New Keys on 17" PowerBook

Snowball

Switched the Other Way
There are some new keys on the 17" PowerBook, have a look.
If you read up on the PowerBook's new features, you should be able to guess what they do... :)
 

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for those of us who haven't read up on the features, would someone like to give us a hint?
 
Originally posted by Koelling
for those of us who haven't read up on the features, would someone like to give us a hint?

Hmm, what's this? ;)
 

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Cool, where'd you get the pic Snowball? So F8, 9 & 10 are keyborad light off, semi-on & on right? We also got the F12 key back (finally! :)). Cool. I hope there's a way to turn all that off and get real function keys back though. You used to be able to do it by booting into Classic and changing the preference, but since that's not possible now we'll have to rely on the shareware stuff (which doesn't work right on my PB800) if Apple doesn't add the ability to turn it off. Ah well, all the other new features are worth it. :)
 
You know, with a chassis that big, they could've fit a full sized keyboard in. You know, put all the function keys in, and have a seperate row for the other ones. They could have put a 'squashed' pro keyboard in there for that matter...
 
Hmm... As they're autosensing, I hope that they're still autosensing when you turn the light to 'middle' or 'high' (but off on 'off').

Gosh, I wish my Ti's keys would automagically light up like that, but in white, of course. ;)

And I also wish I had a new battery for my Ti, it's recently been cut down to 1.8 hours of battery life... And I don't know how, I haven't done anything bad... :/
 
Originally posted by jeb1138
Cool, where'd you get the pic Snowball? So F8, 9 & 10 are keyborad light off, semi-on & on right? We also got the F12 key back (finally! :)). Cool. I hope there's a way to turn all that off and get real function keys back though. You used to be able to do it by booting into Classic and changing the preference, but since that's not possible now we'll have to rely on the shareware stuff (which doesn't work right on my PB800) if Apple doesn't add the ability to turn it off. Ah well, all the other new features are worth it. :)

Well, you can do it the hardware way. Put a piece of tape on the fn key, and you'll have the function keys work as real function keys :D
 
Originally posted by fryke
And I also wish I had a new battery for my Ti, it's recently been cut down to 1.8 hours of battery life... And I don't know how, I haven't done anything bad... :/

Hmm, seems my battery time has dropped significantly, too... I used to get three hours out of this thing, just surfing and IMing.... now it's down.
 
Originally posted by ksv
Well, you can do it the hardware way. Put a piece of tape on the fn key, and you'll have the function keys work as real function keys :D

lol! That's awesome ksv. I'll definitely has to come up with a way to rig it. Can't believe I haven't heard of doing that before! Hope tape works! :D

dlloyd -- that's the same thing I was thinking when I saw the thing! At least full size arrow keys! They could have at least given us that! I saw a Dell that just extended the arrow keys down past the rest of the keyboard and had them full size. Looked pretty cool. Oh well, still the 17" is awesome.

Fryke, wanna buy my extra PB battery? Get's about 2 hours at full throttle normally (i.e. brightness & CPU up all the way). I got an extra & haven't used it really. I was just thinking about putting it up on ebay. I'll give you a good price since you have such a cool website! ;)
 
Just a quick note about turning the function key on by default. If you boot up in OS 9 (for those that still remember it's the OS apple had before X ;) ) you can switch it in one of the control panels there. Then upon reboot into OS X it's fixed.

I've been using this ever since i found the tip on macosxtips.com

Just for those who might find it usefull.
 
Originally posted by adambyte
Hmm, seems my battery time has dropped significantly, too... I used to get three hours out of this thing, just surfing and IMing.... now it's down.


I wouldn't be complaining about that to much guys. My vaio had MAYBE 2 hrs new and is now down about 20 minutes. So i saved the $200 for a new battery and bought a new pb :)
 
Originally posted by jeb1138
Fryke, wanna buy my extra PB battery? Get's about 2 hours at full throttle normally (i.e. brightness & CPU up all the way). I got an extra & haven't used it really. I was just thinking about putting it up on ebay. I'll give you a good price since you have such a cool website! ;)

That sounds really great, jeb1138, but as I'm not as of yet really sure it's the battery itself (could be some weird logic board/wiring issue, too...) and am thinking about buying a new PowerBook 12" (or an iBook 12") I'm not ready to buy a battery... Thanks very much, though. If I were sure right now, I'd contact you right away in a PM...
 
Originally posted by leadfootedfool
I wouldn't be complaining about that to much guys. My vaio had MAYBE 2 hrs new and is now down about 20 minutes. So i saved the $200 for a new battery and bought a new pb :)

I have Dell Lattitude Cpx at work and it lasts 5 to 10 minutes on the battery after booting up ... So enjoy your Powerbook.
 
my comblahq at work would loose power immediately if I unplugged it (with a full battery). then again, I never moved it from the desk and got 3 replacement screens (the tech said he replaced the so often that he kept one in his car at all times!)
 
jeb1138:
"Cool, where'd you get the pic Snowball? So F8, 9 & 10 are keyborad light off, semi-on & on right?"

hehe, i've got my sources...if i gave a link for hundreds of you to link to, they might go away...just look in an unlikely section of apple's website, or pm me if you are lazy. The pics available are a WHOLE lot nicer than those, and cover multi-angles of every new hardware product :). Sounds nice doesn't it? PM me if you're desperate for hi res apple hardware pic access. :D

dlloyd
"You know, with a chassis that big, they could've fit a full sized keyboard in. You know, put all the function keys in, and have a seperate row for the other ones. They could have put a 'squashed' pro keyboard in there for that matter..."

I don't know about the function keys, but NO WAY they could put a Pro Keyboard in there! Think about it again, if you had a number keypad on the right like the pro keyboard, then how would you then type? your hands would be over to the left all the time! yuck! HP (i think it was HP) did that some time ago with a PC laptop and it was really annoying... I agree, laptop keyboards could use some improvement, but not really the way you describe...
 
Originally posted by Snowball
jeb1138:
"Cool, where'd you get the pic Snowball? So F8, 9 & 10 are keyborad light off, semi-on & on right?"

hehe, i've got my sources...if i gave a link for hundreds of you to link to, they might go away...just look in an unlikely section of apple's website, or pm me if you are lazy. The pics available are a WHOLE lot nicer than those, and cover multi-angles of every new hardware product :). Sounds nice doesn't it? PM me if you're desperate for hi res apple hardware pic access. :D

Well, you've already broken the apple image usage agreement yourself, so you are the person possibly making the section go down ;)

http://www.apple.com/pr
 
lol! Thanks Snowball and ksv. I was about to pm you Snowball but then I saw ksv's post. Thx! That should tide me over till I get the real thing! :)
 
ksv, NOOOOO!!! :) Everybody ignore that post :D... It's just that I'd rather the actual link were given through PMs so the Apple site admins don't notice a huge bandwidth sucking traffic peak from everybody linking through here at once. If there is enough traffic they may change the system to check credentials before allowing downloads, and that wouldn't do for us devout Apple fans, now would it? :) Those pictures are really useful for making posters, designing desktop backgrounds, and Photoshopping fake new Apple hardware to drool over...

Who listens to Image Usage Agreements anyway? :) Especially this part:
"You may not alter, or modify the Image, in whole or in part, for any reason."
Oops, so much for cropping out that part of the keyboard.
But, like Robin Hood, this flagrant ignoring of international law punishable under forced Windoze use for life was done with good reason - isn't it cool knowing that there are extra keys on the new PowerBook? Information wants to be free.
 
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