Of Macs and Men

The ongoing ad campaign by Apple makes it seem like Macs are the perfect machines. Not only are they without flaw, but they make you hip.

Recently I have found them to be even more annoying because they are a reminder of my battle to get my new computer to work. Perhaps I feel like it is a bit of false advertising.

My first computer ever was a boxy Mac. While I occasionally got the dreaded bomb:



Overall it was a pretty good computer.

I just returned to Mac after a decade or so of fussing with PCs and the mess that is Microsoft. And while I do like my new cyberenvironment, I have been dealing with the 21st century equivalent of the on-screen bomb.

My applications crash and eventually I get the equivalent of Mac-pass-out: the screen goes gray and my computer tells me in multiple languages that it needs to be restarted. This leaves me feeling:

I have called Apple Care and been to the Apple Store's "Genius Bar" [where by the way, I did not see any anorexic know-it-all women like they show on tv, rather it was the expected pudgy, nerdy computer geeks]. The result has been having to reinstall the operating system and re-formating the hard drive. Both entailed a long process of putting all my applications, music, and files back on the computer.

Tonight as I was working on my lectures for tomorrow, the X-Machine started failing again. During this whole process, I have learned a lot about the techie things regarding the iMac. I have gone through the procedure, but there is still a hardware problem with my hard drive.

So I guess I will find myself on the phone with Apple Care again and probably making a visit to the Apple Store to see if the geniuses at the bar can fix this thing once and for all.

I must say this, it is nice getting a helpful (more or less) person who is fluent in English on the line when I call Apple Care. My tech support experiences in the past leave much to be desired. In the end, despite the problems I will refrain from tossing my apple in the bin.


I just hope that my troubles are soon over. All I want is a computer I can work (and play, of course) on. Is that too much to ask?

Unfortunately, I think my Apple is really a Lemon.