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before going to hawaii for our vacation (other posts about that coming soon), i decided to try the itunes movie rental service. obviously, the goal was to find an easy way to keep diego occupied on the flight…so, i rented the simpsons and we watched it on the flight…twice :)

not only was the quality good, but it didn’t kill the battery. my only complaint = only one day to watch the video once you start it.

now, if only the iphone had an ebook solution that worked in offline mode!

in any event, on the way home, hawaiian air had an even better vid solution…a dvd player loaded with a number of movies and tv shows, all for $15…

what a boring, but semi-productive weekend…

i spent 5 hours on saturday dealing with applecare and the folks at the genius bar (see my earlier post). at least my data is backed up now. plus, i’m fully “online” and set to work on any available computer….thanks to gmail, gcalendar, greader, meebo, xdrive, gdocs, salesforce, delicious, flickr, feedburner, and my blog…

besides spending half the wknd on my mac, i worked, started our taxes, and mowed the lawn, etc. wow…exciting….

at least i watched a little madness (go hoyas!) and saw casino royale - daniel craig is going to be a great bond…

so, it’s ironic - i complained about gmail a week or so ago. and, this time, it saved me…having a searchable copy of your email in the cloud is a wonderful thing…especially when your mac goes belly up…

anyways, i want to write a quick post on my mac troubles…both to see if anyone has any ideas and to talk about apple customer service…

so, here’s the deal - it hasn’t booted properly since friday night…ever since i did an OS X upgrade. after hours of fooling with it, i was able to bring it back with a “tiger archive and install.” but, everytime i then try to upgrade to the latest version, it dies…and, now i can’t get it back. ughhh….

this all started because i went to the apple store to buy the new iphoto (see my other post) and the guy at the counter chided me for being three versions behind on tiger.

when i went home and did the OS X upgrade, all hell broke loose. while i still haven’t figured it out, here’s the good and the bad of apple customer service. the folks on the phone are the best - professional, patient, and just darn good. how about the folks at the store? ok, but very much “by the book” - not good when your main work computer is toast.

after working with the applecare person on the phone for a while saturday morning, we determined i had to do an archive and install. but, there was just one problem…i couldn’t find the original tiger disks for my PowerBook G4…so, i had to go to the store. when i got there, the genius bar was booked and they wouldn’t just let me borrow the disk - even for in-store use. before i went ballistic, the woman got me an appointment in walnut creek. if we hadn’t needed to go out that way anyways, i would have escalated…but jeez, can’t they just let someone borrow a disk?

anyways, i made my way over to walnut creek where i was told that there would be an $80 fee since this was something i could do on my own. i explained that i didn’t have the disks and couldn’t wait the 3-4 days for applecare to send them to me…that i had just driven 40 minutes to his store…that this was about work, not my grandmother’s photos, etc. :)…but, he didn’t seem to care. before i got too hot under my collar, he decided to just do the upgrade and it worked…that was a smart move on his part…very smart…

so, that’s the story…unfortunately, i don’t have a happy ending. i can sort of use my computer, but things keep crashing, i can’t upgrade to the latest OS X, and i can’t install the new iphoto. frankly…i’m not sure how to resolve this…any ideas?

i’m in need of a better mac photo management app. i know about a few of them, but would like some suggestions.

the biggie as far as i’m concerned is picasa…is there going to be one for the mac anytime soon?

all i can say is….”wow”