I don’t know if this fits here or on my unofficial blog, but since this post involves computer things, I thought I’d put them here:
* Last week, I reaffirmed my computer prowess/expertise by installing some additional RAM into my iBook by myself. Well, almost by myself. And before I was able to reaffirm my computer prowess/expertise, I was plunged into the dismal depths of computer despair/clodness. I installed the RAM stick as the instructions from the Apple owner’s manual guided me, I put everything back together, I restarted my computer, and nothing. A black screen. Eek.
After a few minutes of panic, I went up to school, found my colleague Steve Benninghoff, and with his help (and these better instructions from the “do it yourself” section of the Apple web site), we managed to install the memory properly and my computer prowess/expertise. But man, there are few things more stomach-turning than taking apart and putting together chunks of your computer only to have it not work, and not really knowing if it will work again.
By the way, I went from 256MB of RAM to 384MB. It seems to make some difference, especially when I’m trying to open two or three things at the same time.
* On this same computer (an iBook G4 I bought last November and which I have been generally very happy with) is losing its L. Here’s a close-up picture of my keyboard:
The computer I replaced with this one was a G3 iBook that I used just about every day, and that keyboard is still completely intact. In fact, I’ve used Apple computer products for nearly 20 years now, and I never remember having problems with letters rubbing off of the keyboard. And why the L? None of the other letters are disappearing off of this keyboard, and it’s not like I’m typing “lllllllll” all day long. Weird.