As I mentioned, I had a hard drive failure which resulted in a lot of losses. It was absolutely brutal.

My last back up was October 21st, before my trip to Costa Rica. And then last Wednesday, so around the 14th of November is when my hard drive crashed. The hard drive is beyond repair - the only way to get the data out of there was by a very expensive data recovery service ($400~$500 or so for a physical extraction of the magnetic disk and so forth), and by the time I was set up on my new Macbook Pro while waiting to see if the tech support could extract the files through external mounting via USB, I had re-done a lot of my work. So it wasn’t worth it for me to pay that much money for recovery services.

A great lesson I learned is to back up my data more frequently, because you never know what may happen. My new Macbook Pro has the Time Machine feature, so the backup worries are now over. The Apple Website has more about the Time Machine.

Many of you probably remember the post I wrote about iFags after I returned my first Macbook Pro in March. This time I decided to give another shot at the Macbook Pro, and with the new OSX Leopard System in place, it proved to be a much nicer journey.

I will still state that there are a lot of things that are very frustrating or not very functional when it comes to Macs, but there are also pros in how the desktop and icons work, how stable it runs Illustrator and Photoshop, and also the Time Machine automatic backup feature, so the balance is tipping this time in favour of the Mac as my main unit.

I still miss Office 2007 dearly, and I am trying to get a hold of a version of Windows Vista so I can use Office 2007 through VM Ware Fusion, which is the software that allows me to run a separate instance of Windows (or any other OS) embedded within the OSX system as I work. So that means I can switch between Mac Apps and Windows Apps instantly, or even have a window of a Window (play on words!!) running at the same time, as if it were a whole program on its own.

I still run my Windows XP computer at my home office which I adore dearly.

As I had no hope of reviving my laptop on my own, I took my laptop to Futureshop to see if they can use their equipment to extract the data out of the hard drive. Turns out the hard drive itself is damaged, and even getting the data out of the thing will take overnight. So I was forced to make a quick decision on another laptop as i desperately need one.

Here’s how the problem occurred most recently - Windows Vista is not quite the most stable thing you can imagine, and on every sleep-wake cycle due to shutting the laptop lid, it takes a very long time to load. On Wednesday I was using my laptop on the road, and as I opened it, it was quite slow to come back up to speed. Anyhow, I used it with Firefox (which by the way has glitches while running on Vista) to browse some pages, and even though I had no other major applications running (such as Dreamweaver or Photoshop) it just decided to do a full out crash. The mouse pointer stopped moving altogether. So I had to press the power button to do a force re-boot.

It didn’t quite boot. I kept getting either a black screen, or a flashing blue-screen-of-death before it went into a re-start on its own. The furthest I would get to was the green loading bar graphic, and then that was it.

My friend has finally convinced me, again, to try out a Mac, as they are much more stable, and won’t have the crashing issues, and I won’t have to do the re-install-the-OS routine every few months to keep it running fast and new (I’ve been doing that always with my Window XP/Vista laptops).

Last time I tried out a Macbook Pro, it didn’t work out so well as I got very frustrated with the whole new interface that was not as technical as I am used to.  This time, however, with the new release of the Leopard, which carries Bootcamp as part of its core to allow running Windows on the Macbook, I hope to have better results.

With the data recovery cost, the extended warranty (after having 2 major laptop problems in less than 2 years, I was inclined to get it), the data extraction fee at a discount, my tab at Futureshop came to almost $3,000 today.

It was a painful two days being without my data or a laptop. Right now I am writing this post on my shiny new Macbook Pro 15.4 with the 2.2 ghz Intel Duo Core and 2Gb of RAM, along with an N-class wireless adapter, topped off by an illuminated keyboard underneath the glossy LED screen.

Wish me luck.

My laptop is not booting up properly and after trying everything I could imagine - attempt to boot it under safe mode, attempt to use ERD Commander for recovery, etc., I gave up and it’s now in the London Drugs computer department to have its data extracted. Once the data is extracted I will be restoring the laptop to factory condition and start over again. But this is a major pain in the ass, honestly.

I am currently able to use only my Windows XP machine which sits at my desk and never leaves (despite the fact that it is a laptop, it has a dead screen, so it’s hooked up to an external monitor). This is the machine that I use for programming of John Chow’s TTZ Media Adserver/Catalog project, so at least I will be getting some work done. Hopefully by tomorrow they will have my laptop data restored, and by tomorrow night I will have full access of my regular machine again.

The iPhone, upon release, has been a great hit in the United States, and experts expect it will hit Canada before Xmas. It will probably be #1 on people’s Xmas lists! However there is a way to get it before that, because internet marketing blogger Gary Lee is giving away a free iPhone (visit this link to see how you can win) as part of his blog promotion scheme. According to Gary, the prize include a Brand New 8GB Apple iPhone + Fancy iPhone Bag that it came in + Free Shipping anywhere in the world (that fedex delivers to). It’s still sealed and in pristine condition!

A short note on Gary - he not only runs his blog, but he also runs a golf equipment website called bunker’s paradise (check it out if you golf), and has some sort of connection with PinkDeals.net which offers free online coupons and discount codes for various services.

There is the iPhone, in case you wanted to look at it and drool for a few minutes. Although the iPhone does sell in the USA, it’s still not in Canada (which is where the majority of my readers come from, according to Google Analytics), and this should be a great opportunity to get one before everybody else.

I already wrote about how space-conscious my home office setup is, and here are some additions to it. After I went through troubles with my old laptop screen, I purchased a new HP laptop, and the old one never got fixed. The new one runs Windows Vista, so testing in IE6 is out of the option unless I run some sort of a virtual machine, which would be just another resource-drain.

Anyhow, the solution was to run both my laptops, connected to a big monitor while I’m at home. This had a few loops to jump :

• How do I set it up so I can easily switch between the two computers on just 1 monitor? Having 2 monitors on my desk is completely out of the option due to lateral space limitations.
• How do I set up space for 2 laptops to be stacked up, while at least one of them can be set up and removed on a constant basis? The old broken one can stay, but the new one has to come with me all the time. Also, once again, space was a factor.
• It has to be easy for me to connect USB ports and what not easily.

So I started looking for options. I went to some stores to look for a shelving system that can help me out, but none of them fit the profile. Most of them were too big, too tall, and after stacking 2 of them the monitor on top ended up sitting too high.

I custom-designed the following shelves by going to Home Depot, having the wood pieces cut to my trim, and then using my hand-drill and some wood screws, I crafted these 17″ X 10″ X 1.75″ shelves. These shelves worked out perfectly - it gave less than 1/4″ room on the sides from my laptops, and in terms of height they had about 1/4″ of room on top of the laptops, which is perfect.

For the panel shelving I used some sort of compacted chip-board thingy, so it’s thin yet durable. Actual plywood was too thick - it would have added an extra 3/4 inch to the total height, raising the 22″ monitor too high.

So that took care of the space problem of having 2 laptops stacked with a monitor on top. This doesn’t take up any more space than it did when I opened my laptop and put it on my desk.

To enable switching between the 2 computers with a snap, I purchased a Belkin Flip. It’s a Y junction circuitry unit that couples 2 USB ports, 1 RGB Monitor output, and a speaker output to 1 input towards the devices.

By gently tapping on this switch, which is right in front of my monitor, the monitor view/mouse/keyboard switches over between the 2 computers in a snap.

As you can see in the following photo, the shelves I designed are wide open on all fronts, so that I can plug in the USB ports, use the CD/DVD ROMs.

The one thing I’d do differently next time is to add another inch in depth, because some of the components need me to push the laptops back and forth to fit it in, which isn’t so bad after all.

The last time I purchased a refilled toner for a laser printer (a nice big HP printer that cost a lot of money), it had color streaks all along the side, sort of like a rainbow spectrum going through it. I printed dozens of pages, and shook the toners again and again to rectify the printing quality but it did not do it.

A while ago I took a shot at those ink refill kits for inkjet cartridges.

Well, the ink was crap. The ink would dry on the surface of my cartridge, so every time I wanted to print a document I had to give it a moist wipe and then print within a minute, otherwise it would dry up again. It was ridiculous.

Bottom line? I will never buy any kind of refilled toners/cartridges again. Of course, not all of them are defective, but it’s just not worth having to deal with the hassle for a small amount of savings.

Yesterday and today I went through some Bluetooth headsets. And, yes, just like last time with my DVD player and laptop, I went through the purchase-and-exchange routine to find the one that I liked. I’m very picky when it comes to electronics, so that’s to be expected. And since I’m like that, I make my purchases at the larger stores like Futureshop or Bestbuy. I don’t care so much about the somewhat higher prices than online stores or the wholesalers like ATIC in Vancouver. ATIC has a horrible return/exchange policy and the staff are very unfriendly when it happens. I never shop there anymore - I can afford big-chain prices!

The first one I tried was a Motorola H500. This was done simply because my friend has some kind of Motorola bluetooth headset, and I never have trouble talking to him. So I figured Motorola’s bluetooth items would be good. This cost me $89.99 CAD + taxes.

I’m not even going to discuss the ergonomics, button layout, comfort, etc. My voice appeared choppy on the other end. I tried talking to other people with cell phones, as well as through houselines. I could hear them crystal clear, but they couldn’t hear my properly. After a few tries, I abandoned it.

I read some reviews of the motorola brands. I wasn’t going to spend too much money on a headset, so I didn’t even bother with the higher-end Motorolas. Instead, i found an item that Futureshop had for regular $79.99 but on sale for $39.99. I checked reviews on it, and surprisingly the reviews were more positive, and there was very little, if not zero, complaints about the transmission quality.

This was the Plantronics Explorer 320. This model was surprisingly satisfactory, and I had no troubles with it whatsoever!

The connection was established with just 1 try, without delays of any sort. It was recognized and connected in no time. According to the package it has up to 10 hours of talk time, so that should be more than enough. Most rechargeable headsets cap at 10 hours of talk time estimated. There are some models that run off AAA batteries that you need to replace on a regular basis, but they last 30 hours per battery. I personally wouldn’t go for that - charging up the headset at night is easier than having to buy batteries at all times.

The talk quality was reasonable with very little static, and so far there has not been any complaints about bad talk quality.

Also, the ear-hook is very soft and comfortable, yet I did not feel it was unstable. It held onto my ear without discomfort, and at times I didn’t even notice I was wearing it.

There is 1 switch on it that can be toggled up/down for volume, and pressed in for calling/hanging up. I find it to be very handy, and because the button knob is protruded, it’s very easy to find while you’re talking on it.

Overall, this is perhaps the best value I got for $39.99 in a very long time, and I am very happy with it.