First the good news, it’s survived and it is working.

I had gone to the UnLab podcast studio to edit and upload the latest episode of the Canadian Tech Podcast.  I had taken my Macbook out of my backpack and put it on the desk. When I went to move my backpack off the desk, I had not noticed a strap had been underneath the Macbook.  I almost caught it but the Macbook hit the ground on the corner of the unit.

After some language which I won’t repeat here. I picked up and examined the unit. The damage was pretty obvious right away.

Mbp before

For those who don’t use Macs, The ports are from left to right. Power, Ethernet, Firewire, Thunderbolt and USB,  My main concern was the power port was still usable. Fortunately the unit had been closed when it was dropped so the hard drive had spun down.  The Macbook fired up right away and the power adapter worked. I breathed a sign of relief as that was the main concern. If I could not charge the unit it would have been big trouble.

Now onto the Ethernet port.  It was fairly obvious I was not going to be able to plug a cable in.  This was not a show stopper as the wireless still worked but it is nice to have wired capability now and then. Using a pair of pliers and a cloth as to not scratch up the bottom side of the unit, I gently bent the side frame back into shape.

After a few moments it ended up like this.

Mbp after

Not too bad at all, an Ethernet cable will now plug in. I’ve noticed that when unplugging it sometimes. I have to press slightly harder on the release pin of the cable but to me that is not a show stopper.

 

Couple of things I’ve learned.

  • Watch what your Laptop is sitting on.
  • Try to have the unit in sleep mode if you do drop it.(!)
  • Make sure it’s backed up.  My Mac backs and syncs to the cloud whenever it connects so I had no worries about losing any documents.