Thursday October 26, 2006

For those following the continuing saga of my 1.83GHz Mac Book Pro, I report that it is boxed up (again) in preparation for being sent back to Apple tomorrow for repair, because two days ago it started making a very noticeable, regular, fast, ticking noise in the area of the Delete key. Web searches indicated there is probably something wrong with one of the fans, and the Apple Care person agreed.

While Apple has the unit, I am hoping they will also look at three dark spots on the display that I've been living with since I got the laptop. I finally realized these are too big to be dead pixels--they look more like dirt behind the glass. Due to a mis-communication with the Apple Care person, the display didn't get listed as a return reason, so I've included a note with the laptop, hoping the techs will look at this problem, too. If not, I may actually send it back again.

I reported last time that my battery was one that was recalled prior to the big Sony battery fiasco. While I must say this new battery doesn't seem to last nearly as long as the original, on balance I'm happier if there is less chance that my laptop will spontaneously combust.

Last month, AT&T launched an automated, network backup service for consumers called AT&T Online Vault. It transparently encrypts and backs up files from a user's home PC and incrementally transfers them to AT&T's secure, professionally run datacenter.

I've been thinking lately about the consumer desktop experience and how bad it is. And how much worse it will get as consumers continue to generate larger and larger piles of data that they actually care about with no good way to protect that data from loss. We're talking about digital photos and, increasingly, digital video--stuff people really care about, stuff they want to keep safe for a long time, and stuff they want to migrate forward as they upgrade to new machines.

Most consumers lack the skill and patience needed to back up their machines. And this is even more true now that local disk drive sizes far outstrip the size of DVDs and CDs, making the entire process all that more ungainly. If you are thinking, "shame on them for not backing up their data if they really care about it", then shame on you for your techo-arrogance. It's precisely that attitude that has lead to the crap exerience our industry offers the home computer user. But I digress.

Online Vault looks like an excellent and much needed step towards improving the home computer experience. The service costs $2 per gigabyte per month with a $17.95 per month maximum. Available for Windows 2000 and XP. No Mac version currently, but Mac users have .Mac, arguably the best overall service for safely storing desktop state in the network where it belongs.

Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, has a condition called Spasmodic Dysphonia. For the past 18 months he's been unable to speak, except in certain contexts. There is no known cure for this problem.

A recent post on his blog includes both a fascinating description of this condition as well as an encouraging account of something he discovered recently. Scott had a Good News Day.