There are several things that go with me everywhere: my dog, Stevie, my violin (most of the time), and my little old graphite clamshell iBook.
I bought this computer when burglars tore down the door of my store, not to steal jewelry, not to steal violins, harps, or expensive musical instruments. They weren't interested in imported whiskey flasks, or the money in the till. Nope. They tore down a security door and a very thick entry door to steal my iMac and printer. They didn't even take the cables.
That violation prompted me to say "never again!" and I bought a used iBook that went home with me every night. I also installed a security system.
The storefront has closed (though the webstore remains, see "Celtic & More" link) and this little baby has served me well. It has gone all over Albuquerque, to Amarillo and back, to St. Louis, and Pagosa Springs. It has done the Alaskan Highway! It has been dropped a few times, gotten damn cold, survived damp and humidity so low that we had to keep a fire extinguisher on hand in case the dog scratched himself and suddenly combusted.
The door to the CD player falls off every once in a while. But I click it back on, no problem. A tiny little screw fell out of there, and I saved it for a long time, but have no idea where it goes, and my young Mac geek friends tell me it's probably redundant, anyway. The power supply's wires have been wrapped up so many times that they had split and become bare. A couple weeks ago a friend of mine got out some silicon and we swathed the bare spot with goo and let it harden into a rubbery safety coat.
I've worn the letters off most of the keys. My boyfriend, a two-finger typist at best, looked at it and said, "How do you type on this thing??" With the help of a Sharpy pen, the letters were reinstated, but they've worn off again, of course. Lucky for me I took typing in highschool, even though I refused to become the high-heeled and panty-hosed secretary they insisted so many of us girls become. I'm comforted that if I ever go blind, I will still be able to type.
The graphite cover is smeared and smudged, stained and rubbed raw in places. It's a mere 366mghz, and has only 5.6 gig of hard drive. It's maxxed out at 320MB RAM, has no read/write anything, no firewire, no infrared, just your basic USB, ethernet, phone and sound ports. The Wacom mouse and drawing pad that I use with it are in equally worn-out shape: the mouse feet are worn OFF, the mouse pad itself, the drawing pad, has a whole layer simply GONE.
I just discovered how to put Quicktime movies on the web. I am learning how to write Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). I am doodling around with cgi/Perl. Besides writing, and designing websites, and using massive amounts of computing resources for Adobe Photoshop, Image Ready and QuarkXPress. And there are a whole bunch of things I want to do, but can't, until I get a read/write drive, more hard drive, more memory, and a quicker processor.
It's time for a new system.
I'm saving up. If you need a website built, documents layed out, pamphlets or business cards designed, or you have an editing job. Let me know.