love-hate with technology

today wasn't such a great day. it's all because of my macbook. remember the time when my macbk died on me? turns out that its hard drive's corrupted (i found out after an hour's worth of apple care's phone service; i was chatting with a technician in india! i thought that was pretty cool though. he said: "oh, it's 12pm in singapore, have you had your lunch?". and i said:" not yet. it's still early. what about you? had yours?". technician:" it's 5am here in India, i just had my breakfast". he was greeted by silence coz i was in shock. i didnt know he was talking to me from another continent(!) i wanted to say this but decided against it:" how's the mutton curry?") and so anyway, i sent it in to the apple service centre, hoping that they will replace it for me. alas, that could not be done because my hard drive's considered a 3rd party drive. you must be going huh? well, it all starts to go downhill from here.

my dad purchased my macbook for me because he didn't feel completely reassured if were to buy it myself. he bought it without me knowing either. hence, i wasn't there when the technician modified my macbook too, yes modified. i was mortified, when my dad told me. apparently, the technician cajoled him into upgrading my hard drive, so that means that i have no original hard drive. plus point was that the technician installed everything i needed and even windows vista. so technically, i had 2 OS(s) operating within my laptop. i liked that. i thought it was really convenient for me. everything was dandy and fine till the day it died.

came home one day to an unresponsive macbook. i panicked coz my unprinted 2000 words essay was still sitting like a dead duck in the laptop. we went back to bell electronics (that was where my dad purchased my macbook) to try and get it fixed, but the salesperson turned us away saying that they didnt sell macbooks. my dad and i were sooo upset at the guy! i mean that's no logical rationale behind that. but we were at the losing end because we somehow misplaced the receipt. i know, terrible right? nevermind that, we went on to a macshop and devised means to try and retrieve the data, to no avail. i was really, really crushed. we brought the dead thing home, removed the hard drive from its slot and tried manual retrieval, which inevitably failed too. i retyped all 2000 words of it. never knew i possessed such willpower. i sat from 5pm to 3am in the same chair and finished it. it was mad. pure madness.

so on to what happened next. i called the apple hotline and then came to the final conclusion of bringing it to the apple service centre and you know the rest. so then since my hitachi hard drive is still under 36 months (26 months left) worth of warranty from acecom, i decided to bring my hard drive in to the shop to get it replaced. guess what, it got replaced! immediately! (: yay double yay!

prior to that, the sales person from acecom told me that i had to remove the hard drive myself but i didnt know how to. i brought it to this other shop that sold macs, and they wanted to charge me $40(!!!) for it. ripoff. just had a feeling that things weren't right... so i left without patronizing their very costly service.. walked into another store and got it removed, for free! i told watson about what happened and he said: "you could've gotten 10 screwdrivers for that price and you only required removing 3 screws!" oh wow... i almost got cheated today. but i should really count my blessings.

when i first called acecom to ask about hard drive replacement, they said it would take 2-3 weeks for the replacement to come in, but i'm really thankful that i got a brand new one on the spot. i was so happy! initially, i was worried about visiting acecom coz i did not send my warranty card in. i was just telling God to please, please, please let the acecom guys not ask about that and in exchange for that, i'll take really really good care of my macbook and to not be so rough with it. and God was so good, they didn't ask about it and gave me a new hard drive without hesistation. thank God.. really thank God (: so you see, i should count my blessings, shouldn't i?

i thought it was all over. new hard drive, just got to install my stuff. but that was not to be, i left my hard drive tray with the old unit! i have to call acecom tmr and pray really hard that they have not sent it away to seagate to be rma-ed. but chances are, it's not yet shipped off. so fingers and toes crossed.

but i'm really thankful to Watson to have talked me through over msn about installing my hard drive and all, asking him many other mac questions where he very patiently and graciously explained them all to me. i haven't spoken to him in quite a bit and he was really very nice to have helped me so much! so thanks watson! (: and for my brother who has always gone the extra mile to help me with IT stuff (i'm nooooooob). yet again, patient and rather long-suffering because i'll always be in a very bad mood whenever technology fails me. he's been so nice to help me even though he doesnt know how exactly apple system works. he will go online and google help tips to assist me. when my macbk first dies, he stayed up with me till 3am in the morn to troubleshoot. i really appreciate my brother a lot. thanks kor! (: you asked how i'm going to repay you right? that was a short tribute to you (macham you died... muahaha.. kidding!) but i really do appreciate you, from the bottom on my heart. you've been the best!

love-hate with technology eh? i love using apple products, my mac, my brother's ipod.. just havent exactly been having the best of relationships with them. but i've learnt my lesson. i'm going to take extremely good care of my macbook, not excluding other things as well. but to really appreciate, cherish and give thanks for what God has given so freely me. be it tangible or non-tangible stuff. it has been a rather whiny, rant-ish post... but i'm glad at the end of it all, i can look back and give thanks and to count my blessings. things could've turned out way worse like my hard drive not having warranty or my macbook being pronounced technically dead. could've gone wrong in a million other ways, but it didn't. for that, i thank God. think i've come to see the uglier side of me as well, where i sulk and shout at my laptop, out of frustration... it's a challenge for me to practice self-control both in terms of charcter and speech...

God, i'm going to trust that everything's going to be okay and that i'll have my macbook up and running again and to do all that i need to. i've learnt my lesson.. to take good care, to not be complacent, to cherish and be more appreciative.

what a ride.