I am not a fan of GeekSquad.

Last Friday, I was not able to boot up my Macbook Pro. So Saturday, I brought it in to BestBuy in Newburgh NY. One of their GeekSquad techs looked at it, said the battery was fine and the motherboard needed to be replaced. A $600-$700 cost, 2 to 3 week turnaround and data on my hard drive may not be recoverable.

After getting up off the floor and catching my breath, I reminded myself “Don’t let an ‘authorized’ Apple technician touch your Apple product.” Take it directly to an “authorized Apple employed” technician.

As everyone knows, that incredible machine is my livelihood (so there’s not missing around). So, I drove to the nearest Apple store (Albany NY).

After waiting for about 75 minutes, I sat down at the “genius bar” with an Apple tech. After telling him my situation, he explained what was “not” happening. In 3 minutes and his fingers on the keyboard (no tiny specialized tools), my computer was up and running.

Either the Geek Squad tech knew to do the same thing and would have charged me for a new motherboard (with a 30 day warranty) or they would have installed a new motherboard unnecessarily.

I have now recovered from the (full) experience.

Thanks Apple technician, Albany NY.

Now back to work.