Accessory manufacturer Other World Computing announced the completion of its series of Do It Yourself videos for Apple’s entire MacBook and MacBook Pro product line on Tuesday. The videos cover all of the DIY options for these laptops, including memory, hard drive and/or optical drive components for all of Apple’s laptop line from the Titanium PowerBook G4 to the latest Unibody line as well as include warnings for the issues customers should be considering and other instructions needed to do the upgrade.

The installation videos are being offered for free, and OWC has made them available in low, medium, and high resolutions.

Well, with yesterday’s price cuts and rumors of a new Aluminum 15″ model still raging, the question is, which laptop do you buy and when? (Huh? You don’t plan to buy a new laptop now? What’s that in your pocket — is that a hole I see burning?) Read more . . .

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The objective of this article is to compare PowerBook screen brightness to other notebook LCDs. I’d like to turn this into an across-the-board comparison on brightness, with your help. Read More…

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We’ve collected some reader reports about a problem with artifacts on 2005 PowerBook G4′s screens. Read More…

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PowerPage sponsor PowerBookResQ has announced self-service user-installable PowerBook G4 SuperDrive upgrades. The upgrade costs US$299 and includes installation instructions and a pre-paid return shipping label for the old optical drive to MacResQ. Optional 24-hour turnaround installation is available for US$399.

Owners of the PowerBook G4/400-1GHz can now easily replace their built-in CD-RW or DVD-only drive with a drive that can burn CD-RW’s and DVD-R’s that can be played in most consumer CD/DVD players. The slot-loading “SuperDrive” DVD-R/CD-RW is bootable and compatible with Apple’s Mac OS X, OS 9, iDVD, iTunes, Disc Burner, Finder Burning and Apple DVD Player, as well as other third-party applications.

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Peter Frampton shown with his favorite things…a John Lennon Doll and his PBG4.

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It appears that support for 802.11g card for older PowerBooks will be
arriving in Panther but not officially before that. Check out the US$99.99 AL5402-XG adapterfrom Asante. The data sheet states that “Macintosh OS X Panther and later; no driver required.” …

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If you have been wanting a zero-force keyboard with support for mousing and even gestures built into your Powerbook G4 (15″) then it’s coming next month: the Fingerworks TouchStream MacNTouch is available for pre-order. (Read more)

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Remember the good ol days? When Apple cared about their customers and valued quality and their reputation? I do; though the memory is fading into the distant past. I have been trying to give them the benefit of the doubt, but they keep letting me down; and I can’t seem to lower my expectations as fast as they can lower their realizations of them. The latest example is a long and sordid tale of “how not to manage customer relations” in regards to my PowerBook G4. iGeek

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Apple has sliced US pricing of the PowerBook G4. The new pricing is US$1599 for 12″/Combo Drive, US$1799 12″/SuperDrive, and US$1999 15″/Combo. No break on the 17″, folks. Individual education pricing is now discounted from the new prices, on top of the existing $200 rebate on new iPods and $100 off Canon printers for portable buyers. The new pricing seems to encourage rumors of an impending addition of 15″ Aluminum models, but in the meantime, finally makes the very-cool PowerBook G4 12″ more price competitive with iBook.

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