I have a 15” Retina MacBook Pro, this is my 3rd one, the first one had bad image retention so Apple replaced it. The second one had image retention but I could live with that, but it also had a faulty fan wich was scraping/grinding on something, so they replaced that one as well. The 3rd had been working fine for a few months, then the bluetooth and WiFi started freaking out (magic mouse lagging and WiFi frequently dropping), so it went for repair. They diagnosed a faulty AirPort card, and replaced it, again it worked fine for a few months then I started having random freezes. I say freezes because just the screen froze, everything else carried on working (Skype, Spotify etc), upon inspecting the console I had errors and warnings about a driver hang. I presumed, it was just dodgy drivers that came down in the latest updated. But after posting on the Apple forums I was told that the graphics card was failing. Great!

So here we are, I have just recieved it back after the 2nd repair, and its working fine…. so far… for those of you that want to know whats been replaced, here is the list:

• Logic Board (16GB RAM / 2.6Ghz)
• Left Fan
• Display

Hopefully my bad luck is over, and it’s all fixed and will work awesomely for ever. However, Sam seems to think that it’s me and I keep breaking them somehow (in a way that’s covered by Apple Care as a Hardware/Manufacturing failure).

Do I regret getting one? No, not at all. They are amazing machines, and I realised how fast they are when I moved back to my old 2006 White MacBook while my rMBP was in for its 2nd repair.

Would I recommend one? Yes. As i’ve said above, they are amazing machines and are very powerful. The display is amazing, honestly. I believe that in the first few batches, Apple were ironing out manufacturing kinks, and this might still be going on. But Apple have been amazing during the whole ordeal, they’ve been very respectful and have done everything they can to help. 

Today has been stressful. For those of you that don’t know, I help out with a local community radio station and today we moved from our old studio (the building was literally falling apart) to shiny new offices. This meant that we had to dismantle the studio, furniture and other studio equipment. Dismantling the studio was the easy part, moving the furniture was…. a struggle, and involved swear words, moving desks through windows, a van and a small alleyway on market day. 

After several trips with the van we had moved all of the equipment, bar the stuff that’s falling apart and is being taken to the rubbish tip. The next stage, was rebuilding the furniture in a very, very cramped office, with £1000s of equipment meters away. After a few hours we managed to have it all re-built, and we was ready to start building the studio. We started work, only to remember that the mug (yes, we’re that high tech) with all the adaptors in was still at the old place! We managed to get the monitors, ethernet, and HIDs all set up, which was all well and good, but isn’t a radio station supposed to have sound?! After a while we managed to get the adaptors to the studio and it was full steam ahead for the last hurdle!

We’ve got to go back tomorrow and just finish off setting up some of the equipment such as the compressor, stream server and some other bits and bobs.

During this time, I left my phone in the other room so it didn’t get damaged, I received 43 emails… I also took my rMBP with me, in the hope I might get some work done. I only went to use it once, and then it shat itself, I experienced the “keychain issue” may have reported since the 10.8.2 v2.0 update. You know the one, the one where OS X asks for your password when you want to do almost anything. Even then, when I had got past this, the BT Openzone hotspot wasn’t working, no indoor 3G coverage (it was freezing!) and we’ve not got internet yet at the new studio it was useless, I couldn’t do what I wanted. So, I put it back in my bag, and hoped nobody stood on it…

After today, I feel worse than I did yesterday, mainly because of the stress of what has been done and what is still left to do, and also the fact that I have kind of been thrown in at the deep end with all this audio stuff. However, I’m sure it’ll all go fine.

After having to leave the post yesterday, I did feel better, I felt as if a weight had been lifed off my shoulders, if only for a short time. I doubt myself, worry about things that happened years ago and worry things that might never happen.

In reality, 2012 has been a difficult year for me. January was quite possibly the worst month of my life so far, I experienced something I hope none of you ever have to go through as well as being made redundant. Those of you close to me will know what else I am referring to here. February, I turned 21, this should have been a big occasion, it wasn’t. February was better than January, but not by much. On the morning of my birthday, I got an email (again, not going into much detail here) that pretty much ruined the day. March - October were okay, I managed to cope with them. Some positives lie in there, but they are drowned out by the many negatives and issues. November has just started, but I already have a feeling it’s going to be like all the others, there is very little positivity on the horizon. I also don’t hold my hopes up for December, it’s Christmas, that wonderful time of year were we spend hours with family. I love spending time with my family, but just wish we could all get on without all the associated shit.

On the subject of family, I love them I do, some things annoy and upset me, like all of them smoking.

But yeah, that’s my year so far.

charlieissocoollike posted a video on November 9th with this exact title, and it is this video that has prompted me to write this post.

Being a web developer is difficult, not only because it is mentally challenging and the technology is always changing and evolving prompting us to refine and learn new skills. Don’t get me wrong, I love learning new stuff, it is part of being a developer. But, there are parts I don’t like, and parts that do scare me. These range from the fact my parents and family have no idea what I do, they just don’t understand it, and the fact I am scared about my future. I have been told I am good at what I do, but I digress, I accept that there is always going to be someone better than me. That doesn’t scare me, I look forward to meeting people who are better than me, and learning form them. What scares me is the fact it’s my entire life, I don’t specialise in anything else, it’s like putting all your eggs in one basket. I have been planning a web app for months, I plan instead of developing it, I’ve over planned it. This is because when ever I sit down to start developing, my mind goes blank, totally blank, I forget how to code. Now I have no idea why this happens, or if it happens to anyone else, but it does scare me, it scares me that I might spend months working on this web app and nobody will use it. Also, the fact that I can never switch off, I am always thinking about better ways to complete tasks, it’s already massively broken my sleeping pattern.

I also study at the Open University, however, I don’t have the motivation for it. I have been passing the modules, just. I am probably going to regret posting this, but I leave it all until last minute, then blag it. This scares me, I should care about this, if I ever want to get a high-profiled job, or even high-profiled clients I think I am going to need a degree or equivalent.

As some of you will know my main language is PHP. I have been learning this language since I became interested in Web Development. I can’t remember ever sitting down and trying to decide what language to learn, for some reason PHP just seemed like the right language.

Now, I believe I am quite fluent in it. However, I am now coming across problems when applying for other jobs as they list ASP.net/ASP as a requirement. Even for Assistant/Junior positions.

Is PHP a “dying language” and should I get learning another language before its too late?

Hey :) 

Sorry about the lack of posting, But I thought I would make this post to help people if they have the red/green blinking power light on the Netgear DGND3300 wireless dual band n ADSL router (mainly because Argos are selling it and it might get me some more hits :))

Anyway, here’s what you need to do to fix the problem - which exists because the router has no firmware loaded onto it or it is corrupt. 

WARNING - These steps worked for me, but I can’t provide any guarantee that they will work for you. You also do so at your own risk. 

1. Go to http://kb.netgear.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/13900 and download the latest firmware (I used the second one)
2. Plug in the router (power + LAN Cable)
3. Set a static IP for the LAN Connection, I used 192.168.0.2/255.255.255.0 and left the default gateway and DNS empty
4. Browse to http://192.168.0.1/
5. You should get a page saying you need to restore the firmware
6. Click the browse button, and select the file we downloaded in step 1
7. Go get a coffee and wait

Hope someone finds this useful :)

Chow!