Newton Poetry

Nice to know that, even a decade after its launch, the iBook is still used in interior decorating – at least by the folks at Target.

The iBook G3 was one of the few classic Macs I’ve kept. Dan Benjamin and John Siracusa were talking about the lack of durability in modern Macs. I think that the G3 iBook is one of the toughest little machines Apple’s ever made.

So tough, in fact, that it can survive in a hypothetical teenager’s bedroom, as seen above.

[NOTE: I forgot to add this, but I’m running OS X 10.2.8 – just in case the network stuff doesn’t look familiar.]

I love my G3 iBook. I bought it right before my Route 66 trip because (a) I was nervous about taking my then-new G4 and (b) the thing is built for road-warriors and students. It’s the toughest laptop I’ve ever seen, and I knew if I took it all the way across the country, it would survive in a pinch.

And it did, both on the Route trip and the Seattle trip. But one drawback was its lack of wireless connectivity. I underestimated the number of hotels – even run-down ones – that have wireless internet these days. One night, in Needles, California, I drove to three different hotels looking for an ethernet connection, never finding one (which is one reason why the Route updates didn’t come as often as I wanted).

Now that’s all over with. I grabbed an AirPort card off eBay for a reasonable price, and took today to actually install the thing. More… »