Hardware · 19 December 2003
I like my iBook. Its name is Snowy. Here’s what it’s missing:
- A way to easily disable the caps lock key, for those of us whose large clumsy hands keep hitting it by mistake.
- Better yet, no caps lock at all: for such a rarely-used key it takes up inordinate space on the keyboard. You could lock and unlock caps by hitting Shift twice, no?
- A low-wattage FM transmitter, so audio can be played through a home stereo without mucking with jacks and cables.
- Somewhere else for the CPU. Even with ample circulation the heat buildup under the heel of my left hand is annoying.
- Better access to the function keys. I’m roughly four times more interested in using f-keys than I am in Exposé or adjusting volume or screen brightness, yet I have to use a combination of keys to get to them.
- A full stop/period/dot/whatever that doesn’t require the shift key (particular to AZERTY keyboards but a pain nonetheless).
- The ability to close the screen without it going to sleep, so it can operate as an unobtrusive stereo component, server, downloader, whatever.
- It should sense whenever I enter the room and immediately begin playing Back in Black by AC/DC.
Just wanted to get that out.
UPDATE: Gruber and others kindly point to uControl, a kernel hack that solves the caps lock and fkey problems and appears to pick up dry cleaning as well. It behaved a bit flakily when first installed, owing to a lack of 10.3.2 updating on my part.
UPDATE 2: I was joking, but several people wrote to say that with a combination of a Bluetooth adapter, a Sony/Ericsson shoe phone and this freakish innovation, I can in fact have Back in Black begin to play whenever I enter the room. God blind me.
UPDATE 3: It might be noted that in the original Tintin, Snowy is called Milou. Thomson and Thompson are Dupont et Dupond. Freaking Belgians.
UPDATE 4: Oh! Oh! I forgot the most important missing thing of all – a way to turn off the damned glowing HEY I’M REALLY ASLEEP light that, in the pitch-black rural night, can seem like a neon motel sign forever blinking vacancy.
UPDATE 5: Screw the iBook – this is the best thing ever.
UPDATE 6: There is no update 6.
* * *