Apple iBook G4. Credit: Apple Inc.
Someone donated a cool little Apple iBook G4 (ca. 2006) to our Friends group. At first the recipients thought it was dead. Turning it over to me resulted in a functioning computer ready for sale to benefit the group.
A cautionary tale is, however, in order:
Once I got the notebook booted I started looking around on its hard drive and checking the machine’s applications. Nice: Mac OS-X ver. 10.5.8. All of the Apple basics. Very good. Wi-Fi access — hmmmm…… what’s this in the Safari browser? The former owner’s Gmail account… OPEN! And her Amazon.com account login! Gad!! Between those two things, plus the identity information she failed to remove from the Mac, I could have purchased no end of items and produced no limit of trouble for the goodhearted Ms. K. Yikes! Thank goodness the Mac wasn’t sold to some bad guy!
I instantly logged out of Gmail, erased the browser history, cleared her identity information. Ideally the hard drive should have been formatted but, with no OS installation discs, that would have reduced the used computer’s sale value to near zero. Clearly, however, the former owner’s level of risk has been vastly reduced through the little bit of work I did in her stead.
And if the Friends can’t sell the little Mac, I hope to buy it!
PhotonStopper 
I see that slowly you are getting hooked! I am hooked on watching Netflix movies on my iPad.
I’m not a “fanboy” for either side but that little MacBook is a sweet little computer. I get a lot of enjoyment out of my iPod Touch and we regularly play with the demo iPads in stores. How do you listen to the sound from your iPad movies? Earbuds or something better?
Just the iPad microphone most of the time. If I am in a room with someone else then I use the earbuds.
I should say “speaker” not microphone. That is what atrophy does to you:)
I figured that one out! 😉 Kind of “scratchy” sound, isn’t it? Love the iPad, though, ’cause it would be great to see my favorite Touch apps on a bigger screen. For a lot of people, the iPad is all the computer they need and it would be a great choice! I did see the Samsung Galaxy tablet at Best Buy today. Looks great and is a size between Apple’s iPad and Touch which is convenient. Still, I love the extra screen real estate of the iPad and all those apps!
She’s lucky you’re one of the good guys!
She’ll never know just how lucky! Fortunately my reaction when confronted with her open email account was one of horror and not “heh, heh, heh!”