On 11/16/2011 11:10 AM, X ` Man wrote:
On 11/16/11 10:58 AM, JustWait wrote:
On 11/16/2011 10:42 AM, X ` Man wrote:
On 11/16/11 9:30 AM, North Star wrote:
On Nov 16, 9:39 am, X ` Mandump-on-conservati...@anywhere-you-
can.com wrote:
On 11/16/11 8:34 AM, North Star wrote:





On Nov 16, 9:01 am, X ` Mandump-on-conservati...@anywhere-you-
can.com wrote:
On 11/16/11 7:47 AM, JustWait wrote:

On 11/16/2011 7:40 AM, X ` Man wrote:
On 11/16/11 7:31 AM, BAR wrote:
In ,
says...

On Tue, 15 Nov 2011 18:59:18 -0500, X `

wrote:

On 11/15/11 6:36 PM, North Star wrote:
On Nov 15, 4:45 pm, X ` wrote:
One of the hard drives on one of my aging Apple computers
has been
dying
for a couple of weeks. It finally gave up the ghost
yesterday.
Called
Apple Care and the tech suggested about four different
ways to
try to
resuscitate it, to no avail.

So he made an appointment for me at the local Apple store. I
showed up,
tech said "go to lunch." Came back 90 minutes later, new hard
drive in
machine, running diagnostics.

No charge for labor or parts.

Love it.

Wow! just how old is that computer and was it still under
warranty?

Two years next month. When I bought it, I paid about $100 for
a three
year extended warranty. It's really nice...if I have a
problem, I call
Apple Care on the phone and usually the English speaking
person who
answers can work out the difficulty with me doing what is
suggested. If
not, the rep makes an appointment for me at the local store.

I just reinstalled my apps and data back on the machine from a
backup.

Since most hard drives are warranted for 5 years by the
manufacturer
these days that seems like a great deal for Apple. Most computer
problems are caused by bad hard drives. That has been true for
a long
time, pretty much since the end of the card reader and open
reel tape
drive.

Usually the problems with rotating media is with a lot. You get
about
10,000 that are bad and you need to have them replaced. They
don't
recall them but, they do work with big commercial customers to
get the
lots replaced. The consumer market, Apple is the consumer
market, is
left to deal with it on an individual basis.

It's nice to deal with it with a mannerly fellow in Oregon on the
phone
who speaks American English and isn't reading off a script, and
when his
suggestions fail, sets you up with a firm appointment at the local
service desk. It's certain better than dealing with "Dell Hell"
or "HP
Hiccups" personnel somewhere in India, Pakistan, or perhaps
Saturn.

We know Harry, we do the same thing right up the street at Geek
Squad...
You are not special, your computer is not special, your service is
not
special... Except you spend an hour on the phone first...

What? An ISP reseller with facilities as extensive as the ones you
claim
relies on Geek Squad for tech support?- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

It just keeps getting better!

Do you have "Geek Squad" up there? Around here, they're located at
Best
Buy Big Box stores and also drive funny little cars with huge "Geek
Squad" decals. They're not the guys you'd want if you were running a
substantial commercial facility.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Sounds familiar.... we have a couple of Best Buy stores locally. I
just invite my son to dinner and then lay any computer problems I have
on him. ;-)
I had a harddrive crash last spring so I drove to a local parts store
and bought a new one. Bit of a pain loading everything back up though.


I have a server, so I can restore a hard drive once I get it up and
running. For some mysterious reasons, though, whenever I restored a hard
drive running windows, the "restored" version would never restore my
user names and passwords to reinstalled apps or to reinstalled bookmarks
on my browser. Might have been I didn't set the backups up properly...I
don't remember.

Backups and restores on the Apples are easier and more reliable. I
backup to Apple's Time Machine on an external HD. I also backup with
Time Machine and separately with "SuperDuper," a third-party backup
software suite, to my server. Finally, I back up data, such as certain
word processing and similar work output files via the internet to an
off-site storage site.

When I got back from the Apple store yesterday with the new hard drive
(Apple installed the OS there for me), I simply hooked up the external
HD, opened up Time Machine and clicked on RESTORE. About 35 minutes
later, the machine was exactly was it was the day before, except with a
new hard drive.




Wow, you use a third party backup system, Apple didn't do anything but
pay for a hdd installation because you bought a third party extended
service plan snerk I wish I could do that with my PC... Oh wait, I
do


Indeed I do. It's all part of my superfancy facilities I tout on my ISP
services reseller web page. Oh, wait...that's *your* purloined copy web
page. Sorry.

Yeah, but then again I don't mix my business systems with my personal
systems to dodge taxes like you do...