Ginger, if it's data that you might need, I do still have my zip drive and could convert it to cd or dvd for you, and then format the disc. You might still want to hulk smash after that, but that'd be your prerogative.

I've got the data, so that's fine. Thanks! Could you use the disks? I'd trust you to reformat.

Nah. I don't really use it. I just still have it. Hee. Thanks for the offer, though.

I need some advice regarding cell phones. I'm hoping someone can help me or help me to where I need to go. The kind of information I need I can't really find over on cnet.

Here goes:

Beau's birthday is coming up and I would like to get him a new cell phone. Essentially here is what he wants in a phone, but I'm not sure what he wants is exactly what he needs:

a) a phone with good reception (first and foremost)
b) a phone that has his calendar info, to-dos, contact info
c) he also wants a phone that has profiles that you can set timers to (e.g. automatically go into silent mode in meetings, then go into normal mode at other times)
d) he also loves the keyboard on his Palm T|X.

Now, there aren't a lot of phones with a full keyboard and since he isn't a huge text messager, I'm not sure he really NEEDS a full keyboard. To wit, on my Nokia, there is a predictive text entry setting that will spell out words. It works *really* well for me and I think he'd like it too with some practice.

Can anyone give me suggestions of what kind of phone to get? Note: he has no interest or need to get on the internet. He doesn't use the internet at all with his current phone (which just puzzles me). He doesn't need a camera - though it is hard to avoid one. He also doesn't need music or media functions.

He literally wants to mate his Palm T|X with a phone.

I haven't been able to find any highly rated phone models that can do this. BTW, my preference would be to find an unlocked phone if possible.

We are on ATT and likely to stay on it for awhile given the 3G capability that I use all the time.

he also wants a phone that has profiles that you can set timers to (e.g. automatically go into silent mode in meetings, then go into normal mode at other times)

You probably don't want to go as far as the Nokia e61i if you're not sure about the full keyboard thing, but I just installed an app that has timers for the profiles--just mentioning it because it doesn't have to be something that is intrinsic to the phone, so don't look for it in the phone's specs.

Can someone explain to me why, when I put a cd into my laptop to import the music, or even just play it straight from the CD, my laptop doesn't recognize that there's a CD in the drive? Is there some restriction on newer CDs due to increased anti-copyright-violation restrictions, or is it my laptop, and how do i get around that?

Every time I turn my MacPro off and on again, it resets the clock to several years in the past (I think Dec 31st 2000, but I'd have to shut it down and restart to be sure, and I'm encoding something right now). This has been happening since the automatic SMC update last week.

Anyone have any ideas before I dive into the apple.com knowledge base?

FWIW, this ONLY happens when the power is completely shut down. Restarting without shutting the power off doesn't affect the clock at all.

I've had the same problem with our ancient iBook for years, and it happened on another Mac we had, too. I've always just assumed that the motherboard battery is completely dead, so the clock resets to its zero point when the power is turned off.

Yes, it's the battery on the motherboard.

Here is a pdf from Apple on how to replace it: [link]

Good lord...this computer has already had its graphics card and logic board replaced this year. At this point Apple should just give me a whole new machine.