The Apple Store

I took my MacBook into the Apple Store to have the battery looked at (it didn’t seat quite right). I made an appointment, and I was seen right at the time I was supposed to be. The Genius was very helpful until he asked me if I put 8GB of RAM in. I told him I didn’t, that it was two sticks of 2GB each, to which he replied that he saw that one of them said 4GB Kit (meaning it was a kit of 4GB between two sticks). I commented that this model of MacBook can only take 4GB and he said he didn’t know that. Um, what? You don’t know your own product’s tech specs? I then asked him about a video adapter (the same one I asked the online rep about previous to purchasing the MacBook) and he was completely clueless. He didn’t know that Apple says themselves that the adapter is not compatible, and suggested that I purchase a new one to try out. I told him I live 2 hours away and wasn’t going to spend money to replace something that is not defective with the exact same thing that I know will not work. I was just curious if it was a constraint of the video card not being able to handle the conversion. In the end, he did help me fix my problem (the battery was nicked inside which was preventing it from seating) by swapping out my battery, but I have to say that for a Genius, he was quite clueless.

Back on My Good Side

Last week, I had the unfortunate (or so I thought) need to contact Apple’s online support.  You might remember how my last conversation with them went (see my “Geniuses?” post), so I wasn’t expecting much out of this contact.  Let’s back up a little bit though, shall we?

I realized last week that I had a ton of free space on my hard drive, and I wanted to see an episode of “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” from last season.  I looked for a torrent, but couldn’t find a decent version of what I was looking for.  I remembered that I had purchased all of Season 1 (and I have a Season Pass for Season 2), but due to the small hard drive in my last laptop, I deleted each episode as I watched it.  I had heard rumors that Apple was known to grant customers a one-time allowance to re-download their previously purchased content, but even though their policy does not allow for it.

I contacted Apple Monday night to get an email back from DeShawn notifying me that I could log in and re-download my content.  She had actually reactivated my downloads on an old account that I had forgotten about, so I had to contact her back and get the right account reactivated, which she did immediately.  She was very helpful, and got me all of my previous content from not only one, but two accounts!  I spent literally 5 days re-downloading everything (I had quite a few movies and TV series; we’re talking hundreds of dollars worth of content), and I now have an iTunes library bursting with music and video content.  DeShawn single-handedly  reversed my opinion of Apple’s online customer service.  Lesson learned?  Don’t base the entirety of a company’s service on their sales team.

The Vista Effect

I did 4 things when I received my new MacBook 2 weeks ago:

1) Install a bigger and faster hard drive (came with 120GB 5400 RPM; replaced with 320GB 7200RPM)

2) Install more RAM (4GB)

3) Migrate my Time Machine backup from the Hacintosh (which worked flawlessly, surprisingly)

4) Install Windows

Wait, hold up, install Windows? Yep, for the family's Zunes (we have 3) and for gaming. And I really like Windows 7 a lot. I've really enjoyed beta testing it, but I hit several brick walls right off the batt. First, my Leopard disc wouldn't let me install 64-bit drivers, so I formatted the partition and put Windows 7 32-bit on. Then the video driver wouldn't work right, and I couldn't get MacDrive (to see the Mac partition) to install. I gave up after that and just put XP Pro on.

I have a full retail version of Vista Home Premium just sitting on the shelf, collecting dust (the computer I had purchased it for died and was never fixed), so why didn't I use that? I know perfectly well that Vista is stable, and would run fine on my MacBook, but in the back of my head, there is still that perception that Microsoft screwed up with Vista. I've run Vista before with no problem, and Service Pack 1 improved it more. So why do I have that perception? It's not because I'm a Mac fanboy (remember, I have 3 Zunes and love Windows 7). The media. Simply put, there has been so much false anti-Vista propaganda put out there that even though I consciously know it's fine and good, my subconscious says to stay away. XP might have a little edge in gaming, but the difference is probably negligible on my MacBook (I don't benchmark, I just speak from my real-world experience). XP is more compatible with older games (I particularly wanted to play Knights of the Old Republic 2), so it worked out in the end anyway.

I spent a week with XP (just long enough to beat KOTOR2) before diving into the Internet and figuring out how to get Windows 7 up and running. I had to trick the Leopard disc into allowing the 64-bit drivers (they were on there, but the setup program wouldn't let me use them since I didn't have a MacBook Pro), separately install the video drivers, and actually pick apart the .msi file for MacDrive to allow Windows 7 (it works just fine, so I don't know why they haven't allowed it in recent updates). So now I run 64-bit Windows 7, which is pretty blazing fast with 4GB of RAM.

Would I put Vista on here in retrospect? Of course, like I said, there's no problems with it. Had I thought it through at the time, I wouldn't have installed XP. My brain just literally skipped over the fact that I could install Vista. Vista would have been fine, but the media changed my perception without me even knowing it. It's a very strange revelation to come to.

A Ton of Tech

No, I have not abandoned this blog. We recently moved, and I've been in the process of helping my wife build her business, build my own business, and help take care of 3 kids. Keeping that busy on a farm with 11 horses doesn't leave a lot of blogging time. Rest assured, I will be posting soon about all the tech I've aquired (new white MacBook, 21.5" 1080p monitor, 6x8 WACOM tablet, 70-300mm camera lens, etc.). I'm building my office this week, so hopefully I'll get some time to blog once I'm settled into my permanent desk (I'm using a tiny, cramped desk in the corner of the barn's rec room right now). Stay tuned for hardware and software reviews, including iLife 09, and iWork 09, as well as Windows 7 tips and tricks!