Archives for August, 2004
This is Why I Love My Mac
I gave the Windows version of ecto a quick spin this morning, since I will be primarily working on the platform for the next few weeks. I downloaded it, installed it, launched it and was met with a missing software requirement dialog for the .NET framework. Okay. I download that, along with all the other Win 2K “critical” updates that I never knew about. Cool. Now restart, log back in, launch ecto and it asks for my serial number as expected. I enter the one that I received when I purchased it for my Mac. It seems to hang in dealing with the eSellerate website. Hmmm, I’m not too sure about this…
It finally authenticates (or whatever it was doing) and takes me to a webpage that has the activation code I’m supposed to use. Copy & paste, click register. Bzzzt! Now the problem is ecto tells me I’ve entered an invalid code. This is becoming too much hassle. Add the fact that the Win version is nothing like my beloved Mac version and I’m not too impressed.
Okay, so it won’t take my activation code, I’ll just work with it in trial mode. I try to edit a post and find operation to be pretty non-intuitive, having to hover over each icon to see what it is that it does. The interface is NOTHING like the Mac version, so it’s like using a totally different app. I finally get my bearing and do a minor edit, try to post, and am met with the registration entry dialog again. Grrrr. That’s it, I’m through. I kill the app from my Win machine and get back to living.
And THAT’S why I love my Mac. Simple with no hassles. It just works for me, and not me for it.
A Free Meal On The House
Pam & I went out for my 40th birthday last night to one of our favorite HB restaurants, Freds. We’d planned to have a couple drinks and an appetizer before checking out a couple other local clubs. After finishing my first beer, I ordered a margarita to go along with the tasty food. Once I got to the bottom of the drink and took a big swig, I was treated to a nice chunk of glass that had obviously gotten mixed up with the ice somehow. Fortunately it didn’t cut my mouth at all & I didn’t swallow it.
I pointed it out to our waitress, just so they could be sure to clean out the ice bin in case there was more in there. She let the manager know about it and he was kind enough to pick up the tab for the evening. They felt really bad & wanted to make things right. I had no intentions of getting a free meal & drinks out of it, but it was a nice birthday treat none the less.
Once we finished up there, we headed across Main Street to Perq’s. This place is one of the oldest buildings in HB, and even served as a brothel at one time in our city’s history. The place is about as much as a dive as places get with the kind of clientele you’d expect a place like that to have. We had a couple beers and hung out waiting for the band to start to see if they were any good which would determine whether we stayed or left. Once they finally took the stage at a quarter to ten, we decided to cut out after a few tunes. There wasn’t much worth staying for, unless you count getting in a hassle with some of the regular bar flies fun. It seems that when I went to the restroom, one of the locals made a pass at Pam. She was kind enough to respectfully decline and told him she was married. The guy’s buddy didn’t like the fact that Pam had “dissed” his friend and told her so. This is when I returned and we simply left. It wasn’t until we were out of the place that she told me about what happened. The nerve of some people, sometimes.
Then we headed to an even divier place called Tumbleweeds. That was an experience in itself, but at least the people there were nicer. No hassles with anybody, but plenty to watch in the way of people. We had a couple more beers, headed home about midnight and called it a evening. All in all, we had a great time out away from the kids.
Back Online, Again
The server is back online after I managed (yet again) to take it a little too far beyond the bleeding edge of stability. Although… The cool thing about starting over from scratch multiple times is I’ve gotten setting up OSX Server down to a science, and each time gets a little better. I had everything configured within a day, compared to the 5 it took the very first time I took a crack at it.
