[Hidden-tech] Mac or PC?

[Chris Hoogendyk]

Tom Kopec wrote:
> Also, if you do decide to get a Mac, make sure you get Applecare (and 
> figure that into the price).
>
> From painful experience with my daughter's hard-drive-eating Macbook, 
> Apple doesn't stand behind their products... the unreliability of that 
> Macbook drove my daughter (once a diehard apple fan) back to a PC 
> laptop this fall. 


That's unfortunate, and I'm sorry your daughter had that experience. I 
think it is the exception rather than the rule -- both in terms of 
failure and failure to be of service. I wouldn't make a blanket 
conclusion that "Apple doesn't stand behind their products." I do, 
however, agree that Applecare can be a good thing to have, especially if 
you are sending a new student off to college and would like to be secure 
for the duration. I've done that with both of my daughters. I've also 
found that going directly to Apple (an Apple store) makes a big difference.

The vast majority of the Macs I and my family members have had have been 
trouble free and of service for many years. My older daughter's issues 
with her MacBook (mentioned in my first response) have been self 
inflicted (e.g. filling her drive to 99% and trying to run that way for 
extended periods and then impatiently going for the power button and a 
forced restart when it is unresponsive, etc.), and the Apple store 
diagnosed and fixed the resulting directory table corruption for free. I 
did get Applecare for her, because I expected she might need it. But her 
MacBook is over 4 years old, and the AppleCare ran out at the end of 3 
years.

Just as an extreme example of reliability, I had a Mac SE to which I had 
added a HyperCharger020. It was connected to a Linotronic Imagesetter 
and ran a graphic arts service bureau for a couple of years (Guy 
Kawasaki actually used it once at a tradeshow). Then it was my personal 
Mac for several more years. Then I got a new PowerMac 7100/80AV and my 
wife inherited the SE and its copy of PageMaker to prepare her school 
work. She used it for several more years. When I got a second hand 
Quadra 630 for her (when Specular was sold and left Amherst I got 3 of 
them very inexpensively), the SE went to her school office to be used 
instead of the PC that was there. At that point it was 10 years old. I 
designed a sign to affix to its side declaring it a Knight of the Realm 
for Yeoman Service . . . .

On the service side, my son had a PowerBook a couple of years ago that 
had some serious problems. It was out of warranty. The problems may have 
initially been caused by plugging it into an outlet at a house built by 
a shoddy contractor. Burned something out. He paid something for the 
initial repair, but negotiated it lower. The PowerBook continued to have 
problems. Apple covered a couple of additional repairs until it finally 
stayed repaired.

The only hardware problem I ever had was an iMac G5 a couple of years 
ago. That was caused by an industry wide problem with bad capacitors 
that hit almost every major manufacturer. Everyone had recalls. My iMac 
was a year and 5 months old when it failed. Past warranty. I took it to 
the Apple store and they replaced the power supply and the mother board 
for free. It's been as good as new ever since.

My family and I have owned something like 20 Macs over the years. I have 
also had about 10 workplace Macs over the years. Of course, this is not 
counting Macs on other peoples' desks in companies where I have been IT 
manager, just my own desktops and my family's. At work, I have generally 
also had a PC under my desk in recent years, but the one I have now 
hasn't been turned on in over a year. There's a full time guy who mostly 
just takes care of the PCs in the building, so I don't have to.



-- 
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Chris Hoogendyk

-
   O__  ---- Systems Administrator
  c/ /'_ --- Biology & Geology Departments
 (*) \(*) -- 140 Morrill Science Center
~~~~~~~~~~ - University of Massachusetts, Amherst 

<hoogendyk at bio.umass.edu>

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Erdös 4