Hamarana

1) I haven’t heard from Mike about PithHelmet, but he’s probably on vacation so pfft, he will answer soon enough.

2) Light banding on my LCD screen: appears to be almost gone. Obviously, whatever Leopard was doing, was unacceptable, and Tiger is just fine. I don’t think there is enough in Leopard to make me re-upgrade now, unless I really MUST have Time Machine (which I no longer am interested in). And If I want Windows stuff I’ll use VMWare Fusion, Crossover, or Parallels (or try to track down a standalone version of Bootcamp).

3) My Pinnacle TV Stick has now decided that it has plugged into a USB 1.1 port (we know its USB2 on these intel iMacs) and refuses to work. That, at least, is when the stick is even detected. Most times it isn’t. Tested in the old eMac (where it wont work because those ports *are* 1.1) it reveals that it does actually work. Just not on the eMac. Or, apparently, on my iMac, anymore. This isn’t a new issue since reinstalling Tiger, its been going on for some time. This week though (today more particularly) is the first time its refused to work on the iMac at all. Maybe its on the way out. If so I don’t think I will bother replacing it with something else. I have had in mind to get a decent PVR for the loungeroom and TV set there, and I have an IceTV subscription for the next 12 months… so I rather think that a Beyonwiz or Topfield will be a more likely purchase.

I’m rambling. And its the first day of 3 extra days off (lets call it a holiday) where I do not have to be at the office.

I have reverted to using Tiger, for the moment, in an effort to pinpoint the screen issues (my thinking was that maybe some of the driver updates had screwed something… and they haven’t… still got the issue)… anyway thats not what I want to post about. What I want to post about is my idiocy in not making a serious attempt to record serial numbers and keys for software I buy, even if i stop using it, just in case I might want to in the future.

This is happening even as we speak. I bought a licence for a piece of ad-bocking (for Safari) software called PithHelmet, some time ago. I lost the licence for it once before and wrote to Mike, and he was kind enough to resend it. Back then I could remember what email address I used, etc, but this time, do you think I have even the vaguest inkling? Nope. So I have written to poor Mike again… I hope he is a merciful being

Alas, here I am on Christmas Day (Merry Christmas, people)… getting into a tizz because it seems now very likely that I have a serious problem with the screen of the iMac. Apparently the 20″ screens were (and still are) extremely poor quality. Unusual for Apple but there it is. I now have severe banding/streaking lines up and down my screen, and the severity depends on what colours are in use. I cannot get a fully black screen, its like theres a big light behind it, and gauze draped over the top. When applications open, it depends on the colours and gfx. Example below.

The very saddest thing, of course, is that the warranty on the computer was up about July, and I did not buy Applecare to get an extra couple of years. Foolishly, did not think I would need it. Looks like once it dies, it will be trashed.

I don’t know how others are faring with OSX Leopard, but I have had some quite serious issues with it over the past few days.  I suppose I should have suspected that something was amiss when mail.app crashed a couple of weeks ago.  I didn’t give it a lot of thought because I use Mailplane for 99.9% of my email, now, as I also have my domain email hosted at google, so no real need for a traditional email client to be in use.

However, when mailplane crashed at launch, quite spontaneously, I knew there was a problem.  It happened on Sunday after I had updated iTunes and Safari and so, logically I thought (not so as it happens) that there must be an issue with either or both of those on my system.  So I reverted to an earlier backup, but to no avail.  mailplane is still crashing.  I then tried mail.app… and thats when I remembered that it had crashed a couple of weeks ago.  Addressbook, iCal, menuCalendarClock, and, oddly, Coda, all crashed at launch.  I tried to find solutions online only to discover that this problem is well known and has been discussed with no solutions forthcoming from Apple or its users, ever since Leopard 10.5.1

In the end, I found myself reinstalling the entire system from scratch (I started with Tiger and was tempted not to update to Leopard but, against my better judgement, did so) and over the past day have been updating system and other files as defined by Software Update.  Most recent was the overnight release of the next major update, 10.5.6.  And I downloaded that and tried to install it… but it hung.  Luckily it had not changed *any* files at all, and resetting the computer brought back 10.5.5.  Again, I am not Robinson Crusoe here, and the issue is already rearing its ugly head at Apple Discussions.

What to do?  keep persisting with Leopard, or revert to Tiger.

Currently, I can’t recommend to anyone to get a Mac, and to be honest, I really think that whats happened here is to do with the move to Intel and away from the Motorola chips… this is like using Windows 98 with all its BSODs.

I am pretty ticked off, as you can see.

And just as I was about to sink into my usual “bah humbug” state, I decided to make a new header for the theme, and give it a Christmassy appearance. Suddenly, I find I don’t feel so Scrooge-ish and am now looking around to share the love.

I wish all of you a very happy, warm and loving Christmas, and all the very best for the coming year.

I may as well make semi regular (for that, read “annual”) posts about this scheme.

Its now a year since my last post which generated quite a bit of discussion, and I see that its still getting quite a few reads.

For those readers, then, here’s the current status. Please note that I am no longer making any claims either for or against the program. I am tired, I want to retire, but without this paying off, I will be working until I drop. Or decide to take the poverty option as soon as I can.

Status:
1) Still taking new members at a reduced rate (€20 as opposed to €30)
2) Still offering additional policy purchases to existing members
3) New closure date has been set at January 31, 2009.

I think we have had, now, three actual closure dates. All explanations for delays have been entirely believable.

I paid in $50 (AU: at the time, the exchange rate sucked) to become a member: that is all you are doing here, buying a membership. The fee is NOT REFUNDABLE; a point I think which has been completely ignored by many who have joined up… there are some who seem to think its an “investment”. WTF? I have not paid in any more than this, but many have done so. There is one extremely well heeled Chinese businessman who was so convinced that the proposal could work, he bought in not only for himself, but for his entire company, a total of 10,000 people. Wish he was in *my* downline!

There are people in my downline (which now numbers 113) who are still putting more cash into this deal. I’m content with having made my gamble (I put more into the work lotto syndicate than I did here, every year), and now patiently await the outcome. There has been nothing new since the 20th November, at which point it was announced that unless all documents are in, the program will close (on the date specified) with no payout. I could do with that €1,742,000.00 in referral earnings, not to mention the original €55,000 as well. I must confess, I had to suspend disbelief as the numbers surged over €100,000

Anyone want to take a guess at what is going to happen?

Please note, the question is rhetorical, and comments are closed. The last post generated some vitriol which I really don’t feel like having again.

[Edit: 21st December 2008] And now we are on a different URL. Stella sent out an email saying how silly she was because she forgot to renew the domain. D’uh. She’s handling millions of dollars and forgot to renew the domain. yeah, right. So now we are on a free domain (.tv is free) and I reckon its about 3 seconds before the domain disappears entirely, and all that money along with it. Oh well, it was a decent ride whilst it lasted.

This was taken with the Pentax K200D and the Tamron 70-300mm lens. I’ve done a little postprocessing (noise ninja and levels in PS3), as well as cropped.

Focal Length: 300mm
Aperture: f/8
ISO: 400
Shutter: 1/90