06.22.07

The Macbook Destruction Saga Continues

Posted in Mac at 6:12 pm by Michael

I will clarify a few things that have been asked in comments on digg and consumerist. My macbook was only 6 months old when it stopped working. I was still within the normal 1 year manufacturer’s warranty. I only mention in the video that I had purchased applecare to illustrate how much money I had spent in this situation. Before I destroyed the macbook, I removed the screen, the battery, the hdd, and the ram. The screen’s connector was damaged by me during removal. The rest of the parts were sold prior to the video being made, to help pay for my new laptop.

The situation has turned into a flamefest. At first I was defensive, as I think many people would be when they get called a retard, or stupid, or an idiot, or a tool, or whatever else has been said. I got over that, now I just think they are funny. Thanks for making me laugh.

Reading the comments, there have been many people who have spilled things on their Apple products and had them replaced. My point, made with a sledgehammer is this: Why did my product not get replaced while theirs did? At the very least Apple is selective about enforcing their policies, and that’s something people should know about them. At worst, Apple gives bad service to customers, which should also be known. What made these other people so “special” that Apple relaxed for them the same policy they used to deny my claim? Every story of someone actually spilling something and getting a replacement just upsets me more. I spilled nothing, yet my claim was denied by this selectively enforced policy. Was my money any different than these other customers? What about my situation was different? There was no spill damage that I could see, but even if there had been a spill I didn’t know about, why wouldn’t they simply replace it, as they had done for other people such damage?

I was well on my way to becoming a very vocal Apple fan when this happened. I planned to upgrade to a macbook pro at the end of this year. I was seriously considering getting an Apple TV, and I would have eventually bought an Apple iPhone. If Apple hadn’t refused to warranty the product, I would be an Apple Fanboy right now. After seeing the name-calling responses I got from the Apple fans in comments, I’m glad I didn’t end up that way.

My handling of the situation was not ideal, but it was personally satisfying. I gained closure on the issue at the end of that video. Things got stirred up for me again once the video shot up in popularity. Thankfully I’m now back to where I was at the end of the video, content.

06.21.07

digg.com and consumerist.com linked to my video today

Posted in Mac at 4:33 pm by Michael

Wow. That was a huge amount of traffic both to the youtube video and my blog in a short time. Thankfully I had the cache in place and the site held up very well. Anyone that hasn’t seen it, here are the links:

Man Teaches Apple To Not Repair His Macbook By Smashing It With Sledgehammer on digg.com


Man Teaches Apple To Not Repair His Macbook By Smashing It With Sledgehammer on consumerist.com

I’m actually impressed my server handled this as well as it did, though consumerist took the brunt of the traffic I got quite a bit of spillover here.

Now to address the comments. Apple fans seem to like to make personal attacks whenever anyone tries to say anything bad about Apple. That’s fine, though I expected a bit more maturity from that group, the internet is the internet and semi-anonymity encourages people to be douchebags. I will steer clear from Apple fans in the future though, I kept feeling I needed to defend myself from completely made up claims, but I got over that. Now I’m just enjoying all the sniping and back-and-forth action in the comments on both sites. Hell I even dugg up some of the funnier comments just for spite.

To clear up something that is being asked over and over again, I took the HDD, the ram, and the battery out of my macbook and sold them before the video was made. It seemed overly wasteful to destroy perfectly good parts. I screwed up the screen trying to remove it, or else I would have probably been able to sell it as well. I still have the screen, the connector to the mainboard is broken though.

I felt like I had to justify myself at first, mainly because everyone was calling me a liar, but I got over that pretty quick. I have nothing to prove to anyone, and the video stands on it’s own merit. It was fun to do and the controversy is amusing me to no end…

I haven’t felt the virtualization subject stirring me up lately, so I’m going to be adding several more categories to my blog after this, just so I have things to post about. I feel I should spend more time posting fresh content than I have been, and will be changing things around tomorrow. Other than that, I’m floored at the attention my video has gotten, but I figured it would piss some people off. The video is serving it’s purpose, presenting my experience in a novel way, and that seems to be a lightning rod for controversy. Thanks for the attention all, come back again and maybe you’ll like my posts.