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- Who
are you?
- Officially
launched in 1995, nCity began as mobile tech
support for Mac users, making house calls in
western Nevada County and rare excursions to
other California locales. Moved to Arizona
briefly (a failed attempt at escaping CA),
then relocated and opened the only Mac
service shop in Nevada County on June 21,
2002: The MacShack. nCity's MacShack offers
tech support and services - networking,
upgrades, troubleshooting, repairs -
exclusively for Macintosh. From the first
128K Mac, to the latest Pro model; from
novice user to veteran Mac 'noids (and PC
refugees), we're here to help.
- (Uh,
we're not terribly keen on dealing with CRTs,
tho..... -ED)
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- The
MacShack?
- That's
the name of nCity's service shop, located on
Nevada City Highway between Nevada City and
Grass Valley. No glittering glass stairway,
no futuristic fixtures or furnishings, no
insanely great inventory. Not likely to be
mistaken for an Apple store. Here at the
MacShack, the best we can do is a catwalk and
a coffee machine.....
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 - nCity
headquarters, Grass Valley
- (Coming
soon to Station 85)
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- Nevada
City Macs?
- No, just
nCity. Properly spelled, the name is actually N_City
(with an understrike). Part of the reason for using an
understrike (goofy tho it may be) was this: Print shops
run by PCs read an understrike as a backspace, producing
an automatic typo. Thus:
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- So what does
the "n" stand for? The "nth" degree? Back in the ol'
programming days, the letter "n" was used as a place
holder for numbers being manipulated in code - that,
combined with an ugly incident involving the fire
department and a certain roadway barricade many years ago
- and bingo! nCity and the nCity logo were born.
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- What do
you do?
- Hardware/software/computer
troubleshooting and repair, data recovery, upgrades,
system modifications, specialization, design, training
courses and consulting..... just about any service
pertaining to Macs. (See Services page for more info.)
Computer technology presents some interesting challenges,
especially when dealing with the cutting-edge Macintosh;
being a very small shop allows us to provide service on a
personal level to Mac users who are doing all sorts of
things with their machines. We proudly deal with authors,
historians, artists, musicians, architects, designers,
engineers - one genuine, bona fide, rocket scientist -
parents, business owners and researchers. Resourceful,
creative people from all walks of life - which says a lot
about the Mac.
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- Wouldn't
you get more business working on PCs?
- Yes, of
course. (D'oh!) Specializing in the Macintosh means
dealing with a limited percentage of computer users, true
enough. It also means exposure to new technologies as
they develop, working with state-of-the-art equipment,
and freedom from the dead weight that is Microsoft.
What's not to like? Besides, we get to meet Mac
people.
-
 Are
you a certified service
provider?- No.
Certification is not an option here, partly
due to the advent of Apple Stores*, partly
due to CA's hostile business climate, but
mainly because of limited resources. The
nCity MacShack is a very small shop;
unauthorized, uncertified, and unencumbered
by obligations to Apple or anyone else. nCity
does not provide warranty service. A quick
phone call to Apple takes care of most
warranty matters, or we refer warranty jobs
to an authorized facility (Apple Store or
original dealer). We're not here to sell or
promote products, we're here to provide
services and solutions.
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- *5/22/02,
SO# 7002921877, M8694LL/A: Apple restricted
certification to Apple Store employees only
in 2002 and instituted annual
re-certification and fees.
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- My
personal involvement with Macs began in 1985
with the first 128K machine, quickly modified
with a "Fat Mac" logic board, external drive
and Kensington fan. Starting with computers
in the early days and following the Mac's
evolution over 20 years has provided a wealth
of experience and a lot of (otherwise
useless) information.
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- External
Links:
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- AppleCare
Service Locations
- AppleCare
Support
- AppleCare
Site Index
 Zapping
the PRAM.
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- Why are
you flying the Jolly Roger? And what's that other
flag?
- Actually, the
skull-'n-crossbones pirate flag has been a part of Mac
history from the beginning, when resources and talent
from the Lisa project were famously shanghai'd to work on
Macintosh. (System 7's Finder had an Easter egg of the
Jolly Roger flapping in the breeze over Cupertino.) Since
there aren't a whole lot of independent Mac shops around,
the pirate tradition continues.
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- The other
flag..... has nothing to do with Tibet.
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- What
happened to the free lunch?
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- nCity
held an online "Free Lunch" contest, once:
Answer a few questions about computer stuff -
hexadecimal, code name for AppleScript*,
yada, yada - answer by the deadline, win a
prize.
- The
prize was a chicken pot pie.
- We
actually had a winner!
- The
winner was a strict vegetarian.
-
- Deliver
a chicken pot pie to a vegetarian? The
thing's frozen (about six months), how's it
get there? Dry ice? Never expecting an entry,
certainly not a winner, it set off something
of a panic.
- (Had
it been fried chicken, it wouldda caused a
colonel panic.)
-
- The
winner was very nice about the whole thing,
graciously accepting a frozen _vegetarian_
pot pie from his local health food market -
along with an official nCity Award
(suitable
for framing).
So it was that Mr. Bruce R. of Nevada County
became a legendary nCity Hero, 21 January
2002.
- *
The original code name for AppleScript was
"Cheesewhiz."
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- Do
you still write custom
programs?
- There
was a time when writing custom applications
was a viable, reasonable alternative to
buying canned software, but those days are
long gone. Cost of development today can only
be absorbed by some sort of mass market,
especially with things constantly changing so
fast. The Beta Team was disbanded, more than
a few projects got put on hold, and - heck -
it's just no fun anymore.
-
- But,
fear not. These days, small Dashboard apps
(aka "widgets") can be downloaded or designed
with relative ease in AppleScript and other
high-level languages, plus there are
countless software solutions for just about
every need, scale and budget. If you're
interested, please visit our Links page for a
short list of recommended vendors, apps,
utilities and resources.
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