Mac Law Students

This is a long story, so you may want to settle down with a nice hot cup of tea. If you’re not inclined to read through my lengthy history with Macintosh hardware, the upshot is that I’ve used compact Macs, iMacs, PowerMacs, G3s, G4s, iBooks, and PowerBooks over the years at work and at home and have encountered remarkably few hardware problems.

The Last of the Monochrome Macs

I’ve been using Macintosh hardware since 1987, but it wasn’t until 1992 that I obtained one of my own. The Mac Classic II was the very last Mac model that sported a 9″ monochrome screen. Although it wasn’t the fastest or most colorful computer, it worked without fail until I replaced it with a scorchingly fast Power Mac 8100/AV in 1995.

Enter the Speed Demon

The 8100/AV was expensive, but worth the money. I used it to conduct my first experiments with video, capturing short segments from The Right Stuff and saving them with different compression settings. I picked up a copy of Photoshop 3 and discovered the joys of layers. I went beyond tentative forays into web development and built a few sites for clients. I chatted in a few usenet history discussion groups and played A-10 Attack!. The 8100/AV served as my professional training lab, home office, and entertainment center. I had to have the computer’s internal battery replaced in 1998. I also upgraded the RAM, at a time when you had to take out a lien on your house to afford it.

Bondi Blue, Ruby Red, and Graphite

The 8100/AV carried the load until I gave it to my dad in 1998 (to replace the Mac SE/30 he’d been using without a single glitch since 1989). I drank the Kool-Aid and was one of the first people on my street to buy one of the original iMacs. You know, the bondi blue machines that convinced people that Apple might not be ready to implode just yet.

By now I was convinced that Apple hardware was rock-solid. Not only had my own Macs been working virtually without fail, but my dad’s SE/30 was like Jack Palance. To top it off, the 7500 and 8600 PowerMacs I’d used at work were thoroughbreds. Neither one ever had any hardware problems.

My dad received a ruby red iMac DV as a gift in 2000, and the stalwart 8100/AV found its way back to my house. I was just discovering Linux, so I snagged MkLinux and installed it on the old beige beast. To my surprise, it worked fine. Admittedly, I didn’t use it for anything truly productive, but I did tinker around with it for a while, getting my feet wet with Linux in the process.

The Rev. A iMac was a good little computer, but it was destined for a turbulent life. I used it until 2000, when a work bonus tempted me to move up to an iMac DV SE. My sister got the iMac, but unfortunately was unable to get much use out of it because she was forced to use a Windows-only program for her accounting classes.

By now I had used a G3/266 Power Mac, a Blue & White G3 Power Mac, and was moving up to a Sawtooth PowerMac G4 at work. My employer was in the habit of buying the Macs new, usually in batches of 2 or 3 for an office of about a dozen people. Eighteen months later, he would sell them used and apply the sale value towards another 2 or 3 new machines. None of the machines I used had any problems at all, and I was startled at how far Apple’s hardware design had come in just a couple of years. The G3 and G4 PowerBooks made adding RAM absurdly easy, in stark contrast to the 8100/AV, which required just the right blend of skill, patience, and luck.

The iMac DV SE was proof of how far Apple had come. The form factor was pretty much unchanged, but the tray-loading CD drive was replaced by a slick slot-loading CD/DVD drive. The horsepower boost was to be expected, but the sharp screen and overall polish made me really enjoy using this machine. Fitted with an AirPort card, I could pick it up and use it anywhere in the house.

Don’t Fear the Laptop

I’d resisted laptops for a long time because I was concerned about the cramped keyboards, high price, and possible fragility that marked my earlier forays into Laptop Land with PCs. But when Apple introduced the white iBook in 2001, I figured it was worth giving one a try. I used both the iBook and the iMac DV SE for work and play. The iMac generally handled Photoshop and games, while coding, writing, financial work, and Internet tasks were the domain of the iBook. Unfortunately I did have one problem with the iBook. After a few months (but still inside the one year warranty, the CD/DVD tray stopped snapping firmly into place. I took it to the Apple Store at Valley Fair in Santa Clara, and about a week later it arrived at my doorstep, with a new tray and a couple of other small fixes to a couple of other internal mechanisms. Since then it hasn’t had any hiccups.

Christmas 2003 was a trying time for my mother in law. Dell had provided her with one refurbished motherboard, then another. Then the second replacement failed, and she started calling Dell. After almost a dozen phone calls, she was through with Dell. This may sound strange, but I don’t often give people a strong Macintosh sales pitch, even when they’re having troubles with their PC hardware, or with Windows itself. In my experience, most people would rather put up with these difficulties over and over again, rather than jump ship.

But she’d had it. “Erik, here’s my credit card. You know what kind of laptop I need. You go order me one.” Gulp. I called up Apple and ordered her a 12″ G4 iBook. Then I fired up my iBook and ordered her a copy of David Pogue’s excellent Mac OS X: The Missing Manual book (though if the same scenario occurred today, I’d probably order Pogue’s Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual instead). The iBook and the Missing Manual arrived a few days later, and my mother and law was up and running in no time. She’s a digital photography enthusiast, and once she started using iPhoto, she became obsessed. Earlier this year, Dell issued new replacement motherboards to all customers who had encountered the same problems she had. Even though her Dell was fixed, she elected to give it to another relative rather than use it.

In early 2004 I realized that I needed more screen real estate. So I purchased a 1 GHz 12″ PowerBook and hooked it to an old 20″ CRT monitor I had sitting around. Believe it or not, I ran a web development firm (a small one, mind you) off that PowerBook. Every day I popped the PowerBook in my Booq bag and rode my bike to work. I then pulled out the PowerBook and plugged it in to the big monitor, using the PowerBook’s screen for email and folder navigation, and the big screen for coding, Photoshop, and web browsing. It was a sweet arrangement. At home, I checked email, used the Web, and engaged in the occasional all-night game of Civilization III.

The iBook went to my uncle, who has been griping about Windows for years, but was always too afraid to jump over to the Mac. Now he’s a die hard Mac evangelist. The four year old iBook hasn’t had any problems yet.

We kept the iMac DV until earlier this year, when we gave it to my sister-in-law. She’s had more than one PC die on her, so she loves the reliability of the iMac.

My business partner’s 15″ Titanium PowerBook developed a power failure problem, and while Apple fixed it, he was left without a computer during a critical time for our company. So we went down to Fry’s and snapped up the last 1.25 GHz Mac mini in town as an emergency purchase. It worked like a charm as a file server for a few months, before I brought it home and turned it into a central iTunes and iPhoto repository. It’s not intended for heavy lifting, but the Mac mini has run flawlessly for almost a year now. Jerry’s 15″ PowerBook was repaired and hasn’t manifested any problems since.

In the summer of 2005 I picked up a 1.67 GHz 15″ PowerBook for school, figuring that the 12″ might be too small for my needs. I’m still not sure whether the 12″ or 15″ size is best for law school. I do enjoy the nice big 15″ screen, but the 12″ would fit more easily on our desks. It’s a tossup.

The 12″ PowerBook, which had travelled all over the country with me on business and had been my home and work computer for over a year, suffered a drive failure the other day. My wife had been using it for email, Web, iTunes, and iPhoto.

Backing Up is Good for You and Me

Thankfully I’m fairly religious about backing up data, so although we didn’t have about 20 purchased iTunes songs and some of her most recent iPhoto work backed up, everything else was safe on a LaCie external drive. This is the first time I’ve ever had a Mac’s internal hard drive fail on me. It is said that it’s not a matter of “if” but of “when” you’ll experience a hard drive failure and I now see why.

Dad’s ruby iMac DV did require a replacement power converter in 2001 or so, but that machine and Christina’s iMac DV SE are still going strong in their fifth year of operation; both are running OS X. My 15″ PowerBook’s power adapter died after two years of use, which I consider to be far below Apple’s usual standards. The replacement adapter cost me about $80 at the Apple Store. Aside from that, in two years of heavy use, I haven’t had any other problems with the 15″ PowerBook.
The lesson from my experiences with Apple hardware is that while Macs tend to be extremely reliable, no computer is immune to failure. Laptops seem to be more finicky than desktop machines, in part because even if you take care of them, they are prone to much more abusive treatment than a desktop computer. Whether you’re using a laptop or a desktop Mac, your data is important, so back it up.

Other Views

Macintosh Reliability Survey - This survey of almost 2,000 MacInTouch readers provides a detailed look at how reliable recent G5 iMacs, G5 PowerMacs and Mac minis have been.

Apple laptops, iPod top reliability survey - MacNN covers the results of PC Magazine’s survey of 35,000 subscribers. Note the comments below the article, which are of course biased in favor of Apple since they’re on a Mac-oriented site.

Photo Credits

The stacked PowerBooks were modified from www.flickr.com/photos/organised/8830572/ and is used under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License. Iman took the photo, which is titled “geek porn.”

The Rev. A iMac photo is courtesy of Apple Computer, Inc. It was taken by Terry Heffernan.

The backlit PowerBook keyboard image was cropped from www.flickr.com/photos/remkovandokkum/43826503/ and is used under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License. Remko van Dokkum took the source photo, which is titled “powerbook light.”