Stop the upgrade addiction

So now we're already getting apps that require Mac OS 10.6. It's been out for just a few months, and I'm still not sure how many of my current programs would fall apart if I tried to use it. Of course, I also have a G5, and it can't run 10.6 anyway. I'm trying to understand why developers keep doing this.

Changing Google Account name

So you signed up for Google and found that every possible user name in the universe was taken. In a fit of desperation, you picked some weird, obscure, and embarrassing nickname. Like Snoodlepuppy.

Guess what? You are stuck with that name for the rest of your life. Or at least your account's life.

I figured this out when I was invited to Google Wave and somehow got stuck with that same username as my Google Wave address. Other people have the same problem, as you can see in this thread, but there doesn't seem to be any way around it.

Google knows about this problem, since they have a page posted here about it. Of course, they don't actually ANSWER the question.

Blame the user

I've always felt as if the geek elite tend blame users when their computers have problems. Now I have a quote to support this from Mac Life:

"SURVIVAL TACTIC: If your Mac isn’t the perky little speed demon it once was, chances are it’s your fault."

This kind of response reminds of C3PO. "I don't know what all this trouble is about, but I'm sure it must be your fault." News flash: software is increasingly bloated and useless and runs slower even on the newest hardware. It's called Wirth's Law.

Disk error

I ran Disk Utility on all my hard drives to check for errors. It came up with helpful little tidbits like this:

Verifying volume “Black Betty”
Checking HFS Plus volume.
Checking Extents Overflow file.
Checking Catalog file.
Checking Catalog hierarchy.
Checking Extended Attributes file.
Incorrect number of Access Control Lists
Checking volume bitmap.
Checking volume information.
The volume Black Betty needs to be repaired.

Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit

Yeah. Real helpful, Apple. Even more aggravating is trying to Google that last cryptic phrase and getting nothing but posts like this, where the guy who posted the problem somehow "fixed" it, but didn't bother to tell all the other people on the forum how.