Hands-On Experience--Excellent AppleCare Service is Alive in Maine

If you live in Maine, you know there are no official Apple Stores to take your Mac to consult a genius and to get a warranty repair. We find this odd since it is a particularly Mac-centric state. Maine's State Department of Education's Learning Technology Initiative (MLTI) provides iBooks to all seventh and eighth grade students, as well as to many ninth graders, and the court administrative system is still predominantly Mac.

So last week when the screen our 17" PowerBook G4 suddenly blacked out, we had to find a local repair outfit since we prefer carry-in to mail-in service. We consulted Apple's service provider locator Web page. It identified Flexible Business Systems Inc. at the Pineland Center in New Gloucester, ME, as the closest. Pineland Center is also the site of Apple Computer's Maine office that supports the MLTI.

We called Flexible Business Systems and confirmed that we could bring the ailing PowerBook in for immediate attention. We did just that. No waiting. We were ushered into the back room where Joe, the lead Mac technician, immediately confirmed our preliminary diagnosis: a dead backlight in the screen unit.

Joe told us it would be ready in a couple of days but, in fact, he ordered the necessary part on Wednesday and the laptop was repaired and ready for pickup on Thursday afternoon, just one day later. He also took care of all AppleCare paperwork so what's not to like?

Flexible Business Systems does contract repair work for the MLTI. Despite there being 36,000 iBooks in use in Maine schools, we didn't see a single one in the shop. Maybe the Maytag Repair Man has been reincarnated?

Given our experience, we recommend Flexible Business Systems. If you need help for your Mac, try them to keep Joe from getting too lonely. [Dana Baggett]