geek but not in a good way

I sometimes fantasize that I would like to be a tech geek, and when I say 'tech geek' I mean someone that knows about software coding, like maybe a software engineer or someone would could be involved in creating very cool online games, not so much the visual coding but the strategy coding, which, for all I know, might be the same kind of thinking.

But I have to settle for feeling like a savant when I do something like I did today:  I set up my Airport Express wifi connection in my apartment. And then, in the same time frame in which I was tinkering with the wifi toy, I got another delivery from apple:  a new battery for the laptop.

Basically, you plug in the wifi gizmo, pop in the CD with the software, hit install, then continue continue continue until the wifi is turned on in your laptop. For the battery, you open the laptop, pop out the old, slide in the new, walk around the corner to FedEx to send the old one back so apple doesn't gouge me $129. My old battery under warranty but they will charge me if I don't turn it around fast enough. Technically I had ten days from the day it shipped but the turnaround mailer said I had one day so I got all obsessive compulsive and I had to march down to FedEx asap (as soon as possible). I kinda hate it when I get obsessive like that about a very teeny tiny unimportant thing. If I had waited a few hours, or a few days Apple would not have cheated me. But, whew, it's over. I sent it back.

I bought a refurbished laptop. I wonder what happened to my machine before it came to live with me. The battery never worked right. The big buzz with macbook pro lithium batteries was six to eight hours of battery life but I never got more than an hour or so. It didn't matter much cause I haven't been traveling and I always take my plug. But it matters. It was defective. I called about the battery once, when the machine was new, and the service guy cajoled me into giving it time. As if the battery would what, fix itself?  I get it time. I gave it a year and a half and lately the battery life was, no kidding, about ten minutes. Unacceptable, even in a 1.5 year old battery.

So I talked to apple a few times. A guy told me how to recalibrate the battery. Basically, you charge it to the max, then you let it go to sleep on its own once you unplug the power cord and then you let it sleep at least five hours. In other words, I had recalibrated that frakking battery daily for months cause I charge it daily, snuff it out daily, and then let it recharge overnight. But the guy promised me that if I did it one more time and the battery still didn't work, I'd get a new one. So I obeyed him. Then I called, using the work order reference number Apple gave me, and the new guy starts analyzing the problem all over. The new guy didn't even bother to check the old work order. The new guy had me turning the machine off and on, holding down many buttons, opening and shutting. Pissing me off.  He even made me repeate my home phone. I said "If you have the work order from the last time I spent an hour on the phone with an apple service tech, why do you need to ask for my phone number again?  It has not changed since two days ago?" And I said "The last guy said if the recalibration didn't work, apple would send me a new battery. How long do I have to play with you to get you to do what the last guy promised?  Do we have to do all the same stuff again first?" And then amazingly, tech guy #2 said "Okay, I'll send you a battery." And he did.

This battery has always been hinky. I hope the new one works. But if it doesn't, then it is the machine.

This machine must have had some initial malfunction, something to cause it to be refurbished. I have already gotten a new motherboard, which is like a whole new computer, right? And then the dvd/cd drive had to be replaced. It would not play music.  So maybe something is wrong with the on-off-power something. So far, the new battery acting strange. When I first plugged it in, my computer indicated it would take 1.17 hours to recharge it. Now, two hours later, the computer indicates it will take 1.25 hours to fully recharge. What is wrong with that picture?

Anyway. I feel like a tech smartie just cause I hooked up the airport express and popped in the new battery.  Woo-whee, look at me. Geek grandma. I should be a grandma. I covered that the other day.