BusyCal Debuts

From Macworld.com:

For many Mac users, Apple’s own iCal application is sufficient when it comes to scheduling their lives, but for those irked by its limitations, there are alternatives. BusyMac’s new BusyCal 1.0, released on Tuseday, is a dedicated calendaring program that aims to exploit the opening left by iCal’s own shortcomings for power users—BusyMac even goes so far as to bill it “iCal Pro.”

I've been using BusySync which lets you sync iCal with Google Calendar. Works pretty well. I'll take a look at BusyCal but I'm pretty happy what I have now.

Macbook Pro NVidia 8600 Defect [Finally home again!]

I hadn't heard back yet, so I stopped by the Topanga Apple Store Friday night. The Macbook Pro was ready to go. New motherboard, and a new battery too. Can't complain except the whole repair service could have been a few days shorter. Total days from drop off to pick up: 12.

So far so good. The Apple Genius warned me they might have to wipe the hard drive, but it didn't come to that. I'm glad to not have to waste a day reinstalling everything and other day or two downloading all the frakking updates.

Macbook Pro NVidia 8600 Defect [Fixed, at the store, but can't pick it up yet!]

So I watched my Macbook Pro get shipped from Houston to Canoga Park (aka Topanga). Fedex site says it was delivered and signed for.

I call the store to see if I can pick it up. At first they can't find it. But then he says it's there but they haven't "checked it in yet". They have to check it in, and run tests on it to make sure it is okay. I thought the repair center was supposed to take care of that. Hmm.

Waiting for Apple Store to call...

Macbook Pro NVidia 8600 Defect [Fixed, shipped back to store]

Over the past week I've been obsessively checking my Macbook Pro's repair status. This morning it finally changed from "On hold" to "Repair Completed". Woohoo!

It's on it's way via Fedex from the repair center in Houston, TX to the Apple Store in Topanga where I dropped it off. Should arrive tomorrow.

Macbook Pro NVidia 8600 Defect

I thought I'd escaped this, but it finally caught up with me. My Macbook Pro has an NVidia 8600GT and as we found out last year, most if not all of these chips have a defect that can cause it to no longer be functional.

The good news is that Apple's policy is to fix the problem for free even if your MacBook Pro is out of warranty.

I took it to my local Apple Store. They ran a test on it in the back to confirm it was indeed the NVidia problem. I signed some paperwork and off it went.

I'm number two in the queue.

That was Sunday August 30. It's now September 8th and still no word other than "On hold - Part on order" when I check my repair status. I've read accounts claiming repairs taking from just several hours to a few days. One said two weeks.