I'm beginning to really dislike Western Digital hard drives

When I bought my MacBook Pro almost three years ago, I didn't like the fact that it only had a 160 gig hard drive. The cost to upsize it was formidable, so at that time I let it slide. I tried to upsize it once while I was spending a couple of weeks in Phoenix, but the bozo company that I tried to buy the drive from would only ship to my billing address 'to reduce fraud'.

And I probably could have done it myself, except I bought an extended warranty and that would void it. Laptops are about the only thing I buy extended warranties for.

December of last year I went to an Apple authorized service point in Scottsdale and bought a 500 gig WD drive. They installed it and cloned my old drive over to it. But late December something wasn't quite right. My computer would pause, for sometimes up to five seconds, while doing anything. Eventually I found the SMART status showed the drive was failing. I had to ship it back to Phoenix, and with insurance and express shipping, it cost as much as the original replacement. To exacerbate the problem, they shipped it back FedEx instead of UPS, and FedEx won't deliver in snowy areas and won't arrange alternate delivery. I offered to meet their driver in Alamogordo where there is zero snow, no luck there. Finally I drove to El Paso to pick up my laptop, and I will never willingly use FedEx as a result of my experience with them and their customer service.

Well, now my drive is failing. Again. Six month old installation.

Fortunately I'm going to Phoenix tomorrow, so I'll be able to get it taken care of.

But I'm definitely not happy with Western Digital. I think I'm going to try to get a Fujitsu, I've had excellent life out of them in the past.


And I will say one absolutely positive thing about Mac and their operating system: even with a drive marked as Failed, it's still working fine. I'm making sure my backups are good, but the OS is handling the increasing number of bad sectors quite well. I am VERY impressed.

California bill would block Texas text books from CA

This I like. I do not like the direction Texas is taking with revising history to a fundamentalist agenda. They hold tremendous power in the text book market through their purchasing power, and lots of school districts default their book selection to copy Texas'. California is saying No, and with a powerful voice. They also buy lots of books, and they also don't like the fundy stand that Texas is taking.

GO CALIFORNIA!


http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_15098236?nclick_check=1

http://politics.slashdot.org/story/10/05/17/1323245/California-Moves-To-Block-Texas-Textbook-Changes?art_pos=1

An interface expert knocks iPad apps for usability

I can understand where he's coming from, I've been using an iPod Touch for about a year now. But what's really funny are the comments: apparently his web site, which I have not looked at, is a horrible example of bad design.

I think you'll probably see a lot of improvements in the UI, but it'll take some time for programmers and designers to get used to it.

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/05/ipad-usability/