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[Johnny C]

My troubles in a nutshell.

I guess it's an issue with a new product they're smoothing out, but if it's so widespread that it's not only happening the exact same way to a bunch of other people but it's also the number one "hot topic" on the MacBook Support Page (which, by the way, has a solution which accomplished literally nothing on mine) then it disappoints me that it managed to slip into the marketplace unresolved.

Is anyone else having this or similar problems? Also, since this is kind of a current affair, has anyone had experience in dealing with Apple customer care on this? I just want to know generally what to expect from them, especially since it looks like I'm probably going to wind up trying to get this thing replaced. Hopefully I can do that before the free shipping runs out. (I think it's 60 or 90 days, but either way this thing's spent a total of 21 days in the shop so if I have to pay shipping on something I haven't been able to use for a third of the free shipping period I'll be slightly pissed.)

Gah. Anyways. Issues? Comments? Assistance?

[Scytale]

I have had a MacBook Pro for about 8 months now, no dramas with it at all. My dealings with customer service were excellent, A new model (2ghz) came out just after I ordered, they upgraded my 1.8 order for free. I thought that was pretty cool of them, even rang my mobile to confirm wether I wanted the upgrade, like I was going to say no 

[Catfish_Man]

I assume you've installed the firmware update that was supposed to fix this (there are two known solutions; one is the heatsink replacement, the other is the firmware update)?

[Johnny C]

You assume correctly. In fact, I checked shortly after it started happening (I got a new heatsink in it as of Friday) but it was already installed.

[Catfish_Man]

That really sucks

See if you can get some free stuff out of them, btw. When they shipped me two dead laptops in a row (the guy on the phone sounded so embarrassed) I got $150 store credit to make up for it. Ended up saving my butt, 'cause I got a 250GB hard drive with it, made backups, then accidentally erased my home directory a month later.

[Spinless]

I have a mac problem.

Aluminium powerbook g4 coverred in stickytape residue.
What's a good liquid for easy removal that won't damage the case?

[8ilbo]

some form of alcohol cleaning fluid....isopropanol or summat....pick it up from hardware store or summat....dab on cotten, wipe off, easy....

[Mnementh]

acetone (nailpolish remover) should work fine.

[godinpants]

I had the power supply on my ibook snap (its the old styled ones) and leave part on the inside, rendering my charger useless and leaveing a potentially dangerous piece inside my computer.

So i took it into the store i got it from (this was under a year after i got it) and they said even though it would probably be out of the warranty (it could be seen as the result of misuse) they would do what they could to get it for free. So off they went with my computer for 3 weeks and they told me they wouldnt need the charger and i should hold onto that.

So, three weeks passed and i got it back, but there was no new charger, so i asked, and they said i would have to send my charger off to be repaired also, which took another 2-3 weeks.

And thats the only problem ive had.

But the apple support were great with it, except for the thing with deciding they would need the charger.

I did have a friend though, who's Logic board died on him and he got what he called the "transparent film of doom" telling him there was an error and he needed to shut down, but it said it in german or french or something i think. He got it replaced for free, but im not sure how long that took.

[Johnny C]

For the record, my problem was resolved after a second, lengthy bout of maintenance.

[Lines]

yeah, they take a while with repairs. i had a problem about a year ago with my powerbook and i couldn't figure out what was going on. at first some programs wouldn't work, but the internet did. then it fell, causing the programs which hadn't worked before to work again. but the internet wouldn't work. so i took it in and they looked at it and ended up replacing the antenna. internet worked in the store, but when i took it home and took it to school, it wouldn't work. (this is not good, because my academic classes are all online based.) so in a panic, i go back and tell them i'm freaking out and so they take a more in depth look at it and realize, oops, my motherboard was going to shit. (it was a year and a half old.) which would explain the original problem. GUH. so they sent it in for repairs and about a three weeks later, i got my computer back. everything was fine, even all of the stuff on my hard drive (which i had backed up anyways.)

but yes, they are kinda slow. i'm just glad i have a powerbook though. i've heard both good and bad things about mac books, but the bad things are worse that the problems with powerbooks. (from what i've heard.)

the only problem i have now is i probably need battery, because mine only lasts about an hour and 20 min or so, and it used to last pretty much 2 hours or more i think. (which really isn't that great...)

[Valrus]

My logic board on my G5 iMac went on the fritz, but fortunately it was a widespread-enough problem that there was a special extended warranty that covered it. So I didn't have to pay, I just had to haul the machine down to the Apple Store and back via city bus in the snow.

Besides that, my only problems with my Macs is that they're too awesome and I want to sit in front of them all the time and they make other computers seem sucky by comparison.

[Catfish_Man]

Besides that, my only problems with my Macs is that they're too awesome and I want to sit in front of them all the time and they make other computers seem sucky by comparison.

I suggest going outside for a bit. The graphics are amazing, and a good stiff breeze brings a wonderful sense of perspective.

[Spinless]

Yeah, but when I go out I suffer from serious lag, it really distracts me from the cool visuals.

[nihilist]

Besides that, my only problems with my Macs is that they're too awesome and I want to sit in front of them all the time and they make other computers seem sucky by comparison.

That made me laugh.

[Scytale]

Macs make Windows PC's crappy in comparrison...

Though that could be changing.

I got an email from a friend at work going on and on about some new "power" shell (MSH) that Microsoft had written for Windows. So I was a bit intrigued read the docs on MSDN.

The new scripting language looks an awful lot like bash/ksh scripts, even uses the "$" sign for variable names, looks to be alot easier then VBS.
The shell now supports 'proper' tab auto completion.
You can use something called "powerdrives" to access everything as part of the filesystem, including registry keys (installationscripts should be easy now)
The microsoft doc reccomend using pipes to filter returning data (sound familiar)
Process spawing (through the Invoke-Item command) now works very similar to fork exec.
Process\job management through the shell isn't stuffed anymore (theres now a "ps", "kill" "sleep" etc command that seems to work properly)
You now use the "-" sign to append arguments onto shell commands (eg copy *.* -recursive)
Oh and "ls" is now an alias for "dir", "cp" is an alias of "copy" there is now support for "cat" etc etc...

Looks like MS are finally learning from Unix...

I have to admit theres a few pretty nice features in the new shell, returning objects rather then text streams is a pretty cool feature, as is having acccess to all the .NET libraries from the shell, I expect theres going to be some pretty seriously cool admin scripts written now.

My big thing is there needs to be an easy way to switch users and run things will elevated permissions in scripts something analogus to "su" I'm not sure how the permissions model works in Vista but it would be a very nice method of convincing people not to run as admin anymore.

Also there is still no Reg Exp support, at least I couldn't see any looks to still be only the two ms "wildcards" ("*" and "?"). I suppose you could access some of the .net reg exp libraries still seems a bit chunky though, would be nice if there was some text processing build into the shell like sed or awk.

Other then that it looks pretty good, not enough to convince me to go back to windows, but noce all the same. I wonder why they didn't have it built into vista, they must be kicking themselves...

[nihilist]

See, now you're talking about OSs, not a "Mac" vs. a "PC".  Hell, I had OS X on my PC for a while, except that I realized that I really don't care for it as an OS.

Come talk to me when your Mac comes with a nice SLI setup, comes in a tiny form factor, is dead silent, etc, etc.  Till then...  Pfft.

[Valrus]

I suggest going outside for a bit. The graphics are amazing, and a good stiff breeze brings a wonderful sense of perspective.

And in Minnesota, where I am and where the high temperatures are hovering just around zero Fahrenheit, frostbite, hypothermia, and possibly death. Or is that what you meant by "a wonderful sense of perspective?"

No seriously, I do go outside, even in weather like this. I was exaggerating, obviously, in my previous comment.

[nihilist]

Goddamn Fahrenheit...  That scale is beyond useless to me.  Celsius: the only way to go, where 0 means that water freezes, and 100 means that water boils.  Good times, good times.

[Lines]

yes, but that would make sense and since when has anything in America ever made sense? before the british colonized here?

i think my favorite things about macs, and i say this to everyone, are 1. i can actually find files if i accidentally don't save them in the right place. on PC's, i can't find a damn thing. 2. when you delete something on a mac, it's actually deleted, and not just burried somewhere on your hard drive taking up space. 3. i can actually eject my memory stick. on PC's that just never seems to work. it always says it's busy even 5 seconds after i plug it in and haven't opened anything from it yet. 4. macs are, well, prettier. the icons are prettier, the graphics are prettier, the physical computer is prettier. 5. macs don't have a blue screen of death. they have a rainbow spin-y thing of doom. which is much less ugly and it still gets the point across.

[Valrus]

Yeah, Fahrenheit's idiotic all right, but it's (generally) how we roll here in America. Zero Fahrenheit is a little under negative twelve Celsius, for what it's worth.

Can we not turn this into a holy war thread? I'm aware that I may possibly have kicked it off, but it should have been obvious that that comment was not really meant to be taken seriously. Much. To each his or her own and all that. You know.

[nihilist]

I would argue that a Shuttle XPC is a hellishly good looking PC.

[Catfish_Man]

Can we not turn this into a holy war thread?

As per usual I will mock anyone posting ill-informed pro-anything.

*looks at iamyourpirate*

Also: wtf, why should temperature be based on water? It makes more sense than Fahrenheit, sure, but that's not saying all that much.