Re: "Macs just WORK" - Indeed they don't, or not for long

[wcharmon@wt.net]

Judy,

This indeed sounds horrible. I am one of those Mac fans you mention, and
have never had a problem with my series of Mac computers. They work
flawlessly for virtually everything I do.

So when I sent my daughters off to college, I insisted on buying them Macs
because of my smug belief in their superiority. I damn near got a rotator
cuff injury pre-emptively patting myself on the back for my cleverness in
dodging the undergraduate computer woes that I had heard so much about
from friends who had sent their kids off to college.

That was 4 years ago. The count now: 2 college age daughters, and 5 Macs
that they have been through. It may come as a surprise to some that a cup
of coffee poured into the top of a Mac PowerBook is harmful to the
electronic innards of the computer, but I am here to tell you that this is
indeed true. Also walking around the dorm room instant messaging on your
laptop while the ethernet cable is trailing behind the computer can also
be harmful, and a little known fact is that the ethernet port on laptops
is integrally attached to the mother boards. So breaking the connector is
a $800 repair instead of a $50 repair. Cool. And the list goes on.

I have begun to form a theory about computers that uses an analogy from
the offshore energy business. When companies put a steel platform in an
ocean full of salt water, they will stick large blocks of zinc on the
platform legs to serve as 'sacrificial anodes'. These blocks of zinc are
electrically more active than steel, and the natural electrolytic action
of metal in salt water (i.e. rust) preferentially attacks the blocks of
zinc instead of the steel on the platform legs.

So, my theory is that people like you (and my daughters) serve as
sacrificial anodes for the rest of us using computers. In short, you
attract all of our digital bad luck instead of it being spread around
evenly. I know that this sounds terribly unfair. But I am here to tell you
that I, for one, appreciate your sacrifice to maintaining this karmic
balance.

Sorry!

Clay

>
> Look!, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that Macs suck less than PCs...
> Just the idea of having to separate left click from right click when
> I'm WRITING (which takes more concentration than remains to me in this
> world) makes me want to throw a bomb... In fact I used to be one of
> those insufferable mac fans, whose lips curled reflexively at the letters
> "PC." When my daughter got a PC, I felt she was deliberately rejecting
> mom... (though, she's a journalist & I realize now that's a tool of the
> trade).
>
> I nursed my original Mac Plus until it literally burned up in my
> face (Just after I'd spent $200 for an upgrade -- another INCREDIBLE 2
> megabytes.... now needless to say I get 175 gigabytes for $125.)
>
> So then it was onwards and upwards...systems 4,5, whatever, up to system
> 8.6, which was sooo kind and motherly, and NEVER crashed. If it was going
> to do something that might be a tiny bit rude in case you had a headache,
> it sent a sweet note in advance, to apologize.
>
> Now clearly, not everyone has been tortured by the 9 & 10 dysfunctional
> marriage as I have.... but obviously Pam, for instance, has far far far
> more techno savvy than I do. I'm sure (I think) that doesn't mean she's
> a better PERSON than I am, though that of course is possible, but she's
> been working in parallel technology for 36 years, so she knows what some
> things -- that aren't explained in the "manual" -- mean. I'd even bet
> that, like the old joke, she thinks "doesn't everybody"?
>
> No, everybody don't. She would have understood the message suggesting that
> her keyboard was entering rigor mortis. I assumed it was complaining about
> my external UBS hub, which was clearly or seemingly or supposedly working
> fine, while I struggled on for weeks, trying to get my book to the
> printer, while every time I moved the cursor the whole thing froze.
> Knowedgeable friends told me G4 is OVER, you need to go G5 -- but that
> meant the end of the program I was writing the damnn book on (& all the
> rest of everything else). Until, as an absolute desperate last hope, I
> managed the telephone tangle at the Apple store (they should hang their
> heads in shame) and made an "appointment" to speak to a "genius" at the
> "genius bar."
>
> No comment on the appelations.
>
> I brought my keyboard & the intermittent screen message copied by hand (in
> pencil, if you must know). After a half hour suffering "music" from a
> group called I believe "The New Jersey Wrecks" on a nearby stage, so loud
> you couldn't hear a Boeing 747 taking off overhead, I flipped. Everyone in
> or around the "Genius Bar" some waiting for an hour, some working there
> all day, was miserable, hating it while they were trying to think much
> less speak -- but my instant survey showed NO ONE not one single person
> had complained.
>
> I felt it my debt to the human race (and my own remaining faculties) to
> stop this nerve destruction asap, and worked my way (and my indignation)
> up the chain of command, finally speaking to a person (fairly deaf IMO)
> who claimed to be the boss of the whole operation... She explained that
> nothing could possibly be done, that this was the way it was.
>
> Interestingly, however, within 3 minutes the sound had been turned down to
> a surprisingly civilized level, which is some kind of message about chain
> of command, if not about Apple. A few minutes later my number came up ,
> the "genius" took one look at my note scribbled from the screen and
> announced "Your keyboard is dead." By sheer persistence (clearly the Apple
> Store is not for the faint of heart) I got about 20 words of explanation
> --- for the general info: there's ANOTHER USB hub in the keyboard -- so I
> set about trying to replace the keyboard with one willing to do 9 & 10.
> (And NOT on E-bay, especially since I was still unbrowsered.)
>
> As mentioned yesterday.
>
> Nor has this been the only saga... some I braved alone, some with a guide
> a few levels up, but nothing has been easy... even the airwave thingy
> that's supposed to (and now does) latch into my daughter's DSL line took 5
> trips to the Digital Society, $105, and a loaned copy of Disk Warrior
> (used by the "guide," not me) after it knocked my system into some kind of
> loop.  It turned out that the row we'd put it into was for reasons of its
> own, or no reasons, "dead" in the tower, but capable of infinite mischief
> none the less.
>
> AND SO ON !
>
> Now I've got to get to the PO, mercifully analog, at least my end of it.
> But, as we say on the list, "hope this helps.'
>
> Judy
>