if you can't beat them, join them.

[george]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14236786
so good the staff thought they were working for Apple.
George

[Xairbusdriver]

Seems China still suffers from the 'third-world' mentality of "If we can steal/fake it, why buy it?" When I was stationed in a South China Sea country during the Viet Nam era, I was allowed to bring my family (even though I was only there 3-4 days a month!). Naturally, my wife would need our car since we'd be living 'off-base.' I was instructed by those already having the experience, to place a bottle of liquor in the rear seat floorboard. This 'procedure' almost guaranteed a successful quick registration. The local drivers license was issued in a mult-poctet plastic folder. The purpose of the pockets, I was told, were to provide places for a 5, 10, 25 denomination bill in the countries currency. This provided a shortcut for payment of any time-consuming court appearances one might otherwise require. I'm sure these 'payments' were all documented and accounted for... Fortunately, I never had to make use of hat procedure.

Only 'crime' I encountered was having my wrist watch ripped off my arm while driving down a crowed street. I decided I could replace the watch easier than leaving the car unguarded to chase the crook. Even though there was a  large 'cottage industry' providing 'car watching' practically anywhere one wanted to park...even in the middle of the street! What is always refreshingly surprising is that there are honest, friendly and hard-working people even in countries with extreme corruption in so many areas. And they usually don't have the option of leaving when the vacation/job is over...

[gunug]

It isn't hard to know as much about computers and software as the "guys in the store" and to this point I have had less than thrilling "dealings" with the guys behind the "Genius Bar."  The educational sales guys are great though!

[Xairbusdriver]

QUOTE

The educational sales guys are great though!

Those guys, in this state, anyway, are actually "Software Engineers." OTOH, they don't have to deal with countless individuals who barely know how to turn on a Mac. While I was there the other day, a lady brought in a pre-packaged hard drive that had quit. I suggested that buying one like that prevented one from knowing what brand of drive was inside it. Of course, the 'Genius' could only tell her to try to buy one with a minimum 3-yr guarantee (hint, hint, wink, wink). She didn't understand how stupid simple it is to buy your own enclosure and drive, of course, and "besides, I bought this brand X drive here!" As if Apple had built everything? I thought about trying to get a job when they first opened the Store here, but I'm too old to try 'selling' something people may not really need and I don't have the patience to handle idiots in front of a monitor (even if I was smart enough to know most of the answers)!

I got a new UPS today (delivered by FedEx Ground, of course, despite of the UPS tracking number the company sent ). Later, I decided to run the Comcast cable through its protection circuits. Unfortunately, I did that just prior to my D-i-Law and my wife deciding to try to register for college. They worked for a while and announced that the "Internet was gone!" Sure enough, the modem lights were not showing proper connections. I cycled the power and things started working again...for about 20 minutes. So I put the cable back directly to the modem. Things worked fine for another ten minutes... They decided to go get a paper copy of the class catalog and gave up on the interwebs.

I even went outside to check if the grand-dog had dug up/chewed the cable line! Then I decided to try hooking things up again with the UPS but this time I used Network PP to request a new Lease. That may have been the problem all along, things are back to normal ever since then...at least while the 'girls' are gone, anyway!

[Frances144]

I am impressed, George!

[Xairbusdriver]

<22 more fake Apple stores 'discovered' in China.>