Beheaded? ... oh you poor, poor pet!

Those who met me at my first (and for the foreseeable time sadly only) time at ADHOC may remember that my iBook's backlight was broken. b0rked. Kaputt. Those who don't remember and didn't hear me whining will probably remember because I pretty much hammered it home with my little, delightfully absolutely useless hack.

Well, about a week ago I finally got round to taking it to the Apple dealer (Gravis) and having it checked out for 60 bucks. I don't qualify for warranty or anything like that anymore :-(

Anyway, they checked it out and told me repairing it would cost 600 bucks because the backlight was broken (a little over 400 bucks -- I'd guess it's a completely new TFT) and the board holding the USB, Mini-VGA etc. plugs was damaged as well. Also included were 100 bucks for replacing the top lid, because one of the rings for the screws was broken, and Apple only does full repairs, they supposedly don't just fix what *I* think is broken and leave me to live with the rest.

Now, just in case you're wondering: I won't have it repaired. For 600 bucks, I can get half a G4 iBook, after all, which is cooler than my three-year-old G3 model. And, different from what Gravis' repair guys think, I can live with that top screw not really having grip, because its three pals are doing a fine job of keeping the lid on, and the plugs, while their plastic is broken, work just fine.

So, if I connect a regular screen to my iBook, I can use it as a fine, compact 600MHz Mac. But of course, since I don't really have a spare screen, and it kinda sucks not to have a laptop anymore, I asked the store whether they could make me a deal if I bought an iBook from them.

The best they could offer me is to waive the repair fee if they got to keep my old iBook. Now, I admit maybe I'm expecting too much from the store, but consider this: A perfectly fine iBook, that works except for the backlight. And they expect me to 'sell' it to them for 60 bucks?

Well, I've told them yes, I'll pay the 60, and no, I won't buy an iBook from you. My good old iBook will probably be set up here in the house somewhere as a headless AirPort router for my sister's rev. B iMac who can't have AirPort, and I'll use it as a server (my whole iTunes library is gonna go on there), and for distributed compilation, and maybe also as a CVS server and whatever else I can think of. And in one or two years, when I really need one, I'll buy a new Mac.

Having a notebook was nice, but I'll make it through the last year at Uni without it. Guess I can't work on the train anymore, but maybe I'll manage to read some. Doing homework in a shaky train really doesn't agree with the readability of my handwriting, sadly.

What the whole point of this article is? Broken iBooks make great headless servers, and if you ever buy one, make sure you get extended warranty of some sort.

Ta-da.