Monthly Archives: July 2012

Jul 29 2012

Multiples Dock (Dockyard) for Mac PowerPC

Let’s start with the bad news:  “this application is no longer developed or supported” referring to both PowerPC and Intel.  PowerPC users from all over are so used to it that they it doesn’t phase them anymore.  There’s an application called Dockyard which is a dock switcher that will allow you to have multiples dock and you can access all with just one click.  You can also have multiple dashboards with the docks but you can choose not to, if you don’t want them.

Having multiple docks is an excellent option for organizing our apps as you can customize 2 or 3 different docks with themes for work, personal use etc.  For sure you will find dozens of themes which will make your life easier, thanks to this great Mac OS X feature.  Ah! you can now create an empty dock so you can work with only open applications.  The best part is coming: it’s compatible with 10.3 10.4 or later.  Way to go Tiger and Panther!

Dockyard 1.0.1 (Free) PowerPC 10.3 / 10.4 / 10.5 – Panther / Tiger / Leopard – http://belkadan.com/dockyard/

I think the only downside is that it would be nice if we could work with 2 docks simultaneously.  But…beggars cant be choosers!

From the same developer (Belkadan Software) you can download others apps called “menu extras” or “dockyard widgets”.  One allows you to control your dock from the menu bar and the second one lets you control your docks from the dashboard.  Cool!

Jul 25 2012

Monolingual for Mac PowerPC

This program will remove all the unnecessary language resources from your Mac OS X.   It’ll also save some extra space on your Hard Drive, which is good for those of you who still have a G3/G4 with a limited storage.  For example, my iMac G3 Indigo only has a capacity of 10GB.  Honestly I’m not quite sure if I would like to remove all the extra languages from the system to save only 1.5GB.  But at the end it’s all up to you, we only give the options!

* Monolingual 1.4.5 (Leopard 10.5) – http://monolingual.sourceforge.net/

* Monolingual 1.3.9 (Tiger 10.4) – http://sourceforge.net/projects/monolingual/files/monolingual/

 

 

Jul 23 2012

MyTunesRSS (streaming music) for Mac PowerPC

There is definitely a missing feature for PowerPC users!  I’ve recently discovered an application that will help us to catch up with one of the iCloud features.  You will now be able to access and listen to music and videos from your iTunes library (or any folder over the internet on any device with network access from anywhere in the world!!)

Tiger users show me your claws… because this application will be very handy and from now on must be installed in ALL PowerPCs.  It’s not free, but you can install the demo version and make sure if will be suitable for your needs.  MyTunesRSS is a kickass product that is yet another way for us to keep our outdated processors current and alive!

MyTunesRSS 4.3.3 (Demo – $20.00) – PowerPC – Tiger 10.4 / Leopard 10.5 – http://www.codewave.de/

If you want more info about all the features check out: http://www.codewave.de/

I’m browsing with Aurora + TenFouFox and both worked very well.

Jul 19 2012

Defragmentation (iDefrag) for Mac PowerPC

Defragmentation!?  I didn’t know that we had to do that with Mac, but if by any chance you feel like your Mac needs a defrag to make it run faster, you can check out iDefrag.  This application will defragment your Hard Drive and optimize/improve the performance of your Mac.  As I mentioned before, the blog Mac PowerPC is always looking for free/open sources of applications/programs/apps, but sometimes we can not be limited to just these, as running a PowerPC becomes a challenge and often the applications will cost extra money.  If you want to have your system running to its full potential, you need to get the right software , to get the most out of the Mac PowerPCs.  I recommend that everyone takes their time and download the demo version in order to make their own decision!

* iDefrag 2.2.1 (Demo) $29.95 PowerPC Leopard 10.5 – http://www.coriolis-systems.com/iDefrag.php

I would appreciate your help by clicking on the advertisement.

 

Jul 16 2012

Golly (Game of Life) for Mac PowerPC

I get it, you have a Mac PowerPC and have some free time on weekends and you want to install some RPG games just for casual play, but nothing that would take too much of your time.  Go Golly!  Golly is a game of life simulator currently under development, for the Mac PowerPC.

Do you like math?  Do you like puzzles?  If you answer yes, go ahead and download the Game of Life Golly.  The Game of Life is also known as cellular automation and was developed in the 70’s.   It’s likely a really fun game for mathematicians or those who understand complex mathematical situations.  Go ahead take a look at Conway’s Game of Life and other cellular automation and let me know how you spent your week.  Golly is an open souce cross-platform application.

* Golly 2.4 (10.4 Tiger / 10.5 Leopard) (Free) PowerPC – http://golly.sourceforge.net/

Jul 13 2012

MacLibre for Mac PowerPC

I’m downloading this application right now and decided to launch my favorite word processor to start writing about it.  This is a deal changer for the Mac PowerPC community and if it works how I think it will, we get our own AppStore!

Well, I installed and launched it, but unfortunately it did not work properly.  I’m stuck with this window that says “double click for selecting the package you want to install, re-install or update”.  I’m not sure what went wrong, but I certainly will try again later.  Too bad because it looks like with this application, it allows you to update and install all the free open source software.  Let me know if it worked out for you guys.  I’m currently running Leopard.

MacLibre 2.0.2 ( 10.3 Panther/ 10.4 Tiger/ 10.5 Leopard) (Free) PowerPC – http://www.maclibre.com/

Featured applications: • Audacity • Blender • Gimp • Inkscape • Adium • Colloquy • Cyberduck • Fire • Firefox • Nvu • Thunderbird • Vienna • Multimedia • HandBrake • MPlayer • VLC • AbiWord • NeoOffice • ClamXav • DesktopManager • iTerm • VirtueDesktops • X11

P.S.: Thank you “Starfighter” for sharing this fix, it works very well.

Guys check out comments from “Starfighter” if you are having the same issue.  He found out how to make it work.

Jul 11 2012

iTunes Get Lyrical for Mac PowerPC

Alright, now that we’ve got iTunes updated (for Leopard only) we can enjoy this wonderful player just a little bit more.  I like iTunes and I use it all the time to manage and organize my music.  I learned how to work with it and how to get more from the smart library, which is simple.  Some users say that it uses a lot of memory but this is the price you have to pay…so let’s have some patience when everything slows down a bit.  I also would recommend to get this app/plugin called Get Lyrical, it’s free and it works perfectly.  A caution:  to get more from this program you’ll first need to organize all your Artists, Albums and Names of music really well!  After that, it will start looking for lyrics to your music!

The downside of this program is that sometimes it’s not 100% accurate.  Occasionally, it gets wrong lyrics but the errors are very minimum and you can always fix it very easily.  Never was it so easy to add lyrics to your iTunes library!

Get Lyrical 3.7 – (Free) – Leopard – http://shullian.com/get_lyrical.php

Now let’s attach an application that I checked today but for some reason it did not work on my Mac.  I understand that the minimum requirements for this app is PPC/Intel 10.6 and I was wondering why it asks for PPC 10.6 if 10.6 it’s not compatible with PowerPC in the first place.  So I installed an application called Cefipx and I did not have any issues with the installation.  My Mac recognized the app but when I launched the application it gave me the message“application not responding” and after that I had to “force to quit”.  So anyways, I decided to attach this name in this post because maybe someone would like to take a closer look at this app.  As far as I know, it helps to sync any device with your iTunes, share or transfer files like music, video, etc.

*Cefipx – http://www.imactools.com/cefipx/

Jul 9 2012

Aurora for Mac PowerPC (The Missing Fox) – (AuroraFox Project)

Aurora 15.0a2

I was almost finished another post about Browsers, because Mac PowerPC users like to browse around and suddenly I got great news on my Twitter account that AuroraFox released the new Aurora 15.0a2 on July 6th and right away I downloaded this new version and it seems to be working like a well oiled machine:  very stable and fast with the same great layout!  Having Aurora in my PowerPC ensures that I won’t miss Google Chrome because it’s equally as good as Chrome.  These guys aren’t playing around, for more info take a look at:

Aurora (Free) 10.5 Leopard – http://aurorafox.wordpress.com/page/2/ –  The modern browser for PowerPC Macs.

I know that this is the third post about Aurora, but I felt I had to share the news of this update with you guys because it’s yet another compatible program for the PowerPC community.

Jul 6 2012

eBook for Mac PowerPC + PowerPC U

Today, we’ve got great news for our readers.  One of our regulars (PowerMac4Ever) gave us the great idea to convert our blog [MacPowerPC] to an eBook, so our users could have a reference guide for their PowerPCs.  We confess that in the beginning we thought that it wasn’t going to happen.  After we sat and put some thought and some research into it we realized that it could be really cool to offer an eBook to our loyal fans.  For a limited time, we are offering the complete MacPowerPC blog in PDF format absolutely FREE as a sign of appreciation to our diligent readers.  All we ask is that you subscribe to our blog and we will send a copy to your e-mail.  Should you want to offer a small donation to help keep this blog alive, we appreciate your support!

The benefits of having the blog as an eBook are that it can be saved onto any device and taken with you, wherever you go!  Subscribe now and get for Free your copy of eBook for Mac PowerPC.

Thank you PowerMac4Ever for the great idea!!!

Also we have a new page called PowerPC U >   This is a place that you can share all your favorite apps/blogs/doubts/etc.  Take your time to browse around and share with us  your results and what applications your PowerPC can’t live without, and want your fellow PowerPCers to know all about them!

Jul 4 2012

Organized (widget) for Mac PowerPC

Some people don’t use their dashboard very often and disable it because it uses some memory ram to run all those widgets, but sometimes there are nice widgets that could help your day by day browsing, getting news or just using the computer regularly.  In fact, Apple was really smart to set up a location (like a desktop) for all your favorite widgets.  To take it a step further, there is a great widget I came across entitled Organized.  It’s a simple and fast way to check your calendar, events, world clocks, notes etc. All in a single widget.  If you like the idea, you should just visit the developer’s web site to gather more information.  It’s free to use and installation (and uninstallation) of this widget is VERY easy.

* Organized 1.11 (Free) PowerPC Leopard 10.5 – http://www.islayer.com/apps/organized/

Jul 2 2012

Browser for Mac PowerPC (revisited)

NagaraBrowser / Stainless Browser for Mac PowerPC

It’s really hard to say which browser is the best option for PowerPC these days, it’s a never ending forum.  Today we can not complain about it anymore because we have  some great options.  I believe TenFourFox (http://tenfourfox.blogspot.com/) is installed in 11 of 10 PowerPC Macs around the world and it’s probably one of the most powerful and updated options today and runs in G5/G4/G3.  Also Aurora, that just came out for PowerPC,  seems to be the promised one.  I’ve been using it for the last few weeks and I always have 4 tabs + google and it didn’t crash once!  So far it seems to be a very stable browser.  We can not forget to mention Camino, which is another good option and before this list starts growing (thumbs up) let’s mention some names that are not quite as popular but they deserve to own a place in your hard drive.

NagaraBrowser (1.0.1) (PowerPC 10.2 [way to go Jaguar] or later) – http://www6.plala.or.jp/lingo/contents/software/nagarabrowser.html   The nicest thing about NagaraBrowser is the full screen view mode.  You also have your entire desktop to work as a browser and you still have all access to your docks.   Also, you can open any search web site like GOOGLE for example and leave it as a wallpaper in case you need to do some fast research,  you just press the short cut (command + tab) and bingo, it is ready for you!  Having all your research as wallpaper makes your life really easy when you are reading and writing at the same time!

Stainless (0.8) (PowerPC 10.5) – http://www.stainlessapp.com/  I like to use Stainless because it’s very fast, very stable and it has a very nice layout.  It kind of looks like Firefox but the Bookmarks are in the left side (vertical).  I’m not quite sure how long they will keep updating this software for PowerPC compliance, but let’s hope that our community gets bigger and bigger not only for those that already have a PowerPC Mac but also for those that own an Intel and want to have a second machine running side by side.  I also enjoyed parallel sessions which allow you to log in using different credentials in separate tabs at the same time, that’s awesome new feature, not even Google Chrome has something similar.