In a desperate search to find a decent hard case locally for the 2nd generation iPod Touch, I stumbled upon the Griffin Wave case. What follows is the unboxing of said case. A review will come later, as soon as I do some more road testing.

I bought this case at Fry’s for $14.99. The case retails for $25.00 US online. Here is the full package.

Here is the package from the back. Partially open package side view.

Case in the slip out insert package.

Close view.

The case with cardboard insert.

Back of the case.

Entire package contents. Case, cleaning cloth, screen protector, instructions card.

Instruction card.

Screen protector and microfiber cleaning cloth.

That concludes the unboxing. Stay tuned for the review.

“Green is good! Dead batteries are no good!”

I recently had a faulty MacBook Pro battery replaced by FastMac and thought I would share my experience with you all. Was it good or was it bad? First let me explain the situation. On October 1st, 2008 I ordered a brand new replacement battery for my 15” MacBook Pro, one of the FastMac TruePower batteries. The batteries claim to have 68% more capacity than the “other” brand of Apple batteries. You can find out if it’s true by looking at a couple reviews here and here. For the short time that I used the battery it seemed to perform well. I cannot comment on the longevity of the battery though, as mine became inoperable after a few weeks of use. Why did my battery suddenly die? I made the mistake of taking the battery out of my MacBook Pro when the charge on the battery was at 36%. I left the battery sitting on my desk for about 2 weeks without charging it, causing the charge to slowly deplete. After that, the battery would no longer charge. Whoops.

On October 14th I contacted FastMac about my situation, explaining what had happened and that the battery was completely dead. I received a reply within the hour! They asked for the serial number, cycle count, charge capacity, some other general information from the System Profiler, and my order number. I received a follow up email within 20 minutes (or less) of sending my reply. The customer service rep told me that I had a couple options as they were out of stock of this particular model of battery. He told me I could either send the battery in and they would exchange it free of charge when the new shipment arrived, or if I was in a hurry they could ship me an Apple branded battery if I put down a $100 deposit that would be refunded when they received the old battery. I opted to send the old battery in and wait. Luckily the new shipment arrived before my package reached FastMac! It was immediate turnaround, I got my new battery in 3 days after sending my dead one in.

FastMac’s customer service is great: they are very fast, super nice, and easy to talk to. They listen to your problems and try to help you resolve them to the best of their abilities. I was really happy with the exchange and would recommend FastMac to anyone thinking about purchasing from them. Their products are great, I get 4 and a half – 5 hours of battery life on this new battery. On top of all that, they are also very reasonably priced.

Edit – 08/06/2009 – Rating changed from 4.5 stars to 3.5. Read here to find out why. http://www.knoxware.org/fastmac-battery-saga-pt-2/

FastMac Service gets a rating of 4.5 stars.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

You might have seen some iBooks, Macbooks, Powerbooks, etc. with the Apple logo on the lid colored, maybe it was colored the old school rainbow color, maybe it was a solid color like graysail’s iBook.(seen here) Sometimes, you’ll see the rainbow. It will look dull and not very professional. Other times, you might see one that looks really really top notch. This review is about those top notch colored Apple logo’s you might see. If the ones you have seen look top notch, they are probably made by iColours. I am going to review the rainbow iColours inserts.

I recently purchased an insert from www.icolours.ca just for a review. I had seen these inserts about a year ago. I never gave it much thought. I thought they were very interesting and they looked really nice. I never really had much of a desire to actually color the logo on my iBook. I did try a Knox Ware logo once, and a skull. But I decided against it the day I put them in. It just didn’t feel right, in a sense. I wanted to keep the cleanliness of the iBook, I thought a skull looked out of place, it felt almost taboo.

After taking out the skull and the logo. I stumbled upon these films, I was amazed at how clean they looked. Since it has been a year or more, I had a change of heart and decided to try one of these iColour films out. I headed over to www.icolours.ca to check out their current products. They have a few more selections than the last time I went. I decided to go with the old school rainbow. You just cannot go wrong with the rainbow Apple logo. The film cost $3.99 USD with free shipping. You really cannot beat free shipping. After waiting 2 days, the insert arrived! I was very surprised at how fast the shipment was. The package was a plain white envelope with the iColours logo.

I blurred out our addresses so neither one of us receive any weirdo’s on our doorsteps.

I pulled out the contents, wrapped around the insert was a little thank you note, very nice touch, it also kept the insert from being bent in the mail, the paper used was card stock type paper, so it’s a little thicker than regular paper.

The package flipped over.

This is where I got excited. I seen how nice the colors were. They are the correct shades. Which to me is great, because I have seen some other inserts by other companies that looked a little off. The color is dead on with the iColours.

Here is the insert out of the paper “cover”.

Held up to the light.

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I was really excited to put this into my iBook, when I held the insert up to the light I was amazed at out crystal clear the colors were. I proceeded to take the lid off of the iBook, the lids are held together with 4 hex screws, very simple to get the screws out. If you have never taken the top cover off on an iBook before, you will want to do it with precaution. The top half clips onto the LCD bezel on the front, basically it’s clipped all around. You have to bend up on the cover to get it to pop off, you can also use a small flathead, but be VERY CAREFUL!, you could slip and stab your LCD. That would be bad. There is also a manual on icolours.ca, you can pick your model of laptop and read the guide, www.ifixit.com also has some very good guides on how to take apart your laptop.

Screwdriver in.

Screws out.

Lid is now partially off.

With the lid now off of the iBook, I centered the insert onto the inside of the lid, over the Apple logo.

Once it was in place, I held it up to the window to see what the lid would look like with light passing through it, mind you, the colors are not correct because of the light intensity and poor lighting in my room.

Once I made sure everything was in place, I secured the insert down with clear tape. I then clipped the housing back onto my LCD and screwed the iBook lid back together. The remaining pictures are of the final outcome.

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Close up.

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In the dark.

Look we match! (don’t we make a cute couple )

All in all, I am very pleased with this product. The quality is superb, the price is very fair, the shipping is extremely fast. The support is amazing for people that are new to taking computers apart. A newbie shouldn’t feel overwhelmed if they are just jumping into it. I really cannot praise this product enough. It is definitely staying in my iBook for a long time. The only cons to the product are, I should have more!!! And I dont have enough mac laptops to put them in haha. Really, there are no cons. I might even see if I can get a couple Knox Ware logos done. Anyways, enjoy and go order a couple! www.icolours.ca price: $3.99 US, shipping is free.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

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