So my MacBook’s magsafe power cable fell victim to the frayed power cable issue. This is a common complaint among those who’ve purchased them through Apple’s own website.

Bad News: Newly exposed wires were beginning to make my power-cord not work if not perfectly positioned to work; looming fire hazard. A new magsafe adapter is $99.

Good News: I found new power adapters on eBay for under $50 with shipping. Fairly quick shipping is promised from Hong Kong and I already had the perfect amount on my PayPal account (with about $0.40 to spare.) Should be in later this week.

Bad News: The next day Apple finally made this an out-of-warranty covered defect, meaning those adapter cables not seen as being broken due to user neglect would get replaced. (Apple Support Article via TUAW ) Why bad? I just spent $50 on eBay, no refunds on working products…

Good News: I made it over to the Apple Store (West Edmonton) around 8:30pm tonight after my cord began to smell of burning plastic. I exchanged the crapped out cable for a shiny new one very quickly (and with no hassle at all.) Good job Apple for finally making this a free replacement program (though from the sound of it, this has been long overdue.)

Once my eBay purchase does arrive Rachel and I will have a spare magsafe we can use when out and about, and I’ll likely keep the other one plugged in at the desk ready to use when at home (no more crawling under the desk when I am in a hurry to get out the door.)

To all of the non-smokers out there:

I’m sure you’ve been asked one of the classic questions from smokers in need: “hey, can I bum a smoke..”, “got a smoke I can buy off of you”, “yo man, you got a light?”, etc. (For me, I seem to encounter this question the most on late night walks home from the LRT.)

My automatic response tends to be “sorry, I don’t smoke,” and I often wonder why I had used those words for the next part of the walk home. Why? I’m not at all sorry that I don’t smoke! I am proud of the fact my body and wallet haven’t fallen prey that horrible habit.

With today’s knowledge of smoking I am amazed that anybody starts. (I realize that those of older generations than I are now facing the nicotine addiction issue … but people under 30, cummooon! What were you thinking?)

Going back to the issue of language I need to rethink my response:

• “I’m sorry to hear that you smoke, and I don’t, so buzz off” — this is likely to get me in trouble, though I do still say “sorry” in there…

• “There’s a 7-11 down the street”- though it should be fairly obvious already…

• “Here’s some nicotine gum … I keep it around for when smokers ask me for their next fix.”- not quite right and it would involve me spending money…

• “No”- Hmmm, I think this one would work best: short but effective, and it doesn’t involve me getting chased down the street by an angry smoker.

SeanOuimet.com had yet to be finished content wise, and I was unhappy with the dark look I gave the site earlier this year, so tonight I pushed a lighter (though still incomplete) redesign for all to see. Take a look.

• Order Bucket – the service itself has a nice site, once logged in, but has no public face
• Caphost.com – my small web hosting company, which is being refocused around managed hosting pools.

SeanOuimet.com is back online, though still in its lack of content form. I think I’m going to try another design for the site, as I’m not too happy with its dark look.

The new blog layout is also starting to come together, though their are some gaps left to fill in as of tonight. Either way, it is functional until the final changes to the look and feel are worked in.

Well, I’ve finally got the blog online, though my main website “seanouimet.com” was the one thing I didn’t properly migrate over from my now offline web1 server.

Soon I will be putting up posts discussing the new Ruby project StrokeDB, as well as general topics related to the world of hosting, rails, git, and more!

Update: I haven’t had time to develop a theme on here… sorry if it is still looking plain and ugly.