Sure enough, they didn't call me by the end of the business day, so I called them. They found one of the screws wasn't set right, and it's a known problem from the factory, so they ordered a new bottom case from Apple. Estimated shipment is tomorrow, so I guess we'll see. Maybe I'll have a new MacBook from them in parts. *sigh*

I forgot to mention, my MacBook went into the hands of Apple for the, uh, fourth time on Thursday, due to random kernel panics and kernel_task going insane once in a while. After arguing with the genius on what kernel_task actually does, they agreed to take it and run 'diagnostics' on it at the local store. They said it would be about three days.

So, here we are, four days later. I give them a call and ask to see what the status was. They weren't sure, really. I had reinstalled the OS, but evidently they did it again to no avail. They're going to put in a new logic board tonight to see if that helps, and give me a call tomorrow with some kind of status update. Maybe. If they get a chance to do the logic board replacement tonight.

I keep telling myself that I really like Macs. I kinda wish they'd just give me a credit for a different one, because honestly, it seems MacBooks don't like me at all.

Some things never change. As I've said earlier, I absolutely love my MacBook. It is also the worst Apple product I have ever owned. The display bezel bends in and makes a snappy sound when you press on it. It smudges everywhere. Little things don't work quite how you expect. The software is still a little finicky due to the Intel transition. And the damn thing keeps breaking.

My MacBook, over the past week or two, has started to randomly shut off. Not a graceful shutdown, nothing to warn you of its impending demise, all temperatures normal, just shut the hell off. Screen goes blank, I hit the power button, machine turns on again. Most of the time. After looking around Google and the Apple Support stuff, it seems that a few people have run into the same thing. I did everything I could think of. Ye Olde Mac Standarde PRAM-reset, did a full PMU reset, reinserted the battery, reinserted RAM, and nothing. 2-5 times a day, in the middle of work, in the middle of a CD burn, in the middle of idling next to me while I used a desktop machine, black screen. I save early and often just because of the number of times I've lost power while working on something SuperImportant™, but you can't catch everything. After losing a particularly nice piece of code, in my humble opinion, I made the decision that I had to take it in.

Back in the old days, before the shiny Apple Stores and when we had to slum it with mail order and CompUSA, you could call Apple Support, and they'd send you a box to send your laptop in. Not the case anymore, they tell you to go see a Genius, and they'll set you up for repair. I roll into the Bellevue Square Apple Store around 8:55pm on Friday (35 minutes before closing), and just like the last time I went to an Apple Store, they said that no geniuses were available at this time. We moseyed up to the bar anyway, and waited for some lovin'. Someone was nice enough to help us take a look, and after he futzed with his computer for a while, he told me that my MacBook was eligible for 'capture', as my serial number matched the range on his machine. Capture is different than a repair -- usually, this means that Apple knows of an issue, but doesn't know why the issue is happening, so they want to take your laptop and stare at it for a while. This likely means that I'm getting a new MacBook, and all the BS that entails: OS reconfigure, restore home directory from backup, whine a lot.

In short, I have a link to track my repair status now. It's still waiting to arrive at the repair depot. The guy said it could be a week or a week and a half. I hope I get it back in time for my trip to Minnesota for our big wedding reception.

Sometimes, I'm tempted to get a PC laptop and stick Ubuntu on it.

I get over it, though.

Anyone who does development in an environment with more than one person is intimately familiar with version control. I moved from CVS to Subversion a couple of years ago, and never looked back. On my Windows machines, I use TortoiseSVN quite a bit as it makes SVN tasks at-a-glance far easier to deal with. I found a similar tool for Mac OS X called SCPlugin, attempted to compile it, and found that it was PowerPC only.

For those of you interested in an Intel version, I found one.

Wow, two posts in a day!

This MacBook, as attractive, svelte, and powerful as it is, is probably the worst Apple product I've personally owned. Tonight, I'm going to head back to the Apple Store from which it came, box in hand, and demand a replacement MacBook.

1. The MacBook is narcoleptic. The machine will not faithfully go to sleep when it is closed, nor will it wake up when it is opened. If it does go to sleep, as you leave it there, it will randomly wake up. The logs will tell me every time it woke up, but not why -- it's just random. My ride to work seems to consist of my MacBook wardriving for me, completely without my knowledge.


2. I have never seen so many kernel panics. This is amusing, because I've been using Mac OS X since Developer Preview 2, and DP3 would kernel panic if you plugged the wrong USB device in. I think I get one a week now, and I don't really need to do much to get it to happen, but I don't know exactly what to do to make it happen.


3. Applications hang, then hang, and then hang some more. I'm not sure if this is memory, hardware, or a buggy OS, but my beigebox PC running the hacked Intel OS X was more stable. Applications beachball out of nowhere. And no, not just Rosetta apps, that's a different story. Regular old Intel compiled universal applications will just die. And then spring to life. And then die. Programs quit unexpectedly. I've sent 25-30 reports to Apple, just because. I never send those damn things, and now it's fun.

Those are the big items, I suppose. I'll let you all know how it goes. All one of you. :)