Apple iMac i7 Issues

I ordered my i7 in the first week of November 2009 through Mac1 Apple reseller in Brisbane, after waiting weeks and then being told that it won’t arrive till January as Apple wasn’t honoring i7 orders by resellers, I cancelled the order and put it through the Apple Store online.

It Arrived ten days after the order, instantly there was a visible yellow tinge at the bottom ¼ of the screen. I called up Apple care and let them know of the issue, which they said I am the only one that has experienced it (load of crap).

They eventually agreed to replace the unit but wanted me to give the broken unit back and wait another 2 weeks before getting the replacement. I had to take it all the way to Apple Public Relations until it was agreed that I could keep my yellow tinted iMac whilst they sent me a replacement and they would do a migration transfer.

3 weeks later.

New i7 iMac arrived at Chermside store in Brisbane, I drove out there, 50 minute drive each way, did the migration transfer, all was good… was happy the new iMac had no yellow tinting issues.

Got home, turned it on, went to Apple -> about this mac, realised that for some reason it only showed up with 4gb of memory and not 8gb which is what I had ordered and what my original machine was.

Call up Apple Care, they said it can’t have 4gb it has 8gb, I had to send them a screenshot and other info, finally 4 days later, they agreed that I can bring it back to the Chermside store so they can put more RAM into it.

By this stage the replacement i7 iMac’s screen was randomly going blue when it awoke from sleep. So everything would have a blue tint to it, it would only do this on its actual 27″-screen and not the attached 24″ LCD (second monitor).

I brought the i7 back in to Chermside (50 mins each way). They took it out the back to put in the extra 4gb of RAM, simple process…

10 minutes later the Mac Genius came out and said, the computer does actually have 8gb of physical ram but the last two RAM slot are not working. Great.

20 minutes later the Mac Genius came out and said they two ram slots are now working after the ram was taken out and put back in. Great!

I mentioned the blue tint issue (I really didn’t want to as I just wanted my iMac back as i need it for work). and they said they are happy to keep it overnight and see if they can replicate.

I thought well, one night and maybe they can fix the issue its worth it.

Next day I first called up at 10am left a message, no reply, 11 am left a message no reply. 12pm.. same thing. 50 min drive to and from chermside…

Eventually I walked in to the store and the Mac Genius came out and said, aww about to give you a call back (yeah, right).

Mac – Your iMac is dead.

Me – What? How is it dead?

Mac – It won’t boot, the motherboard failed whilst we ran tests on it.

Me – Oh ok, well can you give me back my original iMac whilst you get me another replacement?

Mac – Sorry we have already sent that back.

Me – “Ok, can you please give me a temporary machine whilst you get a replacement?

Mac – “Sorry, we don’t do that”

I called up Apple care and at this stage I wasn’t happy. I had no machine and all my data still on the broken iMac.

Here is where it gets funny, apparently I’d have to wait for 6 weeks to get a new iMac i7… OR… they will happily refund all my money and I can buy an i5 instore and thats what was recommended.

Better still, they won’t give me the money back for 7 days, and I had to pay for the i5 now. Wow! Go Apple.

Regardless, An i5? Why the f#$k would I order an i7 if I wanted an i5? I said no, I want an i7.

Third day in a row I drove 50 mins each way to Chermside. It’s now the 22nd of January, more than three months since I ordered my first apple product.

Walk inside the Apple store, be greeted by the apple techs. The head technician came out and said, okay you good to do the swap to the i5, I said no and explained to him that I want an i7 like I had originally ordered.

He said it will take up to a month to get a replacement. I said, why, shouldn’t they prioritise people who have ordered their machines 3 months ago and still haven’t got a working one?

Eventually he suggested that if I am happy, he can order a new motherboard to fix the iMac i7 that was broken instead of getting a whole new one and it would only take 3-4 days. I agreed and walked out of the store.

An hour later I realised that it most likely won’t solve my screen going blue issue, so I called the Apple store back to try and get a hold of the head technician, no luck, left a message, never heard back.

A day later, still haven’t heard back.

So at the moment I am using my old XP machine and wondering why I paid 3,200 for something 3 months ago and still using an old XP machine?

This was my first mac purchase I had always been a Windows user and I thought given how great my iPhone was I should move my work over to OSX and to be fair, OSX is fantastic and I love it, but if I could pick, I’d build my own computer and install OSX on it.

As it stands now I am Macless and minus $3,200 and chances are the replacement motherboard wont fix the screen issue (which as far as apple is concerned doesn’t exist anyway).

That’s my first Mac experience. Thank you Apple. You have waisted 3 months of my time and cost me tens of thousands in productivity.

Alborz.

One of my other blogs, TranceIsLife.com was started back in April as a hobby site simply for me to share my love of Trance music, it was an interesting site as I did a bit of work getting it up and posting videos and lyrics then lost interest, while I wasn’t paying attention, other people were.

In its short eight month existence it has grown considerably, with thousands of unique visitors coming in each day. Now that is a lot less than the 70,000 daily hits that come in to CarAdvice.com.au but it’s a whole different website ran as a hobby more than a business (similar to how CarAdvice was started at first). In fact there is currently no adveritsing what so ever and I still haven’t worked out how it can be monetized.

Anyway, after seeing the hits go up and up I got a little surprised, obviously no one else had bothered to build a proper vocal trance blog so I started to devote a little more time, mainly on the weekends to the site.

The point is, although it took me a good eight hours last night to put together my two hour mixed set, I’ve already had numerous emails of appreciation, which is amazing as I’ve never done any sort of DJing in my life! Nothing is more motivating than emails from complete strangers thanking you for making their day. I still get a few emails a week from CarAdvice readers thanking (or hating) me for an article I’ve written but this is different as its a scene which I am a total newbie in.

So TranceIsLife.com seems like its going to kick some major ass next year with more and more updates and a weekly podcast which I will aim to do each weekend. It’s main reason for success has been focusing on Vocal Trance only, which is the most popular form of trance for new comers and of course it has lyrics which is great for SEO.

What I’ve learnt from this whole thing is how ridiculous it felt for me to try and create a popular trance site and use it to become an internet  trance DJ, almost as ridiculous as wanting to drive the world’s fastest car and having it shown on discovery channel? Well I’ve done that so why did this sound ridiculous?

I suppose it’s that lack of belief in yourself, but once you have a success ladder that reminds you that you CAN do things that seem logically absurd, it’s much easier to believe in yourself.

I simply hope to use TranceIsLife.com to release my weekly trance podcasts and get my name out there as one of the better vocal trance DJs on the web.

Next year is going to be huge, I am working on a product to take your blog to the next level, putting the last 15 years of my internet knowledge into one package to give you all that there is for a successful blog.

Here is to 2010! Have a great Christmas and a fantastic New Year.

Alborz.

There are a few ways in which you can address this properly. Firstly, it may be a case that your chosen topic is not exactly what you were most interested in.

Don’t starting thinking about throwing away your blog just yet, even I get sick of talking about cars or music or blogging, but every day or two I just cant help but to feel enthusiastic about writing something to do with cars, music or a post similar to this.

The key, I find, is to let your natural urges guide you, if the topic for which you are writing about is a struggle, as in, you have to force yourself to write, it’s not what you want to be doing.

Remember the whole point of writing a blog and going onwards to make a living from it is to write or discuss a topic for which you have an irrational obsession with.

A topic where you get motivated just by the thought of writing articles. Lots of people are not writers by default, they find the whole writing thing a bit of a chore,  I was like that too.

When I first started writing, I was writing poorly with horrid sentence structure and in some cases not making any sense at all. Of course my mild dyslexia didn’t help either.

My first few blogs were concerned with myself, my thoughts and the  music I was into at the time. I could write thousands of words at a time and that helped me develop my writing ability a bit more. I suggest if you’ve never done much writing to start by writing about a topic area which is easy for you to get the words out.

The second reason why you may be lacking motivation is not really knowing what to talk about, this again may be a case of the topic being hard to write about.

For example if you’ve decided to write a medical blog about advancements in medical science (a great topic for you doctors out there, I’d certainly be interested in reading it) but you’re not in the medical profession, you may find it slightly difficult to gather information.

Don’t worry though, you don’t need to be a professional in the topic of your blog to make a successful blog, all you need is motivation and determination. It’s also worth thinking about starting numerous blogs so that you can write about a few different topics to keep your mind from getting bored.

I also strongly suggest you don’t force yourself to write articles at certain times, or to make it a routine. This is about breaking routine and creating a new sense of personal freedom so use the inspiration of going out to a coffee shop or a great outdoor venue and writing on your laptop to get articles done.

As I write this I am sitting at my former university, listening to a trance podcast and typing away, there is no pressure on me to finish this right now (th0ugh I already know I will) and I came here to write about cars, but decided to write this instead.

Take the pressure away, write when you feel like it, don’t lose that intuition that tells you you have a great idea or topic to write about. Get on to it instantly, strike while the iron is hot as they say.

Of course if you go for weeks without updating your blog, there may be something intrinsically wrong with what you’ve chosen to do. If not and you’re certain that your topic is one of your passions in life then lets get serious for a minute.

If you feel guilty that you haven’t written in a while after having such enormous motivation at first and yet you still can’t get yourself to write something, I suggest a few ideas.

1. Work out why you’re not writing, is it because you lack personal discipline? Is it because you wrote for two or three weeks and didn’t make any money and then decided this whole idea was a bit silly?

Remember nothing is more motivating than writing about something you love, don’t expect to be making a living from your blog in a few weeks or months or even years in some cases. It’s about building up quality content and publishing frequently to create and then maintain an ever growing community of readers.

2. You got the ideas in your head but you can’t transfer them into words

This is rather common, you get a great idea for an article, you sit down to write it but you don’t get anywhere. It’s okay, it happens to all of us. This may have something to do with your writing skills or even how quickly you can type. If you’re not the best typist in the world, you can even start out by writing (yes, with pen and paper) the articles and then typing them out later. For most of us the medium in which we learnt to write creatively tends to be conditioned to our brain, so if you did all your creative writing back in the day on pen and paper, perhaps it’s worth giving that a go to get things started.

3. What’s the point of writing these article if no one is reading them?

This is the chicken and egg question in blogging format, what’s the point of writing articles on a site that has just started and not being read by anyone. Okay, let me give you a good explanation of how this works.

Firstly, you must put the content out into the ether, in this case being the internet, for it to be found. If the content doesn’t exist, it can’t be found and read. The content must come first, the readers will follow.  If you have this attitude in your head that because so few people visit your site it’s silly to write articles, you’re missing out on the big picture.

You’re writing these articles to share something you find interesting with everyone on the planet. Give the information out even if it looks as though no one is reading it and you will be amazed how in due course the readers will come, find articles that you’ve written months or years ago and find the content useful.

It will take time to get your blog to start attracting thousands of daily visitors. It also requires content for that to happen. Remember as with all entrepreneurial ventures, all the work (if you want to call it that) comes first with little reward but the rewards later on are significant.

I am happy to answer any other questions or problems you may be having with finding motivation, just write in the comments section and I’ll respond.

Hope this helps.

What better way to start writing on AlborzFallah.com than to talk about the most fundamental step in creating a weblog, or blog as they are better known.

Those of you looking at starting your own blog and writing must all be wondering what to start your blog on, sure you can start a personal blog and type away about your thoughts, worries, successes etc… but where does that all lead?

Commercial or successful blogs tend to have a theme or topic. Speaking from experience I’ve started at least 20 different blogs in my time all with a different topic. My most memorable one was a blog I started to right (anonymously) about my personal relationships, of course I lost interest in that rather quickly, and by that I mean in about 48 hours.

So here is the trick, you need to know a little about what you’re writing about, or at the very least, have the incentive to learn.

When I started CarAdvice.com.au, I loved cars, I still do, I didn’t know much about the engineering or mechanical side of cars (and I still don’t) but I did love cars without question so that desire to write about what I love came through, it motivated me to go back and write more and more and more.

So think about the blog you want to start, think hard about its topic. Make sure its not something that seems like a good idea just now and not in the long run, the most important formula for a successful blog is commitment and steady updates.

If you can continue to update your blog a few times a week, over a period of time it will get more and more traffic, it’s just basic rule of thumb.

Of course the more interesting your topic, the more hits, so cars and music for me being two passions both happen to have a big following globally which in return has helped the sites gain a massive audience.

Also make sure you do some research on google, type in your blog topic and see what shows up. So if you’re looking at starting say a car blog, type in Car Blog into google and see what shows up.

Don’t be scared of competition, there is always something you can either do better or differently, in some cases, you can even localise the content which will give you an edge in your own marketplace.

Remember, the topic you chose you have to stick with so make sure it’s a good one.

Alborz.