My iBook moved on too a new life at JAARS today. Just for grins, here is the iBook’s history.

Back in 1999, I purchased a G3 PowerBook (Bronze). It was my first Mac, and it was one AWESOME computer. Then one sad day around two years later, after printing some pictures for Mom, I stood up and promptly tripped. I came crashing down. The top of PowerBook got smashed into the sharp corner of a nearby chair and when I opened it back up, the lcd screen had been shattered. It was heart breaking. I called CompUSA and they said the $250 warranty that we had bought did not cover LCD damage - even though I remember the saleswoman when we bought it spending several minutes explaining that it did cover such things. They said they would replace the LCD for around $1000.

I was laptop-less, and Mac-less - very bad. As soon as we had another trip coming up, I bought a new laptop. Since I only felt like spending money had recently earned, I bought the lowest end laptop Apple had for sale. It was a G3 500 Mhz, Snow iBook. I got up early the day it was supposed to arrive - September 11th of 2001. In between news of the towers being hit, the Airborne Express man pulled up, and dropped off the iBook.

Normally I have between eight, and nine computers around me. Macs, Windows, Linux, FreeBSD. I use the strength’s of each OS, and avoid their weaknesses. This was my second Apple computer, but it came with OS X, which was love-at-first-sight.

During the month we spent in Europe, Alaska, and the Caribbean aboard the cruise ships Infinity and Constellation, the iBook did everything I needed it too do. During the day I learned new programing languages on it. In the evenings I would crop the day’s photos, chat with friends via iChat, read my emails, and make needed minor changes to sites I maintain. At night it hid under the bed, patiently uploading over a slow modem the hundred or so photos I took during the day.

It’s only faults were a slightly slowish processor (my fault for buying the least expensive model), and shortish battery life. The 15” Titanium Powerbook now fills the iBook’s place, and life… moves on.