How not to handle bug reports

Posted on 29 March, 2008 by Matthias Scheler

After installing Apple’s latest security update on my Mac I could no longer use the Emacs editor. The problem was easy to fix by correcting the permissions of the main binary.

I decided nevertheless to report this problem to Apple using their bug reporting system. A few days later Apple requested more information which I provided on the same day. Yesterday they closed my bug as a duplicate of another bug. Working as a software developer myself I considered this a reasonable course of action.

But when I logged into Apple’s bug reporting system this morning I discovered that I cannot access the bug that my bug is a duplicate of. As a result I will never know when the bug will be fixed and what caused it in the first place.

Thank you, Apple! 🙁

Posted in Mac | Comments Off on How not to handle bug reports

Things you can do when your nephew is visiting

Posted on 22 March, 2008 by Matthias Scheler

The time had finally come to produce the sequel to my (in)famous Lego Train movie. But because I wanted to surpass the first part of the trilogy I needed the right equipment and crew:

  1. More tracks
  2. An exotic filming location
  3. A better camera (unfortunately still no video camera, blame Sony for that)
  4. And last but not least a talented young director:
    Robin Taylor

Now we are ready for action (please click on the picture to watch the movie):

The Second Train Movie

Posted in Free Time | Comments Off on Things you can do when your nephew is visiting

The (Un)fairness of the Universe

Posted on 19 March, 2008 by Matthias Scheler

My wife and I have three computers which we use frequently: the server, my desktop and the notebook which my wife usually uses as her desktop. We have up to date backups of the server, a somewhat recent backup of my desktop but no backups of the notebook.

The system partition of one of these three machines got messed up today. Guess which one. 🙁

Posted in Computing | Comments Off on The (Un)fairness of the Universe