Sour Swinger Predominantly follows my Army & Iraq Deployment. Also has some Geek, School, and other talk.

With all the fun and joys I’ve been having with my MacBook Pro, I almost forgot about my tablet in the repair shop. It finally arrived back today and I was excited to see how Circuit City fixed my problems. In case you forgot from my earlier posting, I was having three main issues; power connector, USB port, and stylus. I had joked with some friends that short of some soldering, the only real fix (for USB) was to replace the mother board. We’d laugh because who really replaces a USB port on a mother board? One would think its less risky to simply replace an entire mobo.

Well apparently that’s exactly what Circuit City did. I expected to see an entirely reformatted computer, instead everything was still in tact. The work order stated that the DC jack, USB port, and the stylus pen was replaced. The soldering worked because the power issue was cleared up and the USB was back to working order, however the stylus pen still does NOT fucking work. It lasted a whole 5 minutes of writing before crapping out. I decided to reboot, hoping that may solve something and to my dismay the tablet crashes just after loading BIOS.

What…the…hell? What possible error could have caused this? An error I’ve never ever received on this tablet…..A SYSTEM FAN ERROR! Yes that’s right, the system fan no longer turns on. Somebody didn’t do their soldering correctly. Hence my earlier point is made clear.

Since I have this MacBook, I’m not really concerned with time in getting the tablet fixed. Though it would be nice to have it working order so I can finally sell it. I’m just sorry for the poor sap whose gonna buy it.

My Army weekend came and went relatively quickly. Aside from some slight modifications in our training schedule this summer, no new news on my mobilization. The most exciting thing to happen was the combatives class. This was the first time I got to use my instructor qualification to help teach. Since I’m only level 1 certified, however, I was only the assistant instructor.

I also got permission to set up our company’s official website. There were some minor rules I must follow, but otherwise I’m free to do whatever. My intention is to make a nice run down on who our company is and our battalion’s history. Also include pics and bio’s of the chain of command, and electronic copies of our yearly training schedule and news letters. With the up coming deployment, it’ll probably be a good idea to add info for the family support group and a forum for military family members to chat on. This little project will have the lowest priority during the school semester. However, come this summer I should have plenty of time to get it up and running.

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Was a little bored and thought I’d try this test I saw on Jess’s blog.  Interestingly, I have a nice decline as you move down the chart.  Was hoping my Computer/Tech would be highest.  Oh well.

Despite how much I love my new MacBook Pro, I am forced to install XP. Why? Because I’ve spent over a decade of my life hiding away from the world playing video games. One can’t possibly throw away all the games I’ve collected. Initially I thought dual booting XP with OS X was gonna be a daunting process, however I soon discovered that Apple freely gives you the software necessary to do it. Amazing! And just like everything Apple does, the entire processes was incredibly easy.

You run Boot Camp, follow a few instructions, boot off the XP CD and install as one normally does windows. Upon completion, install Boot Camp on XP, it installs some additional drivers and BOOM! Your done…Kinda (as far as Apple’s part). Because I still wanted to access my window’s partition, I choose to stick with FAT32. As such, I was restricted to a maximum size of 32 gigs. Originally, I thought it would be enough, but after installing some of my larger games I soon realized it wasn’t. That aside, the whole processes was painless from Apple’s perspective.

Frustrations arrived with XP. Its incredible how much extra shit one must do to get XP running at full speed. The following transpired after Apple finished its tidbit with Microsoft:

1. Installed and updated drivers for my Sprint Mobile Broadband.
2. Downloaded, installed, and updated Zone Alarm -> Firewall.
3. Downloaded, installed, and updated AVG Anti-Virus.
4. Downloaded and installed over 100 updates for XP itself! This required 5 restarts and involved one crash. A FUCKING CRASH!?!?!?!
5. Un-installed all the useless advertising programs bundled with.
6. Downloaded, installed, and updated Ad-Aware -> Anti-Spyware.
7. Downloaded and installed Adobe Reader -> For PDFs.
8. Downloaded and installed Adobe Shockwave Player -> Flash player
9. Downloaded and installed Java. -> For playing Java, not programming.
10. Downloaded and installed Crap Cleaner -> Cleans up…”crap”.

By far, Windows Update was the worse. The shear amount of updates took forever. I’d run Windows Update, then find, download, and install everything.  I would then be required to restart.  Afterwards, I’d go back to Windows Update again and repeat the whole process. WTF? I couldn’t get all the updates at once? I had to download updates for updates? And in the middle of that whole process a crash occurred. I mean…come on! Its a fresh install!

There’s only one thing up there that I had to do with OS X and that was run the update software. Of course OS X had what…5 updates? That’s nothing compared to the 100 some. Sure you could say I had an outdated version of XP. Granted its a year old, however why couldn’t I have gotten all the updates in one go? The only other thing up there which I should probably do is get an equivalent “Crap Cleaner” program for OS X. BTW, Crap Cleaner is the real name of that program. Very handy tool.

I’ve had to re-install Windows so many times, that the above scenario is pretty much second nature to me. I’ve always accepted it as shit that needs to be done. Oh how this MacBook will spoil me. Well, enough said about that. All in all, my XP partition is running great. I haven’t had a chance to play a game on it yet seeing that I spent all day completing the install. Since I’ve never owned a computer with such great specs, I’m know I’m gonna be blown away by the graphics.

My lack of computer and lack of internet access has really weighed down on me. I found myself spending days just a click away from buying an EEE PC. Ultimately my sense came to me. I will buy one but not until the new models come in April. Anyhow, the more I was without a computer, the more I realized how much I hated that fracking Tablet of mine.

Yesterday in class, Ryan was pointing out all the great features of his MacBook Pro and in effect making me very jealous. I began wishing I had a MacBook. I’ve always wanted one but could never afford one, but then the strangest thing occurred. One, I remembered I had just received a 2500 credit limit increase. Then two, at the end of class Brian asked if anyone wanted to go to the Apple Store with him. That was all it took. Within 3 hours, Brian bought himself an iPhone and I a MacBook Pro.

There was a slight fiasco where Apple registered my card as being denied despite the charge actually going through. It took an hour for Apple to figure out the whole mess. Since then, I have been BLOWN AWAY by this MacBook Pro. I could go own for pages about all the great, cool things this thing does right. Most of all, its all the little things that make the difference.

Its ultra quiet with no fan exhausts on the bottom. In fact, I can’t even tell if it has any fans (though I’m sure it does). I’m also able to keep it on my lap without worry of burning my legs or restricting airflow. The touchpad is amazing. Double tap two fingers and you do a right click. Drag two fingers and you scroll up/down or left/right. As the sun light changes with the cloudy sky, my screen brightness automatically adjusts as well as the keyboard lighting. Boot up is about 30 to 60 seconds. Blazing fast compared to my 10 minutes on the Tablet. Probably helps that I don’t have to install all the security software needed in XP.

In all, I should have switched to a Mac ages ago. I plan to get XP setup on the MacBook though. I believe my AllTunes will only work in windows environment. Also, many of the games I have will only work in XP as well. Since I have a dual core, I’ve been told I can either run XP in parallel or just dual boot. Will need research the differences and which I plan on using. So what’s the fate of my old Tablet? Sell it of course, and help offset the MacBook purchase.

Do to some scheduling conflicts, my laptop didn’t get picked up till yesterday.  Suffice to say, its only been 24 hours with no personal computer and I’M GOING FUCKING NUTZ!!!!  AHAHAHAAHAHA.  I have to use the school’s computer lab and its very annoying having this restriction on when I can check my email and so forth.

“What you have to realize is that being an asshole will make girls happy… see, we’re conditioned from a young age to think that the more you pay for something, the better it is. Most of the time, this is true, but when it comes to relationships, a [nice] guy you can get easily is free, hence, worthless. If you have to earn the [asshole] guy, then you feel like he’s worth more. It’s fucked, but that’s how people think. So by treating a girl terribly and then letting her get you, you’re increasing your worth in her eyes.”

~~~Steev