But, what about getting it fixed? Wouldn’t you know it … my warranty expired just two weeks ago! I spoke with the lovely folks at Apple and they said that they will still honour it if it turns out to be hardware related! Now that’s service! So, its off to the shop with the PowerBook folks, probably for a couple of weeks due to the workload created by the battery recals. I’m lost without it already.

So, I’m eating humble pie at the moment, and copping plenty of slack from colleagues in the process.

Update:  After trying to mount my hard disk as a target disc via a firewire connection to Marty’s iMac, I decided it was time to bit the bullet and send it into the shop.  Donna dropped it in this morning and guess what?  It was fixed before morning tea!  I have absolutely no qualms about recommending the service guys at the Apple Centre in Ivanhoe, they really looked after me well! Thanks guys you’re legends.

What an absolute classic …  a “hard error”.  I wonder: are there also easy errors?

Anyway:I was trying to export my contacts to a .csv file and–much to my chagrin–discovered that Address Book (Version 4.0.3) can only export vCards. Problem is you can’t import vCard data format into Excel (or Spreadsheet in OpenOffice).

So, with the power of google at my fingertips, off I went in search of a utility. Sure enough, I found one via the Apple website. It didn’t have all the features I wanted, but it looked like it would do the export. Well, export it did–all of my contacts. It did not copy them out, it moved them out! Shit. And without knowing this, I trashed the export file after I discovered that the format was not particularly useful. Double shit.

Thankfully, my mobile phone proved to be my saving grace. I regularly sync the laptop with the phone and was able to use the phone’s ’send all contacts’ feature to retrieve the data. Back to normal. I also have a backup procedure in place, which was the non-preferred option as the data was probably a little older. This serves as a reminder to make sure that it is up-to-date.

Oh, and in the process, I did manage to find a nice little utility that does exactly what I want it to … AddressBookExporter-2.1.2. I recommend that you check it out for yourself if you need to export your data in the more useful text format.

“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes.”

Happy 30th Birthday Apple.

Windows have release an automatic update / patch download, BUT it warns that this may not update appointment times that were already scheduled in calendar applications such as Outlook for between 3.00am March 26th and 3.00am on April 2nd!

Apple also released an Update (10.4.5) which updates the rules for time zones and Daylight Savings Time to conform to changes in the law for the United States, Australia, and other locations, for 2006 and later.

I hadn’t even thought about the implications of daylights savings on my PowerBook, and low and behold, when I went to check the issue was already in hand because I ran Software Update just the other day. I love it when stuff is looked after!

Apple is the BMW of computers and Wintel is the Ford.  Are you really going to stick an Escort engine in it?

Microsoft will end support for Internet Explorer for Mac on December 31st, 2005, and will provide no further security or performance updates.
Additionally, as of January 31st, 2006, Internet Explorer for the Mac will no longer be available for download

I can’t help but wonder what this will mean for Mac support from all those banks, telcos and govt departments who have been developing to MS ’standards’ for years?

1. 1. Forcing a program to quit works
2. 2. I don’t have to bother with Internet Explorer

The last couple of days we’ve been experiencing intermittent network / connectivity problems in the office. It all came to a head today — a couple of our windows machines have been struck down with a nasty trojan virus (hacktool.toolkit). What a real hassle. Looks like drastic action (read rebuild) will be required for a number of machines. It could end up being a rebuild — or at least drastic intervention for ALL machines bar mine. Why? … Oh yeah, I’m using a Mac! And I’m not backwards in reminding everyone either. I think I’ve finally convinced Nick to bring in his own 12″ PowerBook. But if I’m not careful I’ll be hung, drawn and quartered soon. Keeping quite will be difficult.

Finally — the Australian iTunes Music Store has opened! Announcement is here. I’d love to understand the reasons why this has taken so long!

In my own personal quest to operate in a world without Microsoft (more on this later), I’ve come across some fantastic tools. Ironically, the Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection Client for Mac is one of them (is this an oxymoron?). RDC allows me to connect to MS-based servers remotely and perform all the functions I need to on the server from the comfort of my PowerBook. The client emulates sound, keyboard controls etc. adequately and the speed/performance is very good. For more info, or a free download or Remote Desktop Connection Client, goto the Microsoft web site: http://www.microsoft.com/mac/

One specific limitation of the RDC, which is particularly annoying, is that it only allows one remote connection at a time (the Mac version only). So, off I went to do a google search and low and behold come across RDC Menu, an application written specifically to allow you to launch multiple instances of the Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection Client. It works a treat and saved me a heap of time logging on/off sessions to switch between servers. Isn’t it great that we live in a world where we can obtain tools that help us solve problems, all just a couple of button clicks away? Hopefully the folks at Microsoft will appreciate what RDC Menu does and integrate the tool as a standard feature (and compensate the author!). You can find RDC menu at: http://www.Xutils.com/