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Which Apple Should I Get?

July 24th, 2008 | No Comments | Posted in Apple, Daily Life, My Life, Tidbits, online shopping

Last night after work, I had an appointment with a new Raging Tech customer (my in-person consultation & services business) about 20 minutes out of town from where I work (in the opposite direction of my home). They ended up being some of the nicest clients I’ve had so far.

I was able to resolve their issue with their Macbook and Airport Base Station and printer, and I gotta say: I really like the feel of the Macbook laptop. The interface is nice (the screen is a bit small though), it’s speedy, and the airport is nifty as well. I really like that you can print wirelessly or hook-up a USB hard drive (like ad-hoc Network Attached Storage!). I always though the airport was kind of gimmicky, but now that I’ve seen one, they’re not too bad.

With that said, I also really like the iMac. I use one everyday at work with an extra screen attached. But the downside to that is, my computer is in my office at home, and I hardly go in there because that’s where my unpacked boxes are, and it’s too depressing!

So, while a laptop would be really nice, I like the size of the screen and the graphics processor of the iMac. Then there’s also the Macbook Air, the really thin computer you may have seen on TV that Apple sells that will fit inside a manilla office envelope. I think that’d be really nice to have, something light-weight and not a huge burden to tote.

Finally, there’s the Mac Pro (I’m not even considering the Mac Mini this go round), which is hecka expensive unless I buy one refurbished. But they do have 8 cores, lots of memory slots (very upgradeable), room for several hard drives, and nice video cards.

I look to you, readers: Which Mac should I get if I decide to get one? Leave me a message in the comments.

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Consumerist: 7 Confessions of an Apple Store Specialist

Consumer watch-dog website Consumerist has an informative article about things every consumer that shops in an Apple Store should know.

My favorite part:

1. If you fill out the survey and rank us 6 or lower, a manager will call you the same day or the next, corporate policy.
They usually will ask why you had a bad experience, and offer to make it better, usually by discounting something or another for you.

Check out the other 6 confessions over at Consumerist, and be sure to bookmark their site. It’s one of my favorites that I read from time to time.

I can also tell you, as a former hardware technician that dealt with Apple a lot, your Apple Care does NOT cover accidental damage. If you trip and fall and break the screen, you’re out of luck. If you accidentally spill coffee on your MacBook, you’ve just lost a lot of money. If you accidentally knock over your Mac Pro desktop and something comes loose and hits a logic board component and now it won’t boot - too bad. Apple Care only covers hardware failure by faulty part.

My recommendation: if you do buy a Mac laptop, put it under your home owner’s insurance, and make sure you keep back-ups with Time Machine or some other back-up app.

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Get the Menu Back in Internet Explorer 7

April 23rd, 2008 | No Comments | Posted in Tech Support, Technology, Tidbits, Windows, software

I know this is a completely dumb Windows tip, and most of you have probably already figured this out. I was helping a lady today who was not familiar with Windows because she normally uses a Mac. She had accidentally hidden the menu bar (File, Edit, Tools, etc.) in Internet Explorer 7.

It’s really quite simple: Just right-click on the open space beside your open web page title, and select “Menu Bar” from the pop-up menu.

You should now have your menu back that you’re used to from IE 6 and previous versions. Also note that the only menu I ever use is “Tools,” which is now located on the right even if the Menu Bar is disabled.

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