While MacMedics is not lucky enough to sell the iPhone 3G S, we have been getting hammered with the crowds. Why’s that you ask? Well, new MacMedics clients have been having a hard time getting an appointment with an Apple Genius because of the crowds looking for or picking up a new iPhone.

We’d like to remind all of the Apple users in the Baltimore-Washington area that you never need an appointment to come see a MacMedic and you won’t have to drag your Mac though the mall either. When you see a crowd at the mall that means that there is often an equal amount of Macs waiting to be serviced in the back. MacMedics is also proud to perform ALL Macintosh MacBook AND MacBook Pro repairs in house. What does this mean for you? It means that your service is faster, because we don’t ship hard or difficult repairs off to Apple depot service. It also means that we’ll pinpoint the problem and fix only what’s wrong which means that you’ll only pay for the parts you need.

Apple also has issues with laptops that have HAD liquid damage or units with large dents on them. We can fix the problem you have and we WON’T force you fix the other issues if you don’t mind work around the dents and/or dings.

See our post on our NINE reasons why NOT to wait in line at the Apple Store for more info on this topic.

One of the things we hate the most is to see folks who come into our shop with a bad data loss situation. We expect to see people with older Mac computers in situations where the data is lost, and no back up was in place. That happens pretty frequently, and sadly it often happens WITH a back up that was either NOT in use, or UNTESTED. As computers age so do their hard drives, so think about replacing your drive with a larger, faster, and more robust drive BEFORE your drive starts to fail. Just because your computer is newer does not mean that your hard drive is without risk, in fact you might be in even greater risk in the first 30 days of use with a new comouter. See our website: www.HardDrivesDie.com for more info

Now that Leopard has been out for almost a year, we’re starting to see customers who never set up Time Machine, set it up once then turned it off, or some how messed up the configuration. With Leopard and Time Machine it makes it really easy to have an affordable and reliable back up that really works in place. While in most instances it’s a case of set it and forget it, it is wise to test your Time Machine and/or Time Capsule back up. Pick a file at random from a few weeks ago and do a test recovery. See what happens and make sure you understand how to pull old files off of your back up system.

It’s also not a bad idea to make sure you know how to recover from a Time Machine back up and a total hard drive failure. We suggest testing your back up (Time Machine or any other back up program you may be using) and doing a test restore of your entire back up. It’s best to do this on a separate machine, and not tamper with your working machine, but you should know how to get back on your feet again if the unthinkable happens. If you need help getting a backup and disaster plan in place, call your local MacMedics office.

This week a nice lady with a 1 year old infant came to see us after being referred from the Apple Store in Annapolis (Thanks to the Apple Store for thinking of MacMedics again!!). She was in a really bad situation, as her drive that was installed in pretty new machine was making a terrible noise. We tried to recover her data, but the hard drive was too badly damaged to get a copy of the data. All she wanted was the pictures of her baby. Totally understandable. We’ll be sending her drive off for a clean room recovery evaluation.

Losing pictures is one of the things that hurts the most. One easy way to ensure you always have a back up is to “burn” a CD of your new pictures as soon as they are imported into iPhoto. As soon as they are imported, they are all right there, just highlight them and burn them to a CD right then and there. CD media is so cheap, there’s no reason not to use a CD and just make a back up on the spot. The mistake that people make, is that they will plan to make a back up later, or wait until they have enough data to fill a CD or DVD. Even if you DO have a hard drive based back up, pictures are too precious not to double protect. There is no reason NOT to have more than one back up. Use the extra CD or DVD you burn as a way to start an off-site back up, give them to your parents or to a neighbor for safe keeping. Trust me, it sounds over protective, but right here in Severna Park a close friend of MacMedics had his house burn to the ground, and he lost everything including all of his hard drives, and all of his pictures. We went though the pictures we took of our kids playing soccer together, and looked for any instance where we had pictures of his daughter playing with ours.

Also, this week we had 3 back-to-back cases of the Seagate 7.01 firmware failure. This type of drive failure make data recovery impossible. If you have this drive take steps to replace it now! It appears that as these drives age, they are even more prone to the failure they are famous for. MacMedics STRONGLY recommends proactive replacement of this drive immediately! If you have questions on the best way to do this, call or e-mail your local MacMedics office as soon as possible. A new drive can be as little as $119 and most come with a 5-year warranty.

If you need a system for designed for backing up your data (or help recovering lost data) get in touch with your local MacMedics office or give us a call at 1-866-MAC-MEDICS

I happened to be at the Annapolis Mall this morning (before it opened), and saw a cluster of folks waiting for the Apple Store to open. Four or five people had sick Macs with them, and rushed into the store to meet with the first available Genius to check their Mac in for repair.

Why lug your Mac though the Mall, fight your fellow Mac users for the first Genius, and have to wait to do so? Just bring your sick or broken Mac to MacMedics, Annapolis’ and Anne Arundel county’s oldest and largest Mac repair shop. You can pull up outside of our office and walk less then ten steps to get to our counter. Come in and get one of our MacMedics, and we’ll even carry your injured Mac in for repair. Ready for the VIM (Very Important Mac) treatment?

Have you been quoted a huge repair price for your Mac, and want a free second opinion? Do you need your in or out of warranty Mac serviced? Are you in a pickle trying to figure out if you should repair, or buy new? We’re ready to help you! The crew here at MacMedics are straight-talking, honest, Apple Certified Macintosh professionals who love helping clients repair or service older Apple gear as much as putting clients into a new machine. Come take advantage of our 200 plus years of combined Macintosh experience, 45,000 on-site and in-lab service jobs, and over 20 years in business. You never need an appointment to visit, and it’s just 15 feet from your car to our front door. We’ll even carry any heavy computers you have into our office!

1-866-MAC-MEDICS or http://www.macmedics.com.