Big Book of Apple Hacks

Chapter 13. Hacks for Laps

Steve Jobs declared 2003 to be the “year of the laptop.” He was probably right: 2003 was a big year for laptops but small machines have kept growing in market share every year since Steve’s pronouncement. So ’Books (that’s iBooks, PowerBooks, and MacBooks) seem like a natural target for hacking. In this chapter, you will learn how to repurpose a broken laptop, max out onboard storage, and even teach your ’Book to respond to slaps.

HACK 105: Three Ways to Disable a Built-in iSight

All currently shipping MacBooks feature a built-in iSight; learn how to disable this component if you don‘t want or can’t use this functionality.

If you’ve got an Apple-designed laptop made after 2005, you’re got an iSight camera built in. The camera is a nice piece of hardware; it’s unobtrusive, fun to use for video iChats and playing with PhotoBooth, but, like everything, it isn’t for everyone.

Some would-be Mac users are prohibited from carrying anything with a camera into their workplace because of security concerns. This may seem draconian because, on the surface, the prohibition seems to stem from a deep-seated distrust of users. Still, it is easy to imagine certain circumstances in which outlawing cameras of any sort is a good idea. For example, anywhere Carrot Top is appearing is a great place to ban cameras.

Besides the obvious corporate security objections (no one would want ...