I thought I’d share this article I read on TechRepublic. I’ve had the whole “women in IT” discussion plenty of times, but this article hits it right on. Those who tell me that I’m treated the same as my male IT co-workers really don’t know what they are talking about. But, I’ve learned to work around these things and to deal with. If you can’t, maybe you should look into a different line of work.

iPod Customer = PC owner. Not technology-tarded. Has learned to think for themselves.

Mac Customer = Mac owner. Technology-tarded. Doesn’t know how to work a computer or want to learn how.

I am an iPod Customer. I wanted to buy an mp3 player. Because I am so seemingly hip and awesome (stupid) I bought an iPod Nano. Yes, I got 4GB of space for the price of 512K, but its pink sleek body makes me look cool at the gym.

I have never dropped my iPod. I have never “hacked” it. I have never spilled something on it. I’ve hardly even used it (simply because I am too lazy to pull out cables, open iTunes, let it take forever to load, blah blah blah). I have treated this object better than myself keeping it tucked away in a savvy even hipper silicone case. Then IT happened.

I enjoyed 30 minutes of music, turned it off to occupy myself with some other busy activity, and went to turn it back on. I know what you’re thinking, “Well obviously it didn’t turn on and so you think Apple is lame because something just happened to break in your hands.” You are right. Almost. It didn’t turn on. “Aw, that effin blows! Maybe by some freak accident the screen went out or the battery has narcolepsy. I’ll just plug it into my computer and wake it up!” Nope.

I was disappointed, but I know technology and I know shit happens. I could get it repaired, but would it be worth it? Should I buy another disaster? Should I just buy a Zune? *Cringe* Hmm, I’ll explore my options. How much will it cost me to fix my pink pretty? Easy question? Ha! If you said yes, you don’t know Apple. I sure didn’t.

Today I had to call off work because of a series of unfortunate events (not nearly as cute as the book) and so while I was out and about saving the planet I thought I would catch this Apple falling from the tree. The closest Apple store to my apartment is about 30 minutes away. Not a heart breaker but I don’t own a gas fairy.

I struggled to find the Apple store. Found it. Sigh of relief. Sigh of annoyance. There is a greeter. I know they are supposed to help, but they just piss me off even more. Here is how our short interaction went:

Trendy MacTard: Hi! How can I help you?
Cute Geeky Girl: My iPod is broken and I–
Trendy MacTard: Do you have an appointment?
Cute Geeky Girl: No?
Trendy MacTard: Well you need to make an appointment with the Genius Bar. It’s really easy you can do it online on any computer at www.macannoyance.com. (He proceeds to walk me to a MacBook) You will need to make the appointment two days out. (Bridge troll must have missed his spot since he tried to jolt back to the front door)
Cute Geeky Girl: Are you serious? That sucks! Do you have a chart, handout, or pamphlet on repair costs?
Trendy MacTard: (Dumbfounded) No. It depends on what it wrong with it and what it will take for them to fix it. But they will take care of you.
Cute Geeky Girl: Do you have any sort of troubleshooting steps online?
Trendy MacTard: Yes, they have some online. (and runs away like a little girl)

I understand computer support. I do computer support. It sucks. I get it. But why in the universe would I make an appointment to pay someone to fix said electronic? I can wait on hold. I can wait in line. That is normal. These MacTards are not my doctor. Why are they so holy that I must work around their convenience? This is just an iPod. What if I had a big presentation due that was stored on my magically perfect MacBook? And to think, I was almost converted.

Like I said, I know tech support. I know what will happen when I finally get to talk to Einstein MacTard. If he is a little less tarded than his coworkers, he may just give me an estimate. I will walk away, consider it, and never buy an Apple product again.

After my gallop through the Apple orchard I decided to hit up Google and see if anyone else had experienced this. Sure enough, the internet is filled with abused appointment makers all blogging about their glorious day trip to happy Apple town. I should have seen it coming. I have had to call Apple support before. My success rate, zero. Every single time I was spoken down to, and every single time I got so angry I hung up. Imagine that, a computer technician that started out her career on the phones got so fed up that she hung up? I sympathize with these people, it can be hard work. It takes A LOT to get me that upset because I have been trained on how to keep my cool over the phone. How can Apple get away with treating people like this.

I know that was a lot to read, and I thank you for hearing through my endeavors and dealing with my smelly grammar. If you are a Googler who got stuck in the same situation, I am so sorry. If I had the money, I would fly you a brand spankin new 100GB iPod Touch in a private hydrogen powered jet plated in unicorn horn ivory. I feel your pain, mate. Here, have an ehug. Unless leprechauns appear at the Apple store tomorrow I hereby dub this blog an Apple Unfanboy Zone and future Apple posts shall wreak of negativity. If you are a geeky girl who loves Apple, check out GeekSugar.com. That website is so crappy it’s not even worth hyperlinking to. It is very Apple biased and the writer (Harvard grad and Google intern) thinks a mobo does not effect the processing speed of a computer. Which is one reason why Mac Customer = Technology-tarded. Don’t worry your little head, I’ll be sure to post more examples later.

Working tech support, I see it all the time. Hundreds of pictures and hundreds of hours of work gone in a second. It sucks! Most of us have been there. If you haven’t, you will. It doesn’t really matter how old a computer is, hard drives crash. Causes can be anywhere from malware to bad hardware, it just happens.

Preventing Data Loss
Best thing to do, backup. Maybe once a week or even more, depending on how much you use your computer. Having stacks of CDs/DVDs kinda sucks. It’s also pretty time consuming. The easiest way to backup data is to get an external hard drive. Preferably a solid-state hard drive, but for right this is more of an expensive option. When getting an external hard drive try to ignore the software included with the drive. Why? Well there are a few problems. One, compatibility issues with Vista. No shocker there. Two, (with some software) once you backup your data using the software you need to use the software to retrieve it, and there could be compatibility issues there as well. Windows’ Drag and Drop should work just fine.
Another awesome way to back up data is to use online backup. Mozy and iBackup are two big companies people seem to be happy with. I personally, haven’t used either.
Creating a Disk Image can save a lot of time and hassle as well. Many computer companies ask you to do this the first time you boot up your computer. Ha! That rarely happens. You can find a list of software to create one here. Again, this is another method I know about but haven’t tried myself.
With some computers, RAID is an option. If so, you may want to try RAID 1 or RAID 5. The problem there, if you get a virus, it’s on both drives. So you’re best off using any other option.
One last piece of advise here. If you ever hear a clicking or grinding noise coming from your hard drive, back up your data ASAP. Your hard drive is very likely going to crash.

Recovering Your Data
If you didn’t back up, there still might be hope. Reinstalling Windows is the answer a lot of Tech Support agents may give you off the bat. System Restore, chkdsk /r, and Repair Install are three steps to try before any Windows reinstall. Alas, if you have to do a dreaded reinstall, be prepared to give away hours of your life. First, you have to format your hard drive. Second, you Install Windows. And third, you need to install drivers and software. It’s a lot easier said than done. Some computer companies may have an Image CD or an Image Partition. Using these will save you lots of time. Yummy! The image usually contains the OS, drivers, and programs that were installed on your system when you bought it. You can also use that Disk Image I mentioned earlier.

So you’re a photographer, you just did a wedding and now your hard drive has crashed. You didn’t backup. Uh oh, you’re screwed! Those pictures are priceless and you have to get them for your customer. Okay, this might not be you, but if you do have extremely valuable data on your now hosed drive, is there any hope? Yes! Well, maybe. There are companies out there who will charge you an arm and a leg to use their special little machines and software to read your hard drive. Companies like DriveSavers then back it up on a flash drive, DVDs, ect.
If you’re a computer savvy person, there may be a cheaper route. Sometimes the file system is too corrupt to boot to Windows, but that doesn’t always mean it’s too corrupt to recover your personal files. Start out by buying a hard drive case. Then place the pooped hard drive in the case and plug it in just like an external hard drive and try backing up your data to the internal drive. Or if you have access to a similar computer model to yours, you may be able to sit that in the system, set it as a slave drive, and retrieve your files that way. Now that you have recovered you data, installed your new OS/hard drive, and put your data back on your computer…please please back-up-your-stuff!

Be Grateful You’re Not This Lady
Engadget reported about a lady named Raelyn Campbell who is suing Best Buy for $54 million dollars. The problem started out as a simply little fix. She bought her computer at Best Buy a few years ago along with a warranty from them. She took her laptop to them with a broken power switch. They told her it could take a few week. All was fine and dandy. Turns out, Best Buy (or what is Geek Squad? Not sure) lost her laptop and all of her data. Oh snap! How did they comfort her? A $900 gift card! Pfft! Long story short, still no laptop, still a huge lawsuit. Moral of the story? Hmmm…maybe back up your data or something like that?

[soapbox]I may have been trained by Dell and work for Dell, but none of the above is endorsed by Dell. The tips given here are things I have picked up from working on computers from multiple brands. Hard drives from computers crash all the time. It doesn’t just happen in Dell’s. Besides, Dell doesn’t even make hard drives. They use drives from Sony, Toshiba, ect.[/soapbox]