Have a question? Ask an expert! Navigation Used Mac Dealers Apple History Best Used Macs Video Cards Email Lists InfoMac's Low End Mac Forum Favorite Sites MacSurfer MacMinute MacInTouch MyAppleMenu InfoMac Macs Only! The Mac Observer Accelerate Your Mac RetroMacCast PB Central MacWindows The Vintage Mac    Museum DealMac DealsOnTheWeb Mac2Sell ramseeker Mac Driver Museum JAG's House System 6 Heaven System 7 Today the pickle's Low-End    Mac FAQ Abandonware    Petition Mac vs. PC Info Affiliates The Apple Store Mac Connection MacMall TechRestore MacResQ ExperCom Crucial Memory batteries.com Advertise All of our advertising is handled by BackBeat Media. For price quotes and advertising information, please contact at BackBeat Media (646-546-5194). This number is for advertising only. Problems viewing this page with Internet Explorer 5.5 or 6? It works fine in other browsers, including IE 7. We recommend Firefox for those using Windows, as it is standards based and more secure than IE 6 (and earlier). More LEM visitors use Firefox than any other browser. Hardware Failure, That Rare Mac Headache Low End Mac Reader Specials Download Typestyler, still the Ultimate Styling Tool for Internet, Print and Video Graphics. Works great in Classic with a Native OS X Version on the way. Free Tryout: www.typestyler.com LA Computer Company: LA Computer Company: Specials on AppleCare, Apple Displays, MacBooks, iMac's, MacBook Pros, Laptop and iPod accessories and more. Apple A/C Adapters for laptops starting at $25.00 Call 1-800-941-7654 or Click Here. OWC: Juice up your iPod w/NewerTech High Capacity Battery from $19.99 Free Installation Videos for most models. Pro Installation Service w/FedEx Shipping From $57.95 (Battery Included). - www.MacSales.com Mac users can finally play Party Poker for Mac. Not only that, they can also learn how to play PokerStars for Mac. Laptop Hardware Provided by TechRestore - Overnight Mac & iPod Repairs. Compare products like desktop computers, laptops, and LCD TVs side by side! All the information and reviews to make the best purchasing decision for a new cell phone GPS products or MP3 players. The Ciao network makes searching products easy for you. MacBook/MacBook Pro / MacMini / iMac Intel Core2 DUO DDR2 667Mhz 4GB Kit $84, 3GB Kit $60, 2GB Kit $40 1GB $20. Click to Maximize your Macs... Stephen Van Esch - 2004.07.09 Low End Mac Reader Specials Download Typestyler, still the Ultimate Styling Tool for Internet, Print and Video Graphics. Works great in Classic with a Native OS X Version on the way. Free Tryout: www.typestyler.com LA Computer Company: LA Computer Company: Specials on AppleCare, Apple Displays, MacBooks, iMac's, MacBook Pros, Laptop and iPod accessories and more. Apple A/C Adapters for laptops starting at $25.00 Call 1-800-941-7654 or Click Here. OWC: Upgrade to a Larger Hard Drive, Add Additional Drives SATA for Mac Pro and G5s, up to 1.0TB in each Bay. 500GB from $90! Mac users can finally play Party Poker for Mac. Not only that, they can also learn how to play PokerStars for Mac. Laptop Hardware Provided by TechRestore - Overnight Mac & iPod Repairs. Compare products like desktop computers, laptops, and LCD TVs side by side! All the information and reviews to make the best purchasing decision for a new cell phone GPS products or MP3 players. The Ciao network makes searching products easy for you. MacBook/MacBook Pro / MacMini / iMac Intel Core2 DUO DDR2 667Mhz 4GB Kit $84, 3GB Kit $60, 2GB Kit $40 1GB $20. Click to Maximize your Macs... My trusty PowerBook had its very first hardware failure yesterday. I must admit that I'm surprised and disappointed by this event. This PowerBook is only a little over two-and-a-half years old. Granted, I've used and abused the thing no end. Countless productive hours a day (and we're not talking emailing and surfing, friends). Rarely shutting it down. Hauling it to trade shows and halfway across the country. This little PowerBook has been the epitome of reliable. Not even a dead pixel (fingers crossed). You'd think that I would appreciate all the mileage I've gotten out of this thing. It's been a real workhorse, after all. To be honest, I'm the same way with my cars. If my car needs a major repair (i.e., over $300) before the odometer ticks past 200,000 kilometers (about 125,000 miles), I get annoyed. I'm still breaking it in at 200,000k, for crying out loud. Reliability is something I'm willing to pay for, which is why I switched to the Mac long ago. In fact, I made the switch when it really was more expensive to buy a Mac rather than just mildly more expensive, like it is now. It was a fairly big commitment, considering how much I had invested in Wintel. As a testament to its longevity, my first Mac is still with me. I don't use it for anything, but I can still fire it up and surf the Web and check email if I need to. It would be too much to ask a portable computer to match the record of my desktop. It's obviously more fragile and gets knocked about quite a bit more. But still, a hardware failure at this early stage can hardly be an indicator of good things to come. To cap it, my dear wife listened for about two seconds to my tale of woe before flat our refusing to entertain the thought of a new G5 desktop. I mean, seriously, the machine that's my bread and butter is on death's door, and there's no replacement team in sight. I'm starting to feel like the French national soccer team - aging stars that just can't keep up with the young bucks. I'm in a quandary. Should I replace the current machine (wife's objections notwithstanding) or bite the bullet and get it repaired? No extended AppleCare for me, so I'd be on the hook for the full repair cost. (AppleCare is a wise investment but the money wasn't flowing like a fountain when I laid out a significant amount of savings to purchase my current machine.) Decisions, decisions. What exactly happened to my machine? The tab key broke off. I mean, c'mon, if a guy can't trust a keyboard day in and day out (while command-tabbing about a million times a day), what can he trust? It's all about reliability folks. Now about that new G5.... This column will be my last biweekly one for Low End Mac. It's been an exciting four years in the Mac world, and I'm anxiously looking forward to many more. I'd like to thank all the loyal Low End Mac and Mac Scope readers. It's been grand trading emails (and barbs). I'd also like to thank the publisher of Low End Mac, Dan Knight, for giving me the chance to write for his great site. Stephen Van Esch is the founder and president of the E-learning Foundry, an online training resource for Mac users. Steve loves the Mac and is doubly bilingual, since he's also fluent in Windows and French. Recently on Mac Scope Connecting with the broader Macintosh community, 04.06. "But beyond the very minor celebrity status that came with being published on Low End Mac, it gave me a real opportunity to participate in the Mac community." Hardware failure, that rare Mac headache, 07.09. Macs are usually pretty reliable, but a hardware failure after just two-and-a-half years is still disappointing. Still waiting for iTunes Music Store Canada, sort of, 06.23. While the pay-per-tune model makes sense, Apple's post-purchase copy management flies in the face of Canadian copyright law. More in the Mac Scope index. Recent Content on Low End Mac Mac Pro overclocking, Windependence with Darwine, Blu-ray for Macs, and more, Mac News Review, 07.04. Also more on running Leopard on non-Apple hardware, Ubuntu on a Mac mini, the first autofocus webcam with Zeiss optics for Macs, and more. Wouldn't life be great with an iSlate?, John Hatchett, Recycled Computing, 07.04. PDAs and smartphones are too small for some tasks, full-fledged Tablet PCs are overkill, and ebook readers are too limited. Apple has the tech to own this niche. Mac of the Day: Performa 6200 May 1995 - This 'Road Apple' is one of the worst Macs ever built. List of the Day: Mac Video Group covers digital video hardware and software for Mac users. The Macintosh Portable started a notebook revolution, Carl Nygren, Classic Macs in the Intel Age, 07.03. Before Apple introduced the Mac Portable, notebook computers were text-based and ran MS-DOS. Ever since, graphical interfaces have been the norm for laptops. More links in our archive. Mac Scope articles copyright © 2000-04, 2007 by Stephen Van Esch. � Entire Low End Mac website copyright ©1997-2008 by Cobweb Publishing, Inc., unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Advice presented in good faith, but what works for one may not work for all. 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