As Paul Stamatiou had asked via Skribit, what technology can I not live without? Without a doubt, I can’t live without my MacBook.
I’m not a Mac fiend, mind you, as I am more than likely to boot into Windows XP via Bootcamp or Parallels when I step foot on a boat to diagnose problems with GPS connectivity to navigation software. When I’m just sitting around the house, however, OS X 10.5.4 is my portal to the online world. I like the stability of OS X over XP, I like the applications that come gratis, and I like the fact that virus writers don’t drink enough coffee to stay up late enough to bother writing crap that would infect my Mac.
I am certainly not going to say that the Mac is the ultimate computing machine. You’ve all heard the complaints: hardware incompatibility, software not being available, Steve Jobs only wears one outfit…and the biggest complaint I’ve seen is this: sometimes the hardware folks have stuck their heads right up their tails.
My white MacBook started showing the typical palm rest discoloration at about 6 months. Not good. It started to look like I regularly wiped my butt with it. I promise that I didn’t. The Mr. Clean Magic Eraser fixes the discoloration problem, but I have to clean it about one a month or the nastiness creeps back.
This past week I became the victim of another common Apple hardware quality failure. After a friend was done using my Mac in my living room, he shut it rather hard for some dramatic reason. When I opened it up the next day, I found a crack in the palm rest (pictured above).
I tried the superglue route, putting just enough to hold it together without making it obvious that it had broken, and it didn’t hold. After searching the web for possible solutions, I found that so many people have made claims to Apple about this problem that they are offering replacement of the part, regardless of whether it happened by normal wear and tear or from whacking it hard with a watch. My problem with this scenario is that my Mac is WAY out of warranty and I failed to buy the extended AppleCare package. Armed with the suggestions I found through reading forums, I decided to call Apple Support anyhow.
What happened next was totally unexpected. Not only did John, the support tech, acknowledge that Apple was willing to repair the palm rest, but he promised to ship out a postage-paid box overnight by DHL, replace the entire keyboard area of the Mac, then mail it back overnight by DHL. All on their dime!
So, though I may not be able to do some tasks for the next week as the repair is made, I’m very grateful that Apple has stepped up and accepted responsibility for an obvious flaw in product quality.
Do you have any experiences with Apple that shine or some that don’t?
I recently used the bag on a trip to Washington D.C. with 
Brooke is now an official Crackberry fiend. It’s enabling her Twitter and Twitpic habit. She’s able to surf the net at lightening speed. I can’t make up random facts now without her trying to confirm them using Google. If she could just figure out how to run every facet of our business from the passenger seat in the car, she probably would. What I do know for sure is that she’s never going back to a phone without a full qwerty keyboard. Thank God for opposable thumbs.