Wasted Continuum

I’ve had major laptop issues over the weekend. Basically, my laptop has been turning off randomly and having issues booting up. I’ve been backing up my data most of last week. Today I was finally able to reinstall XP back onto it. It’s running fine so far. I have already partitioned my drive this time so that I can just re-image it next time instead of re-installing everything.

Moral of the story: backup your data. I’ve said this before. Data is never safe if it exists in one place.

I haven’t been blogging the last few days because I’ve been in the process of backing up my laptop. I do 95% of my blogging on my laptop and it’s been acting funky. I did back up my essential items, but now my laptop is being completely uncooperative. I have to try a couple more things to see if I can recover some of my non-essential but good to have things. This is why everyone should back up your data to at least two locations. Ideally, one copy will be off-site, but that can annoying. Hopefully I can get my laptop back to 100% by this week. I have a bad feeling that there may be a hardware issue. That will suck.

I just received my new 500GB drive and a new external enclosure today. Right now I’m backing up all my data on my laptop. Hopefully I’ll have it cleaned out and I’ll reinstall everything by this weekend. I think I might put XP back on there, ghost the drive, then try a linux install. So if I don’t like it, I can put XP back and not have my laptop down for too long. The 500GB is going into my desktop. I’m trying to migrate all my work/project files onto my desktop from my laptop. My hope is to have my laptop be for my minor tasks like surfing, emailing, listening to music and watching movies. All I know is that I have a lot of organizing to do. That includes my desktop too. My data is scattered. I need to reorganize it soon before it gets worse.

MacWorld is here again. Steve Jobs will be taking the stage for his keynote Tuesday morning. The big banner this year says “2008. There’s Something in the Air.” This has obviously sent everyone into mad speculation mode. Google that phrase if you want to read through all the rumors.


Here’s my prediction of what will be announced:

• An ultra-mobile MacBook (9 to 5 Mac thinks this will be the MacBook Air)
• Updates to iTunes and iPhone
• Cinema displays that look more like iMacs with buil-in iSight

What I really want besides the ultra-mobile MacBook is a 64GB or greater iPod Touch. That’s not likely, but it’s what I wanted for ‘07 MacWorld which never happened.

Nothing unexpected here. But it’s officially announced now. The big question is what is going to be announced. The only rumor going around is an ultra mobile laptop. That bodes well for me. I want apple to announce one so that I don’t end up buying the Asus Eee PC. As much as I want to buy that right now, I feel like if I do, Apple will announce the perfect laptop for me and I’d be kicking myself again. I did buy the last-gen Nano a month before the current one was released. I’m not too pissed at that, but a notebook would be different. Even if Jobs doesn’t announce a ultra mobile, an updated MacBook would work too. Something a little lighter and more powerful than the current generation. It’s time to update that line. I don’t really give a crap about a new iPhone, unless they release a 64GB, 3G, unlocked version. The big keynote is on January 15th, 2008. I’ll wait and see. It’s weird how there’s so little rumors flying about.

One of the biggest topics in the computing world is the newly released Asus Eee PC notebook computer. Everyone and their moms has written up something about it. So why the frickin’ buzz you ask? If you don’t know what the Eee is, it is an ultra-portable 7″ laptop. What’s cool about it is that it is a flash NAND based computer. Right now, there is a 4GB and a 8GB model. It’s also preloaded with Linux. It has a built-in camera and wireless b/g. It’s installed with OpenOffice, Skype and other software. The Eee is aimed for someone who’s on the go and does not need a laptop with tons of memory. Instead, you can throw it in your bag, go to a local wifi coffee house and blog about pointless issues for four hours before you have to plug in the tiny adapter that it comes with. The thing that gets most people excited is the fact that it costs only $399 (4GB).

So all of that would make a lot of geeks run out to get one. What’s got my attention is this little article that was posted a couple days ago on Uneasysilence. Someone actually loaded OS X Leopard on one and posted the tutorial for it. For $399, I’m really getting tempted. I guess I should wait until MacWorld Expo in January to see if a new MacBook is announced before I jump the gun.