[Godebert]

Thanks for the information. I'm in the market for a new Mac. I think I purchased my last Mac at one of their stores here in Virginia. If it turns out they have leftist inclinations I'll make my purchase through Club-Mac or some other on-line retailer.

[Richard Kimball]

If you're going Mac, and there's an Apple Store in your area, don't bother to go anywhere else. I know Steve Jobs is a lefty, but their stores are about selling Apple, and they check their politics at the door.

Also, my daughter's eMac was having a bootup problem. We took it to the local CompUSA. They initially said it was a power supply problem. They kept it for a week, said it booted fine and returned it (they hadn't done anything, as it booted up for them).

The problem recurred, and I took it to the Apple Store in Austin. I told the tech what the CompUSA guys said. He smiled, turned the computer over, opened the hatch, reseated the memory and showed me a reset switch. He told me "I'm not saying power supplies never go bad on a Mac, but it's pretty unusual." He didn't even write up a ticket, ask how old the computer was, or even my name.

The point is, the CompUSA guys were going to take the computer apart and replace internal parts for absolutely no reason. I bought several computers from there because they were the only Mac dealer in town, but from now on, everything I buy is direct from Apple. Service, also.