iMac WiFi Woes

Yesterday I took delivery of a brand new shiny 3.06Ghz iMac. I’ve been hankering after a decent desktop for a while. MacBooks and MacBook Pros are great for when you’re on the move, but when you want to sit down and do some serious coding / photo touching / gaming, you need a decent desktop.

So, I ordered a custom build iMac, which is now proudly taking pride of place on my desk.

After initial setup through restoring from a Time Machine backup, the iMac worked a treat, but from there, things deteriorated… I installed the 10.5.5 update.

After the update WiFi started playing up. The signal strength would keep varying, and constantly drop and reconnect altogether. Applications relying on internet connectivity would constantly fail.

After scratching my head and tinkering with all of the WiFi related settings I could think of, I was ready to start installing a new wired connection into the office… a damned pity given that this is the only appliance in the house that has a WiFi issue.

Then, i noticed something odd… I was running a little application called iStumbler to get a better look at the WiFi signal strength and characteristics. Strangely enough, whilst this application was left running, my network WiFi issues disappeared!

So now, I have a work around, but am completely at a loss as to how to properly fix this… if anyone has any suggestions, they would be very much appreciated!

Dead Battery

On Wednesday this week, for no apparent reason, the battery on my three month old MacBook Pro decided to die. All of a sudden it refused to charge, reported that it had no charge, and threw all of its toys out of the pram.

I searched on the web, and found someone else had experienced the same problem.

So, first thing Thursday morning I gave Apple a call, and they agreed to send out a new battery pronto.

Yesterday, the battery arrived, and everything now seems to be back in order.

Well done Apple for such a prompt response.

iWeb

My new MacBook arrived last Thursday, but I’ve been away over the weekend, and have only just managed to get online with it, so more on the MacBook later.

However, while I was away, I also took the opportunity to have a little play with iWeb, to see what its like. The results can be found here.

I don’t think I’ll be ditching Drupal just yet.

Poorly Powerbook

 

A while ago my Powerbook screen started acting up… every now and then the bottom third of the screen flickers and vanishes, and the rest of the time when the bottom third is visible, a green line a pixel wide can be seen about a third of the way from the left edge.

Unfortunately, the guarantee has just ran out, and I’ve been told it will cost about 350 pounds to replace the screen. No AppleCare.

Oh, and on top of that, I dropped it. Tonki jumped on it while it was perched on my knee.

Although it didnt have far to fall (about 2 foot max), it landed right on the corner.

It mangled the case a bit, but apart from that, you wouldnt know any different… and it is not related in any way to the screen being faulty. It was already faulty.

The worst thing is, I cant bare the idea of being without it for any amount of time, and is my main machine!!!

/sobs