I might not have the greatest grades once this semester is over, but at least I will have a great upgrade to my iBook. Cue Alannis because this situation is rich with irony. If I had the necessary upgrades done to my iBook locally, the labor alone would set me back $225. Now then.

Wegener Media is a company based in South Carolina which has been in business for 15 years doing PowerBook upgrades. They also sell parts for desktops but their big stock in trade is PowerBooks and iBooks.

They charge a mere $50 for labor. That's a flat fee for any situation where you have to crack open the case. They will do any and all desired upgrades and/or repairs for that $50. $225 versus $50? I'd say it's a big difference.

They also say that this iBook can take a 512MB SO-DIMM in the slot. They sell one for $94.50. They also sell a 256MB SO-DIMM for $60 less. So now I have a new dilemma...save $60 and just get 256MB, or cram it full of RAM for $95. I'm going to think about that a bit and get back to them. I will also be getting a hard drive and a license for MacOS X Panther.

They say they will pay for shipping to their South Carolina shop, and the return trip will probably cost something like $20. They suggest wrapping the lappie in about 1 1/2" of bubble wrap before it goes into the box. They'll ship it back in an official iBook box. Kewl.

It might have to wait until June, after graduation. Initially I was hoping I'd wind up with a Mac mini as a grad gift. But boosting this machine's RAM to 288 or 544MB and a bigger hard drive would make this suddenly become a very strong MacOS X machine. And the Blueberry Clamshell iBook is just plain cute. You can't get around that. Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated. We are the kawaii iBook Clamshells of Apple.