So I recently encountered something that most college students dread. The day that you turn on your xbox and instead of booting up like normal you see 3 flashing red lights on your console. These red lights in fact are so common that they have received the well-understood nickname, “The Ring of Death”. It has received this nickname because it is literally death to you and to your xbox. It requires that you pay outrageous repair fees or buy a new console. Something that no college kid wants to hear. Worst of all, in almost every circumstance of “The Ring of Death”, it occurs with no warning. Having worked fine the time before, and now refusing to boot.

After doing the standard reboot multiple times to eliminate the possibility that it was a fluke, I eventually turned to xbox.com for support. I discovered my problem, in the support home page under “most common problems” column. I found it as the first item in that column. There I clicked,

I have owned a mac for 3 Years and 1 Day. I got into the Mac world by buying a small 13″ white macbook as I entered college. I stand before you today to proclaim that it was the best investment I have ever made. I could not be more happy. I love using my mac, and will never go back to using windows, at least for my personal computers (where i still have a choice). I could go on about why I am so happy with switching to mac, but the greatest reason I am so happy is that I am currently writing this post on that same mac, and it still runs and functions like the day I bought it.

I have made many, many upgrades to my mac over these past 3 years and 1 day. I have upgraded from Tiger to Leopard, and now to Snow Leopard. I have upgraded from iLife ’06 to iLife ’08 and to iLife ’09. I have done the same with iWork ’06, ’08 and ’09. I have ordered countless other programs to run on my mac and increase its’ functionality. I have been running Adobe Design Premium CS3 on it for nearly 3 years now, and now I even run Aperture 2.0. My mac has been my sidekick, as I attempted to start a business (which only ended because of personal life circumstances). All of these are wonderful upgrades that have added a ton of value to my mac, but none of those compare to the upgrade I am most satisfied with, Applecare.