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Rotten AppleCare and a Bulging MacBook Pro 17-inch Battery

We all have our unnecessary demons. For the past three days I have relentlessly been dealing the “pros” at AppleCare technical repair over getting a bulging battery replaced on my MacBook Pro 17-inch machine. The reputation of AppleCare is that, for around $300 USD, you are supposed to get the most incredible and kind service. I did not have that experience.

I found the experience rather rotten as I felt AppleCare were giving me the runaround on the bulging battery. It’s as if they hadn’t ever heard of the problem before, but doing a simple search on the problem reveals scads of complaints and images like this one:

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MacBook Pro 15-inch LED Review

While I was dealing with the bulging battery on my Apple MacBook Pro 17-inch laptop last week, a brand-new MacBook Pro 15-inch laptop with the new LED screen was winging its way to me from Shanghai, China.
Those few days arguing with Apple over a battery and tracking my new MacBook online as it wended its way through the world to me was the utter definition of a Love/Hate relationship!

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My New Old MacBook Pro 17-inch LCD Review

I am a proud owner of one of the first MacBook Pro 17-inch machines that made their debut two years ago — yes, I have a dreaded “A Revision” box — but that machine still sits next to me today and it has served me well through the writing of five books and it has never given me a moment of discontent… except for a bulging battery… but I never lost use of the machine in the battery swap with Apple.

Today, I am the prouder owner of what will likely be the last revision of the current MacBook Pro line before all the new Apple machines begin to look and feel like the MacBook Air. I couldn’t be happier with my new “old style” MacBook Pro.

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Top Ten Reasons I Love My MacBook Pro

I have had my MacBook Pro for a month now and so far I believe it is the best machine I have ever owned. I have owned a lot of machines! The key to loving the MacBook Pro was to make it my main box — my ThinkPad T43p is still here — but over there as my secondary machine now. Now I do everything with my MacBook Pro.

I have been able to nearly replicate my entire Windows experience on my MacBook Pro by purchasing or cross-grading over to the Mac version of the software. Here are the Top Ten Reasons I am loving my MacBook Pro:

1. Mail: I do a lot of email every day. I get a lot of Spam and Junk. I need to easily reply to 11 email accounts throughout an 18 hour workday using IMAP. The bundled Mail application in OS X is truly magnificent. It beats Outlook 2003 and Entourage 2004 in every conceivable way. The application is fast, robust, reliable and super-easy to setup and manage. I could not ask for a better way to manage my mail and the fact that Mail is bundled for free as part of my MacBook Pro experience is a delight unlike no other.