Recently I’ve been experiencing erratic behavior of my weblog. I’m getting strange errors that don’t tell me what the hell is happening.
I post something, and get an error, but when I check back, it has been posted. I try making test posts and they go fine. Then when I make lengthier ones, sometimes they publish, sometimes they don’t.
Given the symptoms I’d gather it was a plugin conflict since it seemed that the text is the one that decides wether it freaks out or not. But strangely enough, when I kill the text parsing plugins, the same error occurs.
I searched the web and found out that there are a lot of similar cases… exact cases to be precise. The kicker is, that this all happened within the past week. And people have been tracing it to a cPanel (which is a type of administration/interface system used by most webhosts nowadays). Apparently, there’s been an “update” to some modules and they broke MovableType, and now the whole MT blogging world (myself included) have severely crippled systems because of these upgrades.
I hope this is resolved soon.
on the brighter side
I’ve finally got a replacement power supply for my PowerBook. In fact I ended up getting two. Here’s what happened:
Contacted a friend from Philmug and was relieved to find out he had a stock of the iAdaptor2, which I’ve always wanted an excuse of getting one, and what better reason than an emergency!
Now, while this transaction is confirmed, I also was having talks with another member who had a stock of the official Apple power brick/block/adapter which I intended to get eventually. Since the incident, I decided to have a spare in time – because I never wanted to feel as helpless as I did when my PowerBook finally hibernated and could not resume for lack of power.
Anyways, so I went to Makati today and got the iAdaptor2. Returning home, I plugged it in and… the friggin’ thing didn’t work! So I called my friend and asked for it to be replaced. However, the unit is from Japan, and the next shipment is coming august.
I thought now I have a reason to get the official power brick. But decided to not refund the iAdaptor2, since I figured it was fate telling me I should have both. I thought he should just replace it when the shipment comes. It wouldn’t be a problem to wait, since I was now forced to get the official brick.
After getting the brick, returned back home and popped the lid of the laptop. And it resumed from its sleep… with the iAdaptor2 still plugged
Apparently it did work, but cannot run and charge when the battery’s below a certain level (pretty much fully drained). The official power brick could run the laptop wether or not there was power in the battery (I haven’t tried running it without the battery, but I’m guessing it just might work, like how PCs do). I assumed this was the case too for the iAdaptor2, which led me to think it was defective.
Now I guess I’m happy. I spent more than I should’ve, but I find comfort that I was able to get two power supplies for the price of one (I mentioned before that the Apple center sells the power brick for 8.5k). I got it for 4.8k, a 500 peso markup… not bad at all considering I really needed a replacement. The iAdaptor2 took the other half.
I’m aware that 8k or even 4k is a ridiculous price for a power supply, especially since you can get generic adaptors for PCs… Sadly, this isn’t so in the Apple world: though you can probably get a block that outputs the same voltage/amperage/etc., you cannot get a “generic” Apple power connector – which resembles an audio RCA jack. This leads to the unavoidable fact that all “Apple power adapters” can’t be (or aren’t) manufactured like the generic electronic stuff you find in the malls.
I was actually lucky that there were a stocks of the item. Both items are from Japan, and both people who supply them via Philmug ship them on a by-order basis. In fact, the power brick was reserved to someone else, but he was still out of the country so the guy said I could take the unit and he’d just ship a new one within the week. It is also a fact that two sellers are one of the cheapest providers out there (why do you think people are willing to go through the hassle of having them ship it from Japan instead of just buying them here from the shops).
Considering my laptop had already run out of juice, and I got work tomorrow, if I hadn’t found them, I would’ve been forced to get the 8.5k brick from the Apple Center wether I liked it or not.
So even if I myself know I spent more than I should’ve, I find solace in the fact that I was able to get incredible bargains for both adaptors… moreso, the day before my work resumes.