Went over to my brother’s house to help him set up his wireless network.\u00a0 By coincidence, his network went down when hurricane Sandy passed through the neighborhood.\u00a0 Anyway, my brother went to a local store (rhymes with TestMy) and they talked him into purchasing an Airport Extreme (Extreme!!! – does it fight in cage matches?) and Airport Express.\u00a0 The Express was to be used as an extender (repeater) so the house would have a strong signal thoughout.\u00a0 To be honest, when I learned of this, I was unhappy.\u00a0 I was expecting Netgear or Linksys, but no, it was Apple.\u00a0 The salesperson assured him it was the very best, and that it did all kinds of wonderful things behind the scenes, such as auto update, and it was plug and play.<\/p>\n
Okay, so after a period of time, the Extreme was working, but couldn’t get the Express to work.\u00a0 The “marvelous” software for configuring the devices gave a wealth of useful error information – 6753.\u00a0 I tried researching the issue, but after following all suggested fixes, gave up.\u00a0 Never did find out what 6753 equates to, although it is very familiar to Google.<\/p>\n
Fast forward to the weekend.\u00a0 More time, another try.\u00a0 Gave up and decided to return this iCrap to TestMy.\u00a0 We were walking out of the place with some other hardware when I talked my brother into talking to the “Apple Guy.”\u00a0 A salesman had suggested it, and if you know me, you know I do not give up easily when it comes to this kind of stuff.\u00a0 So, the “Apple Guy,” who works for Apple assured us it is the best equipment, and that maybe we weren’t doing something right.\u00a0 It is plug and play, he assured us.\u00a0 I have become somewhat brazen in my old age, and I said, show me.\u00a0 He mumbled some excuses, but then attempted to show us.\u00a0 Kudos to him.\u00a0 Would you believe it wouldn’t work for him either (on an Apple computer).\u00a0 Same issue that we were seeing (or not seeing), it was not recognized by the wonder software that comes with it (to be honest, you have to download it – they don’t supply it with the hardware).\u00a0 He wondered if it was something that we had done to it, but then conceded it might just be defective “out of the box.”\u00a0 We left with a new one in exchange.<\/p>\n
We got back to the house, and attempted to install the new Express.\u00a0 No go.\u00a0 Decided to call Apple’s customer service (as suggested by the Apple Guy).\u00a0 To Apple’s credit, the service center (that I spoke to) is in Canada, and they actually speak English there.\u00a0 First and foremost, I want to say that the customer service representative that I dealt with was very professional and absorbed all of the slants I cast toward Apple with no hostility.\u00a0 After 45 (forty-five) minutes of fruitless effort, countless jabs about how this plug and play stuff was not very plug and play, the customer service rep decided it was beyond her, and that she was going to escalate the case.\u00a0 I told her thanks, but no thanks.\u00a0 We were going to return the Express and get something that actually worked.<\/p>\n
The customer service rep agreed that that was probably the best course of action.\u00a0 In spite of the fact that this hardware\/software was purported to work with Macs and PCs (Macs are PCs, but that goes without saying), she said that PCs and Macs don’t play well together.\u00a0 Go figure.<\/p>\n
I know some of you out there are pro Apple (can you say zealot?).\u00a0 I know you’re going to say it’s something I did wrong.\u00a0 Maybe you’re right.\u00a0 However, shouldn’t the documentation (LOUSY) and software that’s supplied with Apple products that are purported to be plug and play work without requiring the layman have a degree in rocket science?<\/p>\n
iCrap!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Went over to my brother’s house to help him set up his wireless network.\u00a0 By coincidence, his network went down when hurricane Sandy passed through the neighborhood.\u00a0 Anyway, my brother went to a local store (rhymes with TestMy) and they … Continue reading