rich's uninteresting

• …and once more, for the twitterverse: Simon has arrived. http://tr.im/jlp8 #
• bundle o’ joy aside, it’s great to have 3 weeks off work for paternity with beautiful weather. #
• observation as a new parent: u can tell the single guy friends who totally can’t relate to birth & babies (most of them). i was one. #
• i like being Mr Mom while the missus recovers! cooking, cleaning, shopping. so begins day 3 AS (After Simon) #
• Bought an awesome family sized hammock from a dude on CL. #
• regretting purchase from ZipZoomfly. 15% restocking fee on everything. wtf #
• Found really obscure cause of ocz vertex ssd not working in MacBook pro unibodies. Now I can get on with my life. #
• Having babies: thank god for cabbage and trixietracker. #
• First outing with the boy: brunch around the corner. Slept thru the whole thing. #

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I splurged on the 120GB OCZ Vertex SSD a week ago, and it’s been driving me nuts that my Macbook Pro wouldn’t recognize the drive – even though it worked fine in my Macbook and from an external USB enclosure. Long story short, I finally discovered what the problem was. Here’s my forum post on it. Hopefully it may save some other MBP users the headache:

I finally got it working in my machine, and the solution is not what you’d expect it to be!

First, I was able to upgrade to FW1.1. That didn’t solve the problem: the drive was still not recognized by the MBP, although working fine in the USB enclosure and in my Macbook.

THE SOLUTION: after countless hours of trying different install options, I finally discovered this really obscure behavior:
– when the drive is installed the normal way (black side facing out), it’s NOT recognized by the MBP (you can tell because Disk Utility sees it as “generic external media”).
- when the drive is installed UPSIDE DOWN (silver side facing out) it works fine! Disk Utility sees it as “119.2 GB OCZ-VERT (serial#) Media”. Picture: http://skitch.com/richlin/bpb98/photo

The mounting screws don’t fit right when it’s upside down, so I figured that since the problem is likely caused by metal on metal contact, I taped a piece of paper to cover the silver side and installed it normal-side up. Sure enough, it’s working just fine now.

So far things seem to be working fine. Even boot camp is working. And now, I can get on with my life…

• urgh…forced to use windows to help w/amo’s homework and suddenly dealing with errors like ‘missing msvcr80.dll’ #windowsfail #
• heh billy bob thornton is such a total a-hole in this video. love that howard played it for millions. http://tr.im/iMg3 #
• my new macbook pro had a loud fan. took to on-site support and fixed by lunch. it’s good to work at apple. #
• essential mac config: 8-button logitech mouse w/steermouse. program middle buttons: hide, delete, quit. and quicksilver triggers, o’course #
• Lots of low level contractions. On high alert for sneak attack from baby 1w early. #
• Blog’d: as close to Burning Man as I’ll get this year http://twurl.nl/xlbse3 #
• people who’s entire social web presence consists of facebook scare me. unfortunately, that’s most of the people on fb. #
• Blog’d: Mt Everest team uses Macs http://twurl.nl/qmzqky #
• Blog’d: Ordered: OCZ Vertex 120GB SSD http://twurl.nl/lfuh6f #
• I’m selling an $880 Best Buy store credit card for $40 less. Free money, if you were planning on making a big purchase… #
• i’m getting a little OCD about my teeth these days: floss + water pik + brush + mouthwash. all b/c last visit my gums weren’t the best. #
• my favorite fortune cookie fortune: “You will gain wisdom by becoming a fool at Burning Man.” #
• ironic headline of the day: NYTimes: “General Growth Properties Files for Bankruptcy” http://tr.im/iZaf #
• excited for the SSD (coming tmw). obscenely priced, but should be huge jump in responsiveness. in a yr, will be top selling upgrade. #
• an observation about Microsoft: every Windows user knows “blue screen of death”, and every Xbox owner knows “red ring of death”. just sayin #
• actually excited for a twitter client to be released. the preview video rocks. Tweetie for Mac: http://www.atebits.com/tweetie-mac/ #
• what i learned about state of SSDs: Intel X25-M is best but most exp; OCZ Vertex is comparable but cheaper. many others are not worth it. #
• if you’re an amazon addict, Delivery Status touch is a great way to track packages, all sync’d to web/mac/iphone. https://junecloud.com/ds/ #
• my ’99 integra’s gas light comes on when it’s left of Empty…yet there’s 2g left. can i really drive 50+ miles past E? confusing. #
• read some integra forums: gas light w/2g left is normal. so i guess i can get up to 350m per tank. nice. #
• find yourself at Burning Man ’08 (aerial view of Black Rock City): http://tinyurl.com/clvvyl #
• Ugh…having trouble flashing the firmware of this ocz vertex ssd. Nerd skills pushed to the max. http://twitpic.com/3i9a3 #
• At hypnobirthing class this weekend. The power of visualization and mind body connection. #
• oh just cleaning amniotic fluid from the kitchen floor #

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For my new Macbook Pro. Here’s a video opening 35 apps in 20 seconds.

cool behind the scenes look at how HD video is broadcast from Mt Everest using Macbook Pros with SSDs.