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Preventative Medicine (5/19/99)
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Another retail chain, another opportunity for all you wacky Mac fanatics to strut your Apple-savvy stuff... Every since Apple first enlisted the aid of its absurdly helpful user base when the call went out for volunteers to demo Macs at local CompUSA locations a couple of years ago, the company knew they had tapped into something big. After all, how many other multibillion-dollar corporations have a customer base so fiercely loyal that representatives would volunteer to spend a few hours of their weekend to go demonstrate hardware and software to potential buyers, all in exchange for little more than a free t-shirt and the satisfaction of helping the cause? Now that's dedication, baby.
Of course, Apple's refined the whole process over time, and these days volunteers often get more than a free t-shirt and a glowing sense of self-satisfaction for their time. We recall getting lots of exuberant mail from Demo Days volunteers who participated in the Mac OS 8.5 promotion, who, much to their surprise and delight, received a free copy of the $99 software upgrade for their trouble. And volunteers also actually get paid now, too. So if you're looking to pick up a little scratch while you're saving up for a new G3 or whatever, perhaps you'd like to jump in and help Apple make the imminent Sears iMac launch a success. According to the PowerBook Zone, Apple's promotion company MarketSource is enlisting the help of volunteers to visit local Sears locations once a week and make sure that display models are working, monitor inventory levels, install software demos, and other similar tasks. If they pick you, you can make up to $19 a visit.
Here's hoping that Apple really makes effective use of us rabid Mac fans to ensure that the whole Sears rollout doesn't turn into another Best Buy. After that whole fiasco, we're almost surprised that no one's preparing "Best Buy: Never Again" buttons and bumper stickers to commemorate one of the nastiest sales debacles in Apple's recent history. Without a lot of hard work and conscientious effort, Sears could turn out to be just as painful. Let's not let that happen, shall we?
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SceneLink (1544)
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And Now For A Word From Our Sponsors |
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 | | The above scene was taken from the 5/19/99 episode: May 19, 1999: Want to prevent Sears from turning into another Best Buy? Then sign up to dig in and help. Meanwhile, Some Apple tech has a red face right about now, following the discovery of blatantly incorrect information in the Tech Info Library, and Macs may have played a much bigger role in creating The Phantom Menace than George Lucas will admit...
Other scenes from that episode: 1545: MegaBITS? Mega-oops (5/19/99) Maybe we're just naïve, but we wouldn't have expected Apple to include blatant misinformation in their Tech Info Library. Recently, for example, we think we recall someone pointing out that Apple had posted a TIL article which claimed that Fast Ethernet (as in, the 100-base-T interface provided on all shipping Macs) actually used different wires in its connecting cables depending on which protocol (AppleTalk or TCP/IP) was being piped through it, which, based on our admittedly limited knowledge of networking, is pretty clearly incorrect... 1546: Credit Where It's Due (5/19/99) The day has come and gone. The lines of fanatics camping out on the sidewalks have dissipated, and sixteen years of waiting have finally borne fruit. As the dust starts to settle following the premiere of Star Wars: Episode I, and all the real fans have seen it at least six or eight times already, and cash registers all over the country continue to ring up millions of dollars worth of officially licensed merchandise, it's probably worth reflecting on just how big a part our beloved Macintosh platform played in the creation of the special effects spectacular. Whoops-- looks like we sort of can't...
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