Welcome MacPro.  Eight cores, all saddled and bridled for me.

Building models of coastal condominiums.  Actually, experimenting with tilt-shift photography.

Mini vMac - Mac Plus Emulator →

So I might be the only person at work with a Mac Plus in their office.  And I’m almost certain I’m the only person with both one at the office and at home.  So why do I need an emulator running under OS X?  I find it strange I’m willing to put hours into making it work, yet can’t quite answer that question.

Removing Meraki Toolbar in Safari

Especially relevant for our Mammoth friends, simply install an ad blocker (in the case of Safari, the free SafariAdBlock) an add “meraki.com/toolbar” to the list of custom filters. Excellent solution for the desktop browser, but will still have to explore something for the iPhone.

One Take on GTD in Outlook 2007 →

Leave it to a blogger from Microsoft to publish an Outlook GTD tutorial using their OneNote product.  Now, I happen to be a fan of OneNote, but I also realize not everyone I’d like to share this…

iPhone Touchscreen Dead Spot; What to do?

So I stood in line for the first iPhone back in June 2007.  In fact, my girlfriend did as well (me at the Apple Store and her at the AT&T store to ensure I got one; we reached the front of each line simultaneously).  I didn’t camp out.  In fact, I wanted to wait a couple weeks, but alas, we were leaving on a long trip the next day.  As it turns out, I was delighted to have the device with me on the trip.  I quickly fell in love with the phone (oh, and I married that girlfriend).

A year later, the 3G phone came out and I was planning to skip a generation.  I really didn’t have a compelling need for 3G or GPS, and besides, I could get Apps on my FirstGen following the firmware upgrade.  Which I did.  It didn’t take long, however, for my faith to get shaken in the whole franchise.

Suddenly, a patch of my touch screen stopped working (on travel mind you, not exactly convenient considering the island I was on didn’t have an Apple Store).  No matter what I did, from software resets to finger gymnastics, I couldn’t get it to respond.  And worse yet, it was the portion of the screen at the bottom where you swipe it to unlock it.

Note: This screenshot is from a 3G phone, my problematic device is a first generation Edge iPhone.

When I brought it in to the local Apple Store to seek repair, I was informed that my warranty expired one week prior and that my only option would be to purchase a new 3G phone.  Well, needless to say I wasn’t happy.  I was an early adopter (had my $100 credit to prove it) and sold countless others with demos of the phone in those first few months.  I’ve been a loyal Apple customer for decades (since my Mac Plus in 1986) and this is what I’m stuck with?  A defective phone after 53 weeks?

Well, I wasn’t happy but my only option was the new phone—which I bought, have loved, but handle gingerly (always clothed in rubber, screen protectors, you name it).  This screen better last!  Anyhow, I pitched the old one into a box and tried to forget about the whole fiasco.

It’s only recently I wondered if I could use the old one for anything, knowing I can’t swipe to unlock it or use the (fairly important) icons on the bottom strip.  I’m thinking that if I can reorder icons strategically, I might be able to have myself a 8GB video iPod, a 3.5” digital picture frame, or a $500 digital alarm clock.

Any suggestions?