiping a corrupted hard drive), that the video had fixed itself autonomously without me having to perform any Voodoo rituals. I set up an OSX server and played with it for a few days, but I was a little leery about putting any sensitive information on my "new server" without a sensible backup, as the hard drive has been known to die on me spontaneously.

So I wanted to find a use for this old derelict, yet without any worry about losing any critical data. So what was I to do?

After some thought, the answer came clear to me -- and it was something I have wanted to do for more than 7 years, yet was not feasible until this point.

Which was install Linux, and use it for kicks and giggles. So last week, I downloaded a disk image of Ubuntu Edgy Eft (which is the last version to support Power PC), and rather quickly, had it running on my old 800MHz iBook in very little time.

Why? Because I can.

By now, you should have noticed the Flickr link on the sidebar. I finally broke down and signed up. Actually the true reason I signed up was because I had a couple pictures on Yahoo! photos that were going to get deleted unless I transferred them to a new service, as Yahoo! was going to discontinue offering their photo service.

Now that I have signed up for a Flickr account, everybody who had used it has now migrated to some other service. It seems that I am receiving a some invites to join the latest flavor of the month: Facebook.

2007 Musings

So much for my holidays. Tomorrow, it's back to the rat-race, and I don't feel the least bit rejuvenated. The last ten days has been chock-full of family functions, feeding and watering houseguests, and doing much-needed work around the house.

Overall, Christmas was pretty good to me, although I didn't get the super-thin 12" MacBook Pro I asked Steve Jobs... er... Santa Claus for, I did get a video game that paid homage to two of my childhood passions: Lego and Star Wars. In addition to some much-needed clothing, I also got the Complete Calvin and Hobbes Box Set, which I have only managed to read one of the three volumes.

I thought for a while that I would take this post to reflect on the 2006 that was, and what I could expect to see in the next year. That project seemed like far too much work, so I'm not going to do that this year. I can sum up 2006 six in one word: Madness. I really bit off more than I could chew, and by the looks of things 2007 isn't going to be any better -- in fact, it looks like it's going to be even busier -- at the very least, until September.

The MacBook has been in the shop for two weeks. It still is suffering hardware issues, though the "random shut-down" problem had been fixed, there are issues with the battery. The computer kept telling me that there was no battery attached to the computer, even if there was. Thus, the battery never took a charge. A laptop that can't operate on battery charge is no more than a really small desktop computer. I started to miss the MacBook so much, that I decided to pull out the derelict iBook to see if it worked -- and if I could diagnose the problem. It started fine and ran flawlessly for about five minutes. Then out of nowhere, the screen went garbled, then turned black. So that means the video card is gone, and that's soldered onto the Logic board. It's almost not worth fixing, unless I can find another logic board for about 25 dollars -- which translates to not very likely.

I haven't gigged in a few weeks, which is, in a sense welcome. The same goes with teaching. By next week, my schedule is going to fall back into the chaos it usually is.

DH has also taken some time off recording his album for the Holiday season. However, that project will be put back into high gear in a couple days. As far as progress goes, we are in the middle of tracking the seventh song, and drum tracks for three songs have been cut. So, by any estimations, I guess we are about 2/3 finished the album. That could be translated into another three months until I can breathe a sigh of relief. I never thought that it would take us this long to record the album.

Don't ask me what resolutions I made for the New Year. I don't make resolutions.

The Last-Ditch Effort

Longtime readers of this weblog will know the tragic tale of my laptop, its' benign and naive early days, and its quick fall from grace.

Hindsight tells me I purchased a lemon. It was an "eBay special", and I originally thought I got a good deal. I sank a fair amount of money into extra peripherals and software, though the efforts may as well have been in vain.

A little more than a year ago, I spilled my highball on the display and fried it. I was heartbroken. I had sunk well over a thousand dollars into that machine, and it barely lasted me six months. It was imperative that I repair the machine, since I could not afford a new one. Since the computer was fully operational (besides the display), it could likely be repaired, provided I could find the necessary parts on eBay.

After I consulted my computer-savvy friends, it was brought to my attention that it was likely the inverter board that blew. It is a small circuit board that provides high-voltage to power the LCD screen. My friends almost unanimously agreed that this was likely the culprit, and it could be easily replaced.

All the while, I was still using my computer. Apple was ingenious for developing the A/V port on laptops, that not only worked as a headphone jack, but also could provide video as well. Using the A/V Cable, I plugged my computer into the television set and managed to get a picture. The resolution was atrocious; it was difficult to read text without changing the resolution of the screen to 640 x 480, but I managed while I waited for my replacement part to arrive in the mail.

When my inverter board arrived, I spent more than a few hours carefully performing open-heart surgery on my precious laptop. It was a much more delicate endeavor than I had imagined. I had serviced desktop computers before, but the laptop was a challenge, since there is next to no free space within. When I finally had the machine assembled (with no leftover parts remaining), I held my breath, and pressed the power button.

I heard the start-up chime, which was a good thing, and I patiently waited to see the screen light up. All I got was a brief flicker, then a blank screen. Was I heartbroken. I had spent all this extra money on a part that didn't help my predicament. At least I could still run the computer from the television, I could listen to music or play a few of the games. I could still use the computer for the time being, though it was crippled, and I imagined another solution would eventually present itself. I still believed my machine could be repaired.

A few months had passed, while no solution had presented itself (that is to say, no cheap replacement parts were available on eBay), an act of dog sent my laptop flying five feet from the top of television to the floor. The machine had been on at the time, and I feared the worst. The A/V cable that connected the computer to the television had been severed, the jack still embedded in the computer. The display was damaged further, hinges were bent, and it was obvious that I would have to replace the entire screen if this machine was to return to its' former glory. Clouds formed overhead, and I heard the rumble of distant thunder. Zeus was not pleased.

Generally speaking, with respect to laptops, if the screen is damaged, you may as well buy a new computer, since the cost to replace the screen is likely more than the value of the laptop. This point also holds true if the logic board is damaged.

I counted my lucky stars that the computer would still boot. I still managed to run the machine via a replacement A/V cable, and I moved the setup to a corner downstairs where the dog would not likely give my laptop an aeronautics lesson.

All the while, I had been searching forums on the web searching for repair solutions for my little iBook. I soon discovered that I was not alone, and many iBook owners reported having problems with their display. Many users reported their troubles were due to a faulty logic board. In fact, the problem was so severe, that Apple implemented an iBook display replacement program as part of their warranty. Since I bought the iBook second-hand, and due to the fact that the iBook was three years old, I did not qualify for the free maintenance.

Last summer, my iBook finally died. It just happened one day, the laptop would not boot. I managed to get a startup chime, but there was no screen on the television, nor did I hear the hard drive spin up and load the operating system. In a panic, I thought the hard drive might be corrupted somewhere in the boot sector, so I tried to boot the computer from my OSX install CD, but that attempt proved fruitless. My laptop had become a very expensive paperweight.

To make things worse, I could not boot into single user mode, nor could I boot into open firmware. I had an Apple Hardware test CD that runs diagnostics on the computer hardware, but I couldn't even get that to load. All signs were pointing to a logic board failure, and that meant my laptop was beyond repair.

The hard drive on that laptop was the keeper of a great many files that were very important to me. I had a backup of my original webpage that resided at Yahoo! GeoCities. There were hundreds of emails, jpegs, and documents that I could not afford to lose. There had to be a way that I could rescue those documents and transfer them to my iMac.

My computer-geek friends had advised me that we could dissect the computer, and place the hard drive into an external firewire hard drive enclosure. This seemed like the best option, though I didn't like the idea of spending a number of hours ripping apart the laptop to disconnect the hard drive. The online iBook service schematics showed that you had to virtually disassemble the entire laptop in order to remove the hard drive. It has also been six months since I purchased my replacement computer, and my friends hadn't been able to find the necessary time to assist me in the surgery.

Last night, I could wait no longer, as I needed those files that were sitting idly on my laptop. It was a longshot, but there was one more thing I could attempt in order to rescue all my coveted files. I bought a firewire cable and directly connected the two machines. I was hoping that I might be able to boot my laptop into firewire target disk mode, and then copy the files directly to my new computer. I hit the power key on my laptop, held down the 'T' key and prayed.

I had nearly given up all hope, and then I saw a second hard drive icon appear on the desktop of my iMac. It felt like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders, and I proceeded to copy the files I had so missed to my iMac. I even ran disk first aid on the laptop to repair any corrupt sectors of the hard drive. I have not attempted to boot the laptop, but I imagine I will attempt this tonight, and see if the laptop will boot, or if it is indeed the logic board that is dysfunctional.

Now that I have rescued all my webpage documents from ages past, I highly anticipate that my Tour Journal from 1999 will be updated frequently.

Yesterday, the sun was shining, and Zeus was well-pleased.