The worst possible event in the life of a grad student has happened to me - my PowerBook is incapacitated. The pin of the power adaptor snapped off and is now lodged inside my laptop, preventing it from being powered up. I have 40% of my battery left, and then … death. To my PowerBook, anyway.
The good news is that this apparently happens quite frequently. The bad news is that Apple is quoting me upwards of $1000 to fix it. That number changed a lot, it was initially $470, and the guy at AppleCare education “got it down” to $350 (I think he thought he was working at a used car lot, but I wasn’t interested in bartering for the life of my laptop).
So, as with most things in the life of the grad student, we go with Option B: the one that costs less than $10. I’m going to try and use superglue to get the pin and pull it out. If it works, I will be extremely overjoyed… I’ll keep you posted.
