One of the Macbooks at school got the port for the power cord kinda shoved in, so it won't charge. My impulse is to open it up and nudge it back out. Is this a very, VERY bad idea and I should send it to the people who will fix it and charge us money, or have a go at it?

I've yanked open a handful of Apple laptops, but I can't say that it is for the faint of heart. To get to the power port, you'll at least need to remove the top case. (Looks to be 27 screws you'll need to remove.) I personally haven't looked inside of a MacBook, so I can't really say what you'll encounter there, but before trying, I would look here first to see what you're in for: [link]

But, since you're asking... I probably wouldn't recommend it. Even if you are daring enough to open it up, I'm not sure whether or not it will be an easy fix. Another concern is whether or not the laptop is still under warranty / AppleCare. By opening it up, you'll void whatever warranty is still left. If the MacBook owned by the school, and is under warranty, I'd leave it to the professionals. If not under warranty, and you're absolutely confident you can put it all back together, then I don't see why not taking a look.

I wouldn't reccomend it. One of the things Apple is a little infamous for is making their computers physically inacessible for home/amateur repair.

I'm in the planning stages of a Mac Mini purchase. Its main use will be in the living room hooked up to the TV and playing video.

1.83GHz mini - I add memory afterwards, right? I'll need a video converter until I upgrade the TV. Any recs for a good wireless keyboard? I'll probably need a trackball, since mousing surfaces are in short supply.

I thought the Minis were difficult to add memory to? I remember someone here telling me that. I bought one on eBay that already had 2Gig.

I bought a used Apple wireless bluetooth keyboard which is good except that the spacebar doesn't always work unless I slam my thumb on it. I assume a new one would work better.

My Logitech bluetooth optical mouse works great. I can use it on the seat-cushion next to me while sitting on the couch.

I thought the Minis were difficult to add memory to? I remember someone here telling me that. I bought one on eBay that already had 2Gig.

Yeah, I seem to recall it's difficult to add memory to the new ones. (Don't you have to pull the optical drive or something first?) Which is too bad, as the with the earlier PowerPC ones it's easy to do.

I also use the Apple wireless keyboard with no problems, and an optical MightyMouse (I think) that works fine on my leg or the arm of the sofa or any book that is lying around.

I added EyeTV to my mini to use it as a tuner, it also acts as a converter, but I think the Mini came with an assortment of converters. I could be misremembering.

I know I got talked into buying the higher memory initially but I don't remember the reasoning, sorry. I will say that the LaCie Mini external hard drives look great with the MacMini and work seamlessly

Also, I often find it easier to control the Mini via VNC from the laptop rather than trying to futz with the resolution on the TV so it's readable, so my keyboard doesn't actually get much use. Application menus, for example, always seem to be offscreen. I don't know if that's specific to my old-ass TV, though.

And went and looked at the actual connection between the Mini and the TV and I can't remember if that converter came with or if I bought it, so I retract everything I said above about converters as quite probably wrong.

Application menus, for example, always seem to be offscreen. I don't know if that's specific to my old-ass TV, though.

That was a problem with the older Minis. The newer ones have a checkbox somewhere that fixes the problem. I posted about that upthread somewhere.

So it does. I could have sworn I tried that before with no results. Weird.

I've been trying to break myself of the VNC habit, but as long as I have the laptop here anyway it's just too easy. And I'm not gonna keep the laptop anywhere else until I get used to using the wireless keyboard and mouse. "Luckily" the laptop will have to go off to be serviced soon and I should be able to adjust.