RobbieTheGeek.Com

Well, I took the plunge and joined the Cult of Mac this weekend. I am the proud owner of a 15" MacBook Pro 2.0 Ghz Core Duo laptop.Ok the first thing I would like to bring up is the buying process. I had applied for the Apple Credit Care and was approved but you can't actually use the card in the store until you receive the physical credit card. Now I am a rather impatient person once it comes to buying something once I make up my mind. 8 days after I made the decision there was still no credit card in hand. I ended up using a different card to purchase it in the long run so think twice if you would like to us the apple cresit in-store plan well in advance. (I could have bought immediately through the Apple Store but I wanted the in-store experience). I was assisted once I walked into the Apple Store at Garden State Plaza and asked a sales person for assistance with a MacBook purchase. I was referred to a Apple Customer Assistant (or CustomerCare) named Ian. I knew the purchase was going to go well because he got a kick out of my Bittorrent T-shirt. A little info at a iMac he was standing near and off to the sales / genius bar area. My paper printed out Ian came along with us chatting the whole time with me. The conversation was amusing cause he immediately pegged me as a techie guy cause his first question that wasn't purchase related was, "let me guess you are planning on getting Boot Camp woking on it right?". I jumped all over this to try to glean whatever info I could get from an actual Apple employee about setting up my new MacBook Pro to dual-boot Mac OS X and Windows XP Pro Service Pack 2. It was pretty much nothing he pretty much told me there isn't anything I can really talk about because it isn't fully supported. Then I went rumor-fishing trying to see if the 17" MacBook Pro was coming in the next few days as National Association of Broadcasters Conference? And all I can say is I think a tumbleweed rolled between us. The final process for buying the machine was very simple and out of the store and home I went. I very nice process from beginning to end and I would easily tell others to go through the store if the want immediate instant gratification but the Apple Store would have saved me about $150 in tax. Thanks again Ian and thanks for reading part one of this blog posting.Part 2 of this article is now available on my new Mac-focused blog