Sad Macs

Adding
insult to injury, not only did the Dowbrigade nearly die during our latest
Latin American expedition, but our iBook
AND our iPod DID die, at most inopertune moments, and we miss them both.

The iBook, which is now on its third logic board under
the Apple extended warranty, started experiencing video problems in Peru, spontaneously
exhibiting psychedelic colored bar codes and screen static. followed
by freezes.  It
got to the point where the machine started up, but the screen stayed
blank. We
managed to mount it as an external drive on another Mac and transfer
all our essential files, including the photos and videos from the first
two weeks
of our
trip, and upon our release from the hospital turned it in to our neighborhood
Apple service center. It has since been sent on to Apple, so who knows
how or when
it will
return.

The iPod’s passing is even more tragic. At 13 months,
our 4th generation 20GB clickwheel model is 30 days out of warranty.  During
our recent illness and hospitalization, it was buried in our suitcase. When
we tried to turn it on after 3 weeks, it just gave us the
sad pod screen. We tried USB, Firewire, direct current charge, resetting
and restoring, but all we get is the sad pod. Indeed.

Apple seems to have a battery replacement program
for $66. There are third parties who offer either a battery replacement
kit or a "send us your iPod and in one week we’ll send it back
with a new battery" offer for about half of that. They claim
their batteries are 25-30% stronger than the Apple batteries. The only
disadvantage we can see of the third party solution is that it
voids
the Apple warranty, which has expired anyway.

We are investigating. Unfortunately, it is
probably too late to get anything done before we go in for our surgery
in two weeks. With any luck, however, the laptop will be back by then
.