10 Discontinued Apple Products We Miss
5: The "Clamshell" iBook
(Debuted: 1999; Discontinued: 2001)
It isn't hyperbole to say that the iBook (and that same year's iMac) line shocked the world by introducing colors to computers, shattering the dominant beige paradigm present at that time. Unfortunately, only five colors were made available (and some crazy designs later), and Apple has yet to repeat the experiment, but we live in hope.
Keoni Chavez, maclife.com
You are not able to use the Youtube platform on your Clamshell iBook any more? The Freeware Program MacTubes (min. MacOSX 10.4.2) searches the Youtube platform and displays a list of videos that match your keywords. Permform a download and play the MP4 video files using the VLC Player.
Unfortunately, the flash-based Youtube movies ask too much of the iBook hardware. My workaround: Save Youtube movies with a little help from keepvid.com in mp4 format. The video player VLC (OSX 10.3.9 at least for the current version), is able to play these files even on a 300MHZ Blueberry or Tangerine iBook in its original resolution. The option to skip frames should be activated.
If you're interested in running an older Windows Version like Windows 98 on your iBook, you should take at look at VirtualPC. The best Version for the Clamshell is Version 5, it was sold as standalone software or as a bundle with DOS or Windows. It is better to install it under OS9 because of the limited ressources of the iBook. The more RAM you have the better for the performance, the installer dialogue allows you to allocate part of the RAM for you virtual Windows machine, starting with a minimum of 64MB. Some years ago Connectixx was bought by Microsoft. You can still find a good documentation and FAQ at macwindows.com.
It is possible to install the free recent version of Ubuntu Linux,8.04 Hardy Heron on the Clamshell iBook. The PowerPC Desktop version needs at least 256MB RAM, i've installed it without problems on a 300MHZ Clamshell. This LTS (long time support- 3 years) version comes as a Live CD, that means that you can test it before you install it on your harddisk.
