27 November 2001
Last year: After a four-day weekend, there should be another short week to sortof ease us back into it. Don't you think?
Happy Birthday, Sweetie!
Draconian Internet Policies, part 1: Keeping my browser open all day seems to work pretty well. And when I'm not actually using it, I leave it on my My Yahoo page, which I have set to refresh every fifteen minutes. We'll see if they say something in the next few weeks about excessive usage.
Draconian Internet Policies, part 2: However, as part of the recent changes, I seem to be no longer able to get mail from my regular e-mail account. I've set up my Yahoo account to collect it, but I won't get it as regularly there. BAH.
So if you need to get in touch with me during the day, your best best is to send me a phone message or - if you have my cell phone number - call me.
Shortly after 9 yesterday morning, I called Apple's tech support number. It took me nearly two minutes to wade through the assorted menus, and then I turned on the speakerphone while I was on hold. After about ten minutes, someone finally answered.
I explained to them about my DVD drive problem and explained that I needed to have them send me a new drive.
The tech support guy said, "Okay. Can I get the model number of your drive, please?"
I mentally muttered - this would mean ejecting the CD I had in, then popping out the drive to get the model number, which meant I would have to reboot to get the CD re-loaded. But still, a fairly minor inconvenience. "Sure thing," I said. "Let me just pop out the CD I have in..."
The drive door popped open. As I popped the CD off the spindle, I realized... The weird broken behavior hadn't happened. "Hang on," I said to the tech support guy. "It didn't do that weird thing. Lemme see if I can mount this CD again."
I put the CD back on the spindle and pushed the drive closed. A half-second of hesitation, and then a gentle whirrrr told me the CD was being spun up... Another few seconds, and the CD's icon appeared on my desktop.
"It mounted," I told the tech support guy in disbelief. We both had the same idea at the same time, then - Try another CD, in case it had just been mounting the memory. I picked up an audio CD, and swapped out the discs. No weird behavior from the drive. A gentle whirrrr and there it was - the CD icon.
"Well..." I said to the tech support guy, "it figures that as soon as I actually get through to tech support, it would spontaneously fix itself."
The tech support guy has been around. He was not surprised. He left my case number open, in case the drive just as spontaneously breaks again.
So the good news is, my computer is working again.
The bad news is, I'm not quite sure why.
Word of the Day:
kapellmeister - the director of a choir or orchestra
Song of the Day:
Here's Your Sign (?)
Currently Reading:
- The Free Bards by Mercedes Lackey