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Snaggy,

I agree about the "feel" of the form factor of ye olde iBook. I still can't get over how much better my hands fit on it than they did on the "snow" iBook I was using at my previous job. And don't get me started on how much better I like the old trackpad!

As far as selling it, I believe that the blueberry and tangerine iBooks have reached that point in their lifecycle that they're so old that you can't sell yours for nearly as much as it's worth to you. I know that sounds strange, as I certainly wouldn't pay more than $300 to acquire one...but there's no way that I would part with mine for a measly $300.

The old iBook and I have a history together, you know?

Thanks for posting. Invite your friends.

- Bill P.

Oh, don't get me wrong, Jeff, I will upgrade the hard drive at some point...but not right now. One major project at a time, right?

That's fantastic what you did to your friend's iBook. One of the things I love the most about the Mac community is how we invariably come together for each other whenever the Mac is involved.

Something tells me that Panther has more built-in support for ye olde iBook's video chipset support than was advertised. Perhaps Apple finally decided to allow its dinosaurs to grow old gracefully.

Thanks for posting. Keep it coming!

Welcome, Teemu.

Funny, now that you mention it, I find that most of the software I use every day (with the notable exceptions of Dreamweaver, my FTP client, and my shareware games) is from Apple. Not that I have any hesitation to use software from other sources, it's just that lately I haven't had much need...

I wonder how many other Mac users can say the same thing?

"One question about your Airport section in your article. Are you saying you don't need a base station for the two machines? How about three machines?"

As long as you don't mind leaving one of your machines physically connected to the DSL or Cable modem, and as long as that particular machine can support an AirPort (or AirPort Extreme) card, you're in business without a Base Station.

Take my setup, for instance. Even though my iMac is getting its internet signal through its own ethernet port, it's sending out an internet signal through the AirPort card that I installed in it. Beyond that's it's really just a matter of checking a checkbox in your Sharing panel.

Theoretically, you can probably have as many machines sharing your wireless signal as you want, although obviously they're all sharing the fixed amount of bandwidth that you're getting from your DSL or Cable company, so if you add too many, you'll see a slowdown. But three machines shouldn't hurt anything. Even the older AirPort cards can support up to an 11 Mbps signal, which is a heck of a lot more bandwitdh than your internet provider is giving you to start with (1.5 Mbps or less).

Have fun surfing from the kitchen!

- Bill P.

"What I would like to have is friendlier web tool than Dreamweaver or GoLive"

I agree. I use Dreamweaver MX every day, and while it gets the job done, I continually wish that Apple would do for web design what Keynote did for presentations.

Macromedia recently released a $99 product called "Contribute" that vaguely promises to be a sort of friendlier, consumer-level version of Dreamweaver. Dot-mac members get $20 off the price...but it's still not worth a $79 risk as far as I'm concerned.

I don't trust Macromedia to be able to pull off what Contribute promises to be, not after my all-too-brief excursion with the trial version of Dreamweaver MX 2004. Macromedia's developers seemingly did nothing to address the most widely-held complaints complaints about the first version of MX: disturbingly slow, and lousy window management. If they didn't address that at all on their $400 web design product, there's no reason for me to believe that they pulled it off on their $100 product.

Anyway, I'm with you in hoping that Apple can do something to remedy the situation. Panther made Dreamweaver run considerably faster, at least on my setup...but that's not exactly the answer I was looking for.

There are those who swear by Freeway, but I've never used it and therefore can't comment.

The funny thing about Final Cut Express is that you sorta kinda have to own a digital camcorder to go with it...and right now I don't qualify. So I'll save that adventure for another time. But hey, if you do decide to dive into FCE, be sure to post a little about your experiences here! The rest of us might benefit...

- Bill P.

Hey man, in my mind, the Indigo iBook was the high point of the whole iBook product line. It cured nearly everything that the blueberry iBook was lacking (no FireWire, lousy video card, etc.). I used an Indigo iBook at work for a long time.

The really sad part is that Apple had to give up the clamshell iBook due to the fact that schools weren't buying it. I had to fight so hard to be allowed to buy Indigo iBooks for my school...and when I succeeded, it turned out that we were the first school (in a district of 300 schools) to have bought iBooks! Took a lot of flack for it from stuff-shirt types, but as I expected, my teachers ate them right up. In fact, we had a running joke going that every time one of us got their picture in the community newspaper for some school-related reason, more often than not you could see that teacher's indigo iBook in the background of the photo, because the iBooks were being used that much!

When Apple brought out the snow iBook, I nearly cried. What a step backward, on so many fronts. No handle. Inferior trackpad. No place to rest your wrists. Plain-looking. Boring. On top of it all, very few technical advantages over the previous generation. I remember someone making the comment at the time, "I think Jonathan Ive must have quit or something". But you know what? Orders from school districts tripled. Turns out that the higher-ups really were blocking iBook purchases based on the fact that they were so flamboyant-looking. It shows so much of what's wrong with education today: the decisions are being made by people who have no business making them, and the teachers' input being ignored. But I digress.

Thanks for sharing the link, I'll be sure to consult it before I finally do perform surgery on ye olde iBook.

I will say this about the new 14-inch G4 iBook, though: if I were buying a new laptop right now, I think I'd be fairly comfortable in doing so. It's not as sexy as the 12-inch PowerBook, but the price is excellent and the bigger screen really helps. In the small amount of time I've spent monkeying with the 14-inch iBook in the store, it seems that my wrists do at least fit on the top surface of of the laptop, if not entirely comfortably (because it's a flat surface). With the little 12-inch snow iBook, my wrists often had to hang out in thin air!

Now that the iBook line has gone G4 and it's become such a similar product to the PowerBook line, it's really about time that Apple goes and differentiates the iBook line again. I'm not saying that they should return to the original clamshell approach, but I think that the technology is there to make it curvier without having to make it bulkier. I don't care about the colors, keep it conservative if it'll help with education sales. But do something to snaz up the iBook so that it comes of as something more than a watered-down PowerBook. You know, give Jonathan Ive something to do again.

And that's my two cents. If it's worth that.

- Bill P.