It’s bound to happen to the best of us, no matter if we’re on a Mac or a PC. At the worst possible time, computers crash. It’s as if they know how to destroy our most productive weeks, or weeks that need to be our most productive. That was this week, for me.

Coming back from Seattle on Monday left me with an already shortened week, 4 full days. Tuesday was mostly lost to prep for the brainstorming session. Wednesday was going to be a very busy day of development for a new project as well as some redux documentation from the brainstorming session (that went really, really well, by the way).

It occurred to me that I was coming up on the 1 year anniversary of the purchase of my primary (and only, really) computer, my Macbook Pro. It had a sunken power button for a long time, and really I wanted it to get one more pass from support before the guarantee ran out. Furthermore, my battery/power management performance had been on the fritz, and this was the 2nd battery i’d had in less than 12 months. Hardly a lemon of a computer, it put up with a LOT of hard work, but some general 1 year tune-up work.

The problem is, being that it was my only computer, being without the computer for ANY period of time is absolutely destructive to my ability to get a damn thing done. So I was between getting a loaner and wasting time getting it set up only to get my computer back OR….squeezing in one more end-of-the-year writeoff and buying myself a new rig for the office. Realistically, my needs have changed. I do almost all of my work at IndyHall, so a laptop is only useful when I stay home or travel. And I shouldn’t be working in either of those situations.

So I resolved to treat myself to a Hanukkah Present:

The crazy part is, my Macbook Pro immediately got jealous. It must not have realized this computer came in preparation for sending it to the spa, not the showers!

While I was copying the files from the old computer, i started to get some strange asian characters in app title bars. I wrote it off to a weird finder glitch because I was moving so much crap around, and restarted. Unfortunately, that restart became more of a permanent shut-down.

The MBP started up with the usual mac chime sound, but a dimly lit background. It got to the Apple logo but the spinner just kept spinning. And spinning. And spinning.

Luckily, I had 2 sets of backups so I was not in a panic, just frustrated. I set those backups aside and attempted to get a current snapshot of the offending computer’s drive. A quick boot into target disk mode and slaving it off of the new iMac, along with a 250gb external drive, and a copy of CarbonCopyCloner gave me a full backup of the computer as it was before it tanked. And that was that. Off to the Apple Store the lappy went.

Mind you…this is all <1 week from the end of the built in 1 year AppleCare. Luckily, everything that was wrong (from the sunken power button to the shitty battery) was covered. Furthermore…I was still able to buy the AppleCare to cover it for the next 2 years AFTER this round of repairs. I’m pleased, really, that the process that could have been really awful ended up being relatively painless. I only lost one full day, and some slight bumps in my workflow for the week. Some people complain about Apple service. Others complain about Dell’s service. I think they all suck, but in this particular situation, I’m pleased with the outcome so far.

What’s most amazing to me is that I was able to buy the AppleCare so close to the end of the built in Care, AND while the computer was not functioning.

That’s like…having your be in the middle of burning down, and calling the insurance company to take out a fire policy BEFORE you call the fire department. In that situation, I don’t think you’d get very far.

In the mean time…I’m anxiously waiting to get my laptop back. The plus side is, I’ve rationalized my way into buying a new computer!

Tags: applecare, imac, macbook pro, service

Dani Diaz, the local Microsoft Dev Evangelist who was the hookup for the recent XBOX party at IndyHall, asked me to post a couple of events that are coming up this weekend out at their Malvern, PA HQ. I know there are some local dev types reading, so this might be something you’re into. Also, a portion of the day’s programming involves robots, and WHO doesn’t love robots. C’mon.

Really, I want to encourage you to go, if for no other reason , to meet Dani if you haven’t already. I’m pretty openly not a Microsoft user, but Dani and I have had some EXCEPTIONAL conversations about the more overlaying issues in software development and the tech industry today. He’s a smart guy coming at it from a different angle than I am, and I think it’s totally rad.

From Dani:

Microsoft is hosting 2 great events this Saturday at the Microsoft office in Malvern, PA. We have a full day of free Silverlight training and a full day or XNA Game Studio and Robotic Studio. XNA Game Studio is free tool that makes it super easy to create great video game for the XBOX 360 or the PC.

You can find more information on my blog http://www.smallandmighty.net. Both events are FREE.

We are giving always one XBOX and 2 Zunes as well!

Registration information for the Silverlight event is here

Registration information for the XNA/Robotic Studio event is here

Original Photo by Jill Greenseth

Today marks the 1 year anniversary of me having gone independent.

Wow.

A year. Really? I go back and forth between “that’s it” and “that long”? In some aspects, I feel like it was only a couple of months. In other aspects I look at all that I’ve managed to accomplish everything I’d set out to do, and much much more.

I partnered with some amazing talent, many of whose work has earned us opportunities to work together more than once. I worked with some amazing clients (many of whom are brands that I really, really love).

I’ve co-built a couple of funny little apps that got a fair amount of attention, which was never the plan…the plan was to have fun building them.

I co-founded our own little version of a much larger movement that, in it’s own right, has paved the way for more opportunities for myself and countless other people. That’s one of the most gratifying and exciting accomplishments of my life, and I’m SO happy and grateful to have been a part of it and have made all of the friendships and connections I have along the way.

One year in, I’ve learned a lot about making choices and how to learn from the choices that I, and others have made.

The Next Chapter

It’s only appropriate that my newest client not only has choice in their name, but is excited to learn what happens when you give a community some opportunity to make choices.

My newest venture is a new kind of building. This one is less about building a website site and a lot more more about building a community. Learning from the wonderful community building experience we’ve had here at IndyHall, I thought it’d be great to take the model to the road and allow others to benefit from it. This next foray into community building is with a company called Choice Shirts, just outside of Philadelphia in Pennsauken, NJ.

The new project is called The Choice100 and it’s first incarnation as a blog has launched last night. It’s simple and direct, but that’s by design. The whole goal of the project at this stage of the game is to facilitate asking a potential community of design talent what they think about the proposed community model, and feed back as to what would benefit them the most.

This project has me really excited for a number of reasons. One, it’s a really fun opportunity to have conversations with the folks who work in a field that I’m closely tied to (design, that is) but from a whole new angle for me; graphic design for apparel.

Even moreso is that a company with a fairly traditional (and well established) business model is just as amped as I am to listen to their customers (who, in this case, double as their product creators) and be so open about the process.

In the preliminary research on who to have in the loop for this, I got some really positive feedback from designers that have worked in other t-shirt “contest” and “designer community” scenarios. Of course, they’ve all had thoughts as to what was good and what was bad. What’s really great about ChoiceShirts and The Choice 100 is that the company has a history spotted with creative evolutions of existing and established business models, and that they are embracing a conversation within a community to help model the next steps for their company.

Sounds wonderfully Cluetrain to me. What happens when you stop selling and start conversing. ChoiceShirts is not only embracing that, but they’re excited to embrace that. That’s immensely energizing and inspiring for me.

We’re going to be starting from the ground up. This blog is out there to announce the existence of this new evolutionary process for ChoiceShirts, and gather the interested parties in a place where they can converse. Next steps will include some real-world brainstorming, which we’ll facilitate at IndyHall much like the first brainstorming session we held back in August.

Check out the site, leave some comments, and subscribe to the blog and twitter feeds if it sounds like something you’re interested in participating in. Remember, this project is about us hearing what you have to say!