Coffee - It's not your computers friend · Wednesday March 19, 2008 by colin newell
I spend a lot of time in cafes… of all shapes and sizes. I also work on a University campus – that has numerous cafes and lounges.
And there is a common list of ingredients in University, College and City Cafes:
Hot coffee. Students. And expensive lap-top computers.
Two of my colleagues, who I have coffee with, tell me this tale several times a week. Students are always bringing in their shiny new laptops; apples, PC’s – it makes no difference. They are now deep into their degree, or their Masters degree or their Phd and their life is on their laptop.
And they have spilled hot coffee into the thing. Hot coffee. Into a lap top computer. And while it is running. Coffee and laptops make for a lethal combination almost 100% of the time. Ok. Maybe 90% of the time provided you are lucky enough to be drinking black coffee.
Organic. Fair trade. Bird friendly. It makes no difference. If you spill anything, including water, into a lap top computer, it is almost always a death sentence. Good bye data. Good bye thesis. Good bye dissertation.
My two coffee buddies are, by the way, Apple certified technicians – and they see an endless stream of coffee related tragedy.
For us, at coffee time, this rich hot zippy beverage is a God send. I love coffee. They love coffee. We are surrounded by coffee lovers.
And if you are a student, coffee is the fuel that gets you through those never ending all night cram sessions.
But their MacBook Pro’s hate it.
One mouthful of Ethiopian Sidamo and I am singing. Four fluid ounces of Arabica coffee poured into an i-Book generally results in tears. I kid you not. We have seen more than our share of pouty faced girls and sad-sack boys whose second biggest academic investment (next to their tuition) has just gone up in a puff of smoke… and a very recognizable scent of Starbucks.
And the only thing that fixes it is a call to Mommy or Daddy… or not.
A student asks: “My computer is dead… I spilled my coffee into it… I have the extended Apple warranty on it… Is it covered?”
Technician Mike or Al replies… “This is a warranty program, not an insurance policy…”
And yet the average college or University age person who has invested almost 2000 dollars in their computer and software feel that they are covered. But they are not. And for good reason. The other recent enemy of the delicate laptop is the physical abuse it gets on the way to and from the cafe or dorm. Imagine getting stuffed into a pack-sack 3 or 4 times a day. Picked up. Dropped. Squished in next to your lunch… or into tight spaces. No warranty covers abuse. Try and remember that kids!
Coffee (or Beer) spilled into your 17” Dell is a sure fire ticket to the loans office. There is no second chance. Coffee, by itself (black) is an almost certain path to mother-board melt-down. Add cream or sugar and there is no chance of survival. Why? The fruit acids in coffee eat through the delicate circuitry faster than airplane glue through styrofoam – and the liquid (water content) shorts stuff out guaranteeing permanent death – sorry, no coma! There is something in milk (Lactose) that reacts with the motherboard resulting in something with the processor power of a slice of burnt toast! Not good.
So what is the fix? Well. There isn’t one. When I walk into Victoria area cafes (especially ones that have wireless access) – almost each and every table has someone at it with a lap top computer – and a tall mug of joe… in close and dangerously flirtatious proximity.
What do we, the technicians, do? Well, we preach and preach – if we see a student with an open lap top near a steaming mug of mud, we let them know the stats – even if we come off as worry-wart geezers.
Frankly, I would rather not have to work on someones fried MacBook pro – because in the end run, there is only bad news, sadness… and tears.
All for the love of the coffee bean.
Colin Newell lives and works in Victoria B.C. Canada at a local University – Coffee is his best friend… but he knows that coffee has a mortal enemy… called the lap top computer!
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For the Love of Africa · Sunday March 9, 2008 by colin newell
If you love Africa as much as I do, you are going to want to mark your calendar for Sunday, April the 6th, 2008 for an event in Victoria B.C. Canada.
For the Love of Africa is hosting a coffee and chocolate event from 11AM til 4PM.
8 of Vancouver Island’s best coffee roasters will be there doling out samples of their product. And there is most definitely a chocolate component to this event.
So. What about this Love of Africa group? For the Love of Africa has been in existence since 2005, the Society having had its roots in an original team of fourteen people who visited Dodoma, Tanzania in September of 2004 to assist in the construction of the new Kizota School and Student Centre.
They are a humanitarian society interested in projects which focus on two key areas – Education and Health. The issues are critical to the long term development and stability of both Tanzania and Africa in general and they feel it is in these areas that they can most effectively make a difference.
Based in Victoria BC, Canada, they welcome people from across Canada and around the world, thanks to the internet, to join them on their journey in the hopes that together we can bring health and hope to one small corner of the African continent.
Hayden live in Victoria Alix Goolden Theatre · Thursday February 14, 2008 by colin newell
It was a great relief as a mid-40 something dude to find that I was not the oldest man in the Alix Goolden Theatre, Victoria for Hayden’s concert tonight.
Hayden, after all is pushing 40. Not that it shows. Because it doesn’t.
The standard uniform at tonight’s Hayden show was plaid for dudes, facial hair and lots of it and a sensitive hang-dog expression.
All the girls (and there were lots of girls) look exactly like the women that I work with at the University; somewhere between 20 and 30, pretty and plain and fitted into clean blue jeans and cotton t-shirts.
The vibe at the Hayden concert was squeaky clean in plaid with youthful freshness.
And If you have never heard of Hayden, do not worry. Most people over the age of 30 haven’t. I think he falls into a music category I call coffee house. He falls dead center in the genre I think.
Hayden’s voice is as brittle as a dried egg shell in the coldest corner of your refrigerator. – His voice as plaintive and vulnerable as an abandoned wet dog whimpering on a country road.
His music defies complexity. His guitar chords and general playing style is (for yours truly – a guitar slinger from the eighties) is aggravatingly simple but evocative in a peculiar kind of way.
To be blunt, I recognized many of his songs from the SUB Cafe at the University where I work – but the lyrics were wrapped, folded and hidden like an unsent love letter forgotten under a sofa… which is to say: When he is singing, I cannot hear or understand a god-damn thing. And as a guitar player and singer, this aggravates the heck out of me.
Which is part of who Hayden is.
For me, a part time musician and producer, there is a lot of stuff or substance in Hayden’s music that appears beyond the audible… perhaps with the imagination of the listener – When he is strumming and working it out with his keening vocal delivery, I can hear French Horns, acoustic bass and a variety of unidentifiable instruments somewhere between my ears. But I wish my ears could pick out the lyrics.
My wife summed it up for me after the concert:
“Colin, you are way more talented than Hayden is… on the Piano and the Guitar and when you sing…”
That might be so but Hayden filled the house and the plaid-clads and pretty girls in the crisp blue jeans were loving him.
Jenn Grant of Halifax opened the show with a half-dozen songs reminiscent of what Feist is currently doing; bouncy, fresh, approachable and organic…
Lyric-wise? I could not understand a damn thing she was singing either.
The big time · Friday February 8, 2008 by colin newell
Not sure how this happened…
But somehow we cracked the CBC Radio 3 New Canadian Top 50.
Must be some mistake.
That said. Click on the above image for the full experience.
Heck – being on the same webpage as Cher must deserve some kind of award, Juno or recognition…
Have you bought our CD yet?
Only about 500 left of our first pressing.
bleat
