steven n fettig's Jitterin' Thoughts

I have become so reliant on using my laptop when away from home - actually, I have been this way for many years since traveling or living in Germany - that I usually bring a backup with me. This year I actually used the backup - the same year that I almost decided to give up on bringing a backup with me. Since my last bought with expensive-brand-new-computer-gone-kaputt in '99, I haven't had any problems except when Steffi needs to use it and I get irritated because she's taking way too long.
The irritating thing, however, is that when one gets used to a way of doing things and has to rely on a just okay backup, one realizes how reliant one is on the normal way of doing things. Because of selling a few PowerBooks I had collected over the last year for different projects, I decided to get one of the brand-new 15" PowerBooks due to the higher screen resolution (which I find quite handy because when working on daily tasks, I often have reading material on the right hand side with working materials on the left - i.e. reading materials I am working off of or using for examples). I got it ready along with three extra batteries because I wasn't sure if I would have access to power on the flight. Alas, I spent most of the flight talking to a gentleman from the UK who has spent a lot of time in the US and traveling elsewhere, so I didn't actually need the extra power. On top of that, the plane had DC power, for which I had an adapter.
When I finally arrived "home" in Germany, I used up another of the batteries and went to plug in the PowerBook to charge the second empty. A few hours I came back and the battery was still empty. I thought in passing that the battery may have been a bad one, as I didn't use it often, so I simply plugged in one of the other empties and went on my merry way. Again, I came back a few hours later finding that nothing had happened. Only then did I start to guess what was going on. About a year ago, I had a PowerBook with a bad "DC-Board" - rather, I found out what it was called after calling Apple for repair assistance. (Which was an extremely frustrating phone conversation: "Sir, what seems to be the problem?" I answered, "Well, when I plug in the AC Adapter, I get shocked by touching the case of the computer." He replied, "So what do you want us to do?" At that point, I could't believe what I was hearing. I said I was being shocked by the case and was not refering to a static shock. Those are two completely different things. I explained this and he seemed even less impressed - at which point I exploded and read him the riot act and asked how he figured that it made sense that I get a 120V shock from the case of the machine when I plugged it in - regardless of which AC Adapter I used. He didn't react much to my irritation and finally allowed me to return it for repair. This is the point at which I learned that PowerBooks have a DC regulator attached to the motherboard. It was that part that had gone bad and allowed current to travel through the case into me...) So, knowing that PowerBooks are covered worldwide, I called the service center in California to see what could be done because without being able to charge the rest of the batteries, I'd only last 4-6 more hours and finally run out of juice. They said it could be repaired within 4-6 business days. Wonderful. I would be leaving to go home about the time that it would be returned to me - worse yet it might arrive after leaving. The next day, I ran around Hamburg trying to find a place that could fix it sooner. No luck. So there I was with a $2000 "nagel-neuen" laptop that had a bum part in it (only to find out that the Apple centers in Hamburg were seeing a lot of this from the new PowerBooks).
I have now had this problem with three PowerBooks out of 23. Those are really bad statistics. While I still would highly recommend people buy the PowerBook in comparison to other machines - you can forget Windows machines (which is my next subject) - I think Apple should pay better attention to their notebook/laptop lines. In the last two years, there have been a slew of issues - battery problems, screen problems, logic board failures, etc. While I can understand (not accept, but understand) a sub $500 laptop, I can't understand it coming from a company that has high priced equipment, over which they have control of manufacturing and the OS. (In fact, that has been one of the selling points of Apple products is that they are designed from the ground up with attention being given to how well the hardware functions with the software.) I have had two 15" PowerBooks with bad screens, three with bad DC-Boards, two with bad Superdrives and two with hard drives that have failed within two months of purchasing them. Considering the sheer number of laptops I've gone through this may not seem surprising, but considering the actual percentages we are talking about (around 5% failure), that is not good.
The fact is, though, I still enjoy using OS X/Apple products much more so than Windows. Windows has become so flaky over the years that it pains me to work on the machines when I have to do heavy work (like invoice mailings or a lot of writing). I had the luck of brining my OQO with, but have found that many things are a pain to work with under Windows because it simply isn't integrated (OpenSSH, for example). While OS X does tend to suffer a bit in the www rendering department, internet and network stuff simply works so much better that I can live with the minor irritant. On the positive side of the OQO, it is so tiny that it can be carried along like a PDA (I'd hate to have the thing on my belt, though) and is great for quick access to email, internet and all of the programs and attachments that one might need to use. I have to say that despite the fact it runs Windows, it does a fantastic job because it is a full computer and not a wanna-be like Windows Mobile or Palm devices. (I highly recommend the machine if you travel a lot and need to have a backup machine on hand. If you do little correspondence while travelling - i.e. typing - then it may even be good enough to be your only travel machine. Although, then you're left without a backup, which is the whole point of this post.)
So ends my story. The moral is: don't leave home without a backup.