Is there life after APPLE?

Purgatorio
As I was saying ..my Apple dual G5 of 3.5 years died last week. This my main machine for graphics has been a workhorse with minor problems and a 3 year APPLECARE we'll come and change your sox $300 program which ran out last January and, unlike the telemarketers' promise, cannot be extended.

So it's dead...and here am I wondering what to do...

I did a perfunctory search on the web to find some quick fixit suggestions - all of which i tried to no avail - and i also found a surprising number of whiners complaining about the same problems i was having...with mixed results from Apple support.

Now, I'll admit, I expect to get moused by most large corporations. But this is being written on an Apple g4 machine that's 10 years old...and I'm still using 2 old g4 laptops - my expectations have been set so high, it's hard for me to accept a dead lemonapple after 3.5 years.

Well, I digress...I took the box to Santa Cruz to Dave's for $75 to tell me...whoa, it's the logic board or processor: $7-800 to start. I didn't want to do that...who knows how long that fix will stay fixed?

In this day and age, that's still alot of dough for me - a light lunch for some.

During this process my friend Don asked, have you taken it to the Geniuses? I hadn't had that standing-at-the-oracle experience. Something you might do sometime, if you can't get to Lourdes or Delphi... You are confronted with a weighty coolness and light, the acolytes and Geniuses are young cool arrogant talking snakes. If you don't know about this unique Apple personality, you should think: Timmy Geithner but cool, Marky Mark with a GED or DeSoto sales people who don't need tutone shoes and brylcreme hair - hipsters deep into that 1984 commercial style trench they think they broke out of.

Well, I did get around to taking the computer to the Apple Genius Bar in Los Gatos...now this is a cultural throwback to something surreal as well. Most of the media buzz these days, when not arabcentric, is about how the dust bowl is acomin or here now, Not Los Gatos. So Los Gatos is a Must see. It's a Western Silicon Valley enclave that's always been the upscale [often white, but not always] place where those in the futureknow shake a tailfeather. Los Gatos is like an updated backlot 50's version of bustling small town america on steroids - commerce a-gogo, preening yuppies doing eurotrash and upsacle california casual. And buying their precious and weaverbird geegaws like sandbags before the impending flood.

So I went to the APPLE center. I did this because I read the tempting forum experiences of those who claimed they knew someone with MY SAME PROBLEM, APPLE gave a new machine to, only charged for parts, acted like their product was important to them and so was their customer.... WOW! Let me in on this gravy train.

Well, on a Thursday night, with my "some dirt on the case" G5, I was lucky to get an appointment at the genius bar...look way back in the photo to the blue squares, those are monitors...just above them are the iconic statements that you're at the oracle of the GENIUS BAR.

To help with the visualization, I will be taking photos on my next visit, so you without experience can visualize the intellectual separation between you and an Apple genius.

I met with the genius who was able to tell me how much it would cost me for APPLE to confirm DAVE's assessment ($75). Sure, sure...I was ready for the mea culpa...I'd read the dual G5 was acknowledged by engineers as a lemon before they pulled the production trigger.

Woof. Not so fast chucko =

Altho I was told the box was going on the rack for a 48 hour testorama, I discovered on my return from my pickup Jasonandmeg LA roundtrip [another tale for another time] they'd left a phone message the next day saying - oh, you need to replace the logic board and processors - $1800 +.

To be fair, I was told on the phone I could get it fixed cheaper someplace else. I was told I could part it out. I was told too bad. I was told there's no place for old, or recently old macs.

So for half the price of the fix, I'm getting a new HP.

But there's purgatory...that time when no longer apple and learning linux....it's going to be a slog


updates as they are available