2003 iBook Value
From Eve
Hi,
I have a Mac question, and I wasn't sure who to ask, so I
thought you guys might be good people to direct it to. A friend of
mine is offering to sell me her 2003 Mac iBook LSX for half what she
paid for it. I am afraid of being ripped off, so could you please
tell me if this is a good deal or not? And what I should be paying
for it? Or maybe you could at least tell me who I should address
this question to?
Thank you for your help. It is greatly appreciated.
Eve
PS. She paid $2,114.79 for it brand new at the Mac store, so I
my price would be $1,057.39, and the computer is supposedly in
excellent condition, no known problems, etc.
Hi Eve,
Both of those prices seem awfully high, particularly if you are
talking US dollars. you didn't mention whether the iBook is a 12"
or 14" model, or whether it is a G3 or a G4 model, both of which
were sold in 2003.
In US dollars, current, brand new 14" iBooks sell for $1,299 and
$1,499 (SuperDrive), and 12" models are $999.
Used and refurbished examples of the latest 12" model sell for
as little as $799, and 14" models for about $1,150 up. if you
purchase a refurbished unit from Apple, you also get a one-year
warranty.
The market value of your friend's 2003 iBook would be in the
range of $550 to $750 depending on size, clock speed, processor
family, and condition. I have a 12" 2003 iBook whose market value
is at the low end of that range. Unfortunately, computers
depreciate with the trajectory of a falling rock.
My 'Book Review column
(Fridays on Low End Mac) contains a summary of the week's price
deals on used and refurbished Apple portables.
Hope this helps,
Charles
Pismo Graphics Faster with OS X 10.4.2?
From Jim Strickland
Is it my imagination, or does OS X's performance improve a bit
on the Pismo with the 10.4.2
upgrade? Things seem somewhat smoother in the graphics department.
Still poky, but not as poky as before.
-Jim
Hi Jim,
I was quite satisfied with the performance of my 550 MHz
upgraded machine running OS X 10.3, but I am much less so
running Tiger 10.4.1. It's not horrible, but it is sluggish by
comparison. My 700 MHz G3
iBook now outperforms it (reversing what I obtained
comparatively with OS X 10.3), presumably by virtue of having
twice as much video RAM and a video card that supports Quartz
Extreme.
However, I've now installed the OS X 10.4.2 update on my iBook,
and the speed improvement is quite satisfyingly and notable. The
Pismo will have to wait for a bit, because 10.4.2 seems to have
broken support for my Lexmark printer driver, and I need to keep
one machine that I can print from - but I'm hoping for better
things there as well.
Charles
Happy MainStreet User
From Jack Thompson
Hi.
I have been using the
MainStreet version [of the PowerBook G3 Series] for some 18
mos. now, and altho it leaves a bit to be desired (12" dual scan
screen and no L2 cache; not to mention the 233 MHz CPU), I must
report that it has been quite a reliable unit. It has never had a
disabling problem, such as battery or screen or any of myriad other
reports I've seen.
After having it for over a yr. running OS 9.1, I finally
discovered that "Panther" is not the only version of OS X.
(Oh, I should mention I spent US$525 from one of the resellers and
this unit arrived w/192 MB RAM and a 10 GB hard drive) - and that
within 2 hrs of opening the box, I dropped it from a desk to a hard
floor - GULP! - she never batted an eye.
This spring I spent less than US$75 from OWC; upgrading RAM to
384 MB and an OS X 10.2 Jaguar disk. The RAM upgrade required
the nerves and eye/hand coordination of a surgeon, but it was
successful. Installing Jaguar was problematic, but it works. A
visit to the local library to download and burn the Combo upgrade
to 10.2.8 to CD was a breeze. I currently have the drive
partitioned to OS 9.2.2/OS X 10.2.8.
This allowed me to upgrade my ISP from 33.6 to DSL.
So for a total investment of about US$600 I have gone from 0
CPUs to a very reliable OS X machine.
The problem, as all LEMmers know, is saving for a new
machine.
Thanks for your ongoing articles and advice.
Jack Thompson
(mother a native Nova Scotian)
Hi Jack,
I used a MainStreet like yours for a couple of months back in
1998 and liked it a lot. It was a big step up from the PowerBook 5300 I had been using.
Glad to hear it's doing the job for you. They are tough old
beasts, and I think the quality of the early MainStreet/WallStreet
machines built in Ireland was superior to the later Taiwan-made
PDQs, like the one I still have.
A bluenose greeting to your mom.
Charles
Lemonade Kills iBook?
From Noah Austin
Hello, hello.
I know this is entirely random and probably an imposition, but I
was hoping you might be able to help me. I bought an iBook about 4 months ago (1.2 GHz,
30 GB, Combo, 12.1", 512 MB) and accidentally spilled a glass of
lemonade on my laptop. Now, this isn't the issue. The issue is that
I had got it to work fine. No problems. I opened it up, did a spot
of cleaning, and assembled it back together. One screw was
misplaced, so I opened it up again, fixed the screw, and tried to
boot up.
And now: nothing. I was hoping that you may have some insights
into why it would do this. Was it something that had to do with the
spilled liquid? Could I have totally screwed it up upon opening it?
Or is it something else. Any advice you can offer me would be
fantastic. Thanks very very much.
Kind Regards,
N. J. Austin
Hi Noah,
The thing is, it could very reasonably be either. However, my
speculative guess would be that it is more likely related to the
lemonade then your disassembly and reassembly. On the other hand,
it's also possible that you didn't hook something up quite
right.
A couple of years ago I managed to spill grapefruit seed extract
into a keyboard twice in the same week - an amazing coincidence. I
had never spilled any liquid on a computer before, nor have I
since.
On the first occasion, I dried out the 'board, and it appeared
to work fine. The second time around, I was unable to restore it to
function, even after taking it apart and cleaning everything
carefully. The liquid was acidic and probably had a delayed action
effect.
If this incident is not covered by your insurance, you probably
have little to lose by taking the computer apart again to try to
identify and rectify the problem.
The teardown guides from PBFixIt may be of some help. They
haven't got one out yet for the G4 iBook, but the one for the G3
model should give you a bit of guidance.
Charles
USR PCI Modem Not Compatible with OS X
From Karl Letcher
I bought the USR PCI Modem advertised on the PriceGrabber
website as being Mac compatible, brought it home, and in fact it is
not OS X compatible. I can't vouch for whether or not it is
OS 9 compatible. Anyway, I contacted PriceGrabber, and you'll
see that they've now removed Mac OS from their Required Operating
System listing. I guess the moral of the story is "Always look at
the manufacturer's website."
In any case, I thought you might want to remove the erroneous
link from your site.
I didn't get to the link from your site - I'm not trying to
assign blame here. I got to it, from of all places, the Macworld
site.
Cheers!
Karl Letcher
Hi Karl,
Thanks for the heads up. One is somewhat at the mercy of
suppliers' and manufacturers' claims in such matters.
My guess would be that it probably is OS 9 compatible, but they
decided to remove the Mac support claim after you brought it to
their attention that OS X is not supported.
Charles
Image Browsers for OS X
From Robert Flaugher
Dear Mr. Moore:
I enjoyed your review of Photoshop Elements
3.0. I recently switched from Windows to an iMac G5 and am debating whether or
not to use iPhoto. I've heard a lot of bad things about it (e.g.,
it stores its photos the way it wants to, and it takes up a lot of
room saving intermediate image files) and am wondering if I might
be better off using PSE 3.0 and a third-party image browser. Can
you recommend good image browsers for the Mac?
Thanks.
Robert Flaugher
Hi Mr. Flaugher,
iPhoto is a good program within its limitations, but I am not a
particular fan personally. I prefer something leaner and faster
that gives me more manual control.
Happily, there is an embarrassment of choices in Mac OS image
viewers. Indeed, there must be well over a dozen.
A few that I particularly like are:
ToyViewer
ToyViewer is an image viewer, and the one that I use most in
conjunction with Photoshop, which was developed originally on
NeXTstep and then OpenStep. Currently it is for Mac OS X
(Cocoa). ToyViewer has simple editing functions and filter services
to other applications. If ToyViewer is installed in your Mac, you
can see image files in all popular Mac Image formats, as well as
PCX, PPM, Sun Raster, etc. on other Cocoa applications.
ToyViewer is freeware.
VitaminSEE
VitaminSEE is image viewer that focuses on interface
responsiveness and speed and is claimed to be the fastest image
viewer available for the Mac. The program also has sorting features
and the ability to add IPTC keywords to JPEG files. It generates
thumbnails for all supported image files (these thumbnails are
stored in the file's resource fork so the image file isn't modified
and so the Finder will use them.)
VitaminSEE is freeware.
ViewIt
ViewIt is an OS X native, fast and easy to use image viewer that
supports most popular image formats: JPEG, TIFF, PNG, PSD , RAW,
DNG, animated GIF, and more. Now even corrupted JPEG files load in
no time.
Important ViewIt features include: unique, intuitive interface,
full screen mode, quick image sorting, printing, digital cameras,
and EXIF tags.
ViewIt is $19.99 shareware.
CocoViewX
CocoViewX is an cocoa native Image browser and viewer for the
common graphic formats. Supported are PNG, JPEG, JP2, PSD, TGA,
PDF, TIFF, GIF (animated), SGI, bmp.
CocoViewX features include:
- DropBox: easy access to files and folders
- Rename series of images
- export images as PNG, TIF, BMP and JPEG with geometry
changes.
- quick export. Export every file with the same option to the
same folder as the last one by one shortcut
- full screen view
- full screen slideshow
- full drag & drop from files
- copy/paste/link files.
- auto refresh of changes in current directory.
- set images as desktop wallpaper
- simple GUI
CocoViewX is freeware.
Hope this helps,
Charles
Pismo Hinge Repair
From Ken Payson
Charles -
You have answered my questions in the past. With your help, I
kept my PB 1400 running until
recently, when my daughter, who had been using it for instant
messaging (perfect for a teenager, since all the "bad" Internet
stuff is too processor hungry to show up on the 1400!) dropped
it.
No point in getting this one fixed.
Now it's time to work on the Pismo. It runs Tiger just fine(!),
but after 5 years, the hinge is very loose.
Can you recommend a service company that will repair this hinge,
and while it's gone, I'd like to upgrade the RAM and maybe even the
processor.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Ken Payson
Hi Ken,
RIP 1400.
For hinge repair, try:
Wegener Media also sells processor upgrades and RAM.
Charles
How About InteliMac?
From Scott Tolbert
It would be better to call them InteliMacs, the computers for
smart people. Hope you enjoy the pun.
Sincerely,
Scott M. Tolbert
Slow PowerLogix Warranty Replacement
From Rhett McClure
Mr Moore,
Do you have any info or other readers complaining about
PowerLogix being very, very slow to replace faulty processor
upgrade cards?
I sent in my defective Dual 1 GHz upgrade card in March, and my
shipping date gets bumped back about every 2 weeks.
Tech support is always very vague. I could understand if they
were straight up honest with me.
Any other complaints?
Rhett McClure
Hi Rhett,
I haven't kept detailed records, but my impression is that there
have been more than what one would normally assume to be a fair
share of complaints about PowerLogix's warranty and customer
service.
Charles
Email Issues with Older Macs
From O.J. Lougheed
Charles,
Thanks for the older article Anti-spam Measures Marginalize Low-end
Macs [2001.07.09].
I'm sending this through Nerdshack/Mailshack using Musashi on a
[PowerBook] Duo 250! They require
authorization of sorts. I have used Eudora forever and can't get
3.1.3 to work on the Duo with Mailshack - or anything else now.
But sadly I can't get Musashi to work with the pinetel.com
smtpauth server. Drats!
Macs forever - or until they start using Intel....
O.J. Lougheed
Hi OJ,
Yes, Internet support is getting more difficult for older Macs.
It's even a bit of a challenge with my wife's PowerBook 1400 running OS 8.6. Eudora
5.2 will work with some email service providers on that machine,
but sadly not with Google Gmail, as its SSM support is too
primitive. I had no luck with Outlook Express 5 either, although
had been told that it should work.
She will be taking over my WallStreet PowerBook anyway after my
next system upgrade.
Charles
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