I took my Macbook to the local Genius bar last Wed. They replaced the magsafe cord and kept it for a few days to replace the 'palm rest'. All covered under warranty! The only thing is, I lost my MacStyle in the process...perfect time to get another, though!
The Genius really dug my MacStyle and asked me a lot of questions. He said he saw them on the web but that mine was the first he'd seen in real life. He asked how hard it was to install and remove. He said that it really looked sharp and wanted to get a few for the Geniuses at the bar. I thought that was really cool.
Another thing: The Genius said that the repair would be two days. I gave it to them Wed evening. He said that they'd a lot of repairs to do, due to Spring break and college students, but that they'd give me a call around Friday-Saturday. I never got a call. I figured they were busy so I gave them a bit more time. I was off on Monday and wanted to see if they were done (I don't have a lot of time off to do this sort of stuff), so I called. The lady who answered asked if I'd gotten a call from them and I said 'no'. She said that if they hadn't called me, it more than likely wasn't done. I told her that they'd had it since Wed and that it was Monday...that was more than enough time to get it done. She went in the back of the store and checked...came back and said that it was ready to pick up. WTF. She makes a smart comment saying that they'd have called me if it was complete, then 2 minutes later says that it is done. I was a bit pissed. Why? They told me it would be done, gave me an estimated date, I went out of my way to not hassle them when that estimated date expired and got no call from them. I don't understand how or why she made it seem like I was badgering her store. This is exactly why I don't always like dealing with service-related issues...this is also why I typically buy my own parts and fix my own stuff...I hate depending on people with the heads up their anuses. A simple call would've been nice...I guess they were that busy. I understand that, but don't understand the attitude after waiting 2 more days than their estimated time. I should've been very vocal about this.
Oh yeah, I got a Dell Mini 9. I almost returned it so that I could order an Asus 10". I decided to stick with the Dell, though. Awesome machine. I can live with the non-standard keyboard. It has Ubuntu installed (Dell build), has a 32GB solid-state drive, and a 1.3MP webcam, otherwise its standard. I'd like to add another gig of RAM but the 1GB it currently has isn't giving me issues.
A lot of Dell Mini owners are installing OS X on their Minis. I'm not to that point yet. I did try to make my Ubuntu look like OS X but have to run Compiz in order to do it...that's a deal-breaker, as Compiz makes the unit lag a bit (moving scroll bar and such).
Basically, there's not much I don't like about this machine. I really like the fact that it doesn't make any noise (no fan). It gets warm but not as warm as my Macbook. About the only thing I don't like is the funkily-mapped keys (like the ' and | keys: I have to use key combinations to use those characters, which slows me down considerably when in CLI). Another issue I've seen is that I can't shell into some of my machines from the Dell. When I experience this issue, I immediately go to my Mac and try the same thing and it works fine. Note that this is not an SSH client or server issue. Looking at the SSH client debug logs, I don't see anything glaring. Looking at the remote machine's auth logs, I see authentications. Weird. It may be an issue with the wifi card. I do plan on replacing the stock mini-PC card with a card supported openly (it has a Broadcom card that works but I prefer something open).
I may look into doing a dual-boot of Ubuntu and OS X in the near future.
And I do plan on reconnecting my G4 Powermac again soon (so I can use it to serve and perform backups).
