More new office woes

I’m back from a weekend at the beach. Myrtle beach, that is. I’d never been before, and I still feel like I haven’t. We stayed a little off the beaten path, in a run down hotel at the edge of the strip, so I saw none of the Dolly-Partonesque displays of excess the town is known for. It’d almost be worth it to go during a really busy weekend, just for the spectacle of it. Almost, but not quite.

Anyway, the weekend was computer-free (on purpose), so I thought I’d spend the morning bringing you up to speed on my transition to the new office.

• First off, my new Intel iMac is great, but I do have a couple of complaints. One of the applications I promised myself I’d try is Safari 2.0 (since it didn’t run on my old computer). Safari is a nice program, but it still doesn’t have all the features of Firefox. For example:
• It still doesn’t support the javascript features of WordPress that would allow me to just click a button to enter a hyperlink or italicize text, and
• Though its RSS feature is cool (and better than the equivalent in Firefox), it cuts off the titles of blog posts. The post title, author, and date are all displayed across a single line, and whatever of the title doesn’t fit simply isn’t displayed. That can be annoying, especially for bloggers who occasionally write titles that are longer than the posts themselves
• So, I figured I’d go back to Firefox, no problem, right?
• Wrong. Firefox has an even worse problem, a bug, actually, that I had started noticing on my iBook
• After a certain period of time using Firefox, copy and paste just stops working
• What’s more, it stops working for all apps, not just Firefox, and the only remedy is to log out and then log back in
• I had actually noticed this on my iBook, but was willing to put up with it. I was hoping the new Tiger operating system would make this bug go away, but instead it appears to have made it worse — the problem now appears within an hour or two of using Firefox
• Enough complaints about software; what about hardware? Or more specifically, hardware purchases. Are not mail-in rebates the single greatest abomination known to humankind?
• I can get a $100 rebate on my printer, if only I cut off the barcode from its box and the computer’s box, note both items’ serial numbers, fill out a complex form and enclose receipts from both products, plus six weeks’ worth of nail trimmings, all within a month of purchase. Why not just give me the discount in the first place?
• Because Apple knows I’m too lazy to jump through all their hoops
• Which just makes me angrier, and more determined to jump through all their hoops
• Eventually. Tomorrow, probably. I’ve got a month, after all.