I no sooner arrived here in Khon Kaen than my Macbook's (Intel CPU) hard drive crashed. I sent it to Bangkok and it will take about 3-4 weeks to get it back. I have a bootable backup on an external firewire drive if I had a computer to run it on.

If anybody has one I could borrow, rent, etc, I would be very grateful. I don't even need the internal drive to work. The entire boot process is from my external drive.

Accessing email is problematic at this time. I hate to post my phone number but I'll take a chance in the hopes that the calls I get are legitimate.

If you have one I could use, my number is 087-085-8758.

Thanks.

Tony

Have you tried www.khonkaen.com forum section? Nice guys around there.

There is a Mac shop in Oasis Center third floor

Have you tried www.khonkaen.com forum section? Nice guys around there.

I requested membership quite a while ago but it has not been activated. I'll try again when I get more time at a computer.

There is a Mac shop in Oasis Center third floor

I tried them but they don't have any rentals available.

I know the Apple fanatics will throw rocks at me but that's just a good reason to use a desktop PC. All the computer shop Somchais are familiar with PC's and can repair them. Living in the boonies and using anything other than a desktop PC is asking for misery.

Another example is my Lenovo (IBM) laptop. It started having problems. It is 2 1/2 years old. I might add that I paid a fortune for it. Fortunately it has a 3 year international warranty. The nearest repair center is 150 kilometers away. It was repaired free of charge and it required a new main board. I first took the laptop to my local computer shop and that Somchai looked at it, rolled his eyes, shook his head and shuddered. The classic MAI DAI.

... that's just a good reason to use a desktop PC.

Gary, you are naturally right.

But

I use for myself a Mac NoteBook. My daughter has a Desktop PC with a Thai Windows XP. Bought in Khon Kaen, maintenance in Khon Kaen: the real standard Thai thing. Last week my daughter complained: "Papi, my Word does not switch between Thai and English keyboard any more".

To make a long storry short: she had 32 botnets, viruses and other malware installed. None of the Anti-malware program i had access to (and I have access to many, because I work for a University in Switzerland) was able to clean the system.

Naturally, my daughter and her friends install everything that God forbids: Games from the net, from CDs with unknown origin etc.

But that just shows: there are always two sides of a dollar

Regards

Thedi

... that's just a good reason to use a desktop PC.

Gary, you are naturally right.

But

I use for myself a Mac NoteBook. My daughter has a Desktop PC with a Thai Windows XP. Bought in Khon Kaen, maintenance in Khon Kaen: the real standard Thai thing. Last week my daughter complained: "Papi, my Word does not switch between Thai and English keyboard any more".

To make a long storry short: she had 32 botnets, viruses and other malware installed. None of the Anti-malware program i had access to (and I have access to many, because I work for a University in Switzerland) was able to clean the system.

Naturally, my daughter and her friends install everything that God forbids: Games from the net, from CDs with unknown origin etc.

But that just shows: there are always two sides of a dollar

Regards

Thedi

That's a good point. Most of the crap they find to install wouldn't work with an Apple computer.

As far as virus or spyware protection, I have never had a problem on my PC. I use BitDefender that has protection against everything. I think it is called a suite.

These is nothing special or unique about a Macbook HDD from a PC HDD. They just use a SATA 2.5" HDD like most modern PC laptops. I dont have the pro but I am quite sure its the same as a regular macbook. Mine took about 4 minutes to swap out when I upgraded it. Heres a link to instructions but I know there is a better guide out there but I can't think of it at the moment; http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2119528,00.asp