System Monitoring your PowerPC

It’s important to check on how your computer is doing during the day.  This might sound strange, but to make sure you are not abusing the limits of your Mac we selected some online software that you can use to better understand how your memory, processor, network, battery, etc are being used.  With these programs, you are able to open or close more apps without worrying about having to force quit.

iPulse 2.5.1 – (Shareware $9.95) – PowerPC – Tiger / Leoapard. http://iconfactory.com/software/ipulse/ or you can download here – http://macupdate.com/app/mac/9969/ipulse

XRG 1.6.1 – (Free) – PowerPC – Leopard. http://www.gauchosoft.com/Products/XRG/ 

iStat Pro 4.92 – (Free) (Widget) – PowerPC – Tiger / Leopard. http://islayer.net for some reason the web site is off line, you can download it here: http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/20364/istat-pro

Feel free to share your comments on any app that also helps to track the progress of your Mac.

This will be the last post of 2012.  Happy New Year and see you in 2013.  :)

All I Want for Christmas is My PowerPC!

I’ll admit that I’m relatively new to blogging, and because of this I get excited to check the results each day for the number of people visiting my site.  Considering when I started posting here, it was for the sake of gathering PowerPC users, and we still continue to work towards this goal today!  The first year was admittedly very slow, I used to get 1,000 hits per month and then it was 1,000 per weak and now we are over 1,000 hits per day.  In the past we commemorated 50,000 hits, 100,000 hits and I can’t let 200,000 hits pass without mentioning.  It’s almost a quarter of a Million visitors searching for information on a computer that some people consider to be obsolete.  Needless to say, I’m very excited for 2013 to keep this site growing.

I want to say thanks to everyone that stayed loyal with us in 2012 and if you got a new Mac for Christmas there is no need to go away, we strongly advise you to make an partition and install Snow Leopard to keep running some binary apps. :)

We wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Lately we have been really busy with our day jobs so we have been somewhat lax in updating our posts, as you may have noticed this month.  So we will keep our regular research going and as soon as the holidays are over, we’ll be back with a vengeance!  Don’t forget to like us on Facebook http://facebook.com/macpowerpc   and Twitter http://twitter.com/macpowerpc we always share interesting material/facts etc sometimes not 100% PowerPC related, but posts that we believe are still definitely worth reading.

Thanks to Andre for sharing this picture, which is absolutely perfect for this post!

iMac Christmas

MacSome: Audio Recorder / iTunes Converter

One of our latest post was about tunelyrics and I thought this application would be a good choice to mention as another option for iTunes lovers.

Macsome iTunes Music Converter 1.5.6  (The right version for PowerPC is 1.3.1 and can be download here http://download.cnet.com/Macsome-iTunes-Converter/3000-18549_4-11126093.html )(Demo – $39.95) converts any M4a to MP3, and even works with DRM, by converting protected music and various audio files into unprotected MP3, etc.

http://macsome.com/itunes-converter-mac/index.html 

One more application from MacSome that works very well on PowerPC is the Macsome Audio Recorder 1.1.0 (Shareware – $29.95) 10.4 / 10.5 (Tiger / Leopard). It’s a very powerful audio recorder that works with applications like iTunes, Skype or DVD Player.  It also records from microphones, etc.  It’s a very helpful application to have installed on your Mac.  http://www.macsome.com/audio-recorder-mac/index.html

Boot Your Mac From Another Mac With DVD Driver Via Firewire Cable

Install Leopard or Tiger Via Target Disk Mode.

Believe or not, many people are still buying PowerPC computers, some of them know what they are getting into, but some of them have no clue at all!  They just see that it’s a very cheap Mac and think they’re lucky to find it.

In fact there are some points you should consider before buying a used Mac computer and they’re not limited to just checking the cosmetic aspects or hardware specs.  Ask for the original packing and documents, because it will make the difference if one day you decide to sell it, or in the event that they become collectors items, you’ll increase their value!  Another item you should ask about are the original DVD’s or CD’s, some people just forget to ask about the installation disk and it’s very important to have it in case one day you need to reinstall your machine, as I recently had to.

So let’s say you got an old PowerPC Mac and you want to reinstall the OS X or upgrade to Leopard but your machine has CD drivers only and your Leopard disk is DVD (as I mentioned before some of the G3/G4 Macs won’t boot from USB).  This post shows you how to boot it from USB, but it’s not 100% guaranteed that it will work in all scenarios.   https://macpowerpc.com/2012/09/12/boot-your-powerpc-from-a-usb-for-mac-powerpc/   So you still have a shot at this, what you have to do is:

1 – Mac with no DVD driver

2 – Mac with a DVD driver

3 – Firewire cable (compatible with both machines)

4 – Install DVD disks.

First, insert your install DVD disk in your Mac with DVD drivers and reboot this Mac holding “ t “ for Firewire target mode. >  Next, connect this Mac to the Mac with no DVD driver and reboot it holding down “ alt “.

It might take a second for it to boot, but at this point something should be appearing on screen and you select the DVD as boot source.   Finally, click on the arrow button and the installation will start.

I got a few e-mails advising that some PowerPC users were having a hard time because some machines do not come with DVD drivers and it’s hard to find aTiger OS X CD.  Also, if you are looking to upgrade to Leopard, it would be even harder because I think Leopard is available on DVD only.  I hope you guys like this handy tip and leave some comments if it worked out for you, as it did me!

P.S.: Do not forget to back up all your data before trying anything!!!

To-Do List Manager for PowerPC

For a long time now, I’ve been holding onto these programs and have only just decided to let it all out, because we’ve been very busy trying to source and share apps that support the PowerPC.  These ones come as suggestions from my readers, from around the world, and I didn’t want them to think that I kept their suggestions all to myself!  These are great applications that seem to surround the task of organizing your life.  You won’t regret having these To-Do list managers installed in your machine.  Some of them also work with Windows (if you’re so inclined)…

Here are 4 names that do the job very well and all of them are PowerPC friendly!

* Task Coach – (Free) – 1.3.20 – (Tiger 10.4/Leopard 10.5) – http://www.taskcoach.org/ 

* Simple To-Do – (Free) – 2.3 – (Leopard 10.5) – http://www.julius-eckert.com/project/view/1/5 or you can download it here: https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/26662/simpletodo 

* Simple Task – (Free) – 1.1.1 – (Leopard 10.5) – With iPhone support – http://www.simpletaskapp.com/ or you can download it here: https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/31199/simpletask 

* ToTo – (Free) – 1.5 – (Leopard 10.5) I need to point out that this app runs in the menu bar, which is a nice touch and the icon is gorgeous…it reminds me of the musical Wicked. :) Anyways http://www.fredandrandall.com/toto/ 

I would like to highlight that these applications are all free and some of them are open for donations to help to keep their projects alive.  Also I want to mention that like them, Mac PowerPC also is accepting donations which we use to keep this project online.  Your donations help me pay for the various expenses associated with keeping a blog online, and I’m committed to continue searching for new and free software options for PowerPC users.  Feel free to send us some love in your comments and check out our advertisements – That would also help me keep this blog up and running!

Peace!

P.S.:  Thanks to http://thepowerpcarchive.com that recommend a nice application:

Anxiety 1.0 (Free) PowerPC friendly, 10.5/Leopard – http://www.anxietyapp.com/

Maximize/Optimize Your PowerPC

I follow a Facebook Page called: Mac OS X Tiger PPC and recently they posted some great articles that resonated with me.  I wanted to share these tips here:

One great post showed me that I had printer drivers installed that I don’t use, which can be found in Hard Drive/Library/Printers.  Carefully remove the folders for printers that you don’t use and you probably will save over 1GB of hard drive space!

Second Tip:  To maximize your system, use an application called IceClean.  It’s a powerful system maintenance and optimization tool using a built-in UNIX System.

IceClean 3.4.8 – (Free) 10.5 (Leopard) – Powerful and simple – http://www.macdentro.com/MacDentro/Home.html

IceClean 2.5 – (Free) 10.4 (Tiger).

For more information/applications for Tiger OS X Like http://facebook.com/MacOSXTigerPPC