*SIGH* Even though I told the person when I dropped the MacBook off that PRAM refreshing is not a cure but merely a temporary treatment, I was a bit perturbed when reading the comments on the invoice "Reset PRAM, computer is fine now." I told them that it is not fine and it will be flickering and blue screening within a few hours and that I would see them tomorrow with it again...

Apple technical support gave me the address of an Apple authorized dealer and told me to drop the MacBook off there for repairs. Upon checking it in, I told the staff member about the blue screen of death issue and that the screen flickers after it has run for a bit. I also told him that PRAM refreshing will fix the problem for a few hours but the issues returns soon after so PRAM refreshing is not the solution.

I called Apple support again to lodge another complaint with regards to the MacBook not booting properly and pointed out that my fantastic 'ultrabright widescreen display' was flickering. I powered up the machine and instead of a grey screen of death, this time I got a deep blue screen of death (I was wondering if Microsoft was going to take Apple to court over the use of such intellectual property).
Anyway, after some PRAM refreshing hand calisthenics I was back up again...

Since getting my MacBook on 05-June-2007, I have not used it much, aside from watching the odd DVD, chatting with friends and family on iChat, and surfing the net. The reason for this was because my old Thinkpad running Ubuntu Linux seemed to keep chugging along and had all the tools I needed freely and readily available. This made it easy to put off getting all the tools I needed on the MacBook. So the MacBook simply remained a machine for communication and entertainment. But that all changed...

I received the MacBook today. I fired it up and registered with Macintosh. There I read about the AppleCare 'Protection Plan: Long-term peace of mind'. I already declined that when I purchased the MacBook. I assumed that since Apple had such a great hardware reputation, that extending the 90 day warranty to 3 years was not really worth it. My IBM Thinkpad has been running for 6 years, so I gambled on the MacBook being of equal or better quality. Besides, adding another $300.00 to the price of the Mac would then put it out of my target price range.

Received email today stating that my MacBook was on its way. It left the warehouse on 02-Jun-06.

Today, I surfed on over to The Canadian Apple Store, selected the white 13 inch 2.0GHz MacBook and placed my order.

While at the Apple Store, I noticed there was more of price difference than could be accounted for with the upgraded ram and hard drive on the black Macbook, so decided to do a little experiment. I created two identical MacBook specs but built a white and a black one. Turns out you are paying about $149.00 extra for the black paint...