i didn’t do my video game review last month (due the first monday of the month) because it was the holidays and i didnt really have the spare time to work on one. today i broke out the camera and was setting up to do the review that’s due next week…and guess what?

the camera wasn’t working. beyond my ability to comprehend, my Digital8… who only gets use for about an hour every month at most… has a CCD that’s FAIL. no video capture. so i contacted Sony, and they immediately said “hey, that looks like a CCD issue” and are sending me a label to ship mine off to get repaired..free! apparently there is a rash of failed CCDs out right now, so if you’ve bought a digital camcorder in the last 5 years or so, check with your manufacturer… especially if it’s a Sony.

and that’s another month without a VGR.

click the picture to see the page..

you know how when you take care of someone who’s been ill, or sometimes even listen to someone talking about how they feel and you start scrutinizing your own health?

i’ve been working with the mother in law’s imac G5 as of late. long story short: it’s fixed, but she’ll probably end up getting a new one anyway in the next year or so.
my machine’s been hot. it was always pretty warm, as the entire case is effectively the secondary heatsink, so i take the necessary precautions of using a cooling mat and keeping the system’s ventilation clean and free of obstruction. recently i noticed it was making my palms sweat, so i used some christmas cash and got it a ram upgrade. this helped, and MOAR RAM is always good, but it’s still warm, and the left fan is either starting to go out or is caked with dust (either option, or both, entirely viable). after getting the mother in law’s machine in working order i started to look into average ambient temperatures for the 15 MBP 2.16 and i found that it’s idling at what some of it’s siblings do at medium load! i also found that it’s manufacturing date is in the middle-to-right range of the whole thermal paste debacle. the rundown is this: apple’s service manual calls for 0.2 to 0.3cc of grease PER CHIP and heatpipe contact point (which is, in total, 3 chips and 3 points on the heatpipe), so that’s how they are made.

i know what they were thinking: the compactedness of the system leaves little margin for error in the paste application, so let’s put 10x more than we need and make sure each chip is covered. more thermal paste = more cooling, right? unfortunately that’s just plain wrong. thermal paste is conductive, the idea is to use it to perfect tiny flaws in between the heatsink and processor so that air cannot get trapped and superheat the chips (potentially cracking them or at least diminishing performace due to heat), and any paste that isn’t in between the chip and the heatsink (of which there should be minimal at best) conducts heat around the chip and sink and has nowhere to go! this means that in apple’s spec for application they are actually causing more heat to be trapped in the system than there would have normally been…. which partially explain why my machine runs so hot (also, World of Warcraft, but there’s no paste for that yet). over time, that heated compund will dry up between then processor and heatsink, and anywhere else it was left. the life on that stuff is about 5 years under average use, but considering the heavy use i’ve put this machine under, i’ll give it 2.

so tonight is surgery night. once muppet gets home i’ll be off to radioshack to pick up some Arctic Silver and a can of compressed air (2 things that are always good to have around anyway), clean the processors and properly apply the paste to it’s 6 points and also blow out any dust around the fan casings (well, the rest of the system too….). depending on how much i have left in the AS5 tube i’ll probably do the same for at least 1 or the other 3 systems in the house.

one of the latest features in leopard is the ability to share screens between fellow (leopard) iChat users, ala PC Anywhere or VPN. this has been a great tool so far, it’s exactly like sitting at their machine to work. over the last week or so i’ve done it constantly with relatives who are having trouble with their machines, and have been able to troubleshoot and repair permissions and driver issues, have a look at system logs, etc… as well as do a quick tutorials for applications. the idea has been done for a while now, but the added bonus of voice streaming really makes useage nice: i’m able to talk through what i’m doing as i’m doing it and i can actually hear the brain of the people who are sharing their system with me click…. and they can also show me exactly what they do that causes the problem they are looking to resolve. it’s a great tool!

so the girls’ birthday is on saturday, muppet’s on sunday. while i have no idea what to get him (i mean, he already has socks…..), i’m all over the girls’ gifts. first up is a pair of RC cars that look like ladybugs, one for each of them, but the big thing is a Kutoka graphics tablet. last week i was wracking my brain as to what to get them that was educational, didn’t make irritating electronic noise, and was still fun.. and i kept coming back to the look on their faces when they were using my tablet and photoshop. my tablet is a little too delicate for the likes of them, so i’m glad someone somewhere was already on top of tablets for kids. it even looks like it will be useful after the elementary school phase, i mean, it doesn’t have a bunch of cartoony things on it like the fisher-price version, and it appears to be pro-quality (although probably not as sensitive as a wacom or genius)..and and added bonus that while it cost about as much as mine it comes with it’s own bundle of tablet-based creativity apps…and when they grow out of that it should be more than capable of photoshop.

i picked up some super strength toilet cleaner today, you know it’s Uber cleaner because it comes in a black bottle to shield all the toilet bowl-blasting microns from the harsh light of day. it actually did a great job, and lord knows we need it: there’s a distinct lack of toilet-flushing going on in this house lately…yellows mellow and browns don’t always go down. in the morning i feel like the Toilet Flushing Fairy because it’s one of the first things i do.

cleaned out the Dining-Room-turned-Activity-Parlor yesterday, shifted furniture here and there, now the easel has a home next to the piano and the girls can actually GET to the piano..just in time, too. i’m trying to expose them to as many creative outlets as i can so that they can decide what they want to pick up. the piano’s been a sure winner so far, although i’ll have to finish tuning it sometime when they are gone and i can hear myself think (much less be able to determine differences in tones). while i was cleaning i pulled out the flute i picked up for them a while back, they seemed interested but it was too big for them.. i’m not ready to show them the violin just yet, if only because to get them playing at that size would mean getting one or more 1/4 or 2/4 sized violins..and jesus H christ! those cost more than a standard 4/4! talking like 400$ for a 2/4 and 600$ for a 1/4, that’s about 350 more than a new learner’s 4/4.
next up is the basement, shelving and possibly cataloging books, shifting furniture here and there, all that. somewhere in all of this i need to get my Warrior to 70 (69 now, using rest bonus and signing off at night) before the 13th of Feb, that’s when my WoW subscription runs out.