I realize that this lot never needs to deal with such folk, but likely you don't want to support All your relatives, either.. right? So then: what grade do you award local "Apple Stores", from experience or trusted hearsay - on just plain Competence and delivering honest results of work claimed ??
Here's a local 'Store':
[Summary]
(Neighbor has both a Dell Beastware hP n/b and recent tiny box - plus a pair of late-model Apples - the latest being a dual-core {bitchin-black} Mac Book.)
Just before it was sleuthed-out that her woes of rootkit-hood derived from.. the fact that her WiFi had homed in on the (overpowered?) school Net across the street! and Not her allegedly max-encoded, router-filtered cable box:
[She has since gone to all-wired]
she had taken her log printouts to local Apple store (those who had sold her some 7-$Gs worth of pretty boxes and overpriced memory [just Once, that last.])
Store's #1 "Tech" honcho:
Patronizing her from the first, barely glancing at her logs and other notes - as were annotated re time/date events along the process, displaying Permissions being changed from her installed ones, etc. -
Numero Uno declared, flat-out,
~ "That's impossible; Apple cannot have a virus..!!"
{She interrupted to point out that that was not the issue - it's about clear Ownership == Rootkit by-any-other name == with sample filenames subsequently 'served' from her unit.. Asks: "Simply.. LOOK at these log printouts"}
Uno interrupts, (exact words lost in reiteration) expressing incredulity at the very thought that "Apple" ie OS-X Could Be Rooted! re The Logs: Uno then said something inane(r), very much like, "You aren't supposed to be looking here - this is Apple System material and not intended for users!"
[/summary]
So then - indistinguishable from Beastware-grade eptness and insolence. And it's in Santa Rosa CA not, say downtown-SF. Is this typical ignorant hubris that ordinary Apple users eat?
(Second query: where are the legions of Independent public-oriented techs.. out there, getting rich by Doing-good?) Gawd knoze there are grads from small college CS courses.. going Somewhere. I see (why) there would be relatively few compared with usual, because what I mean is:
Where are the 'multilinguals', those who have learned basic OS and networking principles Brand-free and well, before immersion in the fluff of Billy's CuteNames or alt punctilious *nix logic: those who should charge accordingly, more than the PFYs -- and also Deliver ??
(And 'deliver' does not mean, running a suite of malware tests, presenting bill and leaving) IGNORING (as re neighbor, twice) such obvious tasks as:
Examining basic networking config in detail
Launching a sane number of security attacks to confirm its efficacy
*Reading* logs - with comprehension
Rendering a report of, at least - a few basic points re networking setup; noting any significant alterations made to default OS config and, at least shorthand list of (any new?) items best backed-up, phrased according to user's eptness
(In the case of this user: following her immersion in arcanery for hundreds of hours, following first invasion: shorthand would have been quite adequate - and she'd have been willing to pay for any verbal handholding on any parts she Didn't grok.) Note: that wasn't an 'Apple Store' Tech; dunno if those even make house calls.. but her network config. was the major culprit - regardless if Beast/Fruitware: The Reason one Does pay for a 'house call'.
Last query: how unalterably-OFF is a s/ware disabling of the bluetooth/Airport transceiver? What's a handy way of assuring hardware OFF-ness? (Unlike earlier, apparently Airport is on-board now - you can't just yank the small card...)
Gracias, luscious-Fruit-eaters