Categories
geek

help?

we’re back in business, baby! :)
oh yeah!
dear people of the world,
after a strange (to say the least) first diagnosis of “everything inside the case is broken”, i’m looking into a second opinion on the ibook issue, somewhere else.

do you have any experience or piece of advice you’d like to share on this whole “iBook reparation” matter?
anything goes, from how you got the data out of your disk to links or piece-by-piece replacement tutorials. please mail me or just leave a not on the comments.
thanks!

Categories
in china

china, still.

“The cities of China are currently in a state of tremendous flux. A whirlwind of modernization is destroying centuries-old traditions and urban structures, replacing them by a new urban substance determined by the unparalleled intensity of economic production and economic laws.

Rem Koolhaas describes the current urban development in China as “PhotoShop urbanism” – the combination of everything with everything else. He observes the free manipulation of the urban substance, regardless of all the inhibitions that traditionally organize architectural and public space. These are the same traditions that we are gradually shaking off here in Europe – in the West – as is indicated by our increasing privatization of the public domain. But what does the Chinese experience have to tell us? Are new, unanticipated possibilities for the public space emerging? In the view of Rem Koolhaas, we cannot expect any revolutionary, new ideas from the West; for that, you have to be in China. Does this mean that there are no parallels to be drawn between the present situation in China and the crisis of public space in the West? If there are, can we learn from the Chinese developments how to cope with the public domain in an ever more strongly commercialized urbanism?”

(from here)

Categories
geek

earth to squarepants

(or the new story behind the name of this website)

last tuesday i was working and as always, i had my ibook on one of the desks i use at work. on the other one there’s a big desktop pc, with lots of software… all in dutch. that was the main reason i was using the ibook, it made it easier for me to work if i understand where the tools and functions are.
then, in the same table of the ibook, there was a cup of coffee and milk (what we ironically call a “meia de leite”). can you guess where this is going already?
that was basically it. i knocked the coffe down, close enough to bath4 the ibook with about half of it (we’re talking about dutch coffee here, the full cup kind, not the short mediterranean expresso variety).

fast forward the images of ana running to the kleenex box, screaming “ohnãonãonãonãonão”, force shutting the computer, removing the battery, the keyboard, the memory and cleaning as much liquid as she could off the soaked logic board, while secretly praying to the apple god for a little miracle.
15 minutes later, having cleaned what i thought was the most of it, i tried to start it again. and it worked. for about 3 minutes. after that, the screen started to flicker a bit and then the whole thing just died.

that was it. i took it to the nearest apple center and, though i still don’t have a definitive answer on what caused the problem, they seem to think i damaged the motherboard.

can you see where i went wrong there?
besides the whole leaving-a-full-cup-of-coffee-by-the-computer thing. :| (and yes, i do realise how stupid* that was…)
well, impatient and atheist, i didn’t really wait for a miracle, did i? i read afterwards that i should have waited at least a full day before turning it back on again, to allow it to dry and not cause any short circuits in the board. i guess i panicked.

if it happens to you, at least i hope now you know what to do. i wish i had read it somewhere before. :| it’s one of those things…

* stupidity is a clause a simple warranty won’t cover. i checked.

Categories
just life

4! = 4*3*2*1 = 24

yesterday was my birthday. i’m 24 now… and it feels great. i love birthdays! friends get together, a lot of hugging and smiling all-day-long… and i got to do it all weekend, in a almost two-day celebration. what can i say? it was perfect.
i feel so warm inside, and so spoiled by everybody… thank you guys! :)

besides, 24 is such a round and perfect number, and generally i get a much better feeling out of even numbers, so i believe this year is going to be great.

ps – despite the loss of the ibook. but more on that later.

Categories
geek

i asked whether it could be fixed and he shruged his shoulders and looked at me.

“what did you have on it? anything important?”
“everything. and a chinese ally macbeal dvd”.