“Even with July 11 behind the company, the focus is still on mobile devices, not the Macintosh. The Mac is why I went to work for Apple, but sadly, it is not where Apple is putting their time and money.”
– Stephen M. Hackett, over at Forkbomber, on why he quit as an Apple retail Lead Mac Genius. His thoughts on the switch to “gadgets” and the hectic repair schedule are fascinating.
“I am discovering my job is less about helping people with their computer problems, and more about watching an endless parade of status bars.”
– Thomas Brand, from his amazingly-cool My Newton Blog (and Twitter).
Update: Brand has changed his blog name to, ahem, Egg Freckles. How Newton-riffic is that?
My past Newton problems? Solved.
All it took was a fresh set of batteries. I grabbed a pack of AA Duracells, popped them into the MessagePad, hit the “Reset” button on the back, pressed the on/off switch, and *Bling!* It’s running again.
I restored the Newton’s settings via NCK on the iMac, and now all my stuff is back. The only thing that didn’t get restored was the date – and there really has to be a better way to set the date than cycling through all the months since 1995. But oh well.
What a dummy I am. I’m almost scared to report this back to the Newtonlist – but that will teach me, right?
The exciting thing is, I can get right back to Newton-izing poetry. Starting Monday.
I went to the Newtonlist mailing group and got some direction on how to fix my MessagePad 110.
Member Sonny, I presume of Flickr fame, sent me this:
Have you tried having the MP110 without any AA batteries then holding the power switch for about 60 seconds then holding the reset for about another 60 seconds? Leave the MP110 as is for about a day or two then try powering up with a Newton Adapter or a fresh set of Duracell AA batteries…
Sonny also pointed me in this direction, which gives a similar set of instructions. But those definitely didn’t work.
This weekend I’ll pick up a fresh set of batteries. I also have to grab a recharger, but I want to get something quality, like the MAHA I’ve heard so many good things about.
I think that’ll be the lasts straw. If I can’t get the Newton running after Sonny’s advice and the new batteries, I’ll cash it in and spring for a 2×00 series model.