Surprise! My friend picked up her machine and got it home. Upon turning it on, she found out that all of her data is still on it! Now, that is a pleasant surprise. Most of the time it turns out that everything is simply wiped out.

So, that’s just a short update. Just very busy around here which explains the lack of posts. Give me a couple of days and things should get back to normal…or not.

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As some of you may know, my friend’s (CS) was told in late April that TS would fix her the mainboard in her laptop due to the iGo adapter shorting it out. It’s been almost a month now and nothing was heard back. So, a couple of days ago, I gave Bonnie over at TS’s customer service dept. a call to see what was going on.

The highest praise that I can give TS is that Bonnie calls back asap. It turns out that the laptop had been fixed in April and has been waiting at the store since April 30th! The store should have given CS a call but she says that they didn’t. Before talking to CS, I also gave her phone no. a call and she picked up my voicemail on it so the communication problem could not be on her end. The store has also been able to call her on her cellphone back in Jan. or Feb. when CS went to Calgary for a visit. But, now, it turns out that the store is unable to contact her? Yeah, right.

So, CS is going to pick it up today (or asap) and see how it works. Fingers crossed that the incompetents at TS haven’t fouled anything else up.

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This is the latest installment in the Elizabethan Theater Mystery series that I started reading many years ago. The series has flagged a bit, in my opinion, but it’s really picked up steam in this one. It’s a fast and vibrant read as our troupe of theater players journey from London to Denmark as part of their patron’s wedding party. They encounter death and mystery at both ends as they ply their craft. What’s particularly well-done in this edition is the riposte of each character as they interact with one another. The plot itself weakens a bit near the end and sort of loses it in the last chapter but Marston worked very well with the book in the first half.

A good read for those times when you want your mind to go blank.

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Came back earlier from my MRI test. Some of you may know that I’ve been experiencing some chronic tingling behind my left shoulder blade. It’s been going on for months now and most often happens when I am at the computer. So, my neurologist sent me for an MRI.

It took about a month before I received my appointment date which turned out to be at 4:30 in the morning and there was probably a waiting period of less than two months. The appointment’s time was not that shocking since I am usually cracking my eyelids open at around that time. The MRI clinic is just a few blocks away over at the Princess Margaret Hospital which is now probably more famous for its lotteries than anything else.

My biggest worry when I got to the MRI clinic on the third floor was the potential for a needle to inject contast fluid into you. This may be heartening for those of you who may go for an MRI but there was no need in my case. Yay! Otherwise, the entire experience was very boring. You lie down, you’re inserted into a big ring, there are a lot of noises and you’re done within half an hour.

Results expected in five to ten days.

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Went down to CS yesterday and found only disappointment along with a whole bunch of other people. The prices were lousy and the discounts didn’t make up for them. A true waste of an hour. There is some suggestion that the discounts might grow larger as the sale goes on but who wants to waste that much time to save a few dollars?

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Courtesy of an ehMac member, I found out yesterday afternoon that CompuSmart is closing down many of its stores all across Canada. I can’t say that I’m surprised although I am surprised that they lasted this long. I really first encountered CS in its current form in the late ’90s when they opened a store at the corner of Richmond and Yonge in an old bank building. I was really pleased by the location which is good but the rent must have been incredibly difficult to make. Service was good but prices were very high and this can only hurt you when you’re in computer hardware retail. I read recently that margins at that time were probably on the order of 6 or 7 percent.

Now, with the entry of BestBuy and its purchase of Future Shop, hardware margins have crept down to around 2 percent and you have more people going to those stores. Smaller chains and mom-and-pop stores are really hurting. CS has never really had a very high profile despite the fact that they are part of a much bigger company that also had stores such as Crazy Irving (and Camelot too?) in Quebec. I guess they simply were a bit too fragmentary in their approach to the market; if they had been able to promote a single brand along with strong purchasing power they might have been able to stave off the big boys such as BestBuy/FS and Staples.

So, what does this mean? Not too much I guess since I never really shopped there. I’m not too sorry to see them go since their prices were never great and I’ll drop by later on to see if there are any sort of bargains to be had.

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One may not know it but Commodore also used to make typewriters. Yep, I saw one at a local antique store just the other day. It even had the little Commodore symbol with the “tails” coming out of it.

That sort of tidbit is what you will find in On the Edge. How many of us have actually heard of Commodore or even used their machines? I may be dating myself but I remember when I almost purchased a C64 as my first computer. Reading through this book and finding out about the relatively slip-shod (compared to today) manufacturing techniques, though, sort of makes me glad not to have purchased one. Although I suspect that Apple was probably not much different.

This book is a great trip down memory lane, a lane that many of us have either never traveled nor knew about. It certainly brings me back to the days of the Osborne, Sinclair, TI-99/4A (got one sitting right next to me in its box), Atari, Adam and so on. Told mainly from the perspective of the engineers, it’s a great look at how one of the top computer companies of the ’80s developed and rose to prominence. This is despite shoestring budgets and a marketplace that barely knew what to do with the product. We learn about how popular the VIC-20 and C64 really were and how they outsold virtually every other machine out there. In fact, Commodore was the first company to sell a million computers (VIC-20 model), first personal computer company to break a billion in sales and the 64 was the most popular personal computer ever with over thirty million sold.

The Amiga story is almost as fascinating too where we find out how it fitted together with Commodore and the merits of that product line. It achieved firsts such as having the first multi-tasking OS and having more multimedia capabilites than Apple’s competing Mac. Throughout all of this, the emphasis was on “inexpensive” although “cheap” certainly comes to mind and would not be inappropriate.

But, the Commodore story is also one of failure so complete that it is barely remembered today. Actions such as trashing your distributors and undercutting their prices, forcing your customers to complete upgrade, paying little attention to marketing, and not investing in the product all brought Commodore crashing down.

This is a great book, despite its feel of not having had an editor, if you are in any way interested in the past of computing and, especially, in Commodore.

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Hrmmm…what can I say? It was interesting to say the least. I didn’t do the whole 100-plus kilometers because I simply didn’t have that amount of time to commit to it but did do about 45 kms. We all met up at City Hall where the day was somewhat cloudy, slightly chilly (did I ever mention that I love my Patagonia vest?), and very windy. These conditions stayed throughout my portion of the ride while right now (evening) it is simply cool and very windy.

It was a small group; I don’t think that our numbers ever got up above 25 or so and it began to dwindle from there as a couple realized that this was not some sort of paceline or racing group. Others dropped out along the way because of the weather and distance. I’ve never really ridden in such a large group before with my prior experience limited to maybe a dozen at the max so it was interesting.

We headed up Yonge St. and then towards the Don Valley to an entry that I’ve never seen before. Popped us out along the west side of the Bayview Extension. Lot of other trail users such as dog walkers and runners. Cycled pretty well until we exited at Merton St. The group that I was with decided to head west while I waited for Herb (the organizer) and others to catch up. It turned out that everyone should have headed through Mt. Pleasant Cemetary but didn’t. Oops.

So, Herb and I became a bit lost in the cemetary itself but found Tanya (CrazyBikerChick) and her friend along the way. We then took some sort of rail conversion west to past Dufferin and ended up going through another cemetary. Eventually, we ended up at St. Clair and Lansdowne to find that almost everyone else had arrived earlier (they didn’t have to contend with cemetaries and waiting for other members) and were chowing down on pastries at this Italian gelateria.

I was getting kind of squirrely at this point and thinking that I should head on home. Too much stuff to do but I had told Herb that I would drop out at the 35 km point. Soon after (around 10:45), we headed down to High Park which was very nice because I haven’t been there in years. We quickly ended up on my usual stomping grounds at the Lakeshore and headed west towards the Humber River. Crossed the pedestrian bridge and went to the end of the trail past the Humber Bay Butterfly Habitat. Turned around and went back to the pedestrian bridge where everyone else headed up the trail and I headed on east back home. I didn’t exactly drop at the 35 km point but at the rate we were going I might as well have signed up for the 100 km ride.

So, was it worth over four hours? Hrmmm…it was great to be out again, saw some areas that I normally never see and got to ride with a group. It was a bit disorganized but this is only the second year that anyone has held anything like this. So, it may grow and grow. I think I’ll volunteer assistance the next time around.

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I picked out a couple of networking books as a result of that MBA Boot Camp from about a month back and Work the Pond! is an excellent resource as to why and how you should address the issue of networking for both personal and professional reasons.

As some of you may recall, an earlier book “Imperial Life in the Emerald City” showed how important networking can be although I highly doubt I would want to tap my network in order to get a posting in Iraq.

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Yesterday morning, someone on Freeycle Toronto posted that they had a couple of movie passes to give away. Naturally, I responded and, surprisingly enough, found that I was the first to respond so later that evening found myself riding through the rain to their place near Dupont and Shaw to pick them up. Normally, you get beaten to such goodies.

Freecycle is an excellent idea! Basically, you give away items that you no longer want or need and you can ask for or receive items that you do want/need. I’ve given away old computers and other stuff so it’s helped to clear out some of the clutter around here and I’ve gotten some great stuff such as a printer ribbon for an old dot matrix, a couch and now those tickets!

So, that’s how I ended up going to see Spiderman 3 which was a whole lot better than I had expected. I had expected some downtime with the dialogue but it went a lot smoother than I’d thought it would. The action came along pretty fast and furious so that’s good for those who enjoy that sort of thing. I’m definitely looking forward to what are they saying…4, 5, 6, and even 7?

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