Syzdekistan

I haven’t have computer access to get detailed updates of Steve Job’s keynote address at MacWorld Expo for the last several years because I have been working in the field. Last year, since I was in the market for a new laptop, I was very eager to hear the news but had to settle for static-filled, very short duration phone call in Nevada’s remote Delamar Valley from Hot Wife and Tech Friend Rob. I was doing a winter raptor survey for the Great Basin Bird Observatory and we were driving remote roads counting eagles and ravens. Seeing my first ever merlin was cool, but in my heart, I really wanted to know about the new Intel processors in Apple’s new laptop line.

This year was going to be different. I was going to help a crew at Lake Mead pull trammel nets in Echo bay but their flight in on Monday was late and they didn’t get the nets set (we’re doing razorback sucker research at the Lake). So I was going to be in the office on Tuesday. The Keynotes aren’t streamed live anymore, but I could sneak some looks at some live coverage and still get some work done. I just got hooked up with dual 19-inch monitors at work so I was ready to work and watch Keynote coverage.

Monday afternoon, I got back from a work errand to Boulder City to find the Information Services (IS) folks had replaced the motherboard on my IBM PC. I had been experiencing a very annoying random system beep accompanied by the computer’s fans revving up. They had replaced the fans and messed with the BIOS but that didn’t solve the problem. I called again on Friday and on Monday they had replaced the motherboard on the IBM. Whoo hoo! I got a 3.4 GHz Pentium 4 instead of a 3.0 MHz Pentium and the crazy system beep didn’t start. Little did I know, my joy would be short lived.

The Keynote had started and I was monitoring live updates on MacNN on one monitor and answering email on the other monitor. MacNN’s postings were coming in slowly (about a paragraph every three minutes). Steve had just started talking about the Apple TV device when the cursor froze in my email. The system clock stopped and the updates from the Keynote stopped coming. The mouse didn’t work. I checked the keyboard and mouse cables and they were fine. After a few minutes of non-stop freeze action, I rebooted the machine. It froze past the BIOS screens and both 19-inch monitors were blank except for a blinking underline cursor in the upper left-hand corner of each monitor.

I tried a few more reboots, and then called the people at IS. A tech came out, tried some stuff, and then started pulling RAM chips. Nothing worked. He left to get a CD to reinstall the BIOS. I snuck onto a coworkers computer and quickly scanned the news from the now long-over Keynote. Let’s see. Apple Computer has changed its name to Apple. The Apple TV is pretty cool but basically is an Airport Express but with video and a remote. For $299 I’d be crazy not to buy one. The iPhone is freakin’ sweet and looks amazing. I don’t need a new phone but I really think Apple has a winner with their new drool-worthy phone. The touch screen is beautiful and it looks like the software is very well integrated and very elegant. A lot of phones have built in email, messaging, and web browsers but in my opinion they are very clunky and hard to use.

Reluctantly, I returned to my desk and found some reports to read. The IS guy came back, reinstalled the BIOS and the machine still froze. He ordered another motherboard and the computer should be fixed (again) by the end of the week. I did manage to get the email sent to my boss from the intern’s PC. It doesn’t really matter, because I will be at a fisheries conference in Laughlin for the next two days and I don’t expect to be online at all either. Maybe when I get back, I can watch the streaming video of the Keynote. Or maybe I’ll wait until next year.