Apple announced the new Mac Studio less than two weeks ago, at their Peek Porfance event on March 8th, 2022. The new Mac is powered by either an M1 Max or the new M1 Ultra processor — which is essentially two M1 Max processors stuck together. Preorders began the same day and people have already started receiving their new Macs.
Now, here’s the thing. I ordered a new 16″ MacBook Pro with an M1 Max back on February 12th to replace my aging 2016 15″ MacBook Pro. I’m still waiting. The estimated delivery date is April 13-20, two months+ after I ordered it. My wife ordered her new MacBook Pro on the same day (replacing a 2012 model) and she received hers a couple of weeks ago. The big difference — hers is an M1 Pro (not Max).
So, this has left me wondering, did Apple hoard M1 Max processors so that they would have them available for the forthcoming announcement of the new Studio?
That’s right! One Digital Life has risen from the dead. Well, ok, maybe it wasn’t dead but it was definitely in a deep coma.
I started this blog on May 28th, 2004. For many years I posted here fairly often. For a time, the site was actually relatively popular. But, as time went on, the posts slowed and my last post was on October 5th, 2011. The site lived on, unattended, until early 2016 when it was compromised by malware. I’ll probably never know how it was infected, but it was most likely an out-of-date version of WordPress or an unpatched plugin.
The infection came at a time when I was unable to even attempt to fix it, so I had to just quarantine the database and all the files, and walk away. It was heartbreaking.
I’ve thought about bringing the site back many times over the years. I had been using WordPress for so long, and built a lot of functionality in a very non-WordPress kind of way (by today’s standards), that it always felt like a daunting task to bring it back and modernize it. But, this past weekend I got a bug in my but and decided it was time!
So far it’s gone fairly smoothly. I dug everything out, cleaned up the malicious code, updated WordPress and plugins, and the site is up and running again! I’ve started fixing some of the broken functionality, and broken links, but it’s going to be a long haul to get it back into top shape. Don’t be surprised if you come across some broken links, missing images, etc.
I plan to continue clearing out the cobwebs over time. I’m not certain how much I’ll be adding to the site. It does feel nice to have a place to post again, so I would like to continue adding new content now and then. If you would like to be notified of new posts, I still provide an RSS feed that you can subscribe to. If you happen to be one of the few people out there who’s still subscribed to the old feed, you may want to refresh the subscription. I use to run it through FeedBurner, but I’m not sure if that even works anymore.
My Host, Media Temple, has informed me that they’re doing scheduled (major) maintenance tonight on their Grid-Service. The site may be down from 9:00pm to 1:00am PDT, and possibly longer.
MAINTENANCE ACTION: (mt) Engineers will be making significant changes to the back-end network used for the (gs) Grid-Service. This maintenance will improve reliability and assist in the speed of resolving network related incidents.
Sounds great! I don’t like the site going down, but if it means improving the Grid I’m willing to live with it. Apparently Cluster.01 and Cluster.02 are getting the most attention. That’s good news since I’m on Cluster.01.
As you may or may not know, the deadline this year for filing your federal (2010) income tax return has been extended to April 18th, 2011 (instead of the typical 15th). This is due to the IRS observing the Emancipation Day in the District of Columbia.
However, not all states are following the IRS’s lead, so some state tax returns will still be due on April 15th. You should double-check your state to determine this years deadline.
Here in California, the 15th is still listed as the official deadline, but they go on to say, “Due to the federal Emancipation Day holiday on April 15, 2011, tax returns filed and payments received on April 18, 2011, will be considered timely.”
The situation currently unfolding in Japan has reignited the debate over the safety of nuclear power. If you live in the United States, and you’re not quite sure how close you live to a nuclear power plant, you may want to check out this interactive map over at CNN Money.
The map shows the location of every nuclear plant here in the US. If you enter your zip code it will tell you if you fall within a “danger zone”.
If a crisis at a nuclear reactor happened in the U.S., could you be living in a danger zone? In a 10-mile radius, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission says the air could be unsafe to breathe in the event of a major catastrophe. In 50 miles, food and water supplies may be unsafe.
I had never really given it much thought, but I’ve always assumed that when a dog drinks it curls it’s tongue forward to scoop up the water. Apparently, dogs actually curl their tongue backwards (towards their body) to bring the water into their mouths. Who knew?
Yay… starting next week, AT&T iPhone users will be able to share their iPhone’s 3G data connection with up to five devices via a personal Wi-Fi hotspot. Read the full details at Macworld.com.
I’ve been hosting my sites on Media Temple for almost 5 years now. In general I’ve been happy with them, and I’ve recommended them to friends and clients. But, with my recent troubles with the GridContainer, I started to wonder if they’re still as good as they once were, or if they gradually went downhill and I just hadn’t realized it.
Back on February 3rd I mentioned signing up for Media Temple’s MySQL GridContainer. The GridContainer is an add-on to their Grid-Service (gs) shared hosting package. After about a week of horrible performance I cancelled it and went back to the standard Grid-Service.
My sites are hosted by Media Temple. Generally I’ve been pretty happy with them, but the last few days have been a giant pain in the ass.
On Monday I migrated my Grid Service account from the MySQL SmartPool, to the dedicated MySQL GridContainer. One is a shared version of MySQL server, and the other is a dedicated version with double the resources. In theory, the GridContainer is supposed to be “better” than the SmartPool, as you’re not competing for resources with neighboring sites. But so far that hasn’t exactly been the case.
Even though my site has been running fine under the SmartPool, from the moment I migrated to the GridContainer the MySQL server has been crashing every 8-10 hours. You may have noticed the site keeps going up and down. Media Temple can offer no explanation for this.
I’m still trying to troubleshoot, and things seem a little more stable now, but so far I’m not terribly impressed. I may opt to go back into the SmartPool. I’ll be writing up some thoughts on this whole thing once I get through it.
Until this is resolved, I’m waiting to publish new posts, as I’ve already had to roll the database back once.
Update: I cancelled the Grid-Container. Read more, here.
