Can you believe it….again?

     With the start and ensuing hectic-ness of the semester, I never had an opportunity to go into more detail about buying my new MacBook. Naturally once I got home that evening with my bounty, I opened the box and immediately delved into the joy of booting up my brand new laptop. What I didn’t mention in my post Can you believe it…? was that I had a minor issue with my MacBook. And I mean minor! A little off of center of the screen there was a dead pixel or stuck if you like. I noticed it pretty much right away. This itty bitty pinprick of pixel stuck in the middle of the screen, where there is no choice but to always see it whenever I opened a window. While this is extremely minor and by no means intolerable, I was still a bit vexed after a 2hr drive and a full day of shopping (with the people that I went to town with), to come home thrilled and giddy, it was disappointing to see such a physically manifested flaw in my new beauty of the machine.

     I decided to look up my options and read through some forums where people recommended giving AppleCare a call and being polite and MAYBE they’ll replace the computer at no cost. Skunkie also suggested calling in hopes that I wouldn’t have to make the two hour trip back down to town to the Apple Store. Well, most unfortunately they were closed by the time I had a chance to call, so I was forced to ignore it for the time being. The next day, in the afternoon (after I had finished up my other errands requiring attention), I called Apple Care on up and explained to them what was going on. The lady was very polite and I was very patient and polite in return (I felt it wouldn’t do any good to kick and scream, beside, that’s not my style anyway). She was kind enough to approve a replacement. The was, of course, that I had to make the two hour trip back down to the Apple Store I had purchased from. Bummer, but not.

     So that same day, the day after the original 4hrs of traveling time for the first MacBook, I made a 2hr drive down. Before leaving my house I made sure to book a Genius appointment like the AppleCare lady recommended. I was scheduled for the last time slot available. Anyway, I got there early and, naturally, they were very busy (which didn’t surprise me considering that classes were going to start the next day). I waited around until my appointed time and then sat down with my Genius.

     He was pleasant enough at first I suppose. Though once I went into my spiel of having just bought the laptop the day before and there being a dead pixel in the middle of the screen, he seemed a bit less…well…pleasant. Then we turned on the laptop and he said that he didn’t see anything. I spun the computer around and angled it so I could see the screen and immediately pointed it out to him. Such a small anomaly seemed to annoy him. Not because it was there, no, because I was sitting across from him essentially saying that this wasn’t gonna work for me and that he had to follow through and replace the computer, because Apple Care already said they would. I understood his frustration, but I felt that he was unwilling to see my point of view. This is a brand new computer that I spent over a grand on (not to mention it was my latest in many a line of Apple products) and I expected quality products from a company that emphasized quality. Instead he lectured me about the impossibility of making an utterly flawless machine. I am so far, with my two experiences, I am UNimpressed with the Apple Geniuses.

     All the sales people I had to deal with in this quick two-day adventure to Macland were very nice and helpful. Even the sales guy that had to handle the exchange of my first purchase for a new one. That guy was extremely polite and well mannered despite the difficulty they had in doing the unconventional exchange. He even let me open up and start the new one to make sure there weren’t any problems, despite the fact that they were already closed. I was the last customer out of there that evening.

      All in all I was happy with their accommodating attitudes and the fact that Apple was willing to work with me and replace the laptop. So, I, crazily enough, got two new MacBooks in two days. Granted I only kept one and paid for one, but still, it was an odd feeling. This post, as oppose to my last “Can you believe it…?”, was typed on my new new MacBook. It has been a couple weeks so far and things have been awesome. It is really convenient to have it with me nearly everywhere I go, especially at work. While at first it was disappointing to get home and find that itty bitty stuck pixel, I was very pleased with Apple’s handling of it. As a result, I walked away with my new MacBook, still happy to have done business with Apple, despite the minor hang-ups.

     P.S. – When I get around to posting pictures of my MacBook, they will actually be of the initial Book and not the one I actually have, but I figured the effect would pretty much be the same.

 

Can you believe it…?

    Because it is absolutely necessary that this post happens, despite not really having much to say, here it is…. happening. But why you ask? Well, the truth be told… I must post this useless article because I bought a new white MacBook! Yes, horrendous splurge (sufficiently rationalized, of course). Anyway, in my excitement of having my new MacBook, I deemed it utterly necessary to get the feel of posting on it. Hopefully now I will post more since I’ll have a computer with me away from home. So far I have had a blast setting up and synching my computers.

    Another piece of news is that classes start up next week. I’m currently a mixture of excitement and nerves. It’s my last semester as and Undergraduate and I’m hoping that everything goes well… and here in come the nerves. At the same time I’m giddy that it is my last semester. Sidenote: I really hate those stupid Twix commercials that are just guys manipulating women and making them look like gullible morons…. Does anyone else find those commercials insulting? Where are the ones that the guys are duped in? Anyway. I just saw one of those commercials and I had to interrupt myself.

    My new MacBook has that new computer smell… a wonderful clean smell. Fresh too. I had fun in the Apple Store. It was nice to go in there, knowing exactly what I wanted and what I needed to do. The amount of people and the knowledge of the employees didn’t frighten me at all. It was a nice feeling to stroll in confident and secure in my choices and knowledge of the product I was buying. It made me happy. Naturally I was already giddy with the thought of buying this new gem, but the circumstances made the actual act of purchasing even more enjoyable. It’s not often that I feel comfortable or confident in those type of situations, so it was a nice change. Anyway, I really need to wrap this up and go play with my pup, Princess. Night all! (P.S. – I will post some pictures of my new MacBook later.)

 

Bad Apple Blues

UPDATE:

    Well, I am extremely happy to say that I think we have found a solution for my iMac. I mean, that my good friend Skunkie has found a solution for my iMac. It turns out that I was having some overheating issues, although the actual culprit has not been specifically identified. All we know is that it isn’t something by a sensor that would reflect the heat issues in an application like iStatPro. Lucky for me, my computer savvy friends new where to look. Skunkie found a thread where people were discussing having similar issues to the ones I had been having. Random freezes, graphics glitches, etc. They said they had installed this free application called smcFanControl, which allows you to adjust the fans to higher minimum speeds than they are set at by the manufacturer. They reported positive results, so she linked me, I downloaded, installed, and immediately we saw results (once I figured out I had to quit the program and restart it to initiate the fan speed changes I had implemented). I continued to test on Tiger for a little over a day, and then we even turned off the program to see if the old problems returned. Sure enough, those damn glitches and freezes came back pretty quickly as the temperatures in my computer rose. So I started the application back up and it calmed back down, no more glitches or freezes. Now that I knew the problem and Skunkie confessed her own confidence that we had solved my problem with this application, I decided after my Tiger testing, to reinstall Leopard. I did that yesterday and it went rather smoothly. I had left my computer off all night and all day while I was at work, so that when I got home it would be nice and cool for the install. On top of that I kept my computer room nice and cool during the install and even brought a desk fan from work home to blow right onto my computer to help keep it cool. Once the install was finished, I immediately started smcFanControl back up and kept those fans going at the recommended speeds the other people had theirs at. Now I am working on restoring my backups from my Time Capsule and getting back to normal on my computer. I am so thrilled that we found a solution. Frankly, I don’t really have the money at the moment to spend on repairing any hardware. It is frustrating that the Apple Genius hadn’t thought of this, or really even tried to test his theory that it was just software problems. But I don’t care. I am just so happy and thankful that we were able to make my computer functional again. Now I am waiting to get some essential things off Time Machine before I update my iPhone to 2.0. I’ll post any other updates that might come up.

    I love my computer. I have adapted and grown since I bought my 20″ Intel Core Duo iMac back in June of 2006. But we’ve come to a difficult passage these last couple of months. I’ve been having minor graphics glitches since I upgraded to Mac OSX Leopard when it first came out. I originally attributed these minor oddities to the growing pains of an Operating System, especially of a newly released version. It’s part of early adaption….price drops later, fixes for known issues. In fact, Apple even seemed to know that there were some graphics issues with the earlier versions of Leopard. My problem though, has persisted beyond just minor graphics glitches. I started having random bouts of freezing. Sometimes the entire system would freeze, sometimes I could still use the mouse, other times the mouse moved, but was stuck on the beach ball, the pinwheel, leaving me dizzy and frustrated.

    I finally broke down and made an appointment with an Apple Genius at a store that was 2.5 hours from where I live. The closest one to me. It actually wasn’t a difficult choice to opt to take it to the Genius bar, except for the cost of gas and the issue that I have a dog I couldn’t leave home alone for an undecided amount of time. So a friend of mine offered to let me stay at her place (2.5hrs from where I live), which was 30 minutes from the Apple store my appointment was at and I went down the night before (dog in tow) and we settled down for an evening of movie watching, trying not to stress out over the possible damages that would be discovered the next day.

    On the day of my appointment I packed up my Mac, back into it’s original box, and headed to the store in the 100 degree weather of Phoenix. I was daunted by the presence of a store full of people. The Genius Bar was packed with people and their Macs and then the store was having some sort of session for learning cool Mac stuff. I was so nervous about what they would tell me was wrong with my Mac (dreading the diagnosis of Logic Board failure, a costy fix) that my hands were shaking terribly. One of the workers was nice enough to offer me a seat while I waited for my appointment time (I’m an habitually early arriver) and I sat there, my boxed up computer set gently on the floor next to my shaking and weak knees. I don’t think I could have stood the entire time if I had wanted to. Finally though, they called my name and a nice Genius man came to my aid. He unboxed my iMac, hooked it all up, turned it on, listened to my confused, nervous, fearful, spouting of symptoms that I had been experiencing on my computer. He took it quite calmly, hardly seeming concerned.

    It seemed I had hardly finished telling him my tale and showing him my pictures (yes, I had screenshots to show him on my iPhone), when he came back with what seemed like a ludicrously simple solution, and yet they were sweet words of honey (<–too much, right?). His fix was to reinstall the OS at a later version that was supposed to fix known graphics issues and he recommended I upgrade my RAM from 512mb to 1gb. A thirty dollar fix ultimately, once I ordered the RAM and installed it myself (much cheaper than paying them labor to switch it out). So I went back to my friend’s condo ecstatic and sweating from the heat. I quickly packed my car and my dog up to head back home. It was a long weekend of driving, but it was worth it as long as I had a fix.

    Most unfortunately though, my fix was not a fix. I continued to have glitches when I got home, but initially laid the blame on my thin stretched RAM availability. Soon enough my RAM came in the mail and I successfully installed it myself (though nervous enough, seeing as I had never done anything of the sort before). The biggest let down was that it didn’t take long for my problems to make themselves apparent. I continued to have random freezing problems and graphics glitches. Neither fix worked. I struggled with the idea that the Genius man was too quick to assume the source of the problem. 20/20 hindsight told me I should have been more persistent in asking him to run more tests, to be solid in his diagnosis, to test it after he installed the version of the OS. Hindsight is rather obnoxious and sometimes I just wish it would shut its big fat mouth, because I already felt crappy enough with out all the coulda-shoulda-wouldas going through my head.

    What’s done is done though, so I’m trying not to look back, only forward and searching for the solution to my bad Apple blues. I wavered between switching back to the previous version of the OS (Tiger) and seeing if the problems continued, since I hadn’t remembered any of these issues ever being present in Tiger. But first I opted to wait and see if the Leopard update to 10.5.4 would be the fix that .3 was supposed to be at the Apple store. Well that day came and went fairly quickly and so did my hopes of a fix. Another no go. Another persistent barrage of symptoms and freezes. So I downgraded. I chose to give up some of the bells and whistles for what I hoped would be a completely functional computer, like the day I bought it.

    This evening I switched back to Tiger only to learn that the problems had followed me. Though I can’t be entirely certain, my good friends Skunkie, Polyvector and myself are caught on the fence between my problems being software related and hardware related. Ideally they would be software, because then it is more a matter of biding my time and waiting for the right fix to come along. If it’s hardware, well, then I have to hope that it is something simple, something that won’t cost me 6-700 dollars. So now I’m in ‘puter-purgatory…hanging between giving up and hoping that someone will be able to give me answers. I’m going to be calling Apple and discussing my options with them. In the meantime, Skunkie and Polyvector have been kind enough to continue looking up information and seeing if they can learn the source or the solution to my problems. We’re all just crossing our fingers.

    With all this going on lately, and other things as well, I haven’t had much time to be on Lit Bit or even read. In fact, right now, my lids are drooping and I’m ready to head to bed. 54 hour work week means time is limited and sleep is vital. I’ll keep posting as often as I can or when I learn something new.

 

Oh What News…

    Like I mentioned in my March Screenshot post, I have been crazy busy lately. And sadly, this has reflected in my blogging. I’m not around nearly as much as I would like to be. But the blogging craze is finally filtering back into my blood and I really want to catch back up with it. I have so many books to review and so many things just to hash out with you. One major thing I wanted to talk (*cough*brag*cough*) about is that I made a new purchase with some of the money I got back from my tax return.

    I’ve been having issues with my cell phone for months now. The reception in my apartment is absolutely dreadful. I basically stopped trying to make calls in my apartment, because they were constantly dropped and there is nothing as annoying as being cut off in the middle of a sentence. Also, my cell phone is my only phone. I don’t have a land-line. I don’t talk on the phone nearly enough to justify a land-line and a cell. I didn’t do too much about it because I was still under a contract with my provider and for the time being, my roomies had a couple of phones that they were always nice enough to lend me when mine crapped out on me. But then they moved back to California and I was living solo again. It just didn’t feel right having a phone that wasn’t reliable and live by myself. Only problem was that I could only think of one other phone I’d want….so I sucked it up and shelled out the bucks and bought this:

    

    

    Yup, that’s right. I bought an Apple iPhone. I was so excited when it got here that I took some pretty crappy photos and very few at that. I just wanted to open it up and play with it and get my service started. I’ve had it now for a couple of weeks and I love it. I even get reception in my apartment. It hasn’t dropped a call for me yet. I can even walk around without having to stoop or bend awkwardly or just stand in the middle of the apartment to get reception. Nope, I can go into any bedroom and it works just fine. It makes me so happy. So this was my little indulgence with my refund from Uncle Sam. I also bought an iSee hard case for the phone as well as a Power Support Crystal Film Set to protect the screen…primarily from my greasy fingers, haha.

    I must say that just about every aspect of this phone comes in handy for me. I check the weather on it, not only for my city, but also for the cities of friends and family. Same goes for the time. I have multiple clocks set up to reflect my time as well as those of friends and family. I use the iPod portion of the phone frequently as well as the ability to sync it with my computer’s address book and calender. And being able to get my email wherever I am is awesome as well. I love it and I’m so excited to have a phone that finally works.

 

January Screenshots

    Naturally, the first thing I did when I got home from vacation, I searched out some new wallpapers for my computer to start off the New Year. Right now I am using RADIA8 by yt458. I found this one of MacThemes. And would you believe that I actually looked up the info and even linked to the thread that the wall was posted in. Anyway, enough blabbing, here are my January screenshots: