I justified the purchase by telling myself that I could always keep my old Mach 3 handle and buy the cheaper replacement blades later and that if these 5-blades were all they were cracked up to be, then maybe I would be sold and suckered into the age-old “give away the handles and charge through the nose for the razors” scheme. Well, here I am a week later with a very smoothly shaved face (when I shave of course) and enjoying the luxurious closeness of new, smooth blades. But I have to say, that every time I shave with these blades, I keep thinking that they have finally maxed-out on what gimmicky advancement they can offer that would entice men to upgrade their choice of razors. I let my mind spin with the absurdity of adding blades similar to Intel doubling clock rates every 18 months (or whatever Moore’s law used to be) and came up with my 22-blade Gillette Infinitum concept.

I’m sold.

Well, it’s taken me a little while to get this post up—not to mention the fact that its taken me a long while to get any posts up—but I thought this one was worth it just as an encouragement for anyone else who might be dealing with a fried MacBook Pro logic board that is out of the AppleCare warranty coverage. I also needed to get this post up before I forgot most of the details.

As a little background, I put my MBP (17″ 2.5GHz-early 2008, Model A1261 to be exact for you that are searching) to sleep by closing it up for the night, which I’ve done for the past 2+ years with no problems. The next morning I noticed that the glowing power light on the latch release was off and thought it strange and then went to open and wake it and nothing happened. After futilely trying to wake it by varying degrees of banging on random keys and quickly pressing the power button I waited several minutes before I committed to powering it down. After powering it down, I tried to start it back up. While I could hear the hard drive spin up and the optical drive go through its start-up whirrings, there was no start-up chime and no effort to display anything on screen. I tried all the start-up key combinations to start in safe-mode, reset PRAM, start diagnosis—nothing worked. Tried to insert original system install disk and boot from that, all to no avail.

After going through the Apple Support boards, I could not determine a culprit and since there are no Apple Stores closer than the 330 miles to Seattle yet (soon in Spokane I hear), I resorted to taking my system to the only certified Apple Repair shop in Spokane. We were hoping that it would fall under the Nvidia Graphics chip issue so that Apple would cover the replacement (note to self: on future MacBook Pro purchases: Get the full three-year AppleCare coverage!). Since the system would not even get past the initial boot phases, there was no way to even diagnose any other problems. Which AppleCare concluded that it would not fall under the Nvidia replacement program. Which that meant it would be in the neighborhood of $1000-1200 to replace logic board ($800 logic board + labor)—which is not much less than the $1200-1400 my system in good condition was going for on ebay. I’ve since gathered the necessary courage (and tools) to do it myself, so I could save the labor charges in the future. I also found a resource that I might consider as well if I had to face the issue of replacing the logic board again; DT&T Service claims they can replace my model logic board with a refurb for $450. Maybe next time…

I was faced with trying to sell the dead MBP on Craigslist or ebay whole for $600 or try to recover more by dismantling it out and selling the parts on ebay and maybe be able to make up to $800. I determined that the time and effort involved in managing that many auctions wasn’t worth it and posted it on Craigslist. I got exactly two calls on it—one by one of the techs at the shop who diagnosed it originally to ask if I’d ruled-out the Nvidia issue (doh!) and the other by a guy who was tempted to buy it to try to fix it, but just didn’t have the time—he asked if I had considered “baking the logic board”. He quickly countered my skepticism with a plea to Google the term and that I’d find a plethora of advice on how to do it. (Update: when I wrote this, I couldn’t find the contact info for him but just recently found it. Here’s his link: http://www.spokanepcrepair.com/) So I did and he was right-there’s a bunch of crazy gamers out there resurrecting dead graphics cards, Xboxes and logic boards.

I’ve never been afraid to get under the hood and swap out RAM, replace a hard drive or optical drive, but removing the logic board from an expensive laptop (at least when it was bought), was a little beyond my comfort zone. Figuring I had nothing to lose if I messed up the logic board I found some helpful videos on YouTube that showed how to disassemble my MBP and remove the logic board. After running out to get a better selection of Torx screwdrivers, I found this video helpful (with the exception of the backing music):

After successfully removing the logic board, I then proceeded to prep it for inserting it into the oven. Now if getting into the guts of a $3K+ computer doesn’t make you nervous enough, then actually taking the most important and expensive element out and sticking it into an oven should do the trick. One of the things that nobody covered very carefully, was how much of the additional plastic parts should be removed before inserting into the oven. I was initially fearful after reading several posts where the user would actually remove ANYTHING that was plastic and re-solder it back on afterwards. I wasn’t really committed or prepared to do that. I was most nervous about the USB, DVI and Firewire ports because there was no way I was going to be able to remove those and put them back on. I concluded that they have to be made up of at least heat-resistant plastics, and I hadn’t read or seen anything that lamented melted ports and that I should be OK.

I was careful to remove a piece of foam cushioning that is attached to the board and placed it back on afterward.

Here it is after I removed the foam piece:

One thing (actually two) that I did not think to remove were the two sleeves for mounting screws that are located at the top of the board (see circled areas in image below). I thought they were metal, but they turned out to be not-so-heat-resistant plastic and I unfortunately learned that lesson the hard way. They are no longer the best part of the securing system of my logic board. I managed to recover one, but the other was toast.

The instructions I followed for baking came mostly from this post on Overclockers. I preheated my oven to 375° F (helpful marital tip: coordinate with spouse if attempting to do this anywhere close to dinner time—trust me on this). I placed the board on rolled-up balls of foil (not sure why—just doing what I saw in the other pics) on top of cookie sheet covered with foil (to catch the grease drippings, or melted plastics I suppose—thankfully there was neither).

Time to take a deep breath… At this point, it should be noted that we actually gathered the whole family around to pray for God’s mercy and that He might bless this endeavor in that it was affecting my ability to provide for the said whole family. It was time to start baking…

After reading through numerous posts (well over 20 or so) about different temperatures and times to bake for, I settled on 7m:30s at 375°F for these two reasons: one is that most of the realistic sounding posts hovered between 7 and 8 minutes so I thought 7:30 should do it. And the other was after reading several posts that 375° would be sufficient to soften the soldering joints to just barely the melting point allowing them to reseat better and where anything over 400°F would melt the soldering too much—along with all the other plastics and burn the stickers.

It’s not easy holding your breath for over 7 minutes, but with prayer, we persevered (it was a family event at this point). After letting the board cool for about 10 minutes (I think “rest” is the proper cooking terminology), it was now time to start on the process of putting the board back in the case.

One thing that helped immensely in the re-assembly process was that I took pictures with my digital camera of all the critical assembly points so that I could reconstruct it all back together to the original condition. With the exception of the oft-pointed out melting of the mounting screw sleeves, everything went back together smoothly and with all the family gathered around (actually they were out watching a movie because it was pretty boring watch me put the machine back together) to hear the delightful start-up chime and watch the screen flicker to life and post a question mark because I hadn’t put the original hard drive back in. But that question mark was a beautiful thing, because it meant that it was alive and looking for a suitable, bootable drive. I had removed the hard drive and placed it in an external enclosure so that I could access it from my older system to at least be able to get some work done and also to initially rule out that it was a hard drive issue. I wasn’t worried about losing my data, as I use Apple’s Time Machine and had my drive backed-up. Putting the hard drive back in was fairly quick to do, and after that was in, the system booted up beautifully.

Well, I don’t have any pics or video of it coming to life but suffice it to say, that I’m typing this post on it and have been working on it happily for the last (almost) 30 days and thankful to the Lord in showing His mercy. I’ve read that there are no long-term guarantees with this fix and to not expect it to last forever. How long that turns out to be, I’ll be sure to post in the future, but I’m taking the precaution of planning for its imminent replacement (hoping my system doesn’t take that last statement personally).

There does seem to be a casualty after the baking in that since I’ve made the fix, it looks like I lost one of my USB ports on the left side closest to the power plug. It provides power to the device, but the device (both input and disk) is not recognized. That and the fact that I had to re-enter all my passwords as once the board’s battery is disconnected, the OS X Password Keychain is wiped. So, that’s a bummer, but well worth the trade-off of having a working system back.

If I could recommend anything to anyone in the future of how to prepare before an event like this happens is, in addition to keeping your drives backed up (at least with Time Machine), is to have a good password manager with all your passwords stored—specially if you have multiple email accounts and website accounts in Dreamweaver that you manage.

And finally, be sure to give a hearty and heart-felt thanks to a gracious Lord who has shown us mercy indeed! Hallelujah!

(Update on Aug. 24, 2011: After hearing of so many success stories of others inspired by this article and baking my MBP six times [five more times after this article], one of the important steps that I did not perform during this bake and therefore did not include in this article is to be sure to clean the old thermal paste off of the processors and the corresponding heat sinks. And then to re-apply a quality thermal paste to the processors and heat sinks. The first five bakes lasted for various durations between one month and four with the average being two to three months before having the problem again. Each time, I failed to clean the old and apply new thermal paste. On the sixth bake, I finally did that and have not had to bake again since Feb 24, 2011 [exactly 6 months so far]. I have detailed this in my post: My MBP is Officially Hexed—But There’s Hope, please read that in addition to this post before baking. Also, as of today, I have counted a total of at least 22 people who have successfully cooked their books and posted back on one of the “Baking the Books” articles—so hopefully, that will give you hope.)

Piggybacking on the “Busy is Good” post, I have continued to remain incredibly busy since the beginning of the year. I would have to say that I am not personally experiencing the downside of this recession yet and I hope that continues to hold true. I’m not one to “knock on wood” but I am also keenly aware that everything could melt-down tomorrow. But I have to say that I almost feel guilty when people ask “how’s business?” with a trepidatious tone and a hanky ready to wipe up the puddle of tears that is surely ready to pour forth as I confess all the horrors of dried-up business and clients gone belly-up and all I can say is, “I’ve never been busier.”

Now busy-ness is one of those blessings and curses kind of things. But even with the curses, its always one of those “good-to-have” kind of problems that you’d rather have than the lack thereof. One of the problems is outlined in the aforementioned “Busy is Good” post in that I just have not been able to make even quick posts to this blog. Some others are a disorganized desk and office evidenced in picture above (to be totally honest, I had to “straighten” piles before taking the shot ), playing catch-up with business issues like invoicing, bill-paying, collecting and so-on. Another frustration is not being able to work on your own marketing and self-promotion but the biggest frustration by far is, being too busy to spend quality time with my family. Being able to spend more time with my family is one of the reasons I am self-employed in the first place, so it goes without saying that when you are glued to a computer so much that your kids forget what the front of your face looks like, that you are frustrating your family even more than if you were working in an office or on the road all the time. At least that way they may be frustrated, but I daresay its a bit easier to deal with it, but when you’re there so close physically, but so far away mentally, that’s just provoking frustration. I have to say that I have a great family and they are very patient and very appreciative of the fact that my busy-ness will pay the bills (eventually), but I have greatly enjoyed this past week of breathing a little easier and while I’ve continued to neglect things like updating this blog and invoicing in a more timely manner, I’ve been able to relax and recharge with my family over a beautiful spring weekend at home and spend some quality and quantitative time with my girls (we even watched BBC’s Wives and Daughters together—now if that isn’t love…).

This week, begins a fresh round of deadlines and renewed busy-ness, but I am hoping and making plans to keep it from becoming as much of a trial as it was the past couple of months. I will be training my daughter in basic web-design and the ways of WordPress in order to take care of “two birds with one stone” so to speak as well as I will also be looking at sub-contracting out more work if the busy-ness persists through the next couple of quarters. In addition, I will probably look at bringing my daughter on full-time as her skills get up to speed and I am looking forward to that.

So, at least, I have a new post up, even if it is only about the tired excuse of being too busy to post—at least I have that excuse and for that I’m thankful.

It also seems ironic that the busier I am and not able to finish blog posts, I seem to get more ideas of potential good ones. For example, I’m just itching to write another post about AppleTV with all the news out the last week and a half about it. The only problem is that if you don’t sit down and start writing right away, specially if it involves breaking news regarding technology or politics, your final post–when you get around to finishing it–won’t be as fresh and relevant, not to mention, other news can break that might render your unfinished ideas and points moot anyways. So, the pressure is on to strike while the iron is hot and get that post finished.

In the meantime, back to werk!

I do have to say that the saving grace in this storm is that it was cold and the snow was light and fluffy. So, while shoveling light, fluffy snow can be a challenge in itself (think eating peas with a butter knife), it is not as hard as shoveling wet snow. And I have to give a big shout out to my neighbors who pitched in shovels, backs, snow-blowers and plow-equipped ATV’s to help everyone shovel out each other’s driveways. Even with all the help, I pretty much missed a whole day of work shoveling. And I work from home!

So, I’m enjoying the effects of Advil now and resting up for another storm supposed to hit on Sunday that they say will bring possibly another 4-6″ of snow. Bring it on. What’s 6″? Heck, I’ll take 12″! I just hope I don’t have to shovel 30″ of snow in my lifetime again!

So, what is still missing? One of the things that Matthew mentioned was actually having a video Skype line open all day with one of his partners–basically transforming his home office into a virtual cubicle (sans cubicle walls). That was intriguing to me, because one of the advantages of real water cooler talk is the face-to-face interaction with associates, but without an actual remote business partner, that would prove to be a little difficult for my situation (random strangers might offer some interest–but too weird) and the people that I chat with on a regular basis probably wouldn’t be thrilled with the idea of surveillance. I think there is a privacy threshold that one has to take into consideration for most people. I know that while I wouldn’t mind the instant access, it is more than a little disconcerting to know that everything going on (at least within view of the cam) is observable and listenable by someone else. When there is a physical presence of others, we’re more likely to be on our better social behavior (you know, like not breaking wind or humming obnoxious songs), but without a constant reminder of someone else’s presence, we may behave in a manner that might meet with shock or irritation (or repulsion).

I know that you would conceivably have the video chat window open as a reminder, but unless you have decent screen real estate on at least two screens, the Skype window (or iChat) would be relegated to the back of open application windows while you’re working. Do I want to listen to someone tapping, typing, sniffling, coughing, yelling at others in the house (not that I do any of those things but I’m sure there are some out there who do) just to be able to have always-on access?

The more I think about it, the more I’m thinking that IM and twitter are sufficient for the task for me. In fact, the water cooler has become a whole lot bigger and filled with more interesting people than just those who I used to work in an office with (no offense former office co-peeps). Not that I haven’t worked with very interesting people, but I’m referring to the more mundane small talk that more often than not characterizes real-world water cooler talk. You know, the type that you’re just looking at the clock thinking about the deadline that you’re on, but you don’t want to be rude to your co-worker as their glossing over their gardening cleanup day or about Stargate SG-1.

Twitter allows you that certain degree of rudeness because there’s not as much expectation of an immediate reply. Therefore, you can control the involvement based on your workload. One thing that is not missing is the distraction factor of water cooler talk from the tasks at hand and in this area I can confidently say that twitter far outshines reality for this ability. There are many times when I have to turn Twitter off and set my iChat to “Away” to focus on deadlines. Something that was always hard in open-office environments. But I continue to be amazed by my ability to be distracted (oh, look! shiny!), but I am getting better as Twitter and IM have woven themselves into the fabric of my workday. While there is some overlap for me between IM and Twitter I think Twitter has become more of the background chatter and banter while IM is closer to what I would call a true water cooler experience in addition to being a critical and effective collaboration tool–something that the water cooler was never able to provide. And as for email? Email is the new Snail Mail.

Now one thing to keep in mind, shushing other people’s dogs is not really a recommended activity if you want to keep civil relations with your neighbors, that is unless they’re all watching Cesar Millan too. Which, happens to be the case in our neighborhood–so its all good. But keep in mind, when you deal with other people’s dogs, its not entirely unlike disciplining other people’s children in front of them–it just doesn’t sit too well with most people.

It’s an interesting phenomenon how we are blind to our own children’s (and dog’s) disobedient tendencies. We tend to rationalize it away and apply the excuse that it’s “their temperament” or it’s because “they’re that way because they’re Rottweilers” or “because they’re Irish” (I’m mixing kids with dogs–sorry), but the point is, we rarely look at the situation honestly and conclude that, “it’s me. I’m not a good dog owner” (or parent–but I’m afraid that’s gonna have to wait for another post).

After watching oh, say, some 20-30 episodes of the Dog Whisperer, we finally realized that we were the ones responsible for our dog’s behavior and that we were just enabling his desire for structure by allowing him to be the one who called the shots since we weren’t and not realizing that we were supposed to be the dominant pack leaders (yes, all of us). The video series has been a fascinating psychological study of not just dogs (which is what you’d expect) but even more so about people and how we in America have uniquely anthropomorphized our animals and projected human emotions and reasoning onto these wonderful creatures and have forgotten that what they really are is; dogs. Yes, I said dogs! They’re D.O.G.S.! And that means, that you’re the boss–not their parent (did I just mix species again?).

So, bottomline, is that rather than learn some neat tricks on how to “train” obedience into our cute, little alpha dog, we learned how to “project calm, assertive energy” and recognize that we are humans, and that our little Cody, while still being the cutest dog in the world (see left), is a dog and not a human. And after a few weeks of putting it into practice, we now have an amazingly obedient dog. So, on top of his cuteness, he’s now obedient too. Which pretty much makes him the perfect dog. Thanks Cesar!

As for this blog, I’m still in the process of ironing out how I’m going to divvy up my blogging between personal and business topics. Obviously, this blog will be more personal, but I think I will deal with business issues that don’t obviously tangent with my design business, Whitestone Design Werks. I will probably post some tech reviews, but I’m not quite as much on the bleeding edge as I used to be so I won’t be looking for any products to get handed into my lap any time soon. But I’ll post anything that seems halfway interesting.

So, while the weather is warm for the next couple of days, I’ll try to soak it up as much as I can (which isn’t enough), because while Fall has technically already begun, the real change is coming, and with it is a growing awareness that more than just the foliage is changing too and not necessarily for the best.