Some of you may have wondered why it’s been so long since my last post. I assure you that I have a semi-good reason, and I’m sticking with it. Please excuse me if it’s a bit technical. If you prefer not to read a gripping story about sending my computer to Apple three times in as many weeks, click here to skip down to news on some projects and classes.
It all started over February break. I turned on my MacBook pro one day, and nothing showed up on the screen. I plugged it into an external monitor, and still got nothing. It wasn’t just the backlight, either: the entire screen was dead. Luckily, I had set up screen sharing, so I connected to it from my parents’ MacBooks and discovered that the computer thought it had an Intel GMA x3100 graphics processor, which, of course, it doesn’t. Apparently, having lost touch with the graphics card, it was drawing the graphics directly on the CPU (yay, Apple). I called Apple, they ran me through a few tests, and told me to send it in. I did, and a day before break was over it came back, motherboard replaced and problem solved. Everything was all well and good until I put it to sleep. When I tried to wake it up, it refused. The sleep light went from pulsing to solid, drive spun up, but the screen stayed dark. I used the power button to turn it off, and when I tried to boot it, the hard drive spun up, then abruptly stopped as though power had suddenly been cut.
I waited until I got back to school before calling Apple, just to make sure it wasn’t a fluke. Sure enough, if I put the computer to sleep for more than a few minutes, it would consistently and categorically refuse to wake up, and it usually took about 15 minutes and some combination of rebooting, resetting the Power Manager, and plugging and unplugging things until it worked. I called Apple, again they ran me through some steps to troubleshoot it, reinstalled the operating system, and then they told me to send it in again. I figured they must have just put in a faulty motherboard or something.
Between the time that I called them and when the box arrived, another strange thing happened: the computer lost touch with its power supply. The default behavior in this case is apparently the safe one, because the fans ramped up from their usual 2000 rpm to a whopping maximum of 6000 rpm. I was only able to determine the speed based upon familiarity with the sound, because I opened a program that measures fan speed and temperature, and it told me that the fans were spinning at 000 rpm (no typo, that’s three zeroes) to cool a CPU running at 32 degrees Fahrenheit (that’s freezing for you smart metric people). In addition, the battery wasn’t detected even when it was in. Strangely, the power supply clunked back into normal operation a day later, at no external bidding.
The computer went away again, and I had to put all my projects on the network or on Cody’s computer so I could work on them. Luckily, I work at a place full of computers and networks, so it was marginally OK. The computer came back three days later, and the repair slip had this to say:
The following services and/or replacement parts were used to service your product:
- 630-7933 PCBA,BANDCAMP,M75
- 632-0507 FLEX ASSY,LIO/AUDIO,M75
- 607-0608 FAN ASSY,LT,M75
- 607-0609 FAN ASSY,RT,M75
I assume that FAN ASSY means they replaced the left and right fans, which had undergone considerable stress. This generation of MacBook Pro has had some audio jack issues, so I presume that LIO/AUDIO means they replaced the left input/output audio—in other words, the headphone and mic jacks. But I can’t for the life of me figure out what BANDCAMP is, besides a special place in Sidney, Maine. None of the Apple people to whom I subsequently spoke knew either, for subsequently speak with them I did.
You see, the problem wasn’t fixed. I don’t know how brain dead the AppleCare guys must have been that day, but the computer came back with exactly the same problem as before. I turned it on, put it to sleep, tried to wake it up ten minutes later, and it wouldn’t. Slightly peeved, I called Apple again. More tests, more explaining, they agreed to take it back yet again, upgraded to same-day air shipping because it was the second time on the same issue and third time recently. I had the computer back two days later, with a new battery, of all things, and the SAME DAMN PROBLEM. Again, I redundantly reiterate: how brain-dead do you have to be to replace the battery, which is clearly working fine, and then not notice that the problem is still there?
I called Apple yet again, seriously peeved at this point. The MacBook Pro specialist I speak to says that he’s fixed this problem for many people before, and keeps going on and on about fond conflicts. We resolve font conflicts, delete caches, remove startup items, and nothing helps. He finally gives in and says that Apple will replace my computer with an equivalent or newer model (yipee!). Unfortunately, computer replacements start with me shipping out my computer, and end with them shipping the new one, and I can’t afford to be without a computer for that long, especially this close to the end of the year with project due dates rolling in. So I’m going to wait until after my projects and papers are done before sending it in. I’ll keep you posted on how that goes.
I’m working on a really cool project for ASAP. We have a server for New Media, and all the New Media students have accounts on it. It gives them 1 GB of space for miscellaneous New Media projects. Together with Joe Fasulo, I’m building a system for new users to sign up. It consists of an account request form, a confirmation email, a database, a web admin interface, and a lot of scripts to glue it all together. Joe and I are collectively learning HTML, CSS, and PHP (all of which I already knew in some capacity), Perl, MySQL, shell, LDAP, and OS X Server. It’s been a great learning experience. Even better, I’m doing it as my final project for NMD 102 (Fundamentals of Information Systems), so I’m getting paid to do school work and getting credit for paid work! It only worked out that way because my teacher is my boss and he said I could.
I’ve also got two papers due in a few days (I’d better get started!). One is for NMD 102, due around the same time as the project. The topic is emerging technologies and their relationship to New Media, so I’m doing a paper on multi-touch, the technology that brought you the iPhone and Microsoft Surface. The second is for Honors. I’m doing a (possibly collaborative) paper on God’s committing of the seven deadly sins and disobeying of the ten commandments in the Bible. It started as a short writing assignment, and my preceptor suggested that I expand it into my term paper.
I just signed up for a summer photography class. It’s Photo Reporting and Storytelling, a three-credit New Media class taught by Bill Kuykendall, my Intro to New Media professor from last semester. You can see a picture of him in the photo gallery here. The class is May 18–30 at the University of Maine Machias campus. It’s a two-week intensive and immersive photography class, and we need a few more people to sign up to take it. If you know anyone who’d be interested, please have them contact me or the New Media department!
I’ve also compiled my wish-list of classes for next year, and if all goes well I’ll be taking them. You’ll find out more when I do, but here’s a preliminary list:
- HON 211—the continuation of my Honors class.
- HON 180—A Cultural Odyssey. I go to arts and culture events throughout the semester, then write a short response to each one. I’d be going to the events anyway, so I might as well get credit.
- COS 200—Intro to C++ Programming. A staple computer programming class. It should expand my understanding of how application development and organization works.
- NMD 205—Intro to Variable Media. This is one of those wishy-washily-named New Media classes that could be just about anything. You’ll hear more next year.
- NMD-245—Film Criticism and Theory. Those of you who were fellow Film Club members at Portland High would fit right in. Apparently, we watch movies once a week, discuss them, and write criticism.
I’ll try to make the posts a little more frequent, but as I come up on the end of the year I’m going to be quite busy with projects, work, and packing (awk!). Next post, I’ll tell you about the soft box I built for my camera flash, a photo shoot that I did, and anything else that comes to mind. And for those of you who didn’t see it, I now have a system for notifying you by email when I write a new post. All you have to do is sign up for an account (details in the previous post, and I won’t give out your information), and you’ll be notified whenever there’s a new one.