But now, when I wake up, something is different. When I plug in the MacBook, the light goes green when it would normally be amber (charging). Also, the battery indicator shows an ‘X’ in the battery indicator - and says “No Batteries Available”.

So basically the laptop works but it only works when plugged in directly.

I’ve found a bunch of threads on the subject.

I installed the MacBook battery update this morning but it has not fixed the problem.

I am about an hour away from a mall with a Genius Bar so I will try to get to one this week sometime.

Yes, there have been some bumps in the road, but overall we enjoy it and have become die hard Mac users. We use our Macs for everything and my wife and I both agree that switching to Mac has made us more productive and made our work more enjoyable at the same time.

As you may have seen, we have had some bad experiences with Mac products - an iMac that needed warranty service, and an iBook (and now a MacBook) that both have become discolored due to what appears to be oils from our fingers turning the white surface to a more yellow-ish color.

We still have to get the discoloration issue resolved, but overall these problems are a drop in the bucket compared to the myriad of problems I had as a PC user. Mac OS X is just such a better operating system when compared to Windows XP, and I can’t even imagine the problems that Windows Vista will bring to the table.

We use our Macs constantly - our iMacs when we are in the office, and our laptops (iBook and MacBook) when we are away from the office. Our computers start instantly every time - compared with the snail’s pace that our Windows PC used to run at.

I know that not everyone will understand why we have switched to Mac, but as business owners we have found that switching to Mac has made our days more productive and allowed us to be more creative as well. It has not been perfect, but I cannot imagine it any other way.

I just discovered a new site (courtesy of ZDNet) about stains and discoloration that are occurring on new Apple MacBook laptops. The stains that they report are very similar to the ones we have on our iBook. I have not yet sent in the machine for repair..

I thought about buying a new MacBook Pro because it would let me dual-boot into Windows for a handful of apps. Now I’m not sure: Jason Calacanis referred to the new MacBook Pro as “a Ferrari that stalls half the time.” In his words, the wifi sucks on his brand new, $3,000 MacBook Pro.

That problem could be a dealbreaker for me, as I would use the laptop exclusively via wireless internet. So far it looks like we’ll either buy an older iBook G4, or just wait entirely.

In a number of ways my Mac switch has made day to day things easier. My Mac sleeps and wakes up very quickly, and makes it very easy to run downstairs and check your e-mail quickly. The fact that I can open my iBook, connect to the internet, check my e-mail and close the iBook in less than one minute has completely revolutionized how my wife and I work.

My wife’s experience has been pretty good as well, though some defective components and a half-competent regional repair facility resulted in our going without her iMac for nearly a month and spending more than $60 out of pocket on shipping/courier expenses. After the second warranty service, her iMac has been silent and working just like it should. (I hope that was the last time I will have to send it in.)

We can do pretty much anything on our Macs that we could do on a Windows PC, but it is not perfect. There have been a few disappointments, a few occasions where a Windows PC would make life easier, and a few odd web sites (such as vistaprint.com or the QuickBooks online edition) whose tools require the use of Windows and Internet Explorer.

The Mac has been a saving grace in a number of ways and has made it very easy for me to transition from being a long-time Windows user. Though I am new to most of these areas, the large amount of community support has made it easy for me to get my iMac and iBook set up with a full web application development environment.

In particular, the community of Mac-wielding Ruby on Rails developers has certainly made it easier for me to get the full development environment up and running. I’m sure this would be fairly easy to do on Windows as well, but it all seems to run a bit more seamlessly on my iMac.

As someone whose business is in the field of information technology and the internet, buying an iMac G5 has allowed me to grow in leaps and bounds that I had truly never anticipated. After one year of heavy use, I feel like I have barely scraped the surface of what my Mac can do. That’s pretty exciting for me.

If I had to do it again, I would still definitely switch.

So as I try to figure out which laptop to buy, I was terribly disappointed to see this review saying it gets too hot - and that the excessive heat has ruined a potentially great laptop.

Update: Perhaps the overheating is from a packaging error whereby a vent cover was installed that does not allow the fans to properly cool the computer? This guy’s MacBook vent was blocked when he bought it.

We had hoped we could send the machine while we were away and that it would be repaired and waiting for us when we got back. The machine was ready last week with time to spare, but the Mac shop caused a six day delay by not shipping it out when I first asked.

On Tuesday morning, I called the store to discover the iMac was still sitting there and had not yet been sent out. Now, six days after I asked for them to send it back, my wife has had the machine for a few hours.

She says it is substantially better.

This time they replaced the power supply and logic board, in addition to the fan unit that was defective and replaced last time.

I’d like to point out that the technician originally diagnosed this problem as a “typical logic board failure” and yet did not replace the logic board when he had the machine.

Instead, he replaced just the fan unit - which, ultimately, has wasted even more of our time and required a second maintenance service where he cured the “typical logic board failure” he had originally diagnosed.

I’m hoping this is the last time I will have to send this machine in for service because my wife has gone nearly a month without her iMac. Now, more than six months after we bought her the machine, it actually runs as quiet as my 20″ iMac G5.

Thank goodness.

I also sent a nasty-gram to the retailer expressing our disappointment with the 17″ iMac and all of the issues it has had and asking what it would take to get a fully functional replacement computer. Their response was:

I have reviewed the history of your unit and it appears only the single part has been replaced which I replaced the last time your unit was serviced. Unfortunately, Apple will typically only replace a customer’s unit if 3 or more parts have been deemed defective, as well as replaced. If you call Customer Relations at Apple, you can explain your frustration and explain what you would like to see happen, as having your unit replaced is beyond our control or authority.

As per your described symptoms, when the iMac shuts down randomly, it is usually a case of a malfunctioning power supply over a case of the unit overheating. When I receive your iMac, I will confirm which issues it has, and which parts are faulty, and will keep you posted.

Obviously, I was not quite happy with that response. However, I have not had the chance to chase up this issue as I sent the iMac off last Friday and have been quite busy since.

I got an e-mail earlier today regarding the status of the repairs:

The repair of your iMac G5 is now complete. The logic board and power supply were replaced and the unit extensively tested thereafter. I can assure you that your unit is functioning fine now and will be when you come to pick it up. If, for any reason, the iMac G5 fails again in the future, the failure will not be relevant to work done today. This brings the total number of parts replaced in this unit to 3, which authorizes a replacement from Apple (based on their approval, of course), if it suffers a hardware failure again in the future.

I’m hoping that the third part’s a charm, but it will take several days both for me to get home and for the iMac to be shipped back. I hope to have my wife do a proper test sometime next week.