Raible Designs

PowerBook Dead?

I think my PowerBook has died. It figures - the one week in my life where I need it all week, and it quits working. The symptoms started happening yesterday as I was sitting in DIA, getting ready to come to Norway. The powercord wasn't lighting up when I plugged it into an outlet at the airport. At first I figured it was the outlet, and switched between a few different outlets. None of them worked, and I thought to myself "I'm screwed." Then I wiggled the connection where it connects to my laptop - and it lit up! "Phew, that was a close one", I thought.

I ran down my battery on the flight to Newark, and then found an outlet to recharge on my layover. No light. I tried 3 more outlets. No light. At this point, I figured it was my powercord and wondered if I'd even be able to buy one in Norway. I looked desparately around the terminal for another PowerBook user - hoping to buy a powercord off someone. No luck.

Now that I'm in Oslo, getting my PowerBook working again is my top priority. I found an Apple Store and I'm typing this from a PowerBook they have on display. Typing is a little difficult because it's a Norwegian keyboard and all the special characters are not on the keys I'm used to. I talked to the guy at the service desk and he tried the simple solution: using a powercord from one of the PowerBooks on display. No dice. Even worse, it seems to have fried the cord of the one on display!

My PowerBook doesn't seem to be totally gone - the light is still fading in and out on the front of it. But I can't turn it off (even after removing the battery), so I don't know what to do. I'm going to try searching Apple's forums and calling their support line, but I doubt either will work. Right now, it looks like I'll have to buy a new laptop (with a Norwegian keyboard) and spend the next 2 days re-creating all the training materials for this week. No power, no hard drive. Damn.

Luckily, I did send some of my presentations (in PDF form) via e-mail, so I haven't lost everything. I knew I should have backed up the Keynote files on a remote site before I left!

And so my adventure begins...

Update: I figured out a solution. Using a charged battery still works - so the Apple Store is charging mine right now. I'm on my laptop, with one of their batteries, using their wireless. Unfortunately, the only way to charge my battery is in a PowerBook. The guys at Bouvet offered me a PC laptop, but I'm so used to presenting on the Mac - I don't want to lose that comfort level. So it looks like the solution is to buy a new PowerBook.

The good news is I get a 25% discount on the price when I leave the country (hopefully bringing it inline with US prices), but the bad news is it has a Norwegian keyboard. I can remap the keys, so that's not a big deal (since I don't look at them anyway). So the question is do I go whole hog and get the 1.67 GHz 17" with 2 GB RAM - or do I get a 12" and give it to Julie when I get back? The problem with buying the "whole hog" is I'm afraid the dual G4 cores will be released in early June, and I'll be stuck. The problem with buying a 12" and giving it to Julie is she really doesn't want one and will complain we can't afford it (she's right too).

If I bought the 17", I I could try selling it on eBay right when I get back, and hopefully get it sold before the new PowerBooks are announced. If they're not announced - oh well, I got a new laptop (which I need, but not really). What would you do if you were in my situation?

Update 2: Right after posting the update above, the guy came over to me and we talked about 17" vs. 12" and RAM prices, etc. They close in 10 minutes, I chose the 17" with 1 GB of RAM (1 chip). It's something like 27,000 kroners. Yikes!