Very happy with the Support I got from the Applecare reps and the Apple Store at the Summit. I was able to take back the noisy macbook and swap it for a brand spankin’ new one that works perfectly. I was able to use Time Machine to restore my new macbook with all my data in just about 30 minutes. I am happy with my macbook and am rapidly making it my primary machine.

I have some weird noises coming from my macbook pro.  Here is an mp3 of the sounds recorded in garage band with the internal mic.  To get this noise, I just sit with the MBP in my lap and slowly lift the back left corner up to my right ear while the front right corner stays in my lap. Take a listen here– mbpnoise2.

UPDATE:  I was able to return the old MBP for a new one at the Apple Store.  The new MBP does not have the noise, and my time machine backup restored to the new machine perfectly.  I have to say that I’m very pleased with the service and support with Apple.  I’m totally sold on Apple now!

Oh, yeah! I’ve been waiting for this for several months. My daughter has saved her money and was ready to buy a macbook in September, and I told her to wait because new ones were coming soon. This was just before the big 9/9/08 iPod event was announced as an iPod event and rumors were that new notebooks would be announced then. We were both a bit disappointed then, and have been waiting anxiously for this 10/14 announcement. You see, I also have been saving up for a macbook, and have been holding off purchase until new models come out.

You’ll see me at the Apple store 10/14 or 15. We’ll be doing our part to rescue the economy…

I installed Chrome last night and have spent a few hours trying it out. I like the simplicity of the Wonderbar and the clean interface. The ability to import my bookmarks from Firefox was helpful and the only thing I would have done differently was to have the Firefox bookmark bar populate the Chrome bookmark bar. I had to drag each one individually over, which was a bit of a pain.

The New Tab page with the 9 most visited pages, recent bookmarks and searches is cool! See the image.

This is just my first impression – so far, so good.

Twitter is over capacity.

Too many tweets! Please wait a moment and try again.

Maybe they should cut the tweet size down from 140 characters, or get a few more servers?

It is a bit frustrating…

This is being written directly in Word 2007 as a test.

In his recent post here Steve Pavlina mentions several ways to make almost daily habits stick. His first point almost perfectly describes my Daily Habit routine for running. I would add that for a habit like running daily, you just give yourself permission to skip a day once in a while without guilt, because you know you’ll run again the very next day.

1. Make it daily anyway.

The first solution is to turn almost-daily habits into daily habits. Sometimes it’s no big deal to continue the habit even when it isn’t necessary, and the upside is that you’ll have a stronger habit with less risk of losing ground.

For example, I like to get up early 7 days a week. I find this much easier to maintain than getting up early 5-6 days per week. If I get up at 5am every single morning, it’s really no big deal. But if I stay out late one night and sleep in until 7am, it’s always harder to get up at 5am the following morning. Every once in a while I’ll stay out past midnight and sleep in late, but my default is to get up with the alarm at the same time every morning.

Even though I don’t need to get up early every day, the habit is beneficial for me every day, so there’s no reason to limit it to weekdays. Although it might seem harder to do it 7 days instead of 5-6 days, it’s actually easier to be consistent.

With close to 100% daily consistency, a habit will typically maintain itself on autopilot, so you don’t even have to think about it anymore. But with 80-90% consistency, the contrast between your on and off days is always in the back of your mind. Do I have to get up early tomorrow, or can I sleep in late? Do I need to exercise tomorrow, or can I skip it? If you have a lot of almost-daily habits, this can be a big cognitive burden and quite a distraction. Maintaining good habits becomes much more difficult than necessary.

I am a computer geek. I have more PC’s, Servers, and laptops around the house than I’d like to admit. Lately, I’ve been very interested in going to a Macbook for my primary laptop. I don’t want to go into debt for a laptop, so I’ve set up a Macbook fund to save my money for the current black macbook, $1500 roughly. I’ve saved about $700 for this dream machine, but lately have been very tempted to go back to my Windows ways and purchase a new Windows laptop at around this price point.

Mac fans, Please convince me to continue saving for the Macbook instead of spending the accumulated savings on another PC laptop.

I keep telling myself that I’ve always dreamed of Apple machines all the way back to the original Apple, but they have always been a little pricey, and I’ve always purchased a Windows machine for less.

I like the fact that on a Mac, I can pull up a terminal and do Unix, and run applications for the Linux world easily on the Mac, and can even use parallels to run Windows.

I love the design- clean keyboard, magnetic power cord, etc.

I’m really impressed with the new OS X Leopard, and want to try it out. And all the software that comes bundled with my dream machine is pretty cool.

My concerns are: Current Windows laptops are getting closer to the macbooks, like having built in webcams, and if I spend $1500 on a windows machine, I am pretty sure that I would get better specs, probably much better graphics, more RAM and larger HD.

So, Let me know your thoughts. I want to be convinced to keep saving, but the money is starting to burn a hole in my pocket.

I would rather have the flu than a cold or sinus infection.  When you have the flu, you know for sure that you really are sick.  You are not tempted to come to work and spread your germs, nor do you need to wonder, “am I really sick?”.

Having this medically enforced time of reflection has motivated me to get back on the wagon with many of my daily habits, like running and writing.  I have not really been able to think much, but maybe that is a good thing.

Flu, you are a worthy adversary, but I will eventually prevail.

I have come down with the flu and have been completely out of commission over the past few days. I really can’t remember ever being this sick. Sleep is about all I feel like doing. If anyone has any hints, I’d love to hear them.