Macbook Pro 15 Inch Unibody

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Originally uploaded by reboot95

I recently purchased the Macbook Pro 15 Inch at the Applestore. The buying experience was very good. If you are employed by a large company or the Government make sure you inquire about a discount. Also remember that Students and Teacher get a discount as well. These discounts can range from 6 to 8 percent.

The technical specs of the laptop are impressive. The performance is extremely snappy, but it is hard to see a difference between it and my old Macbook. However the screen is noticeably brighter and richer than any laptop I've ever looked at. Now every laptop looks like I'm looking at it through a layer of dust.

I have noticed that at low screen brightness there is a very annoying flicker visible. My understanding is that due to the nature of LED back lights to get a dim light they are cycling the LED's on and off very fast. Some people can see the flicker. I'm one of them.

Carrying the Laptop is a joy compared to anything else I've every picked up in this screen size. It is sturdy and light. I really don't notice a difference in weight between it and the old white Macbook.

PROS: Light weight, beautiful screen, Sturdy construction, lighted keyboard, processing power to spare.

CONS: Expensive, screen flicker at low brightness.

Nutshell: If you can afford it, this is a great laptop.

Mac OS X Your network has been compromised revisted

To see a description of the problem check out this old post.

Mac OS X Your network has been compromised

It appears one of the latest updates to Mac OS X has fixed this problem. I can now have my MacBook remember networks that have multiple access points under the same SSID.

I think the specific update that corrected the problem can be found here AirPort Extreme Update 2008-004

This has been a problem since around the First of 2008. Little bit slow on the old repair.

Extreme Annoyance MacBook Cracks

Have any guesses as to what this is? Yep it is a big old crack on the palm rest/edge of my Apple MacBook. The thing that has pushed this into Extreme Annoyance is this is really the third problem I've had with cracks, dents and such on the MacBook. First there was the crack on the hinge for the screen and then the micro cracks around where the hinge attaches. When I had it in for repair there were also dents forming on the front of the palm rest from where the screen closes. Now I have this big old crack in the palm rest where the screen closes and micro cracks along the front of the machine. These are all parts that were replaced during the first go around with cracks less than a year ago.

Just to head off some thoughts you might be having right now. First Google cracks macbook and see what comes up. This is a laptop, a device designed to be "portable" so I take it pretty much every where with me. Inside a nice "incase" designed specifically for this particular laptop. So yeah it does not set full time on a desk it gets used like a laptop is meant to be used. I have an iMac to set on the desk.

I have the suspicion that the magnets designed to keep the lid closed, cause the lid to slam down to hard every time I close the laptop. This is starting to really annoy me.

Otherwise I really like the OS X operating system. I like the technical performance on my MacBook and the price was in the park with a similar Dell but the build quality is really lacking. Or perhaps it is a design flaw in using the magnets.

I suspect this will be covered under Apple Care but I'm hoping the parts hold up a bit better this time around. Oh and I will be back to using my old Dell for the week the apple store will want to keep it. ICK.

One other thing, the dark spots on the palm rest seem to be more of a stain or discoloration since everything I've tried well not clean it. And the Apple Store said they would clean that up when I took it in for a non-ejecting Super Drive. And guess what, it came back with the discoloration still there. There is also some discoloration around the apple logo on top as well.

Oh did I forget to mention that the power cord burned through the insulation right where it connects to the little power brick.

Great laptop from an Operating System and performance standpoint but not put together very well.

Update:
The MacBook will be out for repair for about a week. They were sort of like oh yeah crack on palm rest and cracks in bottom case. Fill this out, have you backed up your data. Should have it back in a week.

Update2:
Macbook is back appears to be repaired. I think the area impacted is a different plastic.

2 Gig

I just updated the memory in my iMac and Macbook. The physical process is fairly easy except the macbook needs a really really really small Phillips screw driver. I used one of the blades on a multi-tool but it was not ideal.

The performance increase with 2 Gigs of memory over 1 Gig is nice but most noticeable in the Parallels Virtual Machine. Before if you were running one of the Virtual Machines it pretty much locked up the rest of the machine. Now the rest of the machine is running just fine and the Operating System running in Parallels is very snappy.

Purchased the memory from Crucial. I was just poking around and looking at what the price would be to upgrade. When I realized it was really not that much I decided to go ahead and purchase the memory. Cost about $21 on the iMac and $46 on the Macbook. I had to replace both memory chips in the Macbook. The iMac only needed an additional 1 Gig chip.

Apple Store and Genius Bar

I've had to have my Apple Macbook in for a few repairs in its first year (Great OS and features but build quality is lacking). There was the issue with micro cracks in the case. Ok right now go look at your Macbook in good light and see if you can find any hairline cracks in it. Go on I'll wait....... Then there was the issue with the Superdrive, it stopped ejecting disks. You know Apples really don't have a mechanical release I can find. I finally had to resort to turning it sideways and shaking it while repeatedly hitting the eject button. Then the latest was the power adapter burning a hole in the wire. OH FUN.

Here is the problem, each of these were a definite visible hardware issue. Yet each and every time I had to go to the silly Genius Bar to get the privilege of leaving my Macbook with them while they fixed it. This is really really annoying. The one in St. Louis West County Mall really seems to be backed up. You usually have to schedule the meeting a day ahead for the next afternoon or evening then you have to wait while the two Genius' on duty wade through iPod problem after iPod problem with a couple of iPhone problems thrown in. The list for iPod is like 10 people long and there are three of us waiting to get our computers looked at. Hey I got an idea I'll tell the iPod folks this is how you reset it, or you need to let the battery run all the way down then recharge it all the way to full, or you just need to resync it. Then the Genius could do the paper work so I can drop my laptop off.

Apple needs to rethink the way they are doing the Genius bar for hardware issues. The Genius bar is okay except for the wait and the fact they really have never given me a definite answer when I've asked questions.. But if each and every item that is any sort of repair or issue has to go through the Genius bar they really need to increase the staff, maybe promote a few of the floor folks to Genius, they don't usually seem all that busy. Or if it is a hardware issue that requires leaving the computer give me somewhere to just drop it off, hey you are going to be keeping it a week or so why do I have to wait 45 mins to an hour just to drop it off. UGGHHH!!!

Has anyone else had this issue.??

Mac OS X Your network has been compromised

Gee so glad to know that my network has been compromised. I now need to jump up and run around in circles going crisis crisis crisis. Wow I feel much better now.

This has been plaguing my Macbook every time it wakes up from sleep since Leopard 10.5.1 came out. I have not tested 10.5.2 yet to see if it fixes the problem. It seems to occur when I am connecting to WRT54G's running the DD-WRT firmware using WDS. This allows multiple wireless access points to look sort of like one access point and extend the range of your access point. It also appears to be centered around using WPA.

My solution. Well running around in circles going crisis crisis crisis can be fun but it really did not solve the problem. Rebooting would fix it but gee that takes a bit. Googling came up with a forum on Macrumors that suggested deleting the saved password. I can't remember if I found another link or just did it wrong but here is what I did.

Removed the offending network from the list of preferred networks. Now when I put the Macbook to sleep it wakes up and asks which network do I want to connect to, I double click on the one I was using and bam I'm on the network again no silly error.

Update
Nope 10.5.2 does not fix the problem.