Talk about stupid.

In my mess of wires, I accidentally let a USB cable touch a partially pulled out power cord and in a puff of smoke and spark, I fried my beloved 27-inch iMac.

I took it to an Apple store in Monterey and the guy there was amazingly honest. He said they could replace the motherboard for me, which was quite possibly the cause of the problem, but he added that it might not fix the computer. Other parts might be fried too.

Then he told me quietly, I could probably get a better price for the repair at a store that specialized in a local shop that specialized in repairs.

So, like anyone else, I have to search on the Web and what I really need is some word of mouth telling me which store has treated people the best.

So I put it to you, Patch community. Where have you had your best repair experiences with Apples? Would a local store be better than driving over the hill to the Apple store?

The poll has the stores I found locally. You can vote and please add a comment telling me about how they have treated you in price and service.

The ones I came up with are Dave's Computer Services ,740 Front St., User Friendly Computing, 505 River St., Abacus Computer Repair, 1010 Water St., Santa Cruz Digital Solutions (they come to you) and Computer Zone, 1329 Mission St.

Thanks!