DISQUS

How were you able to get it to see the external DVD? Mine just dumps out to a black screen with a flashing cursor and does nothing until I unplug the drive.

This is the first intelligent thing I've read on the internet in a month.
Bravo for your injection of perspective!

I find this thought process disturbing. As someone who has been in the position to review and hire personnel, the ability to format oneself into a functional one page resume is essential. The resume tells a recruiter in fifteen seconds whether or not they want to see you for an interview. Why, as a potential employer would I want to valuable spend time searching the web for information about someone that may or may not be: factual, up to date, or appropriate?
As cute as the kids like to think "Googleing" for information is, it is not how businesses recruit.
Further, to say that any sort of experience is not able to be put into a resume is borderline lazy. There are plenty of resources out there to help people with putting together a solid one page resume. No life experience should be left unrepresented if it fits the job. Anything that you feel needs more space should be presented in a portfolio at the time of the interview.
Control of ones persona and presentation is key to standing out among the throngs of sloppy applicants.
Leave the Google dredging to HR Representatives looking for a reason to not hire you.

I have yet to see proof that an upgrade is any more dangerous than an clean install. I have seen more evidence that 3rd party hacks are the problem as Apple blessed files are treated the same regardless of install behavior.

Ugh, It's Macintosh... Shortened it becomes Mac. Not MAC. MAC is an acronym. Mac is not. Please stop shoveling ignorance out on the web people, no matter who you are.

The iPhone bricking debacle is only a big deal in the sphere of fans online. Hardly anyone has a clue about such things because it only effects a very small amount of people.
Apple is just a company, and one of the best. Because they are so great they get higher amounts of criticism for perceived misdeeds. It also makes for great sensationalist journalism to rag on them as if overnight they became big and scary like Microsoft. It's a world of fickle people. We're better off ignoring it all.

Usually this is only an application specific problem. One program is misbehaving and my just need to be force quit. The dock or other apps should still work.

If the ENTIRE computer will not boot correctly, you should try booting with shift held down. That should still boot the system with minimal services. (Please update that procedure if I'm out of date.)

Worst case scenario:
You may need to boot from your install disks and reinstall the base system. Done properly this will not cause any issues other than needing a few software updates.
It does sound like an issue with a startup application. Though, I'm guessing here because there really isn't enough info to go on.

Hmm, I never seriously considered this before due to space restrictions. I am more and more intrigued at doing this myself. I look forward to more updates.

Sounds like one or more of the fans have gone south. Overheating and motherboard failure are usually soon to follow.