She is my very special iBook. As the Apple ads say, "Is it possible to fall in love with a computer? YES!" I named her "Po" after the Teletubby by the same name. Like Po, my iBook is small and powerful. She is smart and fast and beautiful. Her monitor is shaped like Po's face.

She has 96 mg of RAM and lots of software I have added in addition to what they include when you buy a new iBook. She has Illustrator, Photoshop, Image Ready, Flash, Fireworks, Dreamweaver, BBEdit, GoLive, and ImageStyler. She has DiskWarrior and Virex to keep her healthy. She also has peripherals. She has a scanner, a hub, a mouse, a zip drive and a SuperDrive. Of course, she has an Airport Base (and card). I scanned this picture of her and made it a vignette in photoshop.

I have "How To Do Everything With Your iBook" by Todd Stauffer (Jane Brownlow, Editor, "The Little iBook Book" and "iMac and iBook."

I am very glad so many people love their iBooks and want to have a webring to celebrate that love.

Is the iBook "Girly?"

Since I am a girl, I don't really have a problem with owning a "girly" computer. However, the discussion that's been going on raises some interesting issues for me. Why is a "girly" computer a bad thing? Because computers are really a man's tool? Did you ever notice that "girls" are allowed to aspire to things masculine but boys are severely ridiculed when they try to do anything "girly?" It's as if for a man to be girly represents a fall in status from the superior one of being a man to that of a "mere" female.

I remember when I thought computers were too complicated for the likes of me to ever learn how to use. That was the day of DOS andthe macho geeks would never explain anything so that I could understand it. So it just seemed to be part of the man's world where I was not welcome. But we've come a long way, Baby. Now women are all over the industry, building web sites, writing computer programs and doing everything men can do.

So why the insistance on beige boxes? Because a computer is supposed to be a "serious" tool? Because women can use the manly computer but no man may get caught playing with dolls? So, as in so many other areas, women can only enjoy equality by being more like men. Steven Levy's book Insanely Great contains a discussion of this issue including the amusing fact that Dvorak was comparing the Mac unfavorably with the PC in terms of masculinity way back in the days of the IBM.

Now, I don't really think for a minute that there is anything emasculating about the iBook. What is unmasculine about something possessing beauty and grace? But sensitive men have always had to deal with the charge that they weren't "real men." Creative occupations have always been looked at in askence. "What? You want to be a poet? You want to be an artist? Take this football and forget that sissy nonsence."

Interesting, isn't it, that the company that got us out of a text-only (DOS) interface is now moving us beyond the beige box. The iBook is for sensitive, intelligent men and women everywhere who are in touch with their creativity and sense of wimsy, who, in the words of Apple, Think Different.

Some Links

• iBook Longevity by Sean Hilty
• Mac Mobility
• Location, Location, Location:
  • Part 1
  • Part 2
  • Part 3
• iBook Support Center
• The Top Ten Cool Unlisted Features in the iBook, by David Kurtz
• Everything iBook
• iBook Planet
• Apple's iBook Section
• The iBook List
• The iBook User's Forum
• The Keeper of the iBook
• Is the iBook "Girly?"
  • The iBook Disaster by John Dvorak
  • The Barbie Fixation by Janelle Brown
  • 'Girly' iBook Not Worthy of Men by Polly Sprenger
  • The Barbie PC. Yes, there really was a Barbie computer, and it was a PC. Unfortunately, you can no longer see this unabashedly girly computer. The company went out of business leaving a lot of paid-customers without their merchandise.
  • Apple, the Feminine Computer Producer, by Eolake Stobblehouse.
  • Is Apple "The Feminine Computer Producer?" "Apple is the female computer company," says MacCreator's Eolake Stobblehouse, who has just bought a 500 MHz G4 Cube. "Men and geeks like power and bulk," declaims Eolake. "And if it is difficult to use, that is a definite bonus. That gives you something to fight." "Women, artists, philosophers, and other higher-level creatures like things that are nice, and don't cause problems," he continues.
  • The iMacdaddy, In defense of Apple's computer line, by Sanders Kleinfeld
  • iBook Likely to be Babe Magnet by Samuel Sharp
• Salon Looks at the iBook
• Thinking Different, or how I learned to stop worrying and love the Mac.
• My Mac, an iBook, of course.
• Which iMac Are You? analyzes your personality by your choice of iMac.
• My Apple Macintosh Page, very nice page about someone's tangerine iMac.
• What's Up With Mac Users Anyway? by Jeff Major. What's Up With Jeff Major???
• Infinite Loop: Speaking the Unspeakable by David K. Schultz. The Apple as forbidden fruit. The price and heady joys of thinking different.
• Serious Play, is the Mac a toy?
• Po has two sibling computers, one a PC and one a Mac. Meet Kia and Tinky Winky.
• Bugdom
  • Review by Mattias Borgstršm
  • Review by Kirk Hiner
  • Review by Michael Thibault
  • Review by Michael Eilers
  • MacGaming's official Bugdom Strategy Guide
  • Strategy Guide. A much better guide.
  • Rollie McFly's Unofficial Homepage
• A Day in the Life of Jim Ludtke's iBook

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