It was annoying at first, not being reachable to all my friends and family. It was also extremely irritating because I had gotten used to carrying my smart phone around everywhere and being up to date with tasks and other things. My biggest use for my smart phone was the ability to sync my email/calendar/tasks using the Google’s exchange service (Google sync). I have a habit of putting everything on my calendar and my tasks are essentially lists, and getting the university email directly to my cell phone was a big bonus too.

Suddenly, the loss of service had rendered me helpless as I had to keep my email window open in the computer to constantly check my email. If it weren’t for Google’s voice service, I wouldn’t have had text messaging or telephone functionality. Although it bugged me in the beginning, it sort of opened me up to these other avenues of internet telephone services. It showed me the dependency I have on the electronics and technology in my day to day life.

This also reminded me of the times when we didn’t even have a telephone in our home. I remember my mother would ask me to write a few lines at the end of a letter to my grandparents. Visiting relatives and immediate family every few months was the way to keep in touch with them. Going to my hometown in Rajahmundry and bathing in the Godavari were my fondest memories growing up. I didn’t even have to worry if my cell phone would get wet.

Things change so quickly. In a matter of decades, the way we talk to people and keep in touch with them changed drastically. Gone are the days of painfully sending out party invitations. Now, you just invite your friends to an “Event” and make them RSVP on Facebook. You’re always available to friends either through Facebook, Twitter, Cellphone, Email and Instant Messaging. Is it even possible to go completely off the radar these days?

The world around us is shrinking quickly. Even a cell phone service outage couldn’t keep me off the map. Maybe I got out of “sync” for a few days, but I still was very much in touch with the necessary people. I quickly realized that we are not really separated by the miles but only by the speed of our broadband connection. This makes me extremely excited for the new 5-10 years. All the sci-fi movies and our wildest dreams could very well become a reality.

P.S: No hatred for Sprint through. They did give me $50 in credit and new phones for their bad service.

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Dear Archana,

I want to apologize for my behavior last night. I lose control of myself every time I get on the red Poltergust 4000. It pumps my adrenaline and I want to drive as fast as I can bumping into everything that comes in the way. I agree that I should not have dropped all the banana peels on the road with the intention of tripping you. Worse, I should not have got my hands up in the air and jumped “Gotcha!” every time you tripped over them. I should not have shot you with all the red shells when you were about to win. I should not have braked and moved into the second spot so I could hit you with the devastating blue shell. Sorry I screamed “Ha Haa!!” every time I crossed the finish line.

I promise I will not put fake item boxes near the real item boxes to confuse you. I also promise I will not say “Oh yay!” if you fall off the ledge. I will definitely not slow down to get better items. I hope you will forgive me and connect to WFC again. I will look for your yellow blinking icon. Please come back so we can play again.

Love,

Jagadish

(For all those who don’t get it. Go play MARIO KART)

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Here I am again, blogging about Apple. What can I say? It warrants a blog!

A while ago I had posted about Apple’s excellent customer service. There is nothing like that to keep a customer going back again and again to the same retailer. This, I think, is a big part of what distinguishes Macs from PCs. I had a Dell Inspiron before my current (very beloved) MacBook. Bigger screen, and I spent almost an equivalent amount ~1k on its purchase. It was a top-of-the-line notebook at that time. I was quite happy with it for a while, but as almost everyone would agree, it slowed down considerably with use, and that is really not unusual with any computer, I’ve noticed, but more about that later. So, there was this one time where the darn comp entirely crashed and refused to boot. I had to call Dell, which of course took me to a center in India. Not only was the rep entirely unsympathetic, but refused to do anything about it. After several unsuccessful attempts at dealing with the issue, I finally found a person who was willing to abide by the warranty coverage. However, this was the deal: they would send me a hard drive, I’d have to install it all by myself, and I’d have to send back my old one. I’d never done a hard drive installation, and how was I to recover any of the data? Sorry, no help there. Anyway, after that debacle, I soon bought a MacBook. Now, Jagadish is not an Apple fan and he will say they have problems too. Sometimes very bizarre ones! I mean, a melting adapter? Hmm. That was only the beginning. The Bluetooth had a mind of its own and came on and off as it pleased, and a fairly visible crack developed along the side of the right palm rest. Worse, it was just barely out of warranty! I should have gotten AppleCare, I kept telling myself. Splurging another $1200 on a laptop and not buying warranty seemed like a silly thing to have done. However, I was more than pleasantly surprised with the awesomeness of the customer service at Apple. While it did take persistence, after gently reminding me that the comp in question was indeed out of warranty, I was allowed to send it to Apple to be fixed, free of charge. Now, that did not fix the bluetooth problem, but I was happy the crack was gone and felt I could live with the bluetooth going on and off (sometimes though I’d wonder, why me?!). I have to admit, I was incredibly happy when Apple offered to REPLACE the MacBook. Wow! It was a problem they could not fix, they admitted, and simply replaced the out of warranty MacBook with a new one. Yay!

Now, almost a year later though, another problem. The fan was running incredibly loud. You turn on the machine, and you can hear it go wheeee. Well, that was going on for a few months, but I kept ignoring it because I needed the laptop for presentations, posters, etc. The second issue I was having was with the comp slowing down a little. Now this was nowhere nearly as bad as the Dell I had. I was running Illustrator, Parallels with Prism, Excel, Firefox, iChat, Mail, Skype, Preview, iTunes all at once.. so a little slowdown is expected, I suppose..but I really needed something where I could transfer files back and forth and make corrections faster to save me time when making figures of publication quality.

So I looked around for some RAM, and upgraded to 4 Gb (Corsair Value Select for ~$30 after rebate) from the 2Gb that was in there. I looked up a video on how to do it on a MacBook. Easy enough, I thought. Well, 2 of the 3 screws that needed to be removed got undone like a charm. The third was such an incredible pain, it wasn’t even funny. Like Jagadish said, there’s always that one screw! Darn it. So, the two things put together, I figured, time to pay a visit to the Apple Store. I duly took an appointment online and showed up.

“You’re having trouble with a screw?” the Apple guy asked, rather enthusiastically, I might add. “Yes”, I said, “it’s pretty darn near impossible to get it out”, “I was trying to upgrade the RAM”, I added, trying not to sound like a complete idiot. “No problem, let’s see here, do you have it on you?”. I handed over my RAM modules. “Normally we don’t do this… but I’ll be back”, he said, after taking one look at the offending screw, which was a bit stripped on the top, no thanks to my persistence in trying to get it out. About 10 minutes later (while I was playing around with the newer MacBook with the wonderful aluminium finish), he was all done and my MacBook now held 4 gigs of RAM. Wow, neat I thought, and moved onto the next issue, of the fan. He checked my Book in after ensuring I had backed everything up, and said it might take 4-7 days. Aw, I thought, goodbye MacBook for now. Just about four hours later though, I got a call from the Apple Store and get this: The comp was ready to be picked up! “Are you sure”?, I asked the lady who called, “I only dropped it off this evening!” She assured me it was completely ready, and I went back over there and brought it home, thrilled!

Moral of the story? Apple deserves the praise it gets for being what it is–quality and design, yes, but what really sets it a world apart is this incredible customer service. Kudos to them for that!

PS: 4 gigs has turned my MacBook into an awesomely speedy machine! Loving it.

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I have an Apple iPod (like millions of others). I also have an Apple Macbook (probably also millions). I dont have an iPhone (like the select hundreds/thousands out there). Which is okay, really. I could not afford that for the life of me. Not only is the phone itself expensive, but the plan one is required to purchase it runs, I believe, somewhere around the $60 mark. Phew! Not for me, thank you very much. I am very happy with my Moto Q and Sprint’s cheap voice/data plan. Just for kicks, here’s what the Q looks like (mine’s black, but exactly the same otherwise):

What I really meant though was to write about Apple’s customer service. I was so impressed, I really needed to let people know about it. My (wonderful, beautiful, gorgeous) Macbook was running just fine and I was working away on my thesis proposal (more about that on another post). The notebook was plugged in, but about 2 or so hours later, I suddenly noticed that my battery was depleting, despite it being plugged in. Puzzled, I checked the adapter, which looked okay ie plugged in and everything. Then, upon closer inspection, I found that at the point where the innovative MagSafe adapter fits into the Macbook, there was a hole in the plastic. It kinda looked like the plastic had simply melted away exposing the wire inside it. I was worried I would have to shell out $70 or some such extravagant amount to replace this, and I would HAVE to since my proposal is coming up, and everything I have is on this notebook. Yeah, it’s backed up, but still! My Macbook! Anyway, so I head on over to the Apple Store and as soon as I get there, I noticed every single screen on every single computer flashing the sleek-looking iPhone. Of course, no prototype was in sight. I was approached by a friendly, youngish guy who asked how he could help me almost instantaneously. I explained in a few words: I think my Macbook’s adapter melted. “Melted?”, he asked, eyebrows raised. I replied in the affirmative and he asked to see the offending piece. I showed it to him, and one look convinced him it had indeed melted. He asked me to hold on for just a moment while he got hold of a supervisor who would be better able to assist me. Two minutes or less later, he returns, grabs a box off the shelf and says, “We’re gonna do what we call a retail swap here.” The word ‘swap’ sounded good to me. I followed him to the purchase desk. The guy there was helping another customer with…. you guessed it! The same exact problem! Anyway I felt really good about their customer service, and I looked around the store while he was waiting to finish up. I found iKlear solution for cleaning LCD screens, laptops and such for Apple. I know it probably was not worth $20 but I bought it anyway-simply because I was so grateful to them for having addressed my problem so quickly and so painlessly. Then I went back to the guy, who swapped my adapter for a brand new one, charged me for the iKlear, and I was on my way back!

Apple needs to be commended on the training it gives its employees on customer care and service. I hope, if I ever ever have a problem, that they will be again as responsive and helpful. For now, five stars to Apple’s customer service!

PS: I used the iKlear today. It’s really very good! I think I’d actually recommend its use.

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