After 277 days of flawless power, there was an interruption of service at my house. For 75.9% of a year, my little PowerMac G4 Cube dutifully served files and routed traffic. This post is in memory of its record uptime, cut short by a lack of electricity.
An absolute must-read blog post from Google today. Go read it now.
…We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China…
Google has been struggling to win the hearts and minds of Americans as it continues to churn out more products and services with hopes of organizing the world’s information. Noting its massive efforts, privacy advocates and technologists have warned of the emergence of an evil empire. I believe these concerns are valid to a point, and therefore, today’s blog post and change of policy are huge news.
I don’t want to give anyone or any company a free pass. Although I’m thankful for Google’s services, and honestly owe much of my success in life to them, their policy of censorship in China gave me pause. Today’s announcements, although troubling in some aspects, give me some hope.
Just figured you should know.
Wonderful SuperDrive feedback from Kevan R. Craft:
I have a MacBook Pro 15 Inch, 2.5 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 3GB RAM running Mac OS X 10.5.8 and experienced the same problem with my Matshita DVD-R UJ-867 drive after downloading an Apple Security Update.
I tried everything from spraying air into the drive, a DVD Lense Cleaner Disc, Power resets and even banging the case. I’ve even flashed the DVD Drive but still couldn’t get the MacBook Pro to read either CD or DVD media blank or recorded or commecial discs.
Finally, before I jumped to buy a new drive I decided to buy a set of Torx screwdrivers containing a T-6 Torx driver so I could disassemble my MacBook Pro and remove the Matshita DVD-R UJ-867 drive.
I eventually removed the drive and removed the screws opening the actual drive to reveal the DVD-R drive contents inside. Onnce open I sprayed the optical lense with a can of compressed air and cleaned any dust on the lense and the rest of the inside of the drive. After that I replaced the DVD-R cover and replaced the screws. I then replaced the DVD-R drive back into the MacBook Pro and screwed it all back together.
Once I’d put it all back together I then powered the MacBook Pro up, booted the machine and inserted a music CD THE BEST OF BILL WITHERS and low and behold the CD disc mounted.
So stripping the DVD-R drive and spraying compressed air directly onto the optical lense removed the problem of not being able to load either CD or DVD discs. Now I can read any disc possible and the fix has returned the Matshita DVD-R UJ-867 drive so it now reads both CD and DVD discs as before.
The process is a fiddly but worth the effort. It is my guess that 99 per cent of Superdrive problems experienced by Apple MacBook Pro users using this hardware cleaning method will return their Superdrives to working state so they should be able to read and mount both CD and DVD media..
Job is a good one..
Regards
Kevan
P.S. post this on any and all MacBook Pro forums and blos as possible so other MacBook Pro owners can use the fix to repair their DVD-R Superdrive problem no being able to read and mount CD and DVD media.. Do what I did above and you’ll get your drive back without having to buy a new drive.. If your MacBook Pro is under warranty with Applecare then go to Apple. If the warranty has expired use my fix to repair your Superdrive..
Worth a shot if you’re out of warranty and need to fix that SuperDrive.
Gmail Gfail
Remember my ecstatic post three days ago about ridding myself of the wretched Invite a Friend box from Gmail? Well, it’s back.
I’m going to have to investigate this further. I don’t want to use a browser extension to hide it. However, if that’s my only option, I may cave.
I’m a control freak when it comes to my critical information systems, especially when it comes to managing my email. For years now, I’ve been staring at my “Invite a Friend” Box in my gmail account, and for years, I’ve had no need to invite anyone. I’ve googled for hacks or Google Labs features to remove the box, but never found an acceptable solution.
Then it hit me. If I use up the invites, the box should go away. If it doesn’t have a purpose, a reason to exist, the server gods at Google will surely remove it from my Gmail web interface, right?
Fortunately for me, yes! And all I had to do to claim those pixels was to send 99 gmail invites to myself. Piece of cake.
That’s just about all I can say after watching the demo of Google’s new product, Wave. Wave is a lot of things. It’s a new metaphor for communication that goes beyond email, instant message, wiki, and docs. It’s a service that Google plans to release in the future. It’s an open platform for organization-to-organization communication.
If you have a little over an hour, watch the demo video. Over a million other people have, so you’re in good company.
My prediction is that Wave is going to make a big splash. I can’t wait to use it.