MacBook Pro Retina 15'' Late 2013 Stoppped Charging

Related questions here and here.

Hi everyone. This is what happened to me:

I was giving a class, in a 200 people auditorium, and there were lots of power extensions and cables for everyone to connect their laptops while the class. I was running out of battery (about 20%) so I decided to plug my MBP to one of those connectors. I didn't notice if it started charging or not, I just trusted it would. Then after 20 min aprox, we had an hour off the auditorium, and when we got back, I connected the machine again, but this time I noticed the light in the charger didn't work. I thought it was an issue with the power, I changed the place but the MBP was not receiving any power.

I asked to my students for a different charger (thinking it was a charger issue) but trying 2 different ones, still light didn't turned on, so I thought it was an internal hardware issue. (at this point the MBP was still on, with 5% battery or so).

After class, I took the MBP to an official Apple Service center, they told me it was the "Magsafe" (like an internal little board that allows power from charger to battery?) and the charger, both of them seemed to be damaged. Most likely an overpower incident. I understood since it made sense.

Now issue is they asked warranty Magsafe piece, the installed it but machine still not turning on. THey say at Apple Service retailer that could be Logic Board, but does that even make sense? Could a MBP still be on and working if logic board is damaged? I mean, the machine never got turned off, it was alive until battery drained out...

Now we are waiting another freaking 4-5 days to get the logic board. I'm getting crazy since that machine is my main work tool. What do you guys think it could be?

EDIT

Now, I get that this specific model's parts are all welded, so, a new logic board would mean what other new pieces? I'm worried about the data in my hard drive.

Automate Fn key switch when opening Excel

So Microsoft released a free preview of Office for Mac, and it is pretty sweet.

One of my biggest problem when using Excel on a mac has always been that the most popular/frequent shortcut (F2 -> edit cell) was not available on macs (there was a default replacement, cmd-T I think, but not half as handy as F2).

Now F2 is here in the preview, great! But one still has to either press the Fn key, or switch the whole Fn key row (link from Apple page). Hence the question:

Is there a way to either:

• selectively only switch the F2 key, or


• switch the Fn key row automatically when opening Excel?

OS X repeatedly stops syncing contacts and calendar with Gmail

For what feels like forever (but is probably only a year or two), OS X constantly ‘loses’ my Gmail password. This is particularly annoying, because I use two-factor-authentication with my Google account, and have to go generate a new password every time I see this bug:

Even worse, I don't know there's any problem until I actually open the Contacts application (a thing I never do). I'll get text messages on my Mac, and wonder who the hell's messaging me, because it'll show up as a phone-number; meanwhile, I created a new contact for that person months ago on my iPhone, and it turns out Google hasn't synced to my computer in that entire time.

I clear all the Google/Gmail entries out of my keychain, generate a new one-use password with Google, and put it in OS X, every time I see this. It just happens again a couple months later.

Does anybody know what could be causing this?

Siri tell me time without going internet

I only use Siri when i need to know the time. And she can't do it 80 percent of the time.

In a scenario: phone is in my pocket, i am listening music through earpod. And i want to know the time without taking phone out specially in cold. But on the way internet connection sometimes sucks. When she finds the connection, she brings an article about Time magazine.

After tries and talking to myself on the road. She tells me the time. But sometimes i have to take the phone out, again it is cold and i already talked to myself in the crowd.

• me - Hey Siri, What is the time ?


• siri - I can't get any request right now.


• me - Ok Siri, What time is it?


• siri - Here is a article about Time magazine. (WTF)


• me - Ok Siri, Time, time, time.


• siri - It is 19:08.


• me - fckiss you siri.

So is there a way to force Siri to tell time without going internet? It would be better if i could make her tell the time in my native language though. It is shorter.

What's the difference between Apple Watch and Apple Watch Sport?

Following the pricing announcements on Apple Watch, it seems that the "Watch" edition is priced 200$ above "Watch Sport" ($349 vs $549 for the 38mm model).

I can read the spec sheet but apart from different band options and another type of front glass and don't understand the differences.

Alert me when a certain app/process isn't running

Is it easily possible to have some sort of cron job or something run on my Mac that alerts / notifies me when a certain program isn't running?

I use an app last.fm, and since it doesn't run in my dock I don't notice that the process might not be running any more.

How to rename Siri

Is there any way to rename Siri on the iPhone? I'm looking for any and all solutions, including Jailbreak tweaks. I love the new "Hey Siri" feature, but my SO and I both use iPhones with this feature, and when we're both laying in bed at night trying to use it, it leads to a bit of confusion between our devices...