I just tore apart my computer, ripped out my old 160 GB hard drive, and replaced it with a spacious 320 GB hard drive. I formatted it and restored from my latest Time Machine backup (from January 12 at 9:36 PM), and viola! I have escaped from Vista and I’m back in the comforting arms of Mac OS X. I have a lot of work to do to get back up to date, but it’s good to be home.

If I’ve learned anything from this experience, it’s that when my computer warns me that I haven’t backed up in ten days, I should listen.

I was at a tournament when all of a sudden, I got the spinning wheel. I tried to force quit, but the whole computer seemed to be frozen. When I restarted the computer, it failed to recognize my hard drive as a mountable drive.

My last backup was the last day before I left for San Francisco, so a couple weeks of lost data isn’t as bad as it could have been. I’ve found backups of the pictures and videos I took while in San Francisco, so it seems like I haven’t lost any irreplaceable data. I guess I’ll just have to deal with my workflow being disrupted until I get a new hard drive.

I have three things to be thankful for. First, I’m going to get a larger capacity hard drive to replace the old one. Also, I’m glad I use Time Machine. Most of all, I’m glad this didn’t happen to me in San Francisco.

For the first time ever, Apple is releasing streaming video of the Macworld 2008 Keynote Address in HD.

Watch the keynote in either HD or standard resolution from Apple’s website, or download it for free in iTunes.

Let look back at a couple posts that were made before the Macworld 2008 Keynote. There were my official keynote predictions, followed by Mr. Chovanes’ official predictions. For those of you who are unaware, we made a bet that the less accurate person would have to buy a sandwich for the winner. I’ve gone through the predictions and determined the winner in the fairest possible way, with a point distribution system. Let’s go ahead and look at my predictions first…

• iTunes Movie Rentals
  Result: YES
  Points: +1
• iTunes DVDs
  Result: YES
  Points: +1
• New iPhone Software
  Result: YES and NO (no new apps)
  Points: 0
• iPhone SDK Demo
  Result: NO
  Points: -1
• New iPhone (8mm, 16GB)
  Result: NO
  Points: -1
• Office 2008 Praised
  Result: YES
  Points: +1
• MacBook mini
  Result: YES and NO (no touch screen)
  Points: 0

FINAL TALLY: +1 Points

So, how did Mr. Chovanes do? Let’s take a look…

• iPhone nano
  Result: NO
  Points: -1
• New Mac mini
  Result: NO
  Points: -1
• Miniature Laptop
  Result: YES
  Points: +1
• Touch Mouse
  Result: NO
  Points: -1
• New iMovie
  Result: NO
  Points: -1
• iFlicks
  Result: YES and NO (rentals within iTunes
  Points: 0
• New AppleTV Software
  Result: YES
  Points: +1

FINAL TALLY: -2 Points

Looks like I’ll be enjoying a sandwich.

The concept mockup that I made for a touch screen iPod before the iPod touch was revealed has been ranked 5th (at this point) on the list of the “best apple concept mockups.” Here is the concept mockup.