I thought one of the selling points of the portables was that you didn't have hinges to break off or things to lose. Just saying. $20 seems a lot to cover something that is designed into the system.

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I am the inventor of this product. Thanks for blogging about it.

IM RICH BIOTCH!

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This sounds like those wall outlet caps, which I've seen advertized as "energy saving." Can't have that electricity leaking out all over the floor. Untidy. Unless your computer bag looks like the floor of a movie theater, you don't need these covers.

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haha this article made my day, i dont konw y though... the "i assume its magic" part made me laugh. always funny mr mcnulty, always funny.

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Metryq - Not to defend the outlet caps, but the energy savings has to do with air leaking in from outside, raising your heating/cooling costs.

As for the caps for the laptops, kind of cool, but I think they are unnecessary.

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I, sadly, can see the market for these. While my laptop was on one of its rare travels, something in my case poked its way into the ethernet port on my powerbook, bending all the pins out of place and rendering the port useless.

Of course, you can't just replace the port, because the port is soldered to the logic board, so you have to replace the whole board (a procedure for which Apple gave me a $1200 estimate). I went with a $20 USB 2.0 ethernet adapter instead, but it was still a nightmare since there are so few that are compatible with Tiger.

I'd gladly have dropped the $20 on something like this for when I'm traveling instead of dealing with my current ridiculous situation, and probably will pop for one of these when I get a new Macbook or Pro when Leopard comes out.

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iband, nice try. Any air leaking through outlets is from around the fixture, not through it. There are foam pads that fit under the cover plate for that. The plastic caps were originally designed as a safety feature for young children. Someone in the marketing department tacked on that "energy saving" claim. The only energy savings comes from not being able to plug something in, like a kid with knitting needles.

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I've had a PB 12" for years and all the ports work just fine without "protecting" them. Unless you throw your laptop into a gravel filled backpack, this really isn't needed (and just another thing to get lost)

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one of useless item I've ever seen. for everyday life, you're not really needed this.

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seriously nybody with a good laptop case has no need for a set of these

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