Vivo en Bizkaia (y otros sitios tambien)

After a lot of geeky faffing around I have fixed the JunkBook.

As the problem with this one and all the previous JunkBooks has been the computer not properly seeing the memory I decided to take the two memory chips out, give them a good soak in a bath of hot soapy water and some swarfega and then a scrub with a Brillo pad, swap them around and put them back.

This worked.

Oh and I was joking about the bath and the Brillo pad.

So. My laptop. Wont. Work. Again.

Now I have been using my JunkBook Pro for work these last few months, but of late i have experience the Single Beep of Death a couple of times. This, if your memory stretches back that far, was the signal that there was a problem with the previous one.

Or was it the one before that?

Yes it was!

OH AND THE ONE BEFORE THAT.

AND THE ONE BEFORE THAT. 

But hey, at least Apple manufacturer their stuff to a consistently low standard.

Anyway, whichever one it was (actually it was ALL OF THEM) this one is the same.

So normally i cant afford to be without it (what? how can you not afford to be without something that might not work?) but i am having a rest week (aka dossing) this week and next and maybe the next contract I get will provide me with my own computer.

So i thought its best time to reinstall all the software on the JunkBook as various other nasty things were starting to happen. Now this is a reasonably routine procedure which i have done lots of times, it just takes a long time because you have to backup everything, zap the hard drive, reinstall everything. Its weary but worth it.

So I carefully backed up the hard drive using an ace piece of software called SuperDuper! and then zapped the hard drive.  Now when you zap (aka format) a hard drive thats it. Whatever was on there is gone. (Notice to geeks reading this, yeah I know what you are going to say but let's just leave it, huh? Go get yourself a girlfriend).

You can see where this is going can't you?

Yes, after an afternoon of backing up to a Firewire drive and zapping the JunkBook hard drive and being every so careful I started a new installation of the Mac OS X software from the original DVDs.

And guess what?

It won't install on the hard drive.

Which actually I am not that surprised about.

For some reason. 

And if you cant install the OS on a computer then (a) its really fundamental and (b) nothing else is going to happen.

So.

Anyone got a chainsaw I can borrow? I have the makings of a great YouTube video. 

As you may know, my faith in the reliability of Mac notebooks is on a par with the belief that George and Tony invaded Iraq to promote democracy and not grab some oil.

Cynical, moi?

Anyway a few weeks ago my JunkBook Pro (the replacement replacement replacement one) emitted a beep when it started up. Not good. But it didn't happen again so i ignored it.

Then for various geeky reasons I had a feeling that there might be some issue with its memory. But nothing major was going wrong.

Then the other week, for various other geeky reasons, I thought there might be a small error with the hard drive. But again this is not unusual so....

And it has been a little slow sometimes. Then OK again.

Then last night I was copying some pictures from it to a DVD. This procedure failed. Twice.

Then the penny dropped.

Problems with copying files to a DVD is one of the symptoms of memory problems. I know this because of my previous experiences with dodgy JunkBooks and PowerBooks.

So anyway.

The real reason why sailing on the Pride of Bilbao is the best way to get to Euskadi is simply this.

BECAUSE YOU CAN DROP YOUR JUNKBOOK PRO OVERBOARD INTO THE BAY OF BISCAY. 

As a life long dedicated Apple fan who knows only too well how wonderful their products are I am only too delighted to help promote Green Apple, a campaign by Greenpeace which parodies the Apple site.

This link was sent to me by a friend who is currently serving a prison sentence in Australia.

Thanks Pip, just keep your nose clean and good luck with the next parole board hearing.

Oh and I think I may have forgot to mention that earlier this week my Junkbook Pro was sent back to Apple on a big lorry so they can send me a new one. Again. 

And that is something I dont do easily.

After two months of using my MacBook Pro (aka JunkBook Pro) as a glorified and very expensive iPod and getting no response to the letter of complaint I sent to Apple UK two months ago I just gave up today and asked them to swap the JunkBook for a working MacBook. Forget the complaint, life is too short.

A very nice lady at Apple sorted this out within minutes.

So now all I have to do is send the JunkBook back and wait for another MacBook. 

Of course it would be a real hoot if that one started to beep when it shouldn´t!

Wouldn´t it? 

For those of you who have not discovered the joys of YouTube yet, have a look at this link which is a spoof of an Apple Mac Commercial.

Very good. And so true! And if you are one of those fanatics who think Apple Macs are some sort of religious deity I hope you get really upset by it! :)

I will add a set of my favourite Youtube links soon.  

There is yet more to impart about this sorry saga. I will write more later, suffice to say for the moment that I spent some time today talking to the Consumer Rights people in the UK about my Apple laptop problems and they were very nice people and very helpful.

Bottom line is that on the advice of the consumer rights people I have cancelled my most recent replacement notebook exchange and am now writing a formal letter of complaint to Apple in Ireland.

Apple have been repeatedly telling me that they will not refund my money for the original faulty Powerbook or this faulty MacBook but according to the Sales and Supply of Goods to Consumers Regulations 2002 (which came into effect 31 March 2003) I am within my rights to ask for a refund because of the significant number of repairs and problems I have encountered with both Powerbook and MacBook Pro and I no longer have confidence in Apple laptop products.

More later.

La Residencia is becoming a hot bed of legal action at the moment.... 

So that is what I am going to do.  

A source of mine close to Apple Computer´s headquarters in Cupertino, California has sent me a link to this video of how Apple test their notebooks. Worth a watch as it is both instructional and entertaining.

So.

After some time on the phone to Apple it was suggested that they get a Spanish Apple dealer to pick the laptop up and repair it. I said "No thanks, i dont have any trust in Apple laptops and would like a refund please."  I was then phoned back by another person who explained that as it was a new laptop they could not refund the money as I had not paid for this one (a replacement for the first one) as I had (obviously) paid for the first one but they could replace it with another one.

I said I was not happy with this as I had no reason to believe that if I was given another Mac laptop it would work any better than the first one, but this was met with lots of logic along the lines of if i bought a TV and had it repaired four times I would not get a refund and so on and so on and so on. The fact that I had bought another Mac because I could not rely on this one is, apparently, "unfortunate".

At this point we agreed to differ and I am now waiting to get my third Mac Laptop in just over a year.  

The moral of this story is if you buy a Mac laptop and it goes wrong ask for your money back before you get it exchanged. 

The single beep is back! Fortunately it did it while I was talking to Apple Technical Support and they heard it too - so it isn´t a dream! :)

Stay tuned.