The Mac Neill Clan Blog

iPhones come to Vancouver first?

Mon, 26 May 2008 14:45:42 -0700

So it’s been reported in a couple of places ( place 1, place 2) that there has been a few shipments of ‘electronic computers’ being received in North America. I prefer to stick on the fact that it wasn’t until they hit the port of Vancouver that the story broke....

NA NA NA-NA NA WE GOT ‘EM FIRST!!!

Discuss...

tJ`

Chaos, patience, a healthy does of koolaid, and lotsa pics!

Sun, 25 May 2008 16:49:16 -0700

Vancouver Finally got an Apple Store this weekend, and boy-howdy it was none too soon. I was as excited as (insert your own expletive here) Like any Apple fanboy (though I’m not sure if I’m comfortable with that title) I was going to be there as soon as I heard when the grand opening was.
ok, so here’s how it went down. I got up at 6 am after a night of casual boozin’ and headed for Pacific center. A stop at Timmy’s was in order. I drove around the Pacific Center block a couple of times... no line-up??
Did I have the date wrong?? Nope...this was the 23rd for sure...God knows I read the invite enough...
I finally saw a group of people inside, wow that was nice...they let us geeks inside.
I got in the line at about 7am...the line up at Timmy’s was a beast... I was number 14. I was later to learn that the distinguished gentleman that was number 1 in line got there at 5:45 am. (The doors opened at 10 am.) That’s a heart full of Apple right there, that’s what that is kids!
Then for the next 2 hours I watched the maintenance staff play with the automated security door, a very crabby photographer ‘deal’ with everyone else in the world other than herself, the line grow and grow until it was outside of the mall and around the block (2 corners), and some very awake Apple store employees cheering us all on. (Yes I did get a little teary for that part - but I will never speak of it again.)
It did make me wonder if there WAS something in the Koolaid to get them so awake that early!
When the gate opened, it was all about crazy. Apple really puts on a show for these things...
The lights went down, ALL the employees filed out onto the store floor, and as they brought up the lights, the cheering started...and didn’t really stop the whole time I was there...

Here, see for your self....

Here’s some pics as well...

Weeks end

Fri, 23 May 2008 13:42:43 -0700

So it’s almost another week dun... Time for backups and preparing for the Monday morning backups. We have a rigourous backup schedule that I put together pretty simply using Automator and iCal. I’m kinda proud of it cause it gives you direct access to the files in their backup location, can run in the background and is the ultimate in flexibility.
Pretty easy - in Automator use the copy finder items action, save as an application and have that be the alarm for an event in iCal.
Of course there’s options along the way in Automator, most of which offer pretty good options for customizing it. If you want to know for sure that it’s running, check the “show action when run” checkbox. We found it annoying to always have to click on “ok” every morning, but if you were doing it monthly it might be nice.
The other major one is to replace duplicate items. We burn our project files weekly for example, so I always wanted the originals left there until I deleted them, but this could be a way to do incremental backups.
For a long time I was using deja vu, but it basically only had 3 types of schedules which eventually was limiting although it was just essentially a copy so your files are readily available.
I approach backup from a very utilitarian vantage... yes i’ll clone my drive monthly, but I also do weekly backups of mail and documents. My PIM’s are all dotmac’ed so they’re in like 4 places at once at any given time. At work, there’s daily backups of certain things, which get backed up weekly, plus we totally clone everything to DLT tape in 2 stages of production.

What do you use? super duper? hazel? CCC?
nerdly minds wanna know...
tJ`

Apple store in Vancouver! 2

Wed, 21 May 2008 13:00:33 -0700

So after a little looking around the web, I’ve discovered that the new Apple store in Vancouver isn’t going to be bigger than the Boston one at all... I guess I really WAS dreaming. Maybe that’s why Steve Jobs was at the ribbon cutting...
Anyhoo, I’m a little disappointed at the leaked pics that I’ve found and therein the size of the store.

here is a construction pic via Vistasucks.worpress.com ... god I love that name

Here are some pics of the exterior and drafts of the layout...

Contrary to most of the comments, pacific center DOES suck for a location. It’s over crowded, over priced , and generally full of crap. I hate going there if only because I have to go for some reason or another... like an Apple store. ^^
Don’t get me wrong...I’m there in my birthday suite with a ribbon and bells on for the grand opening.
bring on the discussion...I DARE YA ^L^

Apple store in Vancouver!

Tue, 20 May 2008 16:29:24 -0700

Yippie!! I mean holy Cr^P ...no no I mean SWEET!!! no, that’s not it either.... OH YEAH!!!! I meant FINALLY!!
That’s right, the Official apple store is opening in Vancouver, this Saturday May 24th, 10 am. in Pacific Center. (granville at georgia)- a perfect may 2-4 weekend (even though we already spent our wad last weekend) but I think I may just have to have another beer or 24 this weekend again in celebration.
Bye bye west world, you ripped me off on my laptop bag and I’ve remembered that moment until this day... now apple has exacted my revenge... MUHAHAHA
Sorry kids, my evil older twin just grabbed the mic there.
Looking forward to seeing you in the line up. Who’s going and at what time does the lineup start? - seriously, I really want to know.
And just in case you don’t know exactly where it is... Here is the address / contact from Apple.
take care all,
tJ`