Make sure you wash behind your ears

Keeping Serenity clean is a constant challenge. A white notebook is hardly practical, aesthetically. With a white notebook, it's too easy to notice grime and lint accumulate from daily use.

So my cleaning regime goes something like this:

Every week or so, I'd give Serenity a thorough wipe-down using wet wipes that I bought from Tesco. I made sure the wet wipes were alcohol free and as chemically inert as possible. My rationale was that if the wet wipes were good enough for babies, they were good enough for Serenity. Just shy of a year old, Serenity is aging well.

There have been reports that the iBook screen could get smudged or scratched from the keyboard when it's closed. So I had to look for a piece of cloth to put between the keyboard and the screen. At first I asked my mom to sew a piece of cloth and that worked very well.

About a week ago, I decided it was time to replace that piece of cloth and I had the perfect replacement in mind. I noticed that Giant Hypermarket sold a microfiber cloth from Sabco. It's advertised for cleaning glass, and that seemed perfect for my needs. The microfiber cloth costs about RM7 and I had my mom cut it to size. It keeps the keyboard and screen lint free and also protects the screen while the iBook lid is closed.


I doubt I'd go through all this trouble if I didn't have an iBook. However the gains outweigh the hassle. There is a comfortable feeling when using Serenity. Maybe it's the Mac user interface combined with a minimalist and elegantly designed hardware that makes the Mac experience so unique.