The hard disk of my laptop has apparently died beyond recovery. So I need to slowly start recovering the things I have, but some things will probably be lost forever. 
My iBook has again broken down and I do not know how bad it is. I have not backed up anything for a while. My photos, my documents, my e-mails, my life is in that laptop. I know these things happen and I know I should back up my files and things. But I did not. So I make a pledge here and now: if my files are safe and will be rescued, I will buy an external hard-disk that I will use to make at least weekly backups of everything.
I cannot hate Apple or Mac because of this though. No one can make perfect products, but Macs are very near to perfection. Other laptops tend to break down as well, but is seems in general that older laptops than mine are usually more reliable (especially IBMs etc). The old ‘clamshell’ iBooks were bastions of reliabilty.
The iBooks have been plagued by logic board failures (mine has been changed twice), video freezes, etc. The new MacBooks, which were to replace iBooks, have experienced battery problems, whining, discolorment (the white ones), unexpected shutdowns, overheating caused by shoddy assembly work, etc.
Apple has become more visible and more popular (especially among Windows users). One of the key selling points of the Mac is that “it just works”. When it does not work, it feels like Apple have betrayed and defrauded you. They have given this beautiful machine to you only for you to see it disintegrate in front of you. It does not feel so bad if the crummy cheap Windows PC dies and takes your data with it, but it does hurt when something you loved does it.
No, I could not go back to using Windows or start using Linux, or give up the nice and affordable designs of the Mac hardware. So I can only hope that nothing bad happens and remember to back up my system. And those Mac users, the majoirty of which have not experienced even a hiccup on the machine, be happy, but never forget to back up your data.
Read:
BBC News: Is Apple feeling the heat?
I went to see Le Temps Qui Reste by Fran?ois Ozon. It was a good, poignant film.
However… there were people in the cinema who were talking on the mobile. On no less than three occasions. Merde! If you wish to talk on the phone, please do not do it in the cinema! And this is not CCPlaza we are talking about, this is Sõprus (“Friendship”), a member of the Europea Cinemas chain. And the film was French. Good thing my moments of rage do not last very long, otherwise I would have kicked that giggling, talking-on-the-mobile, obnoxious girl.
I decided to have a look at rate.ee and open an account there. Purely for competitive purposes as I am involved in building a yout oriented portal so I needed to know how it works. Really. My username there is kjk5. I also found an old username, but this was filled with letters from unknown people, so I have deleted it.
Most likely I will forget to check the profile there. I also have a myspace page and I am also at orkut, if anyone is interested. I have an account at Flickr.
I have booked my schedule for autumn quite tightly. I teach a little, write my thesis, do some work etc. SO months filled with lots of work. I need to recharge, so I am going to take the next week off to prepare myself. I envy the time when I could just relax the whole summer.
During the keynote address at the annual Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, Steve Jobs and other Apple Executives announced the new Mac Pro, the desktop computer for professionals and Apple’s most powerful Mac. Keeping the exterior looks of the old PowerMac G5, it has completely new innards, which make it much faster and cooler. Apple’s server, the Xserve also was updated to include Intel Xeon processors.
But the best thing was the preview of Leopard, Apple’s next update to Mac OS X. They showed only 10 new features, I liked the best the übercool Time Machine backup utility, an elegant multiple virtual desktop application called Spaces and the improvements to Mail (esp the to-do list). I have actually thought about those exact three features that I would love to be included in the Mac OS. Vista or no vista, Mac OS X is the OS that suits my needs best.
Watch the keynote address.
Monday is an important day for Apple and Mac fans as Apple Computer’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference kicks off with a keynote by Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs. He is to give a preview to the next major update to the Macintosh operating system, the Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, which is expected to be released early 2007. No one really knows what else is in store, but wild speculation by rumour sites and industry analyst is all around. Will there be new Mac computers? An updated iPod? Some completely new, but instantly desirable piece of technology? Nobody knows, but Steve.
Steve Jobs’ keynotes are not just regular product presentations, but highly polished and rehearsed events, where he awes everyone with his now legendary reality distortion field. Apple is extremely secretive of new products and services, which maximises the impact of keynotes such as the one coming up on 7 August.
Read also: Behind the Magic Curtain (The Guardian, 5 January 2006).
Watch last year’s WWDC keynote, where, among other things, Apple’s transition to Intel processors was announced to the surprise of everyone.
The WWDC keynote is not broadcast live online, but will be available soon after on Apple’s website.
I have a new favourite series: a show called Kyle XY. It has an interesting and clever plot, good writing (comparable to the first season of the O.C.) and it is Sci-Fi. I like that it is very light and easy to follow.
I went to see the latest Superman film yesterday. I was in Tartu, so a film like Superman is relegated to a rather small screen at the small hall of the only cinema here. At a time of lavish outdoor alternative ethnic theatre performances one wonders whether in today’s Estonia popular music and film is an underdog thing. Ethnic, edgy and alternative is cool, so it is popular.
Big Hollywood movies, pop artists etc are not really creating art, are they? They are simply a businesses which are meant for those average people with their average lives. But the local bands and rock music, they are in it for much more than that. The create real art™ and their emotions are real, whereas everything is else is manufactured or cheesy.
I do not get it. I love pop songs, I do not differentiate between movies based on where and by whom they were produced. I do not enjoy some local high school bands more than I do people who have succeeded in the world stage. I do not get why extraordinarily talented people like Michael Jackson are considered somehow less artistically valid than some small town ethnic rock group. Is it about being able to relate to the performer? Is it about kicking down celebrities and valuing “regular people”?
I do not get it at all. The people who despise the “commercial” and the “mainstream” are now in the majority, so they are what they despise.
I feel sorry for people who do not allow themselves to love or like something just because it is not liked or liked by other people. I love the music, films and art that I can feel good about. Like I have said before, I cannot choose who I love, and in a similar way I cannot choose the music I like or films that I love. I just like some and dislike others and I do not feel that I need to somehow justify this to anyone.
There is a new, cool site on the internet, where you can upload a photo of yourself and their face recognition engine tries to match your face with the face of a celebrity in their database. You should try different pictures though, as mine produced results such as Tarkan, Michael Ballack, Viggo Mortensen, Marlon Brando or Brad Pitt depending on the photo used. Tarkan was highest with 70%, whereas other remained between 50 – 65% and almost none of the faces repeated except for Michael Ballack. So I either have really non-descript features or the face-recognition technology has still some way to go. I hope for the latter, but fear it is both.
Who do you look like? Go to www.myheritage.com.
Update: Tried with two more photos, which both had Alain Delon as top hit. Strange.
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