I HATE APPLE

I HATE ADAM

Listen to what I am going to say very carefully: I. Poured. Beer. Into. My. Powerbook!

And Renter's Insurance paid for a whole new one WITHOUT raising the premium! Everybody - Renter's insurance WORKS! It is good! I could kiss them!

So maybe I don't need Applecare anyway.

This is not so annoying (since after the first time you turn off energy saver), but what's wonderful is that Apple's vaunted support site (that the tech support guy from India told me about several times while on the phone) doesn't mention a goddamned thing about the process.
back to the beginning

I check my ebay auctions, go to take a shower after work, come back and it's frozen in sleep. Fuck around with everything I know for a while (hold in the power button, hold in the power button a little longer, unplug it, unplug it and leave it out a while), nada. Spend more time looking on their support site for hints: nada. Finally call tech support, sit on hold for 15 minutes, spend time going through all the processes I've already gone through (and told him about) before he decides to tell me how to reset the PMU. Thanks buddy, could have saved yourself some time there.

It seems to be working fine, I can put it to sleep and wake it just fine. Leave it on, go to the store, come back: dead. So now it's just energy saver fucking up. Reset it, call tech support, sit for 15 more minutes, rudely interrupt the surfer dude who answers when he wants me to go through the steps again. His big suggestion (guess we're off-script now) is that I need to go in and turn off the setting that sleeps hard drives whenever possible.
I get kind of pissed because I'm not a techie and I know that's unrelated - that setting is for them to sleep when they computer is working NOT WHEN IT'S GOING TO SLEEP COMPLETELY.

So I tell him I'll do that, but it's not going to work, so what do I do next? He mumbles for a while about turning off energy saver completely and I get a little pissy - I'm not paying $2300 for a desktop so I can cripple one of its features a week after it arrives. How do I make the damn thing work? He doesn't know and says something about the power supply. I cut him off and ask if I need to take it to an Apple Store, he says yeah, I hang up.

I'm sure that Dell's and HP's (etc.) customer service is no better, but I bought an Apple because it's streamlined, efficient, easy, etc. I expect that premium I paid to go for tech support, too. I shouldn't have to burn a Saturday driving to Dallas because they couldn't bump me up to someone with an idea how to solve the problem.

http://www.tuaw.com/

They have a script they won't deviate from, and they're happy to give/force you into trying anything to get you off the line, even if you've tried it before, so that when you call back (when, not if) you speak to someone else.

These are just as bad:

PC World
Pipex Internet
BT Business Dial Up
.
.
.

90% of my contact with Indian people is now them lying about their name as they parrot an unhelpful script at me, and it's usually when I'm annoyed to start with cos some equipment or process has gone wrong!

xpost - (shhh)

Operation System Christ.

I bless you.

(Psst by the way Silas - mind explaining to me how Aussies are "racial underdogs"? I must confess, I am confused.)

Also, Itunes is a pile of shite. Such a pain in the arse. Why isn't there a way to update your library without having to go and add all the folders again manually?? Why can't you add a folder to a playlist instead of having to drag all the songs in individually? I end up making playlists in Winamp, saving them as m3u files and importing them to Itunes.

The thing I hate is looking up every possible fix for my ipod online so that I don't call tech support until I've done everything, and then spending hours being put through the steps of things I've already done that didn't help. And then being told, "hmm, dunno what your problem is, go buy a faster usb card" even though it worked with the slow usb port until a couple weeks ago! so now i have to go spend more money to prove that something actually is wrong with the superexpensive ipod itself.

This is the second one that's bombed on me in a year; when I sent the first one in for repair, they sent me a new one. That's lovely as long as I have a warranty but the second two years is up I'm going to have to go looking for a new mp3 player. So has anyone found one that lasts longer than six months?

my second is two years old and still works beautifully. so, er: "yes, the iPod" would answer your question :)

It works for me! on my MAC@!! :D

Apple website was broken when I was trying to get my fucked Ipod (which arrived that way in the mail) replaced and it wouldn't set up an account to register the Ipod to, and the phone operators needed my account details before they would do anything.

In the end I wrote a bitchy email, and to their credit they did get it sorted pretty quickly.

Re Itunes,

I figured Mac users would have it better. It's so stupid, you can add folders to your Library, but not to Playlists. So if you have a folder with, e.g. your fave hardcore punk songs, that you want to put on your Ipod, you'd have to add the folder to the Library and then go through the Library searching for each song individually by artist! WTF!! Unless I go through and retag each song and change the album to "Fave punk songs" or something.

[sniggers like a six-year-old at juvenile out-of-context fnarr-ness; composes self]

see, being very old-fashioned and paranoid [1], i've never run with my iPod. indeed, i bought a Shuffle expressly for the gym. i kind-of figured that jogging about with a small and delicate hard disk wasn't a good idea.

but then everyone else in the world seems to exercise with their iPod, so ... i'm sure i'm just overly paranoid.

i also bought some of this after i broke the first one. i heartily recommend it.

[1] although stupid enough to let my drunk friends fuck about with my powerbook at 6am on monday. gaaah. i came so close to losing you, by beloved.

Unless I go through and retag each song and change the album to "Fave punk songs" or something.
This is the insane shit PC users do that makes me mental.