When I work on my books, I write in OpenOffice.org, on my desktop machine in my office. When I write for the web, I put my iBook on my kitchen table, and use Text Edit.
Unfortunately, when I was in San Francisco, my iBook went to sleep, and won’t wake up. It’s the second time this has happened in 5 months, and I’m pretty annoyed. It’s not like I bash the stupid thing around, you know?
Because my iBook is currently in a coma, I’m forced to write for the web on my desktop machine. I’m using Kwrite, in an effort to duplicate my usual experience, but I still feel like I’m golfing with someone else’s clubs, so I don’t think I’ll be able to do much until I get my iBook fixed. Which is, ultimately, a good thing, because I’ll be forced to work on Just A Geek instead.
Before I gouge my eyes out in frustration, here are a couple of news items that may be of interest:
- I did an interview for Geek Extreme last week.
- The film Neverland that I worked on last year is now available on DVD! I am fiercely proud of this movie, and I hope WWdN readers will check it out. My friend Stephanie, who produced the movie, told me that they’ve already taken over 2,000 orders. Yay! Go us!
- My friend Seth, who directed The Good Things, told me last week that we’re going to be doing a DVD release of that film, as well. I’ll be doing a spiffy commentary track, and there will be tons of cool extras. I’m really excited for this to happen. This movie is amazing.
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There’s always Fark to get in the way of productivity… or making a really good sandwich.
Or leaving comments on someones blog… alright already! I’ll go and do some work.
wonder what’s going on at Fark??
mmm….i could go for a sandwich right about now.
You want me to help with your iBook? I work as a tech support specialist at Apple.
Send me an email 🙂
-Summer
Ooer good luck sorting your ibook. Damn tools of the trade braking on you. tsk tsk.
Try holding the power button several seconds until it powers down. Does your iBook have a reset button (which needs to be pressed with a pen or paperclip)? If so, use it (my last iBook was several years old; I have a PBG4 now; the power button trick works with it).
Next try holding shift-command-option while pressing the power button for several seconds to reset the power manager or command-option-PR immediately after rebooting to zap PRAM.
Your interview for Geek Extreme is a nice read. Thanks for sharing.
I think I am most excited about the good things release.
I have heard great things about that movie and have been dying to see it for a long time.
Sorry about the I-book man, if you want I can ask Thor if you can borrow his hammer… it always does wonders for his PC. 😉
Yay for Wil’s projects on DVDs. The Good Things is that short with Pat Mastrionni, right?
It’s funny (and not in a “guffaw snicker” kind of way): Amazon.ca calls “Jane White” an “Import” and apparently (’cause I just checked again) it’s “Out of Print–Limited Availability”. I must see Neverland.
We always knew you were an extreme geek.
It’s official. My iBook is currently having a near-death experience. Hopefully, the Apple folks will be able to coax it back from The Light sooner than later.
iBook: if you need it to reset, there’s always taking the battery out and back in to really really get it to power down.
I upgraded my battery recently (via the apple web site), which took me from 1.2 hours of non-plugged-in life to 4, which made a huge difference. Perhaps replacing the battery would be a good thing.
Additional DVDs for the Christmas list. Whoo-hoo!
Hmm…my powerbook is sick too. It is currently at the apple hospital, and hopefully getting better. The Apple tech people have been really good to me…I hope they are good to you too. May our laptops be healed quickly. =^)
‘The Good Things’ was an unexpected pleasure and the DvD is gonna be a must buy.
Saw it during the Chrysler Million Dollar Competition.
It’s a short story about nothing and everything. A low keyed performance and the subtle direction made me forget who the actor was. I only saw Zack.
Wil,
Sweet interview. I consider myself more a philosopher geek as well, or maybe a useless-knowledge geek. I would like to learn more technobabble and gadget-knowledge as well, but that comes with more financial resources than I as a student have, I think! =)
I was wondering if you had any advice for aspiring writers – how did you learn how to capture moments and sentiments as skillfully as you do? Was it just practice, or did you take a class or two, read a how-to book? =) Any tips you have would be GREAT for novices like me. I think my stuff has potential, but I’m not quite where I want it to be, you know?
Thanks and keep writing! I look forward to it everyday.
Why don’t you use OpenOffice for X11 on OS X?
If you ibook crashes try calling Leo maybe he has a suggestion why it died.
So, this means more Audblogs and photoblogs right? 😉
I saw Neverland at a film festival in LA. I would encourage y’all to see it–very cool indeed. Wil will make you laugh and it’s way hipper than the Neverland being released this Christmas.
Hi Wil,
Is Neverland ever going to be shown, or be able to be bought in the UK, because I would really love to see it!
Spike
9.16pm GMT
Wow–I just read the article about leaving the G4 show. That’s really, really awful, although not a particular surprise. It’s presumably such things that generate the TV that’s out there.
When I was on the set of Screen Savers, I chatted with the host a little before the show, and asked why clips of the show were only in Windows Media format, making them inaccessible to Linux weenies like me. He just shrugged and said that the upper-levels of TechTV weren’t every savvy about those sorts of things. :-/
Frank Herbert wrote a great article about the making of the Dune film one time. He says in there not to forget that the Hollywood machine is a business, and that the way it’s often played is to take something that’s already been successful and copy it. Wise words…
[not about the DVDs coming out, or Wil’s iBook, but it was the first time _I_ had read the thing about G4]
Happy Holidays, everybody!
I may not be the first to say this, but plug your ibook ac adapter in, and then hold the power button for few seconds, it should bring your Ibook back to life
previous message, first paragraph: that’s supposed to read “It’s presumably such things that generate the bad TV that’s out there.”
Switch to Office X for Mac. A much better experience for writing than the open source options, IMHO.
I understand your anti-Microsoft tilt. Office is the only MS program I proudly use.
k.
Pat Mastronni aka Joey Jeremiah from Degrassi – Just had to say that –
Anyway – Sorry to hear about you iBook but congrats on everything else Wil –
Thanks for the news about “Good Things”. I know about a million people who worked on it. (One of whom was absolutely gushing that she was going to get to meet Wil Wheaton… it seems she had quite a crush on you.)
Did you get to talk much with the crew? I went to KU, where most of the crew came from. I sadly, found out about it when all my friends came home from working and asked why I hadn’t been there… they had failed to inform me, you see.
Now, get to work on JAG.
Wil,
Sorry to hear about the iBook, mine sometimes does that to me too. I just hit the power button and reboot, but that might not be the solution to your problem. Hope you get it fixed soon, Apple does a great job with everything!
Wil, it’s your iBook telling you to get going with writing JAG and never mind the web. ;^) The Apple techs will nurse your baby back to life. (Sending good thoughts to Wil’s iBook.)
On another note…thanks for the good news! Now I have more stuff to add on my “must acquire” list!
The one thing that gets me alot with my iBook is when it’s in sleep mode and won’t wake up. On a lot of older Macs, this usually meant it was crashed, but this iBook NEVER crashes. I just assume it does.
It always turns out that it went into sleep mode because the battery was nearly dead and all I needed to do was plug in the AC adaptor and hit the spacebar to wake it up. Of course, I never manage to realize this until it powers down right after booting because the battery is nearly dead. Then it dawns on me…
My husband’s iBook started freezing on us a few weeks ago. Turned out that the logic board had gone bad and had to be replaced.
Hope yours is back soon!
I’m off to put “Neverland” on my wish list!
Great interview!!!!
i’m sure that apple will be able to help you, wil, but i thought i’d toss in my two cents’ worth of pixels, too: i just had this same sort of problem with my powerbook, and i found this article at apple support that seems to have helped (http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=14449 ). seems that i needed to reset my Power Management Unit (PMU). it’s apparently a fairly common thing on the powerbooks and ibooks. took me about 30 second to do, and so far, so good…! hth – best of luck!
I mean, sure I’ll watch “Neverland”, but I’m secretly hoping that one day there’ll be a Special Edition of “Python”.
I’ll be checking out The Good Things. The interview was sweet.
i hope your iBook gets well soon…i wish i had an iBook!
hey wil, great interview! these silly computers! whoever thought of inventing them…hold on, without it, i wouldn’t be able to write this! oh well…:)
i’ll be sure to check out the movie…been looking for it for ages! now i know where to find it!
take care,
rach
Um, sorry about the iBook.
Very cool about the DVDs.
And the interview was interesting.
But- am I thus a movie-geek for clicking on the link and knowing it should have been “Pretty In Pink”, not “Sixteen Candles”???…..
Assuming that you are having the same trouble that I have… just unplug the laptop and take out your battery. Then replace the battery/plug in and it should work. It’s a simple trick but it works with my iBook. Later, Dude.
Wil, first of all, we love you man.
but we just watched “Jane White is Sick and Twisted” and it was abominable. seriously.
I like Wil’s definition of ‘geek.’ My favorite definition of “nerd” comes from Douglas Adams. In “Triumph of the Nerds,” he said, “a nerd is somebody who uses a telephone to talk to other people about telephones.” 🙂
Good interview. About the DVD’s, I echo SPIKEs comment, “WHAT ABOUT US IN THE UK!”.
I take it from reading everyone’s woes with various iBooks that Apple doesn’t have a “Hibernate” feature? That’s one thing I can’t live without: storing the current state to the harddrive, and then powering the machine *all* the way down, so it uses no more power than being off.
I’m using a Dell right now, but I had hopes of switching in the future. I don’t know if I can do that until Apple can hibernate….
Howdy Wil! I occasionally encounter a similar problem with my much older mac laptop. The way I solve it with said laptop is by removing and replacing the battery, then booting it up. Seems like that’s what everyone else is saying so let us know if it works for ya!
Wil, we just got your movie book of days at the video store i work at yesterday.I took it home last night and am planning on watching it tonight when i get home from work. what was funny is my friend that was working with me turned to me with the dvd in her hand and was heres something you’re gonna wanna watch and handed it to me knowing what a fan i am. i found it funny that she remembered how much i like you!!!
Macs are the best. I hate Intel and M$!!! Macs are the best – they’re so easy to use and reliable. Like linux!!
I love that no matter how often the contrary punches people in the face, I still have to listen to the greatness of mac’s and linux’s etc. Listen: Macs go down just like PCs do. Linux the O/S and Linux based apps and Macs and Mac apps are JUST as impossible to use as PCs. Each has their advantage in particular circumstances and each human’s technical bias and preference plays a HUGE role in selecting either for use.
Can Mac users and Linux users EVER admit that there tools suck just as bad as PC-based stuff??????????????? Wil????????????
Damn Slapdinger, how do really feel? I own them all – I prefer to use my mac for most things, though definately not all.
Anyway, Ordered my copy of Neverland! 🙂 YAY!
Is it available on netflix also?
*Please* tell me the Good Things DVD will be available, and playable, in the UK.
I really liked it when I saw the mini pixelated version online, so it’d be nice to see it properly.
Have you tried BBEdit?
BareBones
For about ten years I have been wishing for a plain text editor with inline spell check. When I found out the OS X version of TextEdit had it I threw a party.
(ok… it was a small party.)
I’ll try to refraign from the obvious “Neverland” comments. Its been in the news a little too much. But the movie looks kinda good, and interesting telling of the “Peter Pan” legend. Although Amazon paired it up with an Odd movie. I’m a big fan of “The Trip”, and I’d see “Neverland”, just on the reommendation. Its just an odd pairing of those two films.
I have to say, I always thought Ducky to be more interesting than Blaine any day of the week. I love geeks and quite honestly say I am one.
Great interview. I wanna see The Good Things now too.
Great interview at Geek Extreme. Awesome insights on what it means to be a child actor with a greater body of work than normally thought. I agree with your ideas on STNG, Wesley is a fantastic, misunderstood character that we will be seeing more of in the real future. Heck, most IT companies I know of have very young CEOs. They are torn between company meetings and surfing. I think you HAVE really matured into a fine outstanding young man. Wish I could say the same!