Mac Specialists (formally Connecting Point) at 4772  Euclid Road in Virginia Beach is one of, if not the oldest Apple stores in Virginia. It was set up as a computer sales and repair store and school back in 1980 and has been a Apple-only establishment for most of that time. The store had an excellent reputation for service and greatly hyped Apple widgets in Southeastern Virginia for three decades. The store is no-nonsense and no frills but all service. 

But, they are even more impressive than that...

When Apple started its own line of hipster oriented, gorgeously designed, snobtacular stores, it threw the smaller computer stores to the wolves by cutting them off from ordering new machines. Apple even opened an Apple kiosk in the Best Buy across the street from Mac Specialists.

That was several years ago and Mac Specialists is still there, having persevered via sheer excellence in the quality of their repair work, Mac training and customer service. These qualities were made all the more glorious by the stark contrast to the customer service and expertise at the aforementioned Best Buy across the street. I gather that Apple got complaints....I further gather that there were rather a lot because, some years ago, Jobs allowed Mac Specialists to start ordering and selling (but not displaying) Apple products. It's a store with NOTHING on display....but if someone wants to order an Apple they can walk in, sit down, describe what they want and the parts will arrive...assembled.

Which is how I got Holo, my iMac.

The store does a bang-up job on repairs as well, when my iMac was struck by lightning some years ago they fixed it and saved the data. I upgraded the machine to a two TB drive tat the same time. Their bills are itemized minute by minute, part by part. The owner,  John Crow, is extremely knowledgeable and still gives classes on using Apple products.  He is also a former Brown-Shoe who flew an A-6 Intruders. He is both courteous and ethical. I have been thoroughly impressed every time I've been there.

Well, the other day, my hard drive blew. To my astonishment Mr. Crow informed me that my 2 year old drive was still under warranty.

Wo0t! For $106.00 in labor, I now have essentially a new computer in an old case which is neat because the steel & glass case is, IMHO, vastly superior to the new plastic one.

There was a bit of a delay in getting the drive, in part because the Express Air Freight service ran afoul of the recent Tornadoes.

I spent last night setting up, customizing and adding bookmarks, Parallells, Windows 7 and various Video Codecs to my new machine.

The old HD must have been 'off' for a while before dying because I am absolutely astonished at how fast this machine is now.

Anyway, I'm back online now.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 05:17 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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