Entries Tagged 'Life' ↓

The following text is NOT about some ground breaking evidence to prove an Apple scam, its just a bad experience I had due to the behavior of some incompetent Apple employees.

How to buy a Mac?

• Go to the Apple store
• choose the Mac you want to buy
• pay for it
• and you have a Mac.

How to buy a Mac with student discount?

• Go to the Apple Store
• Choose the Mac you want to buy
• Ask for the student discount (You have to show some proof though)
• Pay for it
• and you have a Mac

For me it wasn’t as easy. I went to the Apple store at Stoneridge Mall, decided to buy a MacBook, the basic one, it costs $1099 and then asked for a student discount. The woman who helps people out said I will have to show some ID or they will need a print of some web page on the university website which says I do go to that school. What I did was login to the MyUnivname site and showed them my ID, the names matched and they were convinced so I was eligible for the student discount.

Then they told me about the printer rebate(buy any printer and you get a $100 mail in rebate) I didn’t see a need for the printer but then I was like, hey its free! So lets get it. Got a HP printer for $99 (Effective free when the mail in rebate is used) and the MacBook. I got the laptop and then checked the bill they gave me at the parking lot, just to make sure everything is right. This is when I noticed that the student discount was only $50 but I was almost half-sure that it has to be $100. So I went back to the store and talked to the guy that billed me and he said, the discount depends on the model and its $50 for the basic MacBook and $100 for the other two MacBook models. I was still in doubt but but was not very convinced as I have seen the price of the MacBook on the online Apple Store for Education to be $999. Its quite possible that they might have changed the discount so I didn’t insist them to re-check the correct discount.

By the time I reached home, I was feeling more hesitant about the discount and went online to check the discount and there it was, a sweet $100 discount on all MacBooks including the basic model. I immediately called the Apple store where I bought the MacBook and asked them what the discount for a basic MacBook was, the guy just said $100.

Oh really, I bought a MacBook few hours back and you only game a $50 discount

We are sorry about that come on over, we can rectify that

I forgot to ask him if I had to bring the computer along when I come for the correction, its obvious that the computer won’t be necessary because its just a change in the billing system that needs to be done, I called them back to make sure I didn’t need to bring the computer. This time it was a different guy on the phone and I had to tell him the whole story and what he said was just shocking

Actually the discount on the basic model is only $50

What???? The online Apple Store says $100

Oh, let me check (music)

……….

We are sorry, we confused it with the student discount for the iMac, come with your bill and we will credit the money back to your card.

I went back after a few hours and every employee was different than the ones I saw while buying the laptop, may be there was a shift change in the mean time. I directly went to the billing counter and told the guy about the $50 vs $100 issue and then he was surprised to see such a grave mistake

Who the hell did this? We are very sorry, let me correct this for you.

He typed something on the computer and then gave a new receipt with some $54 being credited back to the card. I guess the extra $4 should be for the tax they charged on the $50. So now I have got a $100 discount as I was supposed to. Its not such a bad world after all.

You may say why do all this when you can easily buy on the Online store and Apple will ship it free to your place in a day. It was actually a Saturday and I just couldn’t wait until Monday to get my MacBook so I decided to go straight to the mall and get one instantly.

I actually don’t know how they chose the old 7 wonders of the World but each of the wonders was pretty worth the title it was given. How and when did this need or may be desire to choose new 7 wonders arise? Nobody knows. At least I don’t and I also don’t think most of you even knew that there was a process underway to choose new 7 wonders until the pre-final and final voting started. Most people who voted may still not know what the final 7 wonders are, what they cared for is if the wonder they voted for made it to the top 7.

History of the 7 wonders

The very old 7 wonders (2nd Century BC) known as

The Seven Wonders of the Ancient world

Pyramids of Egypt at Giza*
Hanging Gardens of Babylon
Statue of Zeus
Temple of Artemis
Mausoleum of Halicarnassus
Colossus of Rhodes
Pharos of Alexandria

*The only Ancient wonder that still exists

The new 7 wonders

Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Colosseum in Rome
Taj Mahal in India
The Great Wall of China
Jordan’s ancient city of Petra
The Inca ruins of Machu Picchu in Peru
The ancient Maya city of Chichén Itzá in Mexico

The new 7 wonders website says

More than 100 million votes had been cast by citizens around the world using modern communications technology in this unprecedented global dialogue

What? Did that text have the number 100 million in it? Lets do some math here, the world population is 6 billion+ and they chose new 7 wonders of the world by considering the votes of 100 million which is a mere 0.01% most of whom were people trying to get their national monument into the list. Forget about the wonders people are  far less interested in electing their political leaders even though every democratic country declares the  election day a national holiday. They want to use the day to relax and get some relief from daily chores. Think of a farmer working on his fields, would he be worried about electing new 7 wonders of the world. So such small turnout can be justified but what about modern communication technology? Leaving alone the developed countries, how many in the world have access to modern communication technology.

The only thing cool about this new 7 thing seems to be the choice of date to announce the new 7 wonders, 07.07.07 (7th of July 2007) at Lisbon which again has 7 letters in it. Strictly speaking it was not really a tuff choice. They at least had to have something interesting to draw the attention of the rich who can donate more and more funds for …. guess what monument conservation and documentation worldwide. Ok monuments are important and they are symbols of various cultures but aren’t there other things like hunger deaths and AIDS which are more important than monument conservation?

The website goes on to say that they have used part of the funds raised to create a 3D model of the statue of Bamiyan Buddha which was destroyed by the Taliban and if the Afghan people are ready to rebuild they are ready to fund that project too. Doesn’t this seem like they are way away from moral thinking? Afghanistan is a country ripped apart by terrorism and war since the time of the cold war when the super powers used it as  a pawn in their strategic moves. Rebuilding some monument would be their last choice.

Well that’s what I think of the new 7 wonders but different people think in different ways, what do you think?

There are some things you clearly know when to replace, because they wear off or are rendered useless by time. Somethings can’t be recognised as useless anymore because they have a fixed lifetime or any expiry date.

So when to replace these things? What is the best duration after which they should be replaced? The answers are available on this MSN Money article and as per the article the best duration to replace a

Tooth Brush - 3 months

Mattress - 7 years. I never knew that mettressed need to be replaced too!
Pillow - 2 years

Computer - 4 years. I would like to cut one year from this, because every 3 years the technology would have advanced to an extent where the latest software version no longer work on your computer and the parts already in your computer are obsolete and are no longer available which is a very sad feeling. And the fact that the same amount you invested on the computer 3 years ago will buy you a much more powerful machine now, which makes you weep silently. You may try upgrading the computer if you are a little tech savvy but for those of you who never opened the box dont try that at home, you better go buy a new one. Those with a laptop don’t have much smaller chance for upgrades. Glad that i don’t have a laptop

Shit happens but if you can learn something important from it then you should be delighted that shit happened

Shit happened to me yesterday and I have learnt a very important lesson from it

Dont drink and drive

Also when you are on the road your job is to drive, responsibly

Artist’s impression of the situation while shit was happening

At anytime you think you should hire this artist then you can get in touch with him by contacting me because the above picture is

Art by Me