As some of you know, I started my business trip to Hangzhou last week with a dreaded "?" on my Mac at Haneda International Airport. I am not sure what unresolved issues I have with karma but losing 4 mac hard drives in 3 months has to be a record. Thank god I back up hourly and have yet to lose a single file or picture. I don't know another person that has had issues with Macs and everyone is surprised when I tell them the issues I have been having. Camera Information: All of these are shot with my Leica M9 and Noctilux 50mm f/0.95, ISO 160, varying shutter speeds.

When I got back to Tokyo I went to see the geniuses at the Genius Bar to see if they had a different diagnosis to 'Apple' China...

I spent a little time surfacing Shoot Tokyo while waiting around...

Apple could handle this a few ways... option 1 "please go without a Mac for a few weeks while we ship your 1 month old Mac off for repair" or option 2 "why don't we just replace your broken one with the new bigger, better, faster one we just announced a few days ago". It is hard to be mad when you have your bigger, better, faster one being delivered. I have to say one thing about Apple, their customer service makes all of the difference in the world, at least to me. When something like this happens you are mad and want someone to blame. They really do a great job of making the experience the best it can be and you struggle to be mad at anyone but technology.

So shifting to the bigger, better, faster 17 inch, 8GB RAM, AntiGlare (for photographers!), 750GB hard drive, 2.3 ghz processor cost me a whopping 952 yen plus tax...

So after an evening of recovery I was good to go and up and running with all of my data on a lighting fast machine! I was happily typing away at work today and was surprised how dirty my screen was. I was more surprised that the specs didn't seem to be able to wipe off...

So back with my friends I learnt a new term called 'dead pixels'. Basically it is an issues that cases the transistor to be put in such a state that no light ever passes through to the RGB layer and appears as black spots on your monitor. I figured the monitor was a replaceable part on a Mac but it actually requires a complete replacement so I am now onto my 5th (fifth) Mac in just under 3 months. Deciding that fate is just a little too cruel I decided to upgrade this time to a 500GB Solid State Disk. It is custom order so should arrive in a week. No moving parts should help to limit future issues plus it will be screaming fast. Wish me luck. If you are a priest, bless my mac.