August 12, 2008 – 11:11 pm
Everybody knows that you shouldn’t keep beverages too close to the computer, right? The reason is because eventually, your toddler is going to run up to give you a big hug before she leaves for daycare, and is going to bump your leg. Your leg, in turn, is going to bump the TV tray where you set your coffee cup. The cup is going to tip over and spill several ounces of coffee directly onto the keyboard of your Macbook. And as a consequence, the Macbook is going to cease to function.
Yes, that’s what happened here at Castle Campbell last Friday morning. I tried to disconnect power and battery as quickly as possible, tried using a blowdryer on it, sat it out in direct sunlight for about an hour, and continued to let it air out for quite a while after that. [...]
By Dougal
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Also posted in Hardware, Linux, Personal, Software, Tech
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Tagged Apple, Coffee, Hardware, Linux, mac, macbook, metacity, repair, Ubuntu, window managers, xfce, xfce4
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September 18, 2006 – 4:41 pm
For quite a while, I had considered nuking Windows from my laptop and starting fresh. A few weeks ago, I finally took the plunge. I started with a full backup (two, actually — a file-by-file backup, and a partition image). I toyed with the idea of dual-booting, but finally decided that I’d try to go completely non-Windows, and see how well I could get by.
After hearing one of my co-workers rave about how impressed he was with Fedora Core, I was going to give that a try. But the DVD he burned for me wouldn’t install for some reason. [...]
By Dougal
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Also posted in Browsers, Linux, Open Source, Tech
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Tagged Firefox, InternetExplorer, Laptops, Microsoft, Perl, PHP, Ruby, Ubuntu, Unix, Windows
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Sun Microsystems has finally released the source code for their Solaris operating system over at OpenSolaris.org. They had previously made the binary version of the OS available to developers for free, but the availability of the source code is a new step. I haven’t used Solaris, myself, but I know that there are a lot of supporters (and detractors) out there.
They are using a license called CDDL, which is a spinoff of the MPL. [...]
I hadn’t been keeping too close an eye on this, because we’ve got higher priorities right now than buying new computers. But there have been rumors lately about some sort of deal between Apple and Intel. The speculations mainly fell into two camps: 1) Apple would release a new Pentium-based Macintosh computer, or 2) Intel would begin producing a new PowerPC compatible CPU.
Steve Jobs just dropped the bomb: Apple to Use Intel Microprocessors Beginning in 2006
Basically, it seems, Apple has been disappointed with IBM’s inability to deliver a G5 processor that could break the 3GHz barrier or with heat characteristics that would be usable for laptops. [...]
I got my first BSOD under Windows XP today. It’s a little darker blue, and the font was different than blue screens under Windows NT. I would have taken a screenshot, but MY COMPUTER WAS CRASHED.
