At least that's starting to look like the case. My brand new iMac, bought under financing that stretches my current resources, delivered just two weeks ago, already has undergone a replacement of the midplane assembly because of fan noise that sounded like one of those gas-powered model airplanes.

This morning, after leaving the computer asleep overnight, I found the computer was off, and will not power up. Nothing. Dead.

So it's back in the box and back to the Apple repair shop.

My G4 PowerBook is not even 3 years old and it's already dead, due to failure of its second hard drive. So I'm less than confident that I'm going to have a reliable computer from Mac. They've been cutting corners on hardware, and we get to pay the price.

As someone who is hoping to have the opportunity to invest in an HDTV NLE sometime in the future (though certainly not in the near future), I was considering Apple, despite my reservations about the cumbersome Final Cut Pro. But their hardware does not seem to be up to par, and having a turnkey system down for days on end while waiting for scarce parts just is not an option when running a business.

As it is, I lost my graphic design and DVD authoring computer right in the midst of (you guessed it) a web design project and the ongoing DVD authoring project.

I'm typing this on a 7-year-old Dell, by the way, just one of three reliable dusty old Intel systems in the house.

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