A few weeks ago I received a new MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo. When I turned it on I immediately noticed that the bottom of the panel was noticeably brighter than the rest of the display. It also had small dark triangular areas in the bottom corners.

It looks a bit like the display on Manfred’s Gameboy Advanced SP. Acceptable for a low-cost piece of consumer electronics, but certainly not for a high-end laptop marketed at professional photographers.

I called Apple, explained the issue and they immediately offered to send a replacement which was delivered today.

The panel on the new machine has the exact same defect.

I’m really disappointed. Over the years I’ve ordered an iBook G3, a PowerMac G4 with a 19” Cinema display, a PowerBook G4, three Mac Mini’s, two 23” Cinema Displays, a MacBook, three iPods and a ton of small stuff. All arrived in perfect condition.

One of the reasons I keep buying from Apple is that I was under the impression that they have excellent quality control. Not anymore, apparently.

Update (30 Nov): I’m now waiting for the third replacement. Both machines I received so far are from the same series; the serial bumbers both end with ‘W0L’.

Also, here’s a picture to give an idea of what I’m talking about:

In the picture you only see a small very bright band, but in reality the bottom 20% of the panel is brighter and has a different color temperature than the upper part.

Update (8 Dec): I’m now waiting for the fourth replacement. See the comments for details.

Update (12 Dec): There seems to be a major quality issue with matte panels.

Update (4 Jan): The fourth replacement was first sent to an Apple engineer for inspection. It also has the bright band at the bottom of the display which, according to the sales representative I spoke, is ‘within specifications’. He also said the engineer told him it’s because ‘the current flows from the bottom of the screen to the top’. I’ve asked for a refund and I’m going to go back to my 12” G4 PowerBook for now.

Update (22 June): Just got a new MacBook Pro 2.4 GHz with the 15” LED Backlight panel. No issues, perfectly fine screen.

From the latest We don’t trust voting computers newsletter (I’m too lazy to translate this and Babel Fish does a decent job anyway):

Op de website van het ministerie van Binnenlandse Zaken is een speciaal afgeschermd hoekje ingericht voor de gemeenten die op 22 november met een stemcomputer van Nedap moeten stemmen. De afgeschermde pagina bevat documenten met instructies rondom de beveiliging en verzegeling van de Nedap stemcomputers.

De gemeenteambtenaren die toegang moeten hebben tot dit deel van de website gebruiken allemaal dezelfde combinatie van gebruikersnaam en wachtwoord, en deze stonden voor het gemak open en bloot in de nieuwsbrief van de Nederlandse Vereniging voor Burgerzaken. Deze nieuwsbrief is via de website van de vereniging voor iedereen te lezen.

BZK: Nedap stemmachines
(login “nedap2006”, password “NedapCZW12bzk!”)

Lokale kopie

Nederlandse Vereniging voor Burgerzaken, Nieuwsbrief 69
(voor de login gegevens)

John Gruber:

Open sourcing Java is almost certainly a very good thing for Java developers, and it’s probably a good thing for the world at large. I have yet to see a cogent explanation as to how it’s going to make Sun a nickel, though.

Most of Sun’s revenue comes from selling hardware. In web startups and medium sized companies it’s mostly the developers who get to choose a hardware vendor these days.

Things like hiring the JRuby guys, opening Solaris and open sourcing Java has changed the way I see Sun from an old and evil enterprise vendor to an innovative hardware company that actually cares about the needs and wishes of developers.

Because of this I’m now routinely telling our clients to consider Sun gear for running the apps we build. I doubt we’re alone in that.

We have very nice clients. They leave us little testing jewels like this one.

I very much like Martin Fowler’s latest Bliki entry on FeatureDevotion:

The key to beating off the waterfall is to realize that, as Dan puts it, agilists value Outcomes over Features. The feature list is a valuable tool, but it’s a means not an end. What really matters is the overall outcome, which I think of as value to the customers.

An important part of this thinking is that you expect the feature list to change as the project goes on. This happens you discover new things that you can do, and re-prioritize old things. This is the essence of adaptive planning, which has always been a key indicator of agile thinking. This results a big shift in how people think about a plan. In plan-driven projects, success and failure is often worded in terms of “did things go according to the plan?” In agile projects this is a meaningless question, because plans change so often. The plan is a tool, primarily one that you use to gauge the effect of changes: “how will adding this feature affect what we do”. The plan is a tool to figure out what should fit in the FivePoundBag. If your plan’s not constantly changing, you are very unlikely to be doing adaptive planning, and hence aren’t agile.