Users have a love/hate relationship with Apple's glossy displays. Namely, they either love them or they hate them. I haven't used one myself, as I'll be hanging on to my original MacBook Pro until it ceases to work.

Until now, shoppers could get either a glossy or matte display with the 15" MacBook Pro, but not the 13" model. TechRestore has stepped in to do the "repair." For $200, they'll remove your 13" MacBook or MacBook Pro's glossy display and slap a matte screen in its place. The work comes with a 1-year warranty and TechRestore says they'll have your precious back to you within 24 hours of receipt. Note that this requires a trade-in of your existing screen; you won't get it back.

If you have this service done, please let us know how it goes. Enjoy your glare-free computing!

For comparison, RadTech sells an anti-glare film that can be applied over a glossy display. They're available for the 13in MacBook/Pro (unibody), the 15in MacBook Pro (unibody), the 17in MacBook Pro (unibody) and various iMacs. You can get the full list here. The films start at $19.95US each.

[Via Cult Of Mac]

We get a lot of email to the TUAW tipline: scores of product recommendations, polite and not-so-polite suggestions, and "Won't you post about my new website?" press releases. When we get five consecutive emails, all within a few minutes, all from the same person promoting the same iPod purchasing online service... well, let's just say that it doesn't put us in a mood to post about your site, capice? (Oh, OK, fine. BuyMyBustediPod.com just opened and will buy your busted iPod. There, I did it.) Hopefully this guy can still get a few bucks for his iPod.

It wasn't until I saw these emails, however, that it occurred to me: I've got a couple of broken iPods around here somewhere, and certainly friends and family have more... which service should I recommend for monetizing them? Back in December, both Ars Technica and WallStreetFighter listed some extant sites for second-hand sales, including:

http://www.beyondthepod.com/
http://www.ipodmods.com/sell.htm
http://brokenpod.com/

We even posted about BrokenPod back in February of 2006 -- and of course, there are the perennial options of Craigslist and eBay, or you could, I dunno, get it fixed or even try to repair it yourself. What we really need now, however, is your help: have you sold your broken iPod via any of these sites? Did they pay you as promised? Was the process easy and straightforward? Let us know your experiences; that way I can recommend a site with confidence and a clear conscience.

Update: After all that, I got the original site's URL wrong -- it's http://www.buymyBROKENipod.com -- oops!

Need to replace your video iPod's LCD screen or faceplate? Looking to upgrade its hard drive or battery? A new website, ipodhowtovideo.com offers a number of free iPod how-to videos. These are clearly home-brew videos, but they provide well-paced step-by-step instructions and there's a refreshing lack of site-promotion in the videos. It's nice to be able to watch along with the narrative to see how the job actually gets done.

I doubt I'm going to do any of these projects any time soon, but the videos made me want to go out and find a bunch of busted 5G iPods, just so I could try.

One of my favorite Mac sites, PBFixit, has been renamed iFixit. iFixit provides parts and great step-by-step repair and upgrade tutorials for the Mac mini, Powerbook G3 (233-500mhz), iBook G3 (300mhz-900mhz) and iBook G4 (800mhz-1.42GHz), plus the titanium and aluminum PowerBooks. The tutorials are fully illustrated and, best of all, include pages that allow you to keep track of all the screws and parts you remove, in order.

iFixit CEO Kyle Wiens had this to say about the name change: "Why are we changing names? A few reasons. The first: iFixit sounds cooler. Secondly, Apple is discontinuing the PowerBook name and we want to stay relevant to all Mac owners. But most important, we want to keep our options open. Our team is working incredibly hard to improve our product line and develop the Fixit Guide series."

Check out iFixit if you haven't. They're a very good resource.

If you've been wondering why I haven't had many bylines in the past couple of days (come on, you know you have), it's because my trusty eMac died and I've been struggling with repairs. And I do mean struggling. Replacing the clicking hard drive, which should be a simple enough repair, has turned into an hours' long comedy of errors. I love this computer. I love its shiny, no chrome body. I love its iMac-meets-rocketship-nose-cone good looks. Above all, I love its CRT: flat panels don't really work for me, or my eyes. But I don't think I'll ever own another, even if the line is converted to Intel. Here's why.

On this model, Apple got carried away and forgot they were making a computer and that computers break. The screws, which give it just that right touch of industrial design are almost an inch across, but the hex sockets are narrow and shallow, making them prone to stripping. And stripping them is exactly what the service people did when I had it in for a recalled video board. I had to drill two of them out, not a pleasant prospect on a machine that is essentially a thin shell over a bare CRT.

Once you get inside, things get worse. With the power button around the side instead of in front, just taking the case off means stretching the delicate wires to the power button to their limit and then unplugging them one-handed while you hold the case in the air with your other hand. And getting to the hard drive, easily the most frequent point of failure, requires discharging the CRT and disassembling almost the entire machine to get at a unit that is locked away sideways under the "digital board."

The thing is, it didn't used to be like this. Apple engineers used to put effort into making case designs functional, as well as good looking, whether it was the pluggable performa chassis that anticipated modern blade servers, or hinged power supply mounting brackets of the Quadra and early PowerMac cases that nearly doubled the effective working room, or the fold-out sides on the Bondi G3s. Of course, I can't speak for the original iMac, and I know that space is tight in the "nose cone" shell, but there has to be a better way.