Back on the MacBook!

I was elated on Sunday afternoon to pick my MacBook up from the Apple Store in Oklahoma City. I had dropped it off last Thursday for repair of an intermittent shutdown problem that after comparing my own experiences to those of others– sounded like a thermal-related hardware problem. That blog post has become of my most-commented, as of this morning there were 19 comments on it. So this is a problem a number of other people have and are experiencing.

Sure enough, when I took my MacBook in the Apple repair folks recommended replacing the logic board and the heat sink. These repairs were all covered under my AppleCare warranty. So far those fixes appear to have resolved the problem, though I have not yet put the MacBook through its paces in terms of multi-hour non-stop work yet. (That will be coming this week!) I did have to reset the PRAM after initial startup to reset the video resolution, and after installing the firmware upgrade for the MacBook I also had to reset the PRAM. After that, things have been off and running wonderfully well.

I will add that as in the past, I was very pleased with the responsiveness, knowledge, and professionalism of the AppleCare service. I am glad to have a local Apple Store that was able to perform this repair in-house, because when I talked to the AppleCare folks initially on the phone they wanted me to replace my third-party RAM in the MacBook with the Apple-certified RAM it shipped with to insure the problem was not RAM related. Taking the MacBook directly in to the Apple Store allowed me to avoid having to do this, since they did all the requisite troubleshooting right there at the store. The service was prompt and price was right: No additional fees! This would have cost a bit over $1000 to do if I wasn’t covered by the warranty, so thank goodness for that. With the first iteration of new hardware, problems like this can come up. I am not in any way disappointed to be a first-generation MacBook user and owner, though!

I am so thrilled to have my MacBook back and be able to transition away from primarily using an HP laptop, which I’ve been doing for the past month or so. Cross-platform digital literacy IS important, but being literate on Windows, Ubuntu Linux and Macintosh operating systems for me does not translate into a desire to predominantly work in the LEAST powerful and hardest-to-use environment. Understandably, I think, my desire remains to work in the computer environment which is the most empowering and easiest to use. From where I sit and have sat, there is no question that operating environment today is Macintosh OS X. The eye-opening malware problems I had on my HP Tablet PC in the last few weeks dramatically revealed how incredibly hostile our networked computing environment is for Windows-based systems. This level of hostility and “clear and present danger” is really shocking and even abhorrent. For people who have grown accustomed to working in it on a daily basis, it may not be apparent how liberating and freeing a malware-free Macintosh OS experience is and can be. Or, perhaps those folks can appreciate that freedom even more than others, I don’t know. (See the “Trust Mac” video ad for a humorous but painfully accurate interpretation of this.) On a personal level, I am extremely relieved to get my MacBook back and have the opportunity to return to what I perceive to be higher levels of personal and professional productivity, thanks to the benefits and advantages I am afforded when working in Mac OS X.

I am actually going to close comments on my MacBook intermittent shutdown post and direct people here, so they can hopefully read about how this situation was resolved in my case. I expect others who may have a similar situation will find the AppleCare response to be similarly good in getting the problem fixed in a timely manner. I hope so! 🙂

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On this day..

• STEM and Coding in Yukon Public Schools Featured on Oklahoma Horizon TV – 2016
• Navigating the Minefield of College Admissions Risks and Rewards – 2016
• Opening Doors for Students: An ISTE 2013 Ignite Presentation – 2013
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• Time to ditch Diigo or pay up? – 2010
• Anyone Studying Student Access to Khan Academy Videos on Netbooks? – 2010
• Farewell Bloglines, my first digital newspaper – 2010
• Arrange iPhone icons now in iTunes 9.0 – 2009
• Addressing the R Word Proactively and Flagging YouTube Videos – 2009
• Podcast279V: Setting up a SubDomain with cPanel – 2008