Complaint 1: “What happened to the rounded corners?
I can appreciate a gratuitous rounded edge as much as the next designer, but let’s break this down. What happens when you eliminate all edges from a cube? Answer: you blur the boundaries between the edges. In other words, you start to lose the sides. The old design really just has a front side. The sides, top, bottom, and back are all a perfectly rounded curve. That would be fine if this object could exist completely without buttons, speakers, ports, or a headphone jack. These are all areas where flat objects are coming into contact with a rounded surface. This causes design flaws. For example…

Plug your headphones into your iPhone and run your finger across the area where the two meet. Your finger (and jeans, or shirt, or anything else that comes in contact with this point) will catch on the edge. Functionally, this is dangerous because it increases the likelihood that your headphones will get disconnected. Visually, it creates a hole that exposes the underside of the headphone cord.

The same can be said about the buttons. Have you felt the vibrate on/off switch? Feel it. Right now. It’s pretty rough. The same with the main power button on the top. Being placed on the highest point of the rounded edge only accentuates this because it puts itself out there just begging to get bumped or catch on something.

Connect your ipod to the usb cord. Just look at it. Does that connection look well designed to you? No, it looks clunky and awkward. Very unApple when you think about it.

Flat sides on the new design addresses these issues. Now things can connect to it snugly and firmly. It doesn’t have to apologize for having a top and bottom, they are right where they should be. It doesn’t have to apologize for having buttons now, either. Having curves for the sake of being round isn’t enough to make something well-designed. Things need to have purpose, and now they do.

Complaint 2: “Why two buttons for volume up/down? I thought Apple was anti-buttons.”
I would be surprised if anyone really loves the current unibutton. If you do, please explain it to me. Currently you have an awkward large button thing that to my touch doesn’t feel that great. Apple has alway been great about getting buttons to feel really great. They have the right amount of resistance, and the feedback is pleasing. I can’t say I get that from the current button. Obviously, I don’t know what the new buttons will feel like, but they look right. They are small, slightly raised, and I bet they feel more like a button than the current version.

Not sure about the vibrate on/off button. This seems like it should be a switch, not a button. The jpg looks like a button, so I am not sure how that will work. More than anything else, this is what makes me think that this might be a prototype that could change dramatically before it hits the shelves.

Complaint 3: “I see a seem, I see a seem!”
The reason I embrace this is because I have a major complaint about the iPhone that is purely functional. I would like to know that if I needed to, I could open it up and replace the battery. I have no idea how I would crack my iPhone open without damaging it. Seeing a seem makes me think that maybe this thing could open up without damage or special tools. I kind of doubt that Apple will make it that easy, though. Wouldn’t it be great if you could upgrade your memory, swap out the battery, and replace the SIM card easily with just a small screwdriver? I would gladly accept a small seem in exchange for that functionality.

Complaint 4: “The back is plastic!”
If you look side by side, the new iPhone actually has more metal showing. The current phone has a thin aluminum rim on the front that looks more like decoration than serving any practical use. Now that the steel is firmly on the sides it has purpose. It looks like this thing is reinforced. It says that despite having a plastic back, it is solid steel all the way through. The seem actually reinforces that feeling. It makes it look solid and substantial. Would I rather it had a solid aluminum back? Well, yeah, but that isn’t a fair criticism when the existing iPhone has more plastic than this one.

So count me as one of the few who really hopes this version makes it into the hands of consumers. It will be interesting to see how this plays out…

CodeWeavers,

I was disappointed to learn that I will be charged for an upgrade from version 8.01 to 8.03 of crossover. If this had been a major new release, I could understand charging for an upgrade, but as far as I can tell the latest update is addressing compatibility and stability issues, not introducing new features. Charging for extending a license just to get minor updates is a bad business model. Before I become a very vocal and visible anti-crossover customer, I thought I would give you a chance to remedy the situation. Thanks in advance for giving me access to your product upgrade.

Adrian Hanft

Adrian,

Interesting e-mail. Its a bit early for threats, isn’t it? Before you chastise our business model, I’d ask if you know our business model? Here’s the deal. When you buy CrossOver, you are really purchasing support. With Pro and Games, you get 12 months of support. With Standard, you get six months of support. Support includes all software updates, software upgrades, and help desk support. When your time runs out, you have the option (YOUR OPTION) to renew your support. We don’t charge for any one particular update. We don’t charge for any one particular upgrade. We don’t charge for creating a help desk ticket. We package all of that into your support that expires on a specified date. When your support expires, you need to renew support regardless if the next update is major or minor. That’s our business model, and our customer tend to appreciate the way we do business.

So let me review your situation and clarify a couple of points…

1.) YOU NEVER PAID FOR CROSSOVER. You got a free subscription to CrossOver during our Lame Duck Challenge. You took advantage of our promotion, and you received one year of support. You upgraded your software accordingly from 7.2 to 8.0 so that you would have the ability to run on Snow Leopard. So to clarify, you haven’t paid for anything to date and gotten 15 months of joy from the software. And we fulfilled all our obligations as stated in this free promotion.

2.) HOW BAD OF BUSINESS CAN IT BE TO GIVE AWAY YOUR SOFTWARE? If you do decide to be very vocal and visible anti-CrossOver, I’d ask that you at least tell people that you got the software for free. That you received two minor updates and one major upgrade over the course of 15 months. Then, you threatened the company that gave you the free software and free support with bad PR when you were told it was time to pay for future support. After all, fair is fair.

3.) YOU KNEW THIS DAY WAS COMING. Everyone that took part in the Lame Duck Challenge received e-mail (most would say too much e-mail) with notices, special pricing, deal codes in regards to renewing their support. At some point (well before you tussle with Jack), you were notified that your support had expired or was about to expire. The timing of your support expiring had nothing to do with a minor upgrade to 8.0.3 and was going to happen at some point. It just so happens that your support expired on November 9, 2009.

4.) YOU NEED TO RENEW YOUR SUPPORT. The only way for you to acquire 8.0.3 (and the major 9.0 release) is to renew your support. Threatening me with being very vocal and visibly anti-CrossOver will do you no good. Actually, I find your comments to be quite incredulous considering you received the software and support for free (even more so when I go out to your website and see how you interact with your customers). Being that you have an illness that prevents you from being happy unless you are creating something, I hope that you can appreciate that for my developers to keep their hands busy and create new updates to our software they need to get paid. This is how our software improves which hopefully creates a better experience for our customers.

5.) STILL A CHANCE TO SAVE MONEY. If you wish to renew your support of CrossOver and support our business model, I’d ask you to use SPECIAL DEAL CODE: DEADDUCK this will save you 50 percent on your purchase of CrossOver Mac. That’s roughly the cost (actually a few pennies less) then what we ask people to pay to renew their annual support. For $35.00 (USD) per year or less then $3.00 (USD) per month or less the $.75 (USD) per week, you can continue to receive our software updates, software upgrades, and help desk support. And with CrossOver 9.0 scheduled to be released by March 1, 2010, you will receive one of the better software upgrades as part of this support (no additional costs to upgrade to a major release). Just enter the SPECIAL DEAL CODE in the Special Deal Box in the cart screen (has to be the cart screen) of the order process. You’ll see the discount applied before you complete your transaction.

That’s the best deal that I can provide to you. If you don’t like the deal or feel that we’re still being unreasonable, I guess I’ll read about it on your many blogs (I’d just ask for you to spell my name right… its R-A-M-E-Y (pronounced RAY-me, not RAM-ee). Thank you again for your e-mail and interesting comments. My very best regards to you (and your father and son both named Adrian).

James B. Ramey
Vice President, Sales
CodeWeavers
[edit: contact info removed]

Dear Mr. Ramee,

Thanks for the email and personal attention. My email wasn’t meant as a threat as much as an attempt to show you the mistake you were making. You may not be aware that happy customers spread the word about great products. Disappointed customers complain and promote alternatives. That’s why most companies actually care about customer satisfaction. Word of mouth has the power to sell (or slow the sale of) products.

When I first emailed you I was on the fence about CrossOver and looking for a reason to get behind it. That’s why I tried your software in the first place. And yes, I tried it for free thanks to your promotion. (Actually, a friend referred me to you because he was a impressed with the concept of CrossOver – an example of word of mouth marketing in action!) Had it not been free I wouldn’t have tried it at all. So since it was free, I tried your software. And honestly, it is okay. I use it occasionally when I need to test a website on IE and I don’t have access to a PC. If you guys work out the kinks I would probably pay for the next major release. If you can get IE8 to run I definitely will. However, I will NEVER pay for support. Most people, like me, expect software to work – without needing technical assistance. Call me crazy.

The really funny thing about your business model is that it is almost the opposite of the traditional “free trial” concept. Instead of offering an enticing sample for free that persuades potential customers to part with their money, you guys are just giving your goods away and charging people for support – banking on what I assume is your inside knowledge that most people won’t be able to get CrossOver working. Why would a company base their pricing on support as their main product? Could it be that the software is so buggy that there is more money in helping people get it working? That is the only logical conclusion I can come to.

You can run your business however you would like, but here is some free advice. I owe you after all, for the 15 months of support that I didn’t use…

1. Don’t pull the plug on legitimate customers and hold them hostage with something as minor as basic performance upgrade.

2. Dont’ charge for customer service. That’s really what your support package is (and your thorough review of my billing records will show that I used exactly zero of it!) If you are losing money because you are spending too much time helping your customers, then take the product offline and put it in beta.

3. Sell software. Your products are your most valuable product, so sell it! If people need support, sell that separately.

4. Make it easy to upgrade. The majority of your users are Mac users after all, and they are used to user-friendly software experiences.

5. And most importantly… Oops, your subscription just expired. If you would like more free advice you will have to pay me for it.

Sincerely,
Adrian3

P.S. You probably didn’t spend enough time on my website to realize that I am not selling anything there. I contribute freely to several open source projects. I alone handle all support issues for Font Burner, a free service that asks nothing in return of my users. I actually feel guilty when I am unable to serve people as well as I should – even though I owe them nothing. I would never insult my users with the type of email you sent me.

Adrian,

Sorry to lose you as a customer. Best wishes to you in all your endeavors. Thanks for the advice. My best regards.

James B. Ramey

1. Victims of Scams/Cautious Shoppers
Whenever I get ripped off, I usually use my blog as a place to vent. Several of these rants generate traffic for me because I am not the only victim in most of these cases. For example, the most popular search on my site is for “Privacy Matters Scam” which I posted over three years ago. Apparently, the fraud continues with that organization. It also looks like the Nebraska gas stations are still up to no good because people are searching for “Cost of Gas in Nebraska.”

Cautious shoppers are also finding my site as they do their homework on local companies like “Mac Shack Fort Collins.” It makes me feel good to know that my posts are more than just rants, and people are finding useful information to help them deal with bad situations.

2. Software Pirates
I was amazed by how much traffic I get from people searching for activation numbers for the Adobe Creative Suite. I wrote a post about my frustration with Adobe, but the traffic this post receives seems to be exclusively people looking for a “Photoshop CS3 Serial Number.”

3. Unique Longtail Content
Unlike the software pirates, it is reassuring that people are finding the unique content I create here on Adrian3. Searches for topics of my essays like, “What to do on your Last Day of Work,” or “How can I improve my dream memory?,” and “Where is Velveeta in the grocery store,” are evidence that their is an audience for my obscure ramblings.

If you have a blog, I would encourage you to write about your unusual, non-traditional ideas because people will find them. Common sense might tell you that a broad post that appeals to the masses would generate the most traffic, but actually the opposite is true. The reason for this is that the popular topics are also the subject of many more blogger’s posts. Competition is much higher for a post about Ashton Kutcher, than it is for a more obscure post about the Ashton Kutcher Camera.

Other longtail topics I have written about include:
iTunes Orphans (A post about how to remove orphaned iTunes Files)
Stop Motion Movie
Good mechanical pencils
MacBook Pro Crashed (I feel for these people!)

4. Original Creations
A good portion of my traffic also comes from people looking for things I have created. This is probably the most rewarding result of my traffic analysis because I really love it when my creations get seen and used. My most popular creations include:

iPhone Control Panel Plugin
Font Burner
Konami Easter Egg
Sofa Control scripts

By pure coincidence I happened to be looking at my robots.txt file last night. Actually, I didn’t even have a robots.txt file on my site. I was playing with Google’s Webmaster Tools and noticed that Google was giving errors when it read my robots.txt (which didn’t exist). I went to the address where there shouldn’t have been a file at all (http://fontburner.com/robots.txt) and saw a page of text filled with links to porn/spam sites. This sent me off on a wild goose chase to figure out how my site had been exploited.

The first place I looked was at my .htaccess file. My guess was that they were using the .htaccess file to redirect robots.txt to some other file. In my .htaccess file I noticed this code which I was pretty sure wan’t put there by me:


RewriteEngine On

RewriteRule .* http://allvideo.org.uk/in.cgi?4&parameter=sf [R,L]


The thing that threw me off was that this looks like legitimate code because the first line looks like it might be telling Google not to index the images of your site. Is this the work of a clever hacker adding decoy code before the really nasty stuff?

Deleting this code from my .htaccess file didn’t seem to affect my robots.txt file so I kept looking for a solution.

At this point I opened a ticket with MediaTemple, my web host to see if they had any advice. They responded quickly with a link to a knowledge base article called “Working with a php injected website.” This article confirmed my .htaccess suspicions and also pointed me to a line of code found in php files. Removing the .htaccess code was easy, but how do you find a line of code in the thousands of php files on a WordPress powered site?

MediaTemple also hinted at the possibility of needing to reinstall all WordPress files, something that I really didn’t want to do. I did some searching and came accross a good writeup of the situation on kyle-brady.com called “WordPress, MediaTemple, and an Injection Attack.” If you are a victim of this attack, I encourage you to read this post because it gives instructions about how to fix and identify the problem as well as many comments from other victims.

It turned out that in addition to removing the malicious code from the .htaccess file I also had to remove code from the index.php files in the root of my site. Once that was all cleared out, my robots.txt file issue was corrected. It looks like other people encountered deeper problems that affected the links in blog posts. Those people had to recreate their recent blog posts manually. Yuck.

This whole ordeal has left me feeling violated and unconfident about both WordPress and MediaTemple. If someone can add code to your .htaccess and your index.php files, that is a major hack. I feel lucky that they didn’t do more harm than they did because it seems like if you can hack those files you could easily take a site down or worse.

I am unsure who is actually to blame for this exploit, if anyone is. I heave read that MediaTemple blames WordPress and WordPress blames MediaTemple. There are reports that Drupal sites have also been exploited, so the problem isn’t limited to WordPress only. WordPress has released an update in the last week, but I don’t see any evidence that this issue was addressed in the latest security fix.

MediaTemple has told me that they changed all affected sites passwords for FTP. They also said that they scanned their servers and removed the malicious code. This is a confusing statement because neither of these things appears to have been done in my case. My FTP password still worked, and unless I removed the code before they did, they didn’t remove it from my site.

The good news is that the issue is (hopefully) behind me. If you are hosted on MediaTemple, I would advise you to take a look at your robots.txt (even if you don’t have one) because if I hadn’t noticed it I never would have known my site was infected. You may be a victim of the hack and not even know it.

Easter Egg Plugin

I am proud to introduce my latest WordPress Plugin. This one is called “Konami Easter Egg” and it makes it easy for anyone to create custom easter eggs on any WordPress powered website. If you aren’t quite sure what an easter egg is, let me backup and give you a little history lesson. Easter eggs are hidden secrets that can be found in movies, websites, books, Tivo remote controls, and pretty much anything where the creator has hidden secrets. They are called “easter eggs” because they are hidden treasures that you have to find. The creators of these things often hide them as a wink to other people who know the secret code.

One of the most famous easter eggs was created by video game maker Konami in 1988 when they hid a code in their Contra game that allowed the player to gain 30 extra lives. The code was entered by pushing a sequence of buttons on their controller. The code was “up up down down left right left right b a start select.”

The Konami code has since been used in countless games and has transcended into popular culture. Most recently, the code has been added to Facebook with “start select” being replaced by “enter.” There is even a website dedicated to documenting all the websites that use the Konami code, http://konamicodesites.com/.

I have always been intrigued by easter eggs and have long wanted to be able to add hidden things to websites that I make. When I learned about a javascript file called konami-js available on Google Code I realized that I could make a WordPress plugin for creating secret codes that reveal hidden messages on a website.

My plugin will hopefully appear in the WordPress plugin directory soon, but if you would like to test it out ahead of time, please contact me and I will send you a demo.

The Konami Easter Egg plugin is available now through the WordPress Plugin Directory. Here are the installation instructions:

Click here to view a screenshot of the settings page of the Konami Easter Egg Plugin.

konami easter egg screenshot

Installation
Installing Konami Easter Egg is very easy and do not require any template modification. Just follow these steps :

1. Upload the folder ‘easter_egg’ to the ‘/wp-content/plugins/’ directory.

2. Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress.

3. After activating the plugin you should see “Easter Egg” in the sidebar under “Settings.”

4. *IMPORTANT* Before the easter eggs will appear it is important that you enter the name of the outer most Div tag used in your theme templates. This can be found by viewing the source code of a page on your site. The first Div after the will look something like “<div id=”wrapper”>”. Take the name of this div (in this case it would be “wrapper” and enter it in the settings page for the plugin.

5. Enter the YouTube code of the video you would like to show.  Change the “key” if you want a unique key combination to unlock the easter egg. Change the message to say something unique. Customize the CSS to change the appearance of your Easter Egg as desired.

6. Congratulations, you did it!

By the way, I wonder what would happen if you entered the Konami code right now. Only one way to find out!

Once I knew something very serious was wrong with my MacBook, the first thing I did was visit the Mac Shack website. Compared to the Apple website, the Mac Shack’s website looks, well, kind of like a PC. (I would love to redesign the Mac Shack’s website, but that’s a whole other story.) So, I got the phone number from the website and gave them a call. I talked to someone from the Boulder store who was very helpful. I explained the problem with my computer being stuck in a startup chime loop. He said it could be a logic board issue, a diagnosis that turned out to be correct. He recommended that I have them send the computer to Apple for me because they have an “Apple Mail-In Service” where they will fix anything for $399 if your computer is in good condition. Since a replacement logic board replacement typically costs over $1000 it is a great deal.

So I took my 17-inch MacBook Pro to the Fort Collins Mac Shack on Wednesday, March 11. I talked to the manager C.J. and he also confirmed that it could be a logic board issue, but said he would run some tests before he sent it to Apple. The Mac Shack employees look like they could be stand-ins for the “Mac” guy on the commercials. That’s not a diss necessarily, I just think it is just kind of funny. Compared to the tightly branded robots you get at the Apple store it is a noticeable contrast.

Anyway, I had to agree to pay $79 for labor for them to diagnose the problem. He explained that this would go towards the repair if I decide to have Mac Shack fix the problem. I left my laptop with C.J. expecting to get a call from him on Thursday or Friday with a diagnosis of the problem.

At this point in my review I should mention that I am what you might call a “squeaky wheel.” I am not rude or anything, but I will call to get an update every day and closely monitor the progress of repairs. So that’s what I did. By the time I got my computer back, I was on a first name basis with C.J. and Sky, the other person who was working on my laptop. They were patient and responsive overall, despite how long it took to get my computer back.

I called on Thursday and was told my computer hadn’t been looked at yet. I called on Friday and was told the same thing. They said they might work on it on Saturday even though they typically don’t work on the weekend. They must be really busy. I called on Monday and my computer was supposedly on the list to be looked at in the afternoon. I called at the end of the day and they had supposedly started looking at my computer. The next day I called again and the problem was still unknown. On Wednesday I was told that the problem was either the logic board or the left IO board. I am not sure what that part was, but since it was much cheaper than a new logic board it was worth a try. Mac Shack ordered the part and I was back to waiting.

I continued to call daily and I think they must have started to recognize my number because I would get put on hold and the Mac Shack would never come back. Another time it sounded like they picked up the phone and then hung up. When the part arrived, they replaced it but I was told it didn’t fix the problem. They advised me to send it to Apple. I had the option of letting Mac Shack backup my data or risk Apple reinstalling the system and wiping out everything. I had a Time Machine backup that was about a month old, so I saved the $100 it would have cost for the backup. If I remember correctly, this was March 20, so it was about ten days from the time I dropped my computer off.

With my computer in Apple’s hands, I still called daily to check on the status of my order. Again I was put on hold quite a bit and was hung up on once more. Finally Apple updated their status on my machine to say that they had ordered a new logic board. That seems strange, as you would think Apple would keep most parts in stock. On April 1 I was told that my computer had arrived and I could pick it up. Luckly, this wasn’t an April fool’s joke.

The total time it took was 21 days. That seems like a long time, but there is good news. The total cost for the replacement of the logic board was $426. This is the cost of Apple’s mail-in service plus tax. That may seem like a lot, but I was not charged for Mac Shack’s time to diagnose the problem. If I had paid for a new logic board it would have been well over $1000. Additionally, I was not charged for the labor or parts when Mac Shack replaced my left IO board. My bill could easily have been $1500 or more. Another way to put that in perspective, the cost of AppleCare (Apple’s extended warranty) would have cost me over $349 for one year. You get a year warranty with the computer, if I remember correctly, and AppleCare would kick in when that runs out. My computer was almost two years old, So I would be about ready to pay another $349 in a couple months. Luckily, I never buy warranties. My advice is don’t buy Apple’s warranty (or any warrantee for that matter). Instead, put that money aside in case the unlikely happens and your logic board fails. Take it to Mac Shack and have them send it to Apple for you. It will save you in the long run. That is of course if you can afford to be without your laptop for three weeks. Man, that was tough…

So I stopped by Best Buy today to see what is on the market for new laptops. I don’t think I could bring myself to use Windows, so I was looking with the plan of running Linux or maybe try to get Leopard to run on it.

As I walked from laptop to laptop I have to admit I was really disappointed. Aside from cheap price tags, there wasn’t anything that appealed to me. The specs of almost all of them were well beyond what I probably need in terms of storage and processing speed. Computers are so fast and have so much storage that you don’t really have to count gigabytes or processor speed like you used to. So what does that leave a person who is shopping for a computer?

Put simply, it is all about design. I want a computer that has been built with attention to detail. It doesn’t have to have Apple’s every-square-inch-has-thought-behind-it level of design, but it has to be a joy to use. It can’t have flaws that show that the people making the computer didn’t have me in mind when they built it.

I was a graphic designer for five years in the RV industry. If you know anything about RVs you know that this is an industry with very little differentiation between brands. It is hard to tell a Winnebago RV from a Fleetwood. The things that pass for innovations in the RV industry are quickly cannibalized and copied by competitors. All the products are basically the same, all purchasing parts from the same vendors. That’s how I felt in the laptop aisle. It was really hard to tell one brand of laptop from another. The same design flaws existed in pretty much every PC. I am talking about attention to detail: seams everywhere, flimsy plastic, non-intuitive keyboards, clunky buttons, cheap materials, screen glare, awkward textures, etc.

The thing that struck me as I evaluated the PC products was that I would rather have one of the generic PCs than the ones that tried to stand out from the crowd. The few computers that were a little different weren’t better. For example, the HP laptops now have a reflective metal keyboard and case. On the one hand, this sets it apart from the other laptops, but it doesn’t make it any better. The reflective surface is distracting and gets covered in dirty fingerprints almost instantly.

Another brand emphasized big woofer-looking speakers. Again, the design was different, but not better. Another was covered in an interesting pattern that although it was somewhat elegant seemed random and lacked purpose. Some had mouse pads that were off center for seemingly no reason.

The one computer that seemed the most promising was a Sony. It had a keyboard similar to the Mac. It also had some attention to detail that although it was meant to be Mac-like it wasn’t quite there. If I am going to buy an imitation Mac, it would have to be a great imitation.

So if I am going to by a PC I am left with two uncomfortable options. I can buy a generic looking PC that doesn’t have any new glaring design flaws. This option leaves me with a laptop that lacks personality. Option two is to buy a unique machine with obvious flaws. Neither of these options is acceptable.

So now I am back to looking at Apple’s product line where I know I can’t go wrong. The remaining question is: do I fix my old MacBook Pro or do I buy a new one. Hmmm.

While I am still waiting for the official diagnosis, I am anticipating that the logic board went bad. That’s pretty much the worst thing that can happen to a laptop.

The thing about losing my laptop is that I feel so lost and aimless without it. I feel bad for being so attached to a material possession, but it is really hard to be without it. Almost everything I am is connected to that machine. Photography, friends, family, work, writing, music, entertainment. Everything. When you are being fed by a machine and the umbilical cord gets cut your body goes into shock. This afternoon while driving home after dropping my laptop off with some stranger that won’t love it nearly as much as I do, I literally felt sick. My head hurt and I was nauseous. It turned out to be a migraine (something I have never experienced before) but I have to wonder if somehow it was related to my losing my computer. Could I be so dependent on that machine that even my physical health depends on it? I hope not.

Luckily, I was able to get Betsy’s MacBook loaded to a satisfactory level so I can hopefully survive until I get my laptop back. My headache has subsided and I am once again getting regular digital sustenance. Sweet, sweet sustenance.

1. Clear out the history and cache from all your browsers. Don’t forget to remove bookmarks, too.

2. Remove personal email accounts delete all personal email

3. Deauthorize iTunes

4. Remove instant message accounts

5. Remove FTP shortcuts to personal sites

6. Clean out Keychain access to make sure all your passwords are gone

7. Backup all personal files and remove them from your computer

8. Copy any work related files that you may want to use in your portfolio

9. Organize files that people will be working on after you leave

10. Copy your address book

Did I forget anything?

1. After a few minutes of “training” your ears can translate speach that has been distorted beyond recognition. While other people here noise you will be able to hear words. (Via Kottke)

2. Using an imaging device on a person’s tongue it is possible to rewire the brain to use the tongue like an eyeball. Will this be used to restore sight to the blind?

3. What would happen if a camera was used to turn visual information into sound? Answer: strangely interesting. (Via Retrothing)