Archive for the ‘Best Of Baltimore’ tag
MacMedics: A Local Mac Repair Shop That Is Really Local To Baltimore, Maryland And Washington DC
Lots of places that offer nationwide Macintosh, iPhone, or iPod service will try to you lure you to their website by saturating their webpage with geographic keywords that make it appear that they are “in” your area.
If you’re looking for “local” Macintosh, iPhone, or iPod service or repair that’s really local to the Baltimore, Maryland or Washington DC areas, then you’ve found the right place.
MacMedics has been repairing Macintosh computers in Maryland since 1989.
When you’re looking for local Mac, iPhone, iPod, or even iPad service from a reputable service provider, come see us at MacMedics.
Thinking about going to the Apple Store for service? Our service is faster, usually less expensive, and carries our full MacMedics 1-year service warranty. See our Blog post about that here. The majority of our our Apple warranty repairs are complete and ready to return to you within 24 hours. Need a rental while your unit is in the shop? We can do that too!
Be sure to see our Blog post on why shipping your broken Mac or iPhone off to parts unknown is something that you should really think twice about.
MacMedics: We’re Not Just A Mac Repair Shop, We Also Fix ATMs!
My 30-second elevator pitch has evolved to include ATM repairs.
So someone in the elevator will see my MacMedics jacket, shirt, or tool bag and asks, “What exactly is MacMedics?”
I say, “MacMedics is an Apple Authorized Macintosh service and consulting business. We service and maintain Macs at ad agencies and other places where pre-press and graphic design happens like corporate graphics or marketing departments. We like to say we’re in the ATM repair business, because when your Mac is broken or slow, you’re not making money.”
I got a huge dose of this wisdom this recently. A guy who lives and works near our shop has a video production business. He’s been asking about maybe getting a new Mac for the last year or so.
We exchange e-mails every so often when he has a question about his Mac or to ask if we need any video production help. I saw him at Subway not too long ago and he let me know that he might be getting a new Mac soon.
He came into the shop with his older MacBook Pro that was really sick. He had tried to run a Firmware update while he was in the middle of a project and it failed, thus making the unit inoperable. It’s not a common occurrence, but we do see it from time to time. As soon as it happened he ordered a new MacBook Pro from somewhere else, and then brought that in so we could transfer his data from the old unit to the new unit. Sadly, we could have saved him even more time if he had purchased the new Mac from MacMedics.
Normally this is not a big deal. We set it up the new MacBook Pro to migrate and it failed about 75% of the way thru. We tried a few other things and tried again, and it failed a second time. We then began to suspect the drive might be failing as it was getting kind of noisy and it was getting pretty hot as well.
I decided to go ahead and clone the drive on our data recovery equipment, so I could copy the data off the drive quickly. I then had to fix that data in order to get it into to shape to migrate it. His hard drive was a huge mess. The report on the drive was seven pages long. The total process ended up taking several hours and it delayed him over 24 hours from the point where his old unit blew up.
So, he’s a professional guy who makes his living with this MacBook Pro, and he had no back up, and he’s never had the unit serviced or looked at. This MacBook Pro is really his ATM cash machine as it provides him with all of his bread and butter for his business.
This is a fantastic case study in why a little preventive maintenance goes along way. If you treat your Mac like your very own ATM machine, you’ll never have these problems. Let’s get real here? Are you going to let your ATM degrade to a point where it stops dispensing cash.
1. This unit is well over two years old, so if we had seen it at any point recently, we would have replaced the hard drive and serviced the unit.
2. If this client had ever consulted with us at all, we would have made sure he had a back up system in place.
3. Our clients who follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and our e-mail newsletter all know never to run an update to fix a problem, and never to run one while on deadline.
4. A little bit of annual maintenance and an automatic and tested back up system pay for themselves very quickly.
We’re friendly with this fellow, so if had stopped and called us on the phone, we would have been able to tell him all of this. We love to talk shop. If you have a question, just pick up the phone and give us a call!
Stop! Before You Make A Trip To The Towson Apple Store, See This Checklist First
Before you make an appointment, drive to the mall, find a parking spot, and then lug your Mac through the Towson Town Center to get to the Towson Apple Store, please consider supporting your local neighborhood Mac shop! Visit MacMedics in Millersville (near BWI airport) the next time you need Apple Authorized Mac sales or service.
See our Blog post with all the details on why to come see MacMedics instead of trekking to the Apple Store. Clients that come to see us, often tell us they will never go back to the Apple Store for Macintosh sales OR service!
Or review this quick top 11 reasons here:
1. No appointment is needed: No need to call ahead when you’re ready to come visit MacMedics! Just walk in and our Apple Certified Techs will take great care of you.
2. No lines: We’re always busy, but there’s almost never a wait to speak to a MacMedic Tech.
3. Quick Check In: Tell us what your Mac’s issue or problem is, and we’ll get right on the case!
4. No lugging your iMac, Mac Pro, or G5 through the mall: Our front door is less then 10 steps from our parking lot.
5. Quick Turn-Around: Our goal for in-lab service it to have it done in less then 72 hours. Most repairs take less time, and if that’s the case then your Mac will be back to you even quicker! The majority of our Apple Warranty or AppleCare repairs are done in about 24 hours.
6. Hassle free warranty: Got a Mac that needs out of warranty service? The Apple Store only offers a 90-day service warranty. MacMedics “Hassle Free” warranty is a full 1-year!
7. Need a new Mac? We’ve got them: Come pick out what Mac you want, and we’ll be happy to help with no sales hype! Best of all you don’ have to wait your turn.
8. Full Repair Services for iPhone & iPods: The Apple store might do a whole unit replacement for an exorbitant flat-fee, or offer a small discount for buying a new unit (and trading in your old iPod), MacMedics will fix just the problem your iPhone or iPod has, thus saving you money.
9. Same day service for iPods & iPhones: In most cases if you drop off your iPod or iPhone in the morning, we’ll have it done later that same day!
10. MacMedics CAN fix the stuff the Apple Store can’t or won’t: If you’ve been quoted an exorbitant amount of money to have your Mac fixed at the Apple Store, MacMedics can help! Be it Liquid damage, a fried logic board, SuperDrive replacement, broken LCD or MacBook Pro glass, and severe Macintosh laptop case damage are all offered at MacMedics and often for hundreds of dollars less then Apple (or anywhere else!). ALL repairs are covered by our 1-year warranty.
11. The Apple Store Can’t Upgrade Your Hard Drive: MacMedics Can! See our new blog post from 1/30/10 to get all of the details. A common issue we help clients with here at MacMedics is “upgrading” or “retiring” a failed (or perfectly good) hard drive. What many people don’t know is that we can “upgrade” your computer to a larger size hard drive, even if your hard drive has failed under Apple warranty.
