I didn’t last that long in using Mac Mini.

It’s really weird cause I would have chosen it over a windows desktop if I am to compare stability, security, maintenance among others. But, I couldn’t let go of my pc cause we’ve been through hell (threats, hardware failure) for more than 2 years.

Now, I understand why users that are well accustomed to their old OSes find it difficult to migrate to something else. Perhaps I have developed it one way or another.

Although, system specifications affected my fickle-geeky-mind. One is hard disk’s rpm, which makes Mac Mini a slow poke compared to what I’m using.

And then, the setup. I have my pc set for both dev and admin environment. I guess I’m lazy enough to duplicate the same environ to Mac Mini with a thought of somebody borrowing it cause they badly need it (outside our team).

Another is, I’m not up for an aero, aqua feel. I didn’t even use the default installation of Compiz Fusion on my Fedora 10, so you can’t expect me to enjoy these.

Maybe, if I am to begin with a clean slate, it would have been successful. Brand new installation of everything without missing a huge part of my routine is a good thing to do. But right now, it is not.

If this baby gives up, by then I’d reconsider moving. Or, if I already have enough resources to get myself a mac desktop at home. hahaha!! Or (again), if I’d be assigned (by any of the bosses) with a newly purchased mac, that would be great!!

For now, I’d settle for this (and Linux on my notebook, waiting for the os upgrade).

“Wait for me mac. I’ll stay with pc for now, but when our love story dies, we can have our second chance.”

**emo… hehe

In a LAN, one way of identifying a computer, when all you have is an IP address, is by using nbtstat command.

Simply launch command prompt and type:

C:> nbstat -a 192.168.1.1

It will return the computer’s DNS and mac address.

Okay, let me describe the entire setup. I was using WD on my Windows XP Development Environment, then my colleague said that he already has a copy of Bleach. As an SOP, ‘safely remove’ was what I did. And the weirdest thing of all is that, WD can’t be stopped cause it’s being used. There was no file from WD that was left open, neither were there folders. So in essence, nothing’s accessing anything from WD. I was irritated so I removed my device without stopping it. And I finally got my chance to obtain a copy of Bleach (Japanese Anime) Seasons 2 – 4. I said I’d copy it directly to my WD Passport without using its built-in application.

Next, we were done with the copy process from his Macintosh Dev Environ and I was excited to watch a few episodes right before lunch break. To my surprise, each file seemed corrupted when I was using XP. I did the entire process thinking that maybe we did something wrong though I doubt we did. And guess what, same thing.

Then we tried using a linux file server. Cause maybe, just maybe, WD is not well-off with macs (which, again, I doubt. Cause WD is in fat32 FS). And you’re right, it was a failure.

With these things all in mind, I came down with one thing left to do: have Misato check my WD via Windows Vista. Vista has a feature of checking, fixing and scanning for bad sectors on a storage device (I’m not sure if it can handle NAS). When I got home, I proceeded with my plan. It took a couple of minutes but it was worth the wait. My WD was fixed! woohoo!! And my Bleach files were cluttered, ugh.

I could have said that Vista fixed my problem. But actually, there was no need to fix any errors if there weren’t any in the first place. This goes back to Windows’ behavior on handling storage devices.