Last August, when the flash drive died in a 2012 MacBook Air, I figured that I should replace it myself. Unfortunately, the Apple warranty had just expired — but this was a chance to expand the flash drive from 64 GB to 128 GB. The repair / upgrade set me back about $200 for parts. I did it myself. I considered the issue resolved, but then I read about Apple’s MacBook Air Flash Storage Drive Replacement Program. Apparently, this wasn’t just some random issue. It also looked like Apple was giving refunds. Would I be getting cash back from Apple?
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With OS X 10.9 (Mavericks) just around the corner, today I fixed a problem that originated with an earlier version of the Mac operating system. There’s a cool RSS screensaver by Apple — the RSS Visualizer — but it wasn’t included with the latest version of OS X. I like RSS. Unlike Facebook, Twitter or other social networking websites, RSS doesn’t [usually] require logging in. RSS is less invasive. Apple’s RSS Visualizer was one of the more sexy ways to view an RSS feed, so I reinstalled it. The process was bit involved.
Mobile phones are becoming more like personal assistants. With an iPhone I can schedule appointments, check my messages and do other related tasks. Although, is a smartphone good enough to replace a human worker? Computers are just machines. They don’t really care about you. They just process data. They don’t sense emotion… or do they?! Recently, I had a stunning realization that my iPhone could know my overall mood. That information is stored with recently used “emoji” icons.
I’ve been using computers at home since the days of the TRS-80 Color Computer II. And despite all of decades that have passed since then, I haven’t been serious about backing up my data — not until this weekend. Oh sure, there were some files that I may have copied to another spot. But for the most part, I was taking risks. In the blink of an eye, thousands of photos, my books, my game projects, applications and many computer resource could have been lost. I understood the danger, but I didn’t really care. It was such a hassle to manage. But with Apple’s Time Machine, the process is simplified.
These days, there seems to be three main food groups of technology — Apple, Google and Microsoft. With all of the various computer screens that I stare at these days, it’s usually powered by one of those three companies. That’s a far cry from earlier in the millennium, back when I was mostly a Windows guy. I remember the days when Internet Explorer drove +90% of website traffic. Today, Microsoft is struggling to stay relevant in an Android and iOS world. The October release of Windows 8 is an attempt to remedy that.