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                      Remembering David Lerner of Tekserve

   Adam Engst

   In the New York Times, [1]Sam Roberts shares the sad news:

     David Lerner, a high school dropout and self-taught computer geek
     whose funky foothold in New York's Flatiron district, Tekserve, was
     for decades a beloved discount mecca for Apple customers desperate
     to retrieve lost data and repair frozen hard drives, died on Nov. 12
     at a hospital in Manhattan. He was 72.

   I wasn't close to David, but our orbits intersected on a number of
   occasions. Long ago, I gave a presentation at Tekserve in Manhattan,
   which our friends Sharon Aker and Rich Wolfson used as an excuse to
   come into the city; Rich remembers playing pinball with our son Tristan
   during the talk. David was also a regular on TidBITS Talk as far back
   as 2009, and both he and Tekserve appeared in TidBITS a handful of
   times.

   In 2000, I lauded the 25-page booklet Tekserve was giving out at
   Macworld Expo as the Most Valuable Free Handout (see '[2]Macworld Expo
   2000 NY Other Superlatives,' 31 July 2000)'in retrospect, I suspect
   that booklet may well have been Sharon's work, since she did some
   writing for Tekserve over the years. When Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard
   shipped, we published an article about how actual snow leopards were an
   endangered species, and Tekserve was donating to the Snow Leopard
   Trust's fundraising program (see '[3]Protecting Snow Leopard's Namesake
   Cats,' 16 September 2009). But Tekserve had to compete with six Apple
   Stores in Manhattan and eventually closed its retail operation (see
   '[4]MacNN and Tekserve Close, EveryMac and Mactracker Carry On,' 8 July
   2016). A year later, we reported that '[5]MacPaw Bought the Tekserve
   Apple Collection' (11 May 2017), which included a 128K Mac signed by
   Steve Wozniak. Let's hope it's still safe in Kyiv.

   But perhaps David's most interesting, albeit fictional, appearance in
   TidBITS came in my short-lived foray into writing tech news in noir
   style. In '[6]The Mystery of the Leopard Ship Date: Solved' (16 April
   2007), I quoted him as saying:

     'I'm personally disappointed, because I was looking forward to Time
     Machine.' This wasn't surprising from a man who signs his email,
     'May You have 1000 Backups and Never Need One.'

   I can't remember if that was an actual quote, but that really was his
   email signature, and David did care deeply about backups. That's what
   made the [7]Sex and the City scene where Carrie Bradshaw has to take
   her PowerBook to Tekserve so grating'she admits she doesn't back up her
   work and had gotten rid of the manual 'in a feng shui attack.' In 2001,
   that wasn't charming or quirky for a professional writer; it was
   avoidable negligence presented as a TV trope of helplessness about
   technology.

   IFRAME: [8]https://www.youtube.com/embed/poxTl0qMKt0?feature=oembed

References

   1. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/26/technology/personaltech/david-lerner-dead.html?unlocked_article_code=1.4U8.Iwgz.7qo1JZZhzv4J&smid=em-share
   2. https://tidbits.com/2000/07/31/macworld-expo-2000-ny-other-superlatives/#:~:text=most%20valuable%20free%20handout
   3. https://tidbits.com/2009/09/16/protecting-snow-leopards-namesake-cats/#:~:text=some%20mac-related%20organizations
   4. https://tidbits.com/2016/07/08/macnn-and-tekserve-close-everymac-and-mactracker-carry-on/#:~:text=MacNN%20the%20best.-,even%20sadder,-in%20some%20ways
   5. https://tidbits.com/2017/05/11/macpaw-bought-the-tekserve-apple-collection/
   6. https://tidbits.com/2007/04/16/the-mystery-of-the-leopard-ship-date-solved/
   7. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poxTl0qMKt0
   8. https://www.youtube.com/embed/poxTl0qMKt0?feature=oembed

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