What do you do when your trusted Mac breaks down? We once had a situation where two hours before we were due to send our magazine to the printers, our Mac’s hard drive died – the answer is to call a Mac Manager. We speak to Stuart Snow, director of Mac Manager who offer an affordable fast solution for Mac owners in Sydney …
What inspired you to move into this field?
After working for years at various Sydney Apple Centres and dealers, I decided that I could provide a better quality service if I opened my own business, so I did. I didn’t want to be just another Mac shop, where customers would have to lug their computers in to some distant location, then wait for it to be assessed by some mysterious person behind the curtain they’ve never seen or met, and then have the remainder of their experience with a technician relaying everything over the phone – I always felt this was a little impersonal. So I started Mac Manager, a purely on-site service, where virtually everything would be done in your home or office. I would always come to you, whether it be to set up your new Mac, repair your existing Mac, or provide you with tuition and training. all it needs to be sure of its identity.
How would you rate the latest Macs compared to the latest PCs?
Macs have traditionally been a cut above the rest, and the latest Macs are no exception. Most people aren’t interested in customising every little thing in their computers, they just want a good one that does everything they want, without having to buy this and that over the coming months to build it up to what it should’ve been in the first place. But this is what Windows PCs offer – a low up-front cost, with a bunch of hidden costs in the long term. In fact it’s been shown that a Windows PC costs considerably more over the life of the machine, compared with a Mac. It’s just the higher up-front cost that scares most people off.
What are Macs’ greatest weaknesses, apart from being unable to play “You Don’t Know Jack”? And what about CD-Roms?
Hahaha do they still make those?! Although Macs can do everything a Windows PC can do, thanks to the ability to run any version of the Windows operating system via software such as Boot Camp and Parallels, there are a few areas Apple could improve upon in in my opinion: 1) Adding a blu-ray option – of course you can buy an external reader / burner, but who wants another device sitting on their desk? 2) More games developed for the Mac OS. 3) A tower computer that costs under $2000, for those that want the capability to add multiple internal hard drives, sound cards for music editing, and additional burners including blu-ray.
What’s the single most common Mac problem that you get called out for?
Actually a few people have asked me that recently, and there there isn’t really one regular problem I’m called out to fix. Some of the more common issues are where their Mac is running slowly, which is usually due to a lack of memory or hard drive space after being filled up, or that it just needs a service. Another would be to have this or that done on their Mac, but they don’t feel confident enough to do it themselves, or that they don’t know where to start. And probably another one, for businesses only, would be that they want to add a secure managed server.
Is there an increasing trend in the call-outs you’re getting for people looking for tuition rather than having seemingly unfixable problems?
Not really. Most people are pretty cluey with computers these days, so tuition is becoming a less asked-for service. But there are still those that feel they have been center behind with the technology rush, and feel quite daunted with what they’ve seen their friends / family / colleagues do on their computers, and would like to do themselves. Usually within an hour or two tuition with me, I’m able to restore their confidence so they can get stuck into a few cool things they’ve been wanting to do.
You can find Mac Manager via their website www.macmanager.com.au or call 1300 650 126 or 0407 026 037.
