iBook story

[Jonathan Fletcher]

Friends and political discoursers,

Well, I'm not sure about my vote for worst Mac (there's so many--where 
do I start?), but I've got to tell you an iBook story. I have an iBook 
600 Combo that I run my whole business on (Filemaker development, web 
site creation, electronic pre-press, bookkeeping -- the works). "Have 
Laptop; Will Travel," eh?

Last week I was climbing a flight of stairs to a client's office when I 
tripped. I was carrying the iBook in a slip case with the zipper open. 
When I tripped, I lurched forward and the iBook flew out of the case and 
bounced off the stairs and then cart-wheeled down about eight or ten 
stairs, landing on a concrete floor at the bottom. There was no carpet 
anywhere -- every hit on the stairs was a hard one (not to mention the 
concrete at the end).

I was too stunned to cry.

There were remarkably few pieces to pick up. The CD drawer had popped 
out and the end of it had broken off. Other than a few abrasions on the 
corners there appeared to be nothing else broken. It had been asleep (it 
never gets turned off) and when opened it awoke nice as you please. No 
flaky operation. Other than the scratches and the broken CD tray, there 
appeared to be nothing wrong with it! When I got home I was even able to 
burn a CD with the broken piece temporarily put back in place!!!

While I do have AppleCare and have all the data backed up religiously, I 
have no other machine to use and was on serious deadline for several 
customers. I decided to take matters into my own hands. I disassembled 
it (cover your ears, Apple) to remove the CD drive and super-glued the 
tray back together. Today it works as great as it always has, with very 
little (and only cosmetic) evidence of the mishap.

I have disassembled notebooks before and I was VERY impressed with the 
quality of this one. While I noticed obvious efforts to keep weight 
down, I did notice some nice touches. My favorite was the rubber shock 
mounts on the hard drive. I guess I gave them a real-world test. In 
addition, after my "test" I guess it's safe to say that the LCD must 
also be mounted pretty well.

While I don't recommend submitting your little beauty to such abuse, 
rest comfortably in the fact that you iceBook owners hold in your hands 
one tough little number!

Merry Christmas!

Jonathan
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Jonathan Fletcher
jfletch at newmediaconstco.com