The year is 1999, and fresh from taping the second season of his TV show a young Devil’s Advocate is at the front of the line to buy the first iMovie-enabled Macintosh. What he doesn’t know is that when he gets the machine home and boots it up, the FireWire port won’t work.
It takes almost a month of angry phone calls and eventually a new logic board to remedy the problem. But the problem is solved.
Cut to 2003, and fresh from the bitter sting of cancelling Second Cine the producer ponies up over three thousand hard-earned dollars for a new PowerBook, having waited patiently for an updated version free of early production bugs. What he doesn’t know is that when he gets the machine home and boots it up, there will be dead pixels on the screen.
It will be an uphill battle for either a new LCD, new machine or a full refund. Voices will be raised. Apple employees will scramble for cover behind hidden policies. And I will be put on hold many, many times. But one way or another, the problem will be solved.
Andrew Currie 
2 responses to “1999 All Over Again”
Fight the power Andrew!!!
AC:
I wish you luck in your fight against the Lesser of Two Evils. I guess you’ll need the patience of Jobs?
On a positive note, I got my Panther CDs last week and installed it on my new G5 (no major defects yet other than my ol’ PCI capture card not being compatible with the new PCI-whatever slots). Panther’s definitely an improvement, with a much faster boot time and some needed tweeks to the Finder (to make it more like what OS9 was like!). The changes to the Finder windows alone are worth the upgrade.
Ed