It was annoying when the drive on my work laptop went a few weeks back, but I've been pretty assiduous about backing up, so there was just the tedium of having the apps reinstalled and thinking about passwords I hadn't had to deal with in a while.

Now the new(ish) hard drive in my desktop is going--some files can't be accessed, and I've backed up what I can get. Since I'm reshuffling NASes I figure I can repurpose one of those drives, maybe.

But I bought a new cage and two new hard drives yesterday, and one of them is reporting errors before I even put data on it.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME OR MY APARTMENT??? Jesus, this is exasperating.

Hey people who know stuff about cars - my door opener thingy has died. Do I need to find a Subaru dealer to replace it, or can I just order one off the interweb? Are they difficult to program? Can I just replace the batteries in the one I have now?

You can just replace the battery. Check the owners' manual for the type and instructions.

I got a car repair place to replace the battery, because I was taking it in anyway. But I probably could've figured it out on my own.

In similar question: I have two garage door openers. One works fine. One only occasionally works, and usually only if you're super close and trying several times. I've tried replacing the battery but it doesn't seem to help. Thoughts?

Clean the contacts with a q-tip and some alcohol?

I'm a bit frustrated with the lack of documentation for the standard Android application. I feel there must be a way, when creating an appointment, that I don't have to re-type information from my address book. But I don't even know where to find out the full feature set of the calendar and the contacts--I just find descriptions of some.

That having been said--those enhancements to Calendar that just came down the pike giving new UI elements for putting in times--LOVE. We may be pulling away from the round clock, but I find it much snappier to use for entry.

Still, dammit, I want to copy over my addresses, especially since Android is taking it upon themselves to tell me when to leave wherever I am to get there--it's more useful than before to be thorough.

::grumps off the the Android site again::

mini-rant ...

For a combination Christmas-birthday present a friend - a very good friend - gave me a $300 gift card for the Apple store. I got an iPad mini. I planned to use it to read e-books (hoping not to have to carry a paperback with me and run the risk of finishing a book before my travel ended) and play a few games. Maybe listen to a little music.

FAIL

The damn thing is unreliable - periodically the screen stops responding to taps. The third time I found myself facing a long commute home with nothing to do but stare out the window, I gave up on reading while on the bus. Then I found that, in the middle of a game, it would stop responding.

The "genius" at the Apple store said it's perfectly fine - nothing wrong with it.

So ... I've given up on it. It's turned off and stashed on a shelf with its box.

Damn Apple.

How long ago did you buy it and are you interested in selling it? I might know someone who might be interested.

Since it was a gift I feel obligated to keep it. Also - wouldn't want to pass on the piece of crap since it doesn't work.

Since it was a gift I feel obligated to keep it.

Wasn't the gift a gift card, not the iPad mini? If you had been able to return it to the Apple store and they would have offered a refund, would you have refused the refund because of your obligation? If not, I don't see how selling it would be any different.