It’s bound to happen to the best of us, no matter if we’re on a Mac or a PC. At the worst possible time, computers crash. It’s as if they know how to destroy our most productive weeks, or weeks that need to be our most productive. That was this week, for me.
Coming back from Seattle on Monday left me with an already shortened week, 4 full days. Tuesday was mostly lost to prep for the brainstorming session. Wednesday was going to be a very busy day of development for a new project as well as some redux documentation from the brainstorming session (that went really, really well, by the way).
It occurred to me that I was coming up on the 1 year anniversary of the purchase of my primary (and only, really) computer, my Macbook Pro. It had a sunken power button for a long time, and really I wanted it to get one more pass from support before the guarantee ran out. Furthermore, my battery/power management performance had been on the fritz, and this was the 2nd battery i’d had in less than 12 months. Hardly a lemon of a computer, it put up with a LOT of hard work, but some general 1 year tune-up work.
The problem is, being that it was my only computer, being without the computer for ANY period of time is absolutely destructive to my ability to get a damn thing done. So I was between getting a loaner and wasting time getting it set up only to get my computer back OR….squeezing in one more end-of-the-year writeoff and buying myself a new rig for the office. Realistically, my needs have changed. I do almost all of my work at IndyHall, so a laptop is only useful when I stay home or travel. And I shouldn’t be working in either of those situations.
So I resolved to treat myself to a Hanukkah Present:
The crazy part is, my Macbook Pro immediately got jealous. It must not have realized this computer came in preparation for sending it to the spa, not the showers!
While I was copying the files from the old computer, i started to get some strange asian characters in app title bars. I wrote it off to a weird finder glitch because I was moving so much crap around, and restarted. Unfortunately, that restart became more of a permanent shut-down.
The MBP started up with the usual mac chime sound, but a dimly lit background. It got to the Apple logo but the spinner just kept spinning. And spinning. And spinning.
Luckily, I had 2 sets of backups so I was not in a panic, just frustrated. I set those backups aside and attempted to get a current snapshot of the offending computer’s drive. A quick boot into target disk mode and slaving it off of the new iMac, along with a 250gb external drive, and a copy of CarbonCopyCloner gave me a full backup of the computer as it was before it tanked. And that was that. Off to the Apple Store the lappy went.
Mind you…this is all <1 week from the end of the built in 1 year AppleCare. Luckily, everything that was wrong (from the sunken power button to the shitty battery) was covered. Furthermore…I was still able to buy the AppleCare to cover it for the next 2 years AFTER this round of repairs. I’m pleased, really, that the process that could have been really awful ended up being relatively painless. I only lost one full day, and some slight bumps in my workflow for the week. Some people complain about Apple service. Others complain about Dell’s service. I think they all suck, but in this particular situation, I’m pleased with the outcome so far.
What’s most amazing to me is that I was able to buy the AppleCare so close to the end of the built in Care, AND while the computer was not functioning.
That’s like…having your be in the middle of burning down, and calling the insurance company to take out a fire policy BEFORE you call the fire department. In that situation, I don’t think you’d get very far.
In the mean time…I’m anxiously waiting to get my laptop back. The plus side is, I’ve rationalized my way into buying a new computer! [tags]applecare, imac, macbook pro, service[/tags]
