mac repair – ɔimoɈɒ

Haggling: a way to kill a startup

This one did the rounds before I finally paused for two minutes to see it. This sort of abusive relationship endeared me to one of the big names in the content industry in Northern Ireland. It was 2003 and I was working in a brand new startup. Out cashflow was zilch and I had five … Continue reading “Haggling: a way to kill a startup”

This one did the rounds before I finally paused for two minutes to see it.

This sort of abusive relationship endeared me to one of the big names in the content industry in Northern Ireland. It was 2003 and I was working in a brand new startup. Out cashflow was zilch and I had five families to look after.

“If you give me three of these $high_end_powermacs now, then I’ll pay for them in three months.”

Needless to say he was shown the door and I’ve never worked with that company since. Caveat Startup.

Was I too “risk averse” at the time? Did I want to risk the little savings I had (which were paying salaries at the time) in order to try and weather out three months of no cash flow for someone who drove a big car and owned a big building? Maybe I made the wrong decision but it’s my feeling that if I’d taken that step then the following five years of work, fighting and the joy of success would have been condensed into three months of going out of business (and the machines would therefore never be paid for).

Plus Ã§a change

Apogee Press Release: Santa Monica, CA, February 23, 2009 – As of 2009, Apogee Electronics will no longer develop products for the Microsoft Windows platform. Apogee has made this decision in order to focus all research, development, and support resources on the Apple platform with its unparalleled power and stability. Apple offers a wide range … Continue reading “Plus Ã§a change”

Apogee Press Release:

Santa Monica, CA, February 23, 2009 – As of 2009, Apogee Electronics will no longer develop products for the Microsoft Windows platform. Apogee has made this decision in order to focus all research, development, and support resources on the Apple platform with its unparalleled power and stability. Apple offers a wide range of affordable, powerful desktop and laptop solutions ideally suited for music creation and audio production.

A couple of years ago, Wil Shipley wrote about why he develops for the Mac and how it allowed him to score a big fat Lotus sports car.

Frankly, I see this happening more and more in the near future as people change their needs and there are realisations that beyond the FUD, there’s not much difference between Vista and Mac OS X in terms of casual surfer utility and once you break this hold on people, it changes them forever.

I’d like to think that ten years of running NIMUG and five years of running Mac-Sys would mean something in the current tsunami of people coming to the Mac platform in Northern Ireland but in truth we’d have to point at the Apple Store in Belfast as having a huge effect on general acceptance. Actually having a store on the high street was something that I’d considered (but frankly the margins available to me as an Apple Reseller did not permit that – and that’s fine. The Apple Store excels at bringing people to the platform and giving them the basic training skills and Mac-Sys excels at fixing their computers (according to Apple, MacSys has a 93.3% approval rating which put’s comfortably in the top 10% of Euro Apple Service Providers.)

Having a complementary relationship with Apple was always something we strived for. We didn’t have cash flow to sell Apple hardware but there was always room for us to help customers find the best and cheapest place to buy. And we spend hours on the phone every month fighting for value for Mac owners in terms of dealing with insurance companies, Apple Customer Service and other repair companies (who don’t specialise in Mac repair). We’re responsive to the market which is why Mac-Sys now has a “Free on Friday” health check, waiving diagnosis fees for hardware we receive on Fridays, the Enterprise Park is open late on Tuesdays and so is Mac-Sys and lastly, the guys have dropped the charges for picking up hardware – we have guys out in the field already doing installations in homes and offices and it’s going to be a minor detour to have your Mac picked up and dropped off after repair.

Like Apogee, we’ve responded to the market as a result of making the decision to specialise on the Mac platform six years ago as no-one else was doing it in Northern Ireland.

Find your niche, own your niche and when folk in your market tell lies about you, try to resist the temptation to punch them in the mouth 🙂

iPhone 3G cracking under the strain?

Some people claim that their iPhones are starting to show cracks: Critically, the owners all claim not to have abused their phones, only subjected them to normal use. Hm, I call bullshit. Why? Years and years of working with electronic devices. People bring them in with all sorts of abuse – dents, broken LCD screens, … Continue reading “iPhone 3G cracking under the strain?”

Some people claim that their iPhones are starting to show cracks:

Critically, the owners all claim not to have abused their phones, only subjected them to normal use.

Hm, I call bullshit.

Why? Years and years of working with electronic devices. People bring them in with all sorts of abuse – dents, broken LCD screens, watermarks inside. And ninety percent of them didn’t do anything other than “normal use”. You have to demonstrate the sort of impact that would cause dents, try to convince them that LCD screens do not spontaneously break without external aid and show the fungus growing from the sugary-coffee mixture that they spilled into the speaker grille of the laptop.

Anyway – define ‘normal use’?

Someone else’s urgency

“One thing Iâ€™ve come to realize is that urgency is overrated. In fact, Iâ€™ve come to believe urgency is poisonous. Urgency may get things done a few days sooner, but what does it cost in morale? Few things burn morale like urgency. Urgency is acidic. Emergency is the only urgency. Almost anything else can wait … Continue reading “Someone else’s urgency”

“One thing Iâ€™ve come to realize is that urgency is overrated. In fact, Iâ€™ve come to believe urgency is poisonous. Urgency may get things done a few days sooner, but what does it cost in morale? Few things burn morale like urgency. Urgency is acidic.

Emergency is the only urgency. Almost anything else can wait a few days. Itâ€™s OK. There are exceptions (a trade show, a conference), but those are rare.”

Jason at Signal versus Noise

I’ve been very harsh about $BIG_COMPANY in the past but this is one thing they get right. Emergencies are all about response time and everything else happens when there’s time to do it. This means that if the business starts to lose production/manufacturing time then it’s all hands on deck. Conversely if it’s not going to have a direct effect on production/manufacturing (like getting a password reset) then it’ll happen at some point that’s otherwise hard to predict.

So while I agree that urgency is a demotivator – mostly because it’s always someone else’s urgency and they’re in your face about it – I don’t think I can agree either way.

Emergencies aside, the concept that urgency is poisonous only covers one half of the exchange. What you perceive as non-urgent might be an urgency for another person, a source of frustration and pain for their day, the start of a bad day which eventually will lead to a dinner eaten in silence. Been there, done that.

Try and make a positive difference to other people’s days. I take this theory seriously even when just driving to work: there’s no harm in slowing and letting people out in front of you or being a caring and courteous driver so you’re not causing other people stress first thing in the morning. I don’t speed, I overtake only when I need to and I’m pretty good at letting people out. As the day wears on, however, you can see the effect of a few hours of frustration. I can’t wait to get onto the main road and on the way home. I frown at people who drive carelessly and there’s a greatly reduced chance that I’ll wave you on. I just want to get home. And for the most part it’s because my priorities for the day have already been relegated to ‘non-urgent’ by someone else.

I used to get endlessly frustrated when commissioning a new building and finding that the builders were late, the sparks and plumbers late, the plasterers were slow and the painters delayed…which delayed the furniture and meant that the Technology installation would also be delayed. It caused issues with other projects but mostly the frustration was that the deadline for finishing hadn’t moved. All of these other people treated their work as non-urgent and it always seemed to be my technology team that had to recoup this difference. And every time we delivered, nomatter the personal costs.

I see this in software development as well. The software engineers are delayed because they don’t have the hardware or compilers. This delays the testing and QA. But the release date never slips. You just end up having inadequate QA and testing. And you thought there was a mystery about why most software sucks?

In my own company I understand the urgencies of the customer. Which is why we bought extra equipment for customers who needed a loaner machine due to a pending deadline. But getting access to it required staying calm, dispelling of hyperbole and as little self-entitlement and whining as possible.

Take ownership of urgency. Especially the urgency of others.

Get mad at yourself for your mistakes

BoyGeniusReport reports on a curious exchange between a Mac owner and Apple’s Steve Jobs. Said customer was irate because he spilled water on his MacBook Pro and was quoted a base $300 to start the repair with no guarantee it would fix the unit. He emailed Steve Jobs and the reply was: “It sounds like … Continue reading “Get mad at yourself for your mistakes”

“It sounds like youâ€™re just looking for someone to get mad at other than yourself.”

Sound unfair?

Does anyone know the amount of work that has to go into working on a water-damaged unit? I do. Of all the things you could do to a laptop, spilling water (or other beverages) on it is the worst. Don’t believe me? Consider that it’s dangerous and can immediately short out a computer with a nasty sound. Consider that water is insidious and if it doesn’t short out a component immediately, it can move to other components within the unit. Consider that even if you think you’ve dried it, it can still corrode. Consider that if it’s coffee or other beverage then you can find, months later that the computer can short out due to mould growing inside it. I’ve seen it happen.

For a water damaged computer there is only one way to ensure a fix – replacement.

Other than that, you’re going to be replacing components (and laptop components are not cheap) piece by piece until eventually you’ve replaced all the bad modules. Only if you’ve taken one apart can you know how long this takes and the patience and skill involved to do it right, under a deadline, again and again. Time is money people and who’s going to pay for this time? I don’t have sympathy for anyone with this entitlement expectation. No-one else should pay for you being an idiot and this is why I hate seeing anyone hold a drink, be it water, tea, wine or whatever, over a laptop computer. One day, you’ll be standing arguing that someone should fix it for free.

And yes, threats to never buy a Mac again are petty and stupid.

Mobile/Portable Computing Caveats

One thing that is nice about John Dvorak is that he truly has a visionary streak. In all the years I’ve read about technology, Dvorak has seldom been right. He’s managed to cherry-pick the absolutely wrong from the blatantly obvious for years. That has to count for something. The rant this week is that he … Continue reading “Mobile/Portable Computing Caveats”

The rant this week is that he reckons in 2008, the perfect machine is a big old clunky desktop manufactured from the cheapest components. He rails about others who use laptops (and who can’t keep a cup of coffee from landing on it) or PDA/Smartphones (and who can’t remember not to drop it in the toilet bowl).

There is a difference between portable and mobile computing. Using a laptop is certainly now portable computing. You port this device from location to location and when you stop moving and find a seat, you work. Because the device is portable, it is possible to leave it in a cafe, forget to pick it up out of the taxi, have it lifted by some larcenous scumbag. There’s definitely a liability with it but the convenience outweighs the dversities. Conversely, using a phone/PDA is what I call mobile computing. You can reply to email or update your blog while standing in a queue. Unlike a laptop, the smartphone likely even follows you to the toilet (which is why some people have dropped theirs in the bowl). Now, I’m not advocating ‘plogging’ (though Twenty is about a decade too late to have claimed to have invented it), but there’s definitely a difference between using a smartphone and a laptop.

His main attack on portable and mobile computing is with regard to backups – both of data and of a workable machine and the relative cost of replacement.

Backup Your Data

“They drag the machine everywhere, and if it gets lost or broken, they’re toast, since they never perform any kind of backup. (Nobody backs up much these days.) Even if people do back up, though, they’re likely still SOL since the restore function typically doesn’t work well when a new machine is involved.”

Backups do happen, especially for smart folk that use Mac OS X along with Time Machine or Time Capsule. The backup argument is well made but it shouldn’t be singled out against laptop users. Everyone should backup. It’s not hard to do, it’s not expensive. Unless of course your laptop doesn’t hold your Data. James at Eirepreneur has been torturing himself with an eee PC for a week or so and keeps all of his documents in the Cloud (Google Docs, GMail, etc). The downside to using web services is that without Internet coverage you’re screwed. Is this a bad thing? Not really. It’s widespread and cheap. Similarly with a smartphone it’s likely that your documents on the phone are backed up to your ‘main’ computer so your data will not be lost.

Dvorak’s whine that restores don’t work well. Well. That’s just him. He uses Windows you know.

Backup your hardware

“And these devices are poised to become the next desktop replacement platform? Splash. Splash. Splash.”

This needs reinforced. If you work for a living and your machine gets toasted, ideally you should have a new machine pronto because the cost of being out of action will quickly offset the cost of getting the new machine. Every business should keep at least one spare machine. It doesn’t have to be the latest and greatest. Even a low end MacBook at Â£699 is a great machine for a spare. How long would it take for your worker to make back the Â£699? A day or three? And after his usual machine has been restored to full working order, you still have the spare for the next time (or as a loaner to a staff member who really wants to work from home). The cost is easily made back. So buy a spare already. Making your livelihood (whether you’re a sole trader or an employee) depend on a single machine is simply stupid. Or, if you don’t want to plonk down the readies for a machine that will gather dust, make friends with your local AASP as they’re likely to be able to supply you with a loaner or machine to rent in the interim. You will have to pay for the privilege but again, how many days before you’d make it back?

His page 2 arguments are easy enough to defeat. He mentions ten reasons to keep using desktops which are all ‘easier’ or ‘harder’ and none of them are absolutes. The one advantage of laptops and smartphones is an absolute however. There are desktops that are more expensive than laptops. There are laptops with immense amounts of internal storage. And they can also use USB drives too, John. But there are no desktops which are as portable as a laptop or smartphone. Period. Or that can be used for a couple of hours on a train journey. Or while waiting for your partner to finish browsing in a shop. Portability is an absolute and that’s why these devices are popular.

This article is not about refuting Dvorak because that could quickly become a full time job. This is about establishing behaviours for the next generation of knowledge worker.

Take the ‘stupid’ out of backups and use Time Machine
Have a spare machine handy to receive your backup
Have some friends who may have a spare machine just in case
Take care of your laptop and smartphone

“Don’t be a Jackass”

…would be a last point that needs underlined. Dvorak’s wisdom extends to any uses of Smartphones or laptops. But he made the title of the article “The iPhone is no desktop” which shows a couple of things.

He thinks you’re stupid.
He writes his articles at a cheap desktop, running Windows, in his underwear
He’s whoring for links by mentioning the iPhone (a media darling)
He mentions ‘Apple laptop’ where the wisdom could apply to any manufacturer

Cheap tricks designed to lure people in to view his ads and get more revenue.

But take what I say on board. Don’t think the right method is the Dvorak method – “go back to using a cheap desktop”. The right method is to back up your data. To have a spare machine. And to be careful while plogging.

more on co-working

Back in 2006 I seriously investigated the possibility of setting up a co-working facility in Belfast. At the time I was pretty much asset-free 🙂 I had a working, profitable business but not enough capital to undertake something of this magnitude. We were looking at a 3 storey building within half a mile of Queen’s University as a potential location for this nascent business. We worked out cash flows based on a cafÃ©, with pay-for workspace ranging from shared desks to enclosed, secured offices. We even drew maps and applied for funding but, being asset-free, I was kinda buggered when it came to financing it.

Just bad timing really and I think that maybe my plans were a little over the top.

It doesn’t mean, however that they were bad plans, I just didn’t have the reach I needed. I probably still don’t have the reach I need but I do have other potential plans. For instance, considering moving Mac-Sys to the centre of Belfast (because, yes, it’s a pain to get to Mallusk to get a simple Mac repair done) and sharing the resulting space with a Co-Work facility has been heavy on my mind for a while and definitely given solidity by the co-working thoughts bandied around last night.

Two sides to every “truth”

It was nice to see a Belfast Blogger on Macsurfer this morning though it went a little sour when I read the comments. The biggest thing I like about blogging is the potential for conversation and by extension, for resolution. It’s also an opportunity to present both sides of a “truth” so that others can … Continue reading “Two sides to every “truth””

It was nice to see a Belfast Blogger on Macsurfer this morning though it went a little sour when I read the comments.

The biggest thing I like about blogging is the potential for conversation and by extension, for resolution. It’s also an opportunity to present both sides of a “truth” so that others can make their own judgements.

This reminds me of LAST week when Andy from GoodOnPaper.org complained about the service at Mac-Sys. There was some fault with the LCD panel which was actually beyond our control and when he discovered it, he didn’t report the issue. What happened? We engaged him directly, explained the situation and, even Andy will admit, SAVED THE DAY. As he said,

“Bringing the problem to the attention of MacSys, instead of not and then complaining to anyone but, obviously doesnâ€™t pay off.”

“Brabazon”, on the AlanInBelfast post above, says he’s looking forward to dealing direct with Apple and not being messed about by the only AASP in Mallusk. I can’t engage with “Brabazon” directly because his blogger link doesn’t link to a public profile and it’s probably not kosher to have a discussion like that on AlanInBelfast’s blog so I’m doing what I can here.

Seriously — Does anyone think that any business exists solely to mess you about?

I’m not denying that there have been struggles in the past. Like it or not, it’s not my fault that Macs and PCs have hardware failures. It’s also not my fault when parts for a repair are faulty or simply not available for long periods. But I’ll bear these gripes and take them on the chin in return for some honest conversation.

So, Brabazon, rather than making veiled accusations that you were ‘messed around’, contact me directly and tell me what the problem is. I can’t promise that whatever happened will be resolved exactly to your satisfaction but I can certainly put to rest any notion that you were messed about.

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“Don’t be a Jackass”

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