Apple computer wallpaper

It was code-named "Wall Street," but I'm far from the alleyways of commerce now. Underneath the shade of a maple tree with sunlight filtering through the branches, my cubicle has grown to embrace the Earth itself. Apple's PowerBook G3 has taken me here. This is a story which begins in the wilds of Toronto and ends, only reluctantly, at my desktop. And that's how it should be.

If Apple manages to hold records for nothing else, it will likely go down in high-tech history as the company to last the longest without an official leader. More than a year after the abrupt departure of Gil Amelio, company co-founder Steve Jobs remains its temporary president. Fitting, then, that the company with the interim CEO would stake so much on its mobile computing line. This is Apple's interim office.

The PowerBook G3 series comes in three speeds of 233, 250 and 292 MHz. I used the 250 MHz model, and I used it everywhere: at the office, on my living room floor, on a friend's sofa, at my parent's kitchen table, on the subway, in a car. Wherever I went, the PowerBook offered me comfort and convenience. While Apple guards its secrets closely (when I recently made inquiries about the iMac's design, I was greeted with the wariness normally associated with communist governments), it's well known that the company has some of the best hardware designers in the industry. The keyboard has a keystroke lighter than that of most PCs I've used, and has none of the claustrophobic closeness which is normally the downside of notebook computers. At 13.3 inches, the monitor gave me a viewing angle large enough that occasionally I forgot how much I used to hate squinting into laptops. Similarly, the 1,024 by 768 active matrix display has a maximum color depth of 24 bpp, which translates into a genuine artscape that will please the company's installed base of creative content professionals. I selected the tropical beach photograph as my wallpaper for the two weeks I used the PowerBook, and the image was almost as picturesque as the park where I was working.

The company also provided me with a 20X CD-ROM module containing a host of applications including ClarisWorks, Microsoft Word and FileMaker. I used as many of these programs as possible, and the PowerPC G3 proved its speed: most applications were up and running in less than 10 seconds. Several programs, however, could not work at all. In some cases, the computer told me that this G3 model didn't have enough memory (it comes with 32MB), or needed a different processor. Sometimes, even when I could open the applications, my use of them was limited. When I tried to draw a picture in ClarisWorks, for example, the canvas was reduced to the size of a sticky-note.

Probably the biggest drawback, however, came when I tried saving files to disk. The PowerBook G3 comes equipped with two expansion bays, one of which can hold the battery, the other the CD-ROM module. That means I couldn't install the floppy drive unless I removed the battery and used the extension cord; otherwise I would have had to remove the CD-ROM module, and with it my applications.

The PowerBook G3 features TV-out capabilities, and we used it with an NECT Multisync monitor. While the results were excellent, connecting the various adapters and cross-referencing between both manuals made the experience more frustrating than it was worth. The same goes for my efforts to connect it to our 10BASE-T network.

There's a reason, I think, why the company has never used the word "laptop." For one thing, this machine is heavy; it was a strain to lug around, even in a Targus carrying case.

For another, it heats up quickly and could use a stronger cooling fan. For anyone taking a casual Friday or working out of the office, you won't want to put this on your lap for very long if you're wearing shorts, as I was. Of course, given Apple's checkered history in this area, I was grateful the machine didn't actually self-combust.

These shortcomings aside, the PowerBook G3 comes as close to offering a true desktop replacement as anything I've ever seen or used. What the concept of mobile computing promises - and what, for the most part, this product delivers - is the idea of taking computing beyond Wall Street, beyond Fleet Street or even Bay Street. At their best, products like the PowerBook G3 offer us an escape route - to places where the streets have no name.