How to survive the Genius Bar at the Apple Store
UPDATE: Here's a link to a story about how to NOT get along at
the Genius Bar
OK, you've tried fixing your computer yourself. You've called your friends. You've looked through Apple's support forums. You've gone through all of the other online forums. And you still can't get your computer/iPod/iPhone to work. What do you do?
Before you call Apple and spend an hour looking at the phone while you wait for someone, and even more time trying to hammer out the problem over the phone, here are a few things you should do. And I can tell you it will speed up the whole process a great deal.
First, Don't get frustrated. Once that happens, you're going to make mistakes and that's when problems happen. So, sit down, chill out and calmly analyze your situation.
- What's wrong?
- Why can't you do what you want?
- What changed from before when the computer worked fine?
- Go to the Go Menu
- Click on Utilities
- Click on the Disk Utility icon in the window
- Click on the Hard drive icon on the left window and then Click the Repair Disk Permissions button on the lower left.
- Restart the computer two times.
- They'll ask for your name. Don't worry, it needn't even be the name of the owner of the computer. AppleCare tracks the serial number of the computer, not the owner.
- They'll want to know what kind of computer. To get the serial number just click on the icon at the top left of the computer screen. You'll see an About This Mac item right at the top. Click that and when the window comes up, right below where is says Mac OS X it shows the version number. Write that down. Then click that two times and that will show you the serial number. Write that down.
- That window also tells you everything else about your computer. It's speed, the processor type and how much RAM. Make a note of all that.
- Finally, write down everything that's going wrong with the computer. Is it running slow? Is it not running certain programs? Are there strange noises? Does it shut down all on it's own? And don't forget to note everything you've done to try to fix it.
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