NSLog();

This weekend while I was in North Carolina, my primary hard disk decided to corrupt itself. A minor inconvenience, I figured. After all, I'd been backing up with Apple's "Backup" application every night.

Note: small changes made (11:29am, Oct. 18) since John Gruber decided to link to me. I may as well clarify things…

Little did I know what a steaming pile of shit Backup turned out to be. The list of things Backup can not do is astounding, including:

• Restoring a backup to a blank hard disk (you need to have the same username as before, with an OS installed).
• Restore incremental backups in one fell swoop. No, now I have to go through and figure out what the differences are between the 170 GB full backup and the nineteen incremental backups that occurred after that.
• Open the .sparseimage files and copy files back over. If you were using resource forks, why, it seems you're out of luck. Bye bye many of my fonts files.

In other words, there's really no way to actually use backups made with Backup in any way that makes sense. If I - a former Apple employee, Mac Genius (and trainer), etc. can't figure this out, I'm not sure how my mom will ever do.

NSLog(@"Finish Reading %d Words", 956); »

Question: Which Mario is your favorite?

My Answer: It's definitely not Naked Mario. I'm going to have to go with Devo Mario or Mickey Mario.

You are encouraged to answer the Question of the Day for yourself in the comments or on your blog.

Question: Should Apple sell old commercials, old Steve-notes, old WWDC sessions, and so on via the iTunes, uhhh, "Media" Store?

My Answer: The idea comes from Mike Zornek, and frankly, I think they should. They could charge $0.99 if they wanted (so they weren't seen as "milking the faithful), or even less - it's their content, after all. I'm all for it.

You are encouraged to answer the Question of the Day for yourself in the comments or on your blog.

Question: Why isn't Apple's "Front Row" software available for previous Mac models?

My Answer: I don't know. It just uses Bluetooth, doesn't it? Why can't third-party apps plug in to it? What gives, Apple?

You are encouraged to answer the Question of the Day for yourself in the comments or on your blog.

Question: Where do music videos and movie trailers download to on disk in iTunes 6?

My Answer: I don't know, that's why I'm asking. It was pretty easy to dig out the file before and copy it to your desktop… but iTunes 6 does not put the file in any of the usual places.

You are encouraged to answer the Question of the Day for yourself in the comments or on your blog.

Is iTunes' "video stuff" not ready for prime time yet? I can't get any of the Desperate Housewives videos to preview at all, and just now, the Apple web server gave me "Server Error - The following error occurred: [code=CANT_CONNECT] Could not connect because of networking problems. Contact your system administrator" when I was trying to load up the Pixar movies listed at http://www.apple.com/itunes/.

Rush job to get it done by the 12th?

Question: Do you watch the news?

My Answer: Not really, no. As Kasia says, it's scary.

You are encouraged to answer the Question of the Day for yourself in the comments or on your blog.

Uhm…?

I hope Ben is okay. We can go a game without him - Charlie Batch can run a little bit better and, at times, is a good thrower of the ball. The Jaguars love a Big Ben style game, so keeping them guessing is fine. Heck, even two weeks would be okay, as the Bengals game will be more about the defense than the O.

The game was what it was. What I'd like to discuss is the absolute debacle that was "the refereeing." Perhaps you saw one play in particular - Charger Sproles waved for a fair catch on a punt. The ball then hit his face mask, bounced off of his hands, and leapt out of reach. Steeler Iwuoma, five yards away as the ball hit Sproles' facemask, grabbed for the ball that was flying towards him and muffed it himself before gathering the ball back as it became trapped between Sproles and Iwuoma. In other words, to everyone with common sense, it appeared that Sproles muffed the punt catch and that Iwuoma recovered.

Oh, but no, instead Iwuoma gets a 15-yard "fair catch interference" penalty because he did not "give the receiver a chance to catch the ball." Watching the ball bounce off of someone's facemask and hands and then fly out of their range is apparently not sufficient "opportunity" in the NFL.

Bullshit. The Steelers would have had the ball on the 11 - a sure three and a probably seven points. Instead, the Chargers got their own field goal. And that wasn't the only blown call that evening. A few went the Steelers' way, but the majority seemed to favor the Chargers.

Question: Have you ever hosted a Monday Night Football party?

My Answer: Last night's does not count, but once, in Florida, I had six or seven friends over for Monday Night Football. The Steelers, naturally, won. 🙂

You are encouraged to answer the Question of the Day for yourself in the comments or on your blog.

Question: Will Notre Dame upset USC? Will PSU beat Michigan?

My Answer: No (but they'll come close) and yes.

You are encouraged to answer the Question of the Day for yourself in the comments or on your blog.

Question: Have you ever had to dispute a charge on a credit card? What was the outcome?

My Answer: I have. Despite submitting proof, they charged it right back to me. So now I have to dispute the dispute, or something…

You are encouraged to answer the Question of the Day for yourself in the comments or on your blog.

Question: Have you ever dyed your hair? If so, what color(s)? Did you like it? Is your hair dyed now?

My Answer: No, n/a, n/a/, no. 🙂

You are encouraged to answer the Question of the Day for yourself in the comments or on your blog.

Despite David's Holy Assholy-ness, Inquisitor is pretty nifty. And, for now, that's about all I have to say about that.

For whatever reason, when we bought the Touareg, VW would not give us the $500 customer loyalty bonus. They said the Beatle we owned already didn't count. 😛