Saturday InBox: Comments, Corrections, Blasts!

By Tera Patricks | Saturday, August 7, 2004 | Home » Email In Box »

If you’re like me, it’s OK for someone to look at my Mac, but I’m the only one allowed to touch it. Of course, the iPod is different. Everyone wants to touch and hold the iPod. Brian’s experience should be a good lesson:

Regarding the Best List, Doug wrote:

“The worst thing I’ve done not to my computer, but to my iPod is letting other people touch it. I have a first generation 5GB, and people LOVE to look at it. I keep mine in my case unless charging it, which charging it in it’s case is a BAD thing case then the battery gets hot and dies. So some friends were looking at it and my teacher called me over in class. So I went there, just in time to look back at my naked pod going bottom first onto the thinly carpeted floor. I sprinted back in time to pick up the iPod my self, look it over, and put it back into the case and NEVER give it back to them. Unfortunately I’ve dropped my pod about 5-7 times, and the only damage is the button on the bottom of the case has made a dent on the bottom of the pod, nothing else.”

A reader named macintyre took me to task about mixing modems and ethernet connections on the same Mac (we’re only OS X these days). Yes, that one was in error:

“Very good list and with the exception of #6, I agree 100%.

Number 6 does confuse me though… what’s wrong with plugging a modem into a phone line? My Mac’s modem is plugged into a phone line, (while connected to a broadband network)... it’s really the only way I can send and receive faxes…”

Of course, just as trailer parks act as magnets for tornadoes, food and drink seem to be attracted to keyboards. Dub sent us an experience that tells the average tale:

“Having a glass of water, a cup of coffee, a can of soft drink, a glass wine or a nice cold beer on the desk with your laptop. Eventually, no matter how careful you are, you will spill it all over your powerbook or ibook and you’ll kick yourself for days, cursing, fool!, mendoza! idiot!

I’ve done it, i’ve seen others do it, and some laptops don’t survive to live the tale. Put in on the floor where you can really give it a kick…”

Finally, reader Ben tells us about one item that should be on everyone’s Do Not Do list. This one involves cables. Macs are cable friendly compared to PC’s, thanks to ADC, still…

“Poorly managed cables. Don’t string cables in front of your desk or under your feet where you might trip or get tangled. You might not hurt yourself, but you could damage your Mac, particularly if you lead your PowerBook off the edge.”

One reader touched a common chord about our tit-for-tat with Hiawatha Bray, a so-called technology writer for the Boston Globe.

“Hiawatha Bray has been an anti-Apple FUDster for years. I just tune him out
- he has zero credibility. This is par for the course.

The real issue is that Real wants to shove their codec down iPod user’s throats. The thing is, the iPod is just the portable version of iTunes. If they don’t make it work with iTunes, then I don’t care about it.

The easiest way to work with iTunes is to simply sell music as mp3’s. If selling music was what Real really wanted to do. But that’s not their
goal. Forcing adoption of their proprietary encoding scheme is their goal.

Frankly, I’m going to ignore them as I’ve never found their stuff to be any good. “

Most of the marketplace seems to agree. I’m considering a weekly Jackass or Idiot Award for such media examples of lunacy. Who’s next?

Post your own Comment.

Classy Mac360 Photo By Tera Patricks | Tera Patricks co-founded Mac360 in early 2004 with Bambi Brannan, Alexis Kayhill, and Ron McElfresh. Tera died in the summer of 2006 following a long bout with cancer. Her legacy site is Tera Talks.

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