Vexxarr News
News from the world of the online comic VexxarrFriday, August 25, 2006
Friday Come And Gone
While I'm venting otherwise unblemished spleen for the benefit of those few readers who have not yet turned away in disgust at my tardiness...let's talk Macs again, shall we?
Those of you who read this comic (and the subset of you who scroll down to discover that there is actually a BLOG attached to it) will know by now how I feel about Macs. I can sum up the breadth and depth of my emotional totality with regards to the Macintosh computer in one sentence: They are computers.
They hold no special magic, they perform no special tasks. In a world of silicone thralls each bound to our every whim regardless of how vile or base. Macs rate a perfect 5 on a cosmic scale of 1 to 10. That is to say they exist.
To further bring this implacable truth to blinding light of public consciousness I wish to relate my afternoon's experience.
Now, if I were to bring you a woe-laden tale of sudden hardware failure what word would first leap to mind? PC? Dell? Windows? And if I also mentioned that my computer had been running fine when suddenly is simply froze and refused to reboot what would your impression be? If I added the fact that after that crash and reboot, my computer was unable to see the MONITORS - the stinking monitors! Instead, all my files, drives and documents were clumped together on the NTSC monitor to the right of my setup. Visiting the settings showed that my computer not only had forgotten that it was attached to two perfectly good flat-screen LCD's but had in fact FORGOTTEN WHAT THEY WERE? What would you think? An HP pavilion running Windows M E?
No, if you hadn't realized by now, I was using my Mac dual 2.5 ghz monster G5 with 2gigs of RAM. I started the day with several sequential lock-ups resulting in a persistent boot condition which left the VGA monitors dark and wanting. Solution? Well, this is a Mac we're talking about. As with most problems, there is no fix. Mac simply won't give you access to the tools you need to address the problem. The button USUALLY found on the settings windows, "detect displays" was mysteriously missing. Unplugging the Blackmagic capture card did nothing to help. In the end, I reached into the off-monitor void with my mouse and was eventually able to retrieve my finder. With that, I was able to open my Preferences folder and start trashing my Mac system preferences until my computer eventually forgot that it had forgotten it had two LCD VGA monitors. On THAT reboot, I got my monitors back.
Now let's be clear here - I never solved the issue. I never even understood what the issue WAS apart from wanting to kick my Mac. So I want all those Mac and OSX apologists out there to take note - to date all of my PC bug experiences ended with a long learning curve, a deeper understanding of the operating system and ultimately a fixed computer. All my Mac bug experiences ended either with trashed preferences or the guy at the Mac store telling me the motherboard had died and charging me $800. Yet I bought one of these beasts for my very own and watched it repay my offer of home and family with pain and mental torture.
That guy at Cult Of The Mac is welcome to keep drinking his iCoolaid. Me, I'm still waiting for machine that runs as well as it's slavish proponents wish it did...
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