The Hole in My Backup Plan

You raise some very good points that I hadn't considered. I thought
about your financial crunch and what I might do myself in such a
situation and this is the best option I could think of off the top of
my head:

Apple Refurb Store

Refurb 20" Cinema Display $499
Refurb 13.3" 2.1GHz MacBook (1GB RAM, 120GB hard drive) $949

These two cost the same as the cheapest MacBook Pro model on the Apple
Refurb Store.
MacBooks regularly drop to $849 if you watch the store frequently
enough.
You can upgrade the RAM and the HDD for not much more (Other World
Computing sells great stuff).
You could use the extra display on your MacBook Pro as a dual-monitor
or extra monitor.
The Cinema Display would give you the workspace you want on the
MacBook if the need arises.
The MacBook is still portable, just like the MBP, just with a smaller
screen and a little less horsepower (though not much less).
This could be a "staged" expansion wherein you purchase one or the
other of the above items without investing so much all at once.

Similarly, you could do this:

Refurb iMac 20" 2.0GHz $949

Though the hard drive is more problematic and it is not as portable or
upgradable as the MacBook is.

I'm going to have a long look at my setup now to see if I need to
adjust my own priorities.

am 02.07.2008 11:06 Uhr schrieb tidbits-talktidbits.com unter
tidbits-talktidbits.com:

> The reality is that one needs a backup computer to run that backed-up
> software;

Well, I used to own a beige PowerMac G3 MT and a PowerBook G3 Wallstreet. On
both Macs I had the exact same software installed and I did synchronize the
data on both Macs at least two times every day.

Now I own a PowerMac G4 MDD and a PowerBook G4 Aluminum. I again have the
same software installed on both Macs and I do synchronize both Macs again at
least twice a day.

In addition to that I make a bootable back-up of the PowerBook with
SuperDuper to an external HD and I make a bootable back-up of the MDD to a
second internal HD. My music and pictures folder I back-up to a RAID of two
more internal HDs of the MDD.

I do hope that I'm on the safe side with this configuration.

Udo

If you're a business, having a second backup computer is actually
pretty cheap when you compare it to the cost of not being able to
work. I do the administration on the version control servers, and I
always insist having a backup of the source repository that is being
actively mirrored by our primary source repository. We even have
backup licenses if the version control system is a commercial product.

The extra hardware is a few thousand dollars. But, even having just a
dozen developers who are compensated about $150 be down for just 90
minutes costs a whole lot more. The idea is that when the primary
machine goes down, we can be back up and running within five minutes.
Just long enough for the developers to refreshen the coffee and grab
another doughnut.

I guess for you to have a laptop sitting around and going obsolete
while it sits in a draw may not be a great use of resources. Maybe you
can arrange to have a rental machine in the ready in case this happens
again.

--
David Weintraub
qazwartgmail.com

On Thu, Jul 3, 2008 at 7:05 AM, Zealand Hatch <Zealand_H1verifone.com> wrote:
>
> This is one area where I don't think Apple "gets it" yet.

Oh, I think Apple "Gets It", and this is one of the prime reasons they
haven't advertised to the corporate market yet.

You never see Apple's presence in any corporate forum because of the
infrastructure necessary to really be a corporate player. It's one of
the reasons Dell sells more computers, but Apple is more profitable.

To be a corporate player:

* You need a 24/7 support network
* You need to be able to get hardware in and out as quickly as possible
* You need certified training programs
* You need to give deep discounts and have a true corporate buyer
program with dedicated sales people for each company.
* You must prove that you work with all sorts of network situations
* You need to support legacy code that was written back in the days of
Windows NT 3.2.
* With major customers, you have to have people on site to give
support including development support. At all the financial
institutions I've worked with, we always had a Microsoft employee
helping out with our development.

Apple doesn't want to do any of that. They want to sell their machines
with a nice profit margin. They want to give good consumer support
which means Genius Bars and mailing in your computer for repairs and
not on site support. They don't want the expense of certifying their
training. And, they don't want to support stuff written for the 68040
chip and System 6.

That's why almost none of the Get-A-Mac commercials deal with
corporate issues. It is all about iLife and Web Cams.

Apple simply doesn't have the resources. The only reason Apple is
becoming a corporate player (and probably very reluctantly at that) is
due to the iPhone and Vista. Because of Vista, a lot of places are now
looking at Macs. Because how cool the iPhone is and how cool upper
business executives want to be, corporate IT departments are being
told to support the iPhone whether they like it or not.

Apple is just beginning to reach gingerly into the corporate market
with the iPhone because so many of their customers ended up buying an
iPhone for business purposes. The iPhone didn't originally support
push email or had a development environment because it wasn't meant to
be a corporate play toy.

That doesn't mean there are a lot of businesses that don't use Macs.
Many businesses that play around with the Unix/Linux side of things
have plenty of Macs, but Linux support is about the same level as
Apple support. So, these companies are use to it and have ways of
dealing with it.


--
David Weintraub
qazwartgmail.com

At 04:05 -0700 2008.07.03, Zealand Hatch wrote:

>With Apple, it's ship us the computer, we'll repair, and ship it
>back. An absolute minimum of three days without the computer. That
>can not compare to next day, onsite service.

When I was consulting (I'm retired now), I paid higher prices to buy
my Macs from a local Apple reseller, because I knew he would have a
technician here on the next business day if I needed help. I didn't
need such service very often, but I was glad I had it. It's like fire
insurance. My house never burned, but I wouldn't have been without
fire insurance.

Of course now it wouldn't cost money to be without a computer for a
few days, just inconvenience. But I can live with that. I do an
incremental backup every day with Retrospect and an incremental
duplicate once a week.

Art Evans

On Jul 3, 2008, at 8:14 PM, David Weintraub wrote:

> I guess for you to have a laptop sitting around and going obsolete
> while it sits in a draw may not be a great use of resources. Maybe you
> can arrange to have a rental machine in the ready in case this happens
> again.

I'm guessing that at this point a big chunk of the population lives
within driving distance of an Apple Store, so for a lot of people, it
may just be a matter of purchasing an appropriate replacement, and
paying the 15% restocking fee upon completion of the repairs as others
have suggested.

If abusing the return policy like this makes you a bit queasy (or the
repair takes longer than 2 weeks), you could just put it on eBay. You
will probably do better than 85% of the list price on the resale, but
after the fees (eBay 1%, Paypal 3%), the hassle of shipping the item,
and the fact that you will eat most of the sales tax (whatever that is
in your state), the net amount you get from the resale on eBay will
probably be less than simply returning to Apple.

Either way, though, the amount you would end up spending is likely to
be comparable too a one-off rental. (For example, an one week rental
of an MB from Tekserve in NY is $100.) And going to an Apple Store is
likely to be much more convenient than finding and arranging for a
rental for most people.

Last spring, my MBP died. I trekked to the 24 hour Manhattan Apple
Store at around 8 pm, purchased the low end MB, had the tech do the
migration of my data and apps, and walked out with a perfectly working
clone of my machine by 10 pm. Kept the MB for the duration of the
repairs (it took about 10 days), after which it got listed it on
eBay. I took a hit of I think of a bit over $120. Not bad.

Tn

Thanks one and all for your comments. I should note that as I live in Paris, I can't take advantage of some of the solutions that would be available in the U.S. (or at least doing so would be far more of a hassle). For example, there's no Apple Store in France (yet), and renting a MacBook Pro similar to mine (I made some inquiries) would have run me 622 euros (about $1000) for two weeks! So, I'm continuing to struggle along with my PowerBook; the repair shop is saying my MacBook Pro will be ready "early next week," which is the same thing they said this time last week. <sigh>

Joe

Howard Kaufman wrote:
> On Jul 3, 2008, at 7:05 AM, Zealand Hatch wrote:
>
>
> This is one area where I don't think Apple "gets it" yet.
>
> Where I work our primary systems are Dells. I'm one of the very few MacBook
> users. I have to say that Dell service is hard to beat.
>
> As an addition to the normal 1 year warranty we purchase the Dell "if
> anything goes wrong" warranty. It covers everything and includes next
> business day onsite service. If something is wrong with my Dell, I call
> them and the next day there's a tech at my house replacing what ever is
> broken.
>
>
>
> Have you actually tried to use this Dell service option? This past May the Attorney General of New York State filed a suit against Dell because he had received so many complaints from consumers that Dell had failed to live up to the terms of it's service agreements.

After having to spend 3 days trying to convince Dell it WAS the disk drive that was failing we just went out and bought one and cloned the old on onto it. Until they were convinced it wasn't our software they would not dispatch anyone.

Service agreements are the last thing a high productive work environment wants. They might think they want that but what they really want is non failure and when failure happens a way to resume work as soon as possible. Once an office gets to have 10 people or so, Applecare and service agreements cost more than keeping around the "last retired" station and buying new to replace ones broken out of warranty. As I keep telling folks pushing Applecare. I'd rather put the money into a new computer than repair a 2.9 year old one.

We're having trouble with a T1 supplier at one office. Phones work great most of the time but the internet has gone down a few times. Each time it took a power cycle and at times a remote tech to "rebuild the tables". Our PBX vendor keeps telling us we should get them involved so they can push to get things resolved faster. We keep telling them we don't want a faster response from the fire department, we want fewer fires.

We may be looking somewhere else for a PBX and T1 supplier.

David

Jeff Porten wrote:
> One way to get around being without a main computer for two weeks or
> less: a purchase from the Apple Store is generally returnable for 14
> days, with a 15% restocking fee. Sounds to me like it's worth a few
> hundred bucks to not have to try to run Intel software on a G4.

There are some of us (I hope a lot) who think of this at a minimum as gaming the system and in general theft of services from Apple. I'd walk out on a client who did such a thing.

David

David Weintraub wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 3, 2008 at 7:05 AM, Zealand Hatch <Zealand_H1verifone.com> wrote:
>> This is one area where I don't think Apple "gets it" yet.
>
> Apple simply doesn't have the resources. The only reason Apple is
> becoming a corporate player (and probably very reluctantly at that) is
> due to the iPhone and Vista. Because of Vista, a lot of places are now
> looking at Macs. Because how cool the iPhone is and how cool upper
> business executives want to be, corporate IT departments are being
> told to support the iPhone whether they like it or not.
>
> Apple is just beginning to reach gingerly into the corporate market
> with the iPhone because so many of their customers ended up buying an
> iPhone for business purposes. The iPhone didn't originally support
> push email or had a development environment because it wasn't meant to
> be a corporate play toy.
>
> That doesn't mean there are a lot of businesses that don't use Macs.
> Many businesses that play around with the Unix/Linux side of things
> have plenty of Macs, but Linux support is about the same level as
> Apple support. So, these companies are use to it and have ways of
> dealing with it.

Their working much more closely with IBM services and Tivoli and other such organizations than in the past. It's these folks who are providing the Enterprise level of support that Apple isn't just now. People at these organization have single point of contact at Apple and have regular meetings with them.

Apple is doing things smartly. Back in the day MS didn't blanket the IT universe until after folks brought in PCs via the back door. Apple seems to be following the same model.

David

On 7/3/08 6:06 PM, "David Weintraub" <qazwartgmail.com> wrote:

> You never see Apple's presence in any corporate forum because of the
> infrastructure necessary to really be a corporate player. It's one of
> the reasons Dell sells more computers, but Apple is more profitable.

Apple has more of this than you think.

>
> To be a corporate player:
>
> * You need a 24/7 support network

If you have the numbers and the ability to pay, you can get this.

> * You need to be able to get hardware in and out as quickly as possible

Apple has this

> * You need certified training programs

Apple's had this for years.

> * You need to give deep discounts and have a true corporate buyer
> program with dedicated sales people for each company.

They have a true corporate buyer program, but their discounts are all over
the map.

> * You must prove that you work with all sorts of network situations

Which they can, and will do

> * You need to support legacy code that was written back in the days of
> Windows NT 3.2.

Nope, and that's a bonus actually, although the truly big players like GM/GE
hate that.

> * With major customers, you have to have people on site to give
> support including development support. At all the financial
> institutions I've worked with, we always had a Microsoft employee
> helping out with our development.

Apple will do this, how big a check can you write.

--
John C. Welch

On Jul 5, 2008, at 3:01 PM, David Ross wrote:

> Jeff Porten wrote:
>> One way to get around being without a main computer for two weeks or
>> less: a purchase from the Apple Store is generally returnable for 14
>> days, with a 15% restocking fee. Sounds to me like it's worth a few
>> hundred bucks to not have to try to run Intel software on a G4.
>
> There are some of us (I hope a lot) who think of this at a minimum
> as gaming the system and in general theft of services from Apple.
> I'd walk out on a client who did such a thing.

Yea, I'm kind of surprised that people are suggesting doing something
like that...


Kirk

Dear Joe,

Sounds very similar to the problem that I had a couple of day ago with my MacBook Pro 15". From one day to another the screen of  my Macbook the screen was black No PRAM or VRAM Reset of whatever you could do with help of Google. My last hope was that it was because of deep sleep mode with which I left the office working with a second screen. But even that did not work. Next day 10.00 a.m. at the local apple dealer. You have guarantee that is cool but you have to wait 1-3 weeks to have it fixed. 

To cut a long story short: I just bought a new Macbook, left the old one for repair and decided to sell the old one via eBay. Thanks to eBay I am going to sell the old one. If you get the first repair done within a year, good look if not that is life. But you are able to work within 3 hours after a problem thanks to Time Machine. With every icon the same place as before.

On Jul 5, 2008, at 5:25 PM, Kirk McElhearn <kirkmcelhearn.com> wrote:

> On Jul 5, 2008, at 3:01 PM, David Ross wrote:
>
>> Jeff Porten wrote:
>>> One way to get around being without a main computer for two weeks or
>>> less: a purchase from the Apple Store is generally returnable for 14
>>> days, with a 15% restocking fee. Sounds to me like it's worth a few
>>> hundred bucks to not have to try to run Intel software on a G4.
>>
>> There are some of us (I hope a lot) who think of this at a minimum
>> as gaming the system and in general theft of services from Apple.
>> I'd walk out on a client who did such a thing.
>
> Yea, I'm kind of surprised that people are suggesting doing something
> like that...

On the contrary, this isn't uncommonly done, and in fact is part of
the reason stores have restocking fees.

Depending on the circumstances, it may actually be the Mac Genius the
suggests doing something like this if the customer can't tolerate any
downtime.

If there was no restocking fee, that would be getting something for
nothing, but this is different: in return for the use of the computer
during the repair period, a pre-established price gets paid. It's rent
by another name, and perfectly fine as long as both sides agree to it
-- which, as I say, happens a lot in practice.

--
Chris Devers
http://chrisdevers.vox.com

On Thu, Jul 3, 2008 at 6:06 PM, Howard Kaufman <hkaufman1mac.com> wrote:
> On Jul 3, 2008, at 7:05 AM, Zealand Hatch wrote:
>
>
> This is one area where I don't think Apple "gets it" yet.
>
> Where I work our primary systems are Dells. I'm one of the very few MacBook
> users. I have to say that Dell service is hard to beat.
>
> As an addition to the normal 1 year warranty we purchase the Dell "if
> anything goes wrong" warranty. It covers everything and includes next
> business day onsite service. If something is wrong with my Dell, I call
> them and the next day there's a tech at my house replacing what ever is
> broken.
>
> Have you actually tried to use this Dell service option? This past May the
> Attorney General of New York State filed a suit against Dell because he had
> received so many complaints from consumers that Dell had failed to live up
> to the terms of it's service agreements.

There's an important word there: *consumers*. Business Dell service is
excellent. Big commercial clients get speedy service, fast replacement
parts, and no questions asked on site service. Dell reps will even
help you with router and networks. And why not? Large Corporate
clients are Dell's bread and butter.

Be a consumer who bought a Dell for their house, and the story is a
bit different. That's where you get put on hold for an hour and a
half. That's where you can't get someone to service your machine.
That's where you find the know-nothing "tech" reps who get lost right
after you check to make sure your machine is plugged in.

If you're not a business, you're definitely a second class customer
with Dell (and HP).

--
David Weintraub
qazwartgmail.com

At least one Mac / Win store in BC has a VIP service fee, whatever
they call it this year.

> There's an important word there: *consumers*. Business Dell service is
> excellent. Big commercial clients get speedy service...
>
> Be a consumer who bought a Dell for their house, and the story is a
> bit different....
> If you're not a business, you're definitely a second class customer
> with Dell (and HP).

We can buy this First Class Mac Citizenship in Vancouver; reasonably
too.

George

Years and years and years ago, my Quadra went belly-up and needed a repair that would take more than a week to complete. (This was before mail-in repair service from Apple -- my Mac was at Computerworld for repair)

Since I needed it to get my freelance work done, I rented a Mac from the repair shop to tide me over. It wasn't a perfect solution, since I had to recover all my files from a backup (which, thank goodness, I had) and reinstall all my software. It took me a day or two just to get to the point that I could work. It wasn't cheap, either, at $30/day, but it did let me get my work done.

I wonder that Apple doesn't offer rental/loaners from their store, or that someone else doesn't step in to provide the same service. But then again, I've never had a repair on my Mac take more than four days, including shipping back and forth, so it's not quite as big a deal.

And, this might be crazy, but what about bringing your backup imaged drive and plugging it into a Mac at the Apple Store and just working there for a few hours a day? :)

--Nik

--On 7/4/2008 2:01 AM -0700 Joe Kissell wrote:

> Thanks one and all for your comments. I should note that as I live in
> Paris, I can't take advantage of some of the solutions that would be
> available in the U.S. (or at least doing so would be far more of a
> hassle). For example, there's no Apple Store in France (yet), and renting
> a MacBook Pro similar to mine (I made some inquiries) would have run me
> 622 euros (about $1000) for two weeks!

Sounds like there's another solution lurking here--buy a new MacBook Pro,
and when yours gets repaired start renting out the surplus one for
$500/week!

It'd pay for itself in a month.

Dave

On Wed, Jul 9, 2008 at 5:26 AM, Nik <nikinik.net> wrote:
> And, this might be crazy, but what about bringing your backup imaged drive and
> plugging it into a Mac at the Apple Store and just working there for a few hours a day? :)

In New York, there are Apple store regulars who you see there almost
every day. I've even seen the Apple employees greet them by name. Many
people come in the Apple stores to do some web surfing, checking their
personal email, and other verboten at work activities. As long as
there are free Macs and you're not preventing real customers from
using the Macs, the Apple store employees don't seem to be overly
concerned.

However, you do notice that there are no chairs in the Apple stores
and the tables seem just at the height to make working at a Mac for
more than a few minutes a bit difficult. The tables are too high to
kneel by, too low to stand up and use it. That's probably Apple's way
of making sure people don't hog the Macs for too long.

--
David Weintraub
qazwartgmail.com