Great 12" iBook shelf

anjtc - 08:16am May 2, 2006 PST

TidBITS readers have been tremendously helpful to me since I took the plunge and bought a 12" iBook G4. I'm afraid that up until now I haven't had much of a way to contribute back. Maybe the following tip will help in that regard.

Part of it is somewhat old news, and part of it I just discovered for myself.

THE OLD NEWS:

When I was looking into buying an iBook, someone on TidBITS Talk noted that a hack is available that enables video spanning -- wherein a larger monitor serves as an extension of the iBook screen (or vice versa), letting you drag windows back and forth and so on -- on the iBook. I tried it out (do a google search for "ibook monitor spanning hack"; all the usual caveats apply), and it worked perfectly with my ViewSonic CRT monitor.

THE NEW PART:

My setup was always a little awkward because the CRT monitor was at a different height than the iBook. I decided to make a shelf to lift the iBook up, and also to help cool the iBook by letting air circulate around it.

So I was wandering around my local Fred Meyer looking for parts when, in the housewares aisle, I stumbed upon the Nexgen Small Stacking Shelf.

<http://www.lnt.com/product/index.jsp?productId=1365076>

I picked one up for $7, took it home, and found it was like it was specifically designed for the 12" iBook!

It's the perfect height

It's cheap but sturdy

It's a (vinyl-coated) metal grid, so it keeps the computer cool.

All the ports are available.

It has these sort of flanges on the side, which I thought I would have to bend off. But it turns out that they hold the iBook perfectly in place if you just slide the iBook under them.

Even the color matches!

Drawbacks:

If you leave the right-hand flange in place, you won't be able to eject or insert CDs. If that's a problem, though, you could always just bend that flange back or remove it.

You can't close the iBook's lid, unless you remove the flanges. Of course, the iBook doesn't support clamshell mode anyway, so who cares.

I put up a few pics of the setup on Flickr. Check it out -- hopefully someone will find this as useful as I did. At the very least it would make a great little gift for an iBook user.

<http://www.flickr.com/photos/35417468N00/>

- Alaska Jack