Blast from the Past > Anniversary of PowerPC

It’s still strange to me that this small blog is actually celebrating 7 years of anniversary.  The original idea was only to post a couple of posts/apps that worked on the PowerPC, but we kept finding more and more out there… I already have many bookmarked for future testing, because there are more to come for the PowerPC community.

We did take some time off, because we got busy with our standard jobs and at the end of the day I just wanted to come home and watch Survivor and Amazing Race and go to bed.  I kept procrastinating to login and write a new post, putting it off for “tomorrow” which ended up turning to weeks and months….

Now we are back, and I recently purchased a mint condition PowerBook G4 (15”/1.66GHz/1.5GB).  I’m very proud of it, it’s a great machine and I’m bringing this blog back to life one more time, and breathing life into my stainless steel PowerPC!

So, if you find yourself like me, coming into possession of a brand new “old” Mac – wondering what the top 5 essential apps you need to have on your computer…then read on!  Listed below are the Essential 5 apps for you (in my opinion):

TenFourFox – Yes, a trusted browser is a must for any PowerPC user.  TenFourFox is putting in great effort and keeping us updated! – http://www.floodgap.com/software/tenfourfox/

iWork 09’ – This office suite it’s fantastic, still very up to date and you can pull off great results using Keynote, Number and Pages.  Before I was using AppleWorks due to a nostalgic feeling, but iWork works amazing!  Also deserving of a mention here is LibreOffice 5 (but still under development > http://ftp.osuosl.org/pub/manulix/other/libreoffice/). iWork 09′ you can find for a great price at https://www.ebay.com/ or https://www.craigslist.com/about/sites

VLC – If you choose to keep your Mac PowerPC free of excessive software, embracing the minimalist movement – then just install this app for your media player, because it will play any type of media movie format.  Super powerful! – https://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-macosx.html

Gimp – A Classic of the classics – everybody needs to have this app because before the internet you would have a computer to play with apps like Gimp. – https://www.gimp.org/downloads/

AppDelete – They say you only need to drag your app to the garbage bin, but I personally do prefer to use an app to take care of that. – http://www.reggieashworth.com/appdelete

Now my friends, you are ready to start!

Since we are an independent blog and there is an annual cost for running this blog any support/donation would be highly appreciated.

Thank you 😀

Facebook Desktop Application PowerPC

Facebook is one of the sole reasons people spend more time in front of a computer than ever before.  Personally, I blame timeline because for some reason you always want to check what your friends are doing/sharing.  I have a really small list of friends/family and I only add family and friends that I know “in real life”.  But anyways when it comes to PowerPC users we are very limited in finding Facebook applications compatible with our system.  Some time ago I posted about a menu tab and recently  found another option to share with you today:

* Facebook Desktop 1.9 (Shareware) – PowerPC Leopard 10.5.  It looks like a browser but its very dynamic and already has tabs for Facebook, Twitter, Chat and Lifestyle.  It’s really nice to browse and it ran very well on my iBook 1.07GHz.  The only problem is this is a Demo version and you can only run it for 5 minutes at a time.  The developer’s web site it’s offline so it’s hard to contact them to get a serial number.  Anyways I still think its a good application to share with you:

Download here: http://download.cnet.com/Facebook-Desktop/3000-12941_4-75058655.html?tag=mncol;4

AvidemuX – Movie Editor (Free)

I wish I had more time to answer all the e-mails I get from my readers and to be able to do some research to help everybody find applications.  Unfortunately during the summer it’s difficult to find the time to spend hours in front of my computer.  Slowly as summer progresses into fall, you’ll see more from MacPowerPC!

A long time ago, a few people asked me about some applications to edit movies.  Obviously, my first answer is iMovie, I don’t do movie editing and if so it’s very basic!  In my travels, I’ve  come across a great program called Avidemux.

* Avidemux (2.5.3) – Free – PowerPC 10.2 (Jaguar here guys) or later.  It’s free open source and multi-platform software.  The interface might not be the best thing you have seen but the application is very straightforward. It supports video formats that iMovie does not and is very powerful for a simple cutting, filtering, and encoding. I might have to mention again that its FREE and this is what MacPowerPC is all about.

Download here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/avidemux/files/avidemux/2.5.3/

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MacFonts for FREE

We usually prefer to share this information on our Facebook Page: http://facebook.com/macpowerpc or Twitter: @macpowerpc but we thought that it would be important to share it here on our blog because some of you may not be into Social Networking.  Download 40 FREE Mac fonts, no purchase necessary!

* MacFonts (Free) – Just make a visit to MacWare and download your fonts – http://www.macwareinc.com/ . Mac Universal Binaries.

I hope you guys enjoy it and encourage you to make sure you subscribe to our other pages as well!

Would like to see more this kind of information here?

P.S.: * MacFonts (Commercial $39.99) Includes over 2,000 fonts – http://www.macwareinc.com/products/MacFontsComplete/overview.html – MacFonts expands your font collection with over 2,000 never-before seen fonts designed over the last few years by our exclusive SummitType™.

DrMac for Mac PowerPC

DrMac is a fun widget to play with if you have nothing better to do.  It’s like very simple version of “Siri” on your Dashboard.  You can play by asking question but truth be told, I got bored after 3 or 4 questions.  Maybe it’s me.  If you like this kind of game, be my guest and have some fun on your Dashboard.

* DrMac 200 – Free – 10.4 or later (PowerPC) – http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/21339/drmac

DrMac couldn’t answer questions like “What day is today?”.

AirFlick (AirPlay Mirroring) on PowerPC and Intel Dual Core :)

Most PowerPC users and some Intel Dual Core users really would like to have AirPlay to mirror Videos to our Apple TV without having to convert and sync with iTunes.

AirFlick is a beta version and there is no support but it works (sort of) on PowerPC.  AirFlick is a free application that allows you to stream videos from your computer to Apple TV.  Apparently, you’re also supposed to be able to stream videos from any URL address.

The fact is I recently updated my Apple TV and then I tried to use this application and for some reason it does not recognize my Apple TV, likely because of my upgrade.  But I saw some comments online which indicate that it seems to be working for some of you, but some users experience challenges with the URL streaming feature.  So if you guys want to try out AirFlick and share your experience if worked or not, please feel free to post on comments for the rest of us.  We appreciate your feedback!

AirFlick 0.51 (Free) 10.5.8 – Leopard – PowerPC – http://ericasadun.com/ftp/AirPlay/AirFlickArchive/AirFlick-ReleaseNotes.html

More information & comments: http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/36512/airflick

Magic Mouse for Mac PowerPC

I was browsing at my local Apple Store and wondered if I could use the Magic Mouse on my PowerPC machine… I never actually stopped to check this information out, and ended up wrongly assuming that Magic Mouse was only for Intel!  Anyways after reading the “System Requirements” here is what I found:

System Requirements

• Mac computer with Bluetooth wireless technology

• OS X v10.5.8 or later with Wireless Mouse Software Update 1.0* or OS X v10.6.1 or later with Wireless Mouse Software Update 1.0

• Existing keyboard and mouse for setup

• Two AA batteries (included)

So the Magic Mouse works on Leopard, the only thing I have to do it is download this update and start using the Magic Mouse!

* Wireless Mouse Software Update 1.0 for Leopard – http://support.apple.com/kb/DL951

 

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HimmelBar (Menu Shortcut) for Mac PowerPC

If you are looking for a nice menu bar shortcut for your applications or utilities, I think your search is about to end!  Let me introduce to you HimmelBar.

*HimmelBar 3.0 (accepting donations) http://softbend.free.fr/himmelbar/download.html – 10.4 / 10.5 – PowerPC friendly.  It’s a very small icon on menu bar that gives you many options to easily access your folders, applications, etc.  You can also customize the folders and applications to better suit your needs.  After you start using it, you will likely question yourself why Apple didn’t think about this before because it’s a great feature and makes browsing your own computer much easier!  One of the features that I like is that you have the choice on what size your icons are displayed (big, small or not at all!)  Make sure you check the options Launch at login and go to Preferences as soon as you install, to do the setup the way you prefer.

Now comes good news for our feline relatives:

Jaguar users – 1.4.4

Panther users – 2.4.3

Tiger & Leopard – 3.0

Just one more point, this would be really great for Jaguar, Panther and Tiger because the folder dock application does not work the same way that it does on Leopard: you have to click and keeping holding until the list shows up and it’s not quite a shortcut…

Widgets for Mac PowerPC (ClassiCalculator / iBook)

Bring life to your dashboard with one of these widgets!  They are not “the big deal” but they’re cool little apps that will help keep your machine in the “now”;

*ClassiCalculator – PowerPC – ClassiCalculator it’s a widget that reminds us how applications looked a few years ago.  You can download here: http://cl.ly/2K3b2M15462U

*iBooks – PowerPC – This widget only allows you to access the iBook Store from your Dashboard.  I was wondering if we could actually read our iBooks from the Dashboard, which would be very helpful and cool.  Anyways you can download it here: http://cl.ly/1y3v3b3L280E

iPhone 5 for Mac PowerPC

Lately I’ve been getting so addicted to the Anime One Piece, that I crave just 20 minutes to watch an episode, in my “free” time, which there never seems to be enough of!  But with this week’s announcement of the new iPhone 5, I just wasn’t able to properly focus.  As Kylie said, I just cant get it out of my head!

I’ve already received a few e-mails from my readers telling me how disappointed they are because the won’t be able to sync the new iPhone with the PowerPC!  But I’ve got news for you…if you have a 10 year old Windows XP you can! LOL!

Each company has different policies and it seems that Windows has more support for the old OS than Apple does.  It’s sad and I think that soon Mac users will start using hackintosh more than the PC users do, it’s just getting to be “too much”.  Apple computers are expensive to buy and after few years (and I mean 2 year), are already obsolete and I’m not telling this just for PowerPC users.  Look at the Intel Dual Core, which can be updated to Mountain Lion but can not be used for Airplay!  Dual Core was replaced for i3/i5/i7 in 2010…ONLY 2 years ago!  Also, Snow Leopard it’s not compatible with iCloud and other applications that were released just for Lion/Mountain Lion.  So long story short, either you change your Mac every 1 or 2 years and spend around $1,200.00 for each purchase to keep yourself up to date, or you can keep your best machine as your main machine and buy some cheap (and very powerful) PC for half the price of a Mac and Hackintosh it to keep your devices up to date! (just thinking)

While completing this iPhone research I found this application that is PowerPC friendly and I hope for the release of an update that would allow us to sync the iPhone 5.  It’s not free, but for what it does, it’s totally worth it!

* PhoneView v2.8.4 – http://ecamm.com/mac/phoneview/ – PowerPC 10.5 (Leopard)

P.S.: They just announced that works great with iOS 6 – If you guys have the iPhone 5 and try this application please share the results with us.

Stay strong!

TenFourBird e-mail Client for Mac PowerPC

I was checking my old posts to review what ground we’ve been covering, and what directions we could take the site in.  I noticed that we never mentioned the great e-mail client TenFourBird.  I couldn’t believe it, because TenFourBird is one of the first applications that I open each morning.  So this post is to make sure that TenFourFox gets a special place here on Mac PowerPC.

* TenFourBird 10.6.6 – 10.4 Tiger / 10.5 Leopard (G3 / G4 / G5) PowerPC – ThunderBird dropped the support for PowerPC a while ago and here comes TenFourBird based on the latest version of Mozilla ThunderBird and TenFourFox.  It’s identical to ThunderBird: it’s fast, it’s light and it’s a very stable application to run.  Compatible with most IMAP/POP e-mail, the developer did a great job for the PowerPC community and I want to say Thank You.  🙂

http://en.sourceforge.jp/projects/tenfourbird/

P.S.:  * ThunderBird 3.1.20 is the version that will work on PowerPC (10.5 Leopard).

MultiTunes Multiples iTunes Library for Mac PowerPC

Browsing the web this morning, I came across a great application that it gives extra features to iTunes.  MultiTunes is a plug-in that allows you to have multiples iTunes libraries.  If you are an iTunes user, you know what I mean and you probably wonder how to have 2 iTunes installed in the same computer… Anyways if you feel like trying this app it’s shareware and works with iTunes 6 or later.

MultiTunes 1.6 (ShareWare – 15.99) 10.3 (Panther), 10.4 (Tiger) and 10.5 (Leopard)  PowerPC – http://porkrind.org/multitunes/

Also there is a cheaper version that helps you to create multiple iTunes libraries and manage them.  This app supports iTunes 4 of later

*Libra 2.1.9 (ShareWare – 10.00) 10.2 (Jaguar), 10.3 (Panther), 10.4 (Tiger) and 10.5 (Leopard)  PowerPC – http://www.sillybit.com/libra/  It’s very rare to see apps available for Jaguar.  Anyone that has partitions with Jaguar and Panther sitting on the side, it’s time to boot the feline one more time.

We from Mac PowerPC are always looking for the cheapest ways to do things and we want to let you know that there is one way to have multiple iTunes libraries in the same computer, but it won’t be as practical as Mac users like things to be.  The only thing you have to do is “hold Option key” and click on iTunes icon, a window will pop up asking if you want to create a new Library or choose one, that’s it!  It’s simple but you will have to get used to pressing the Option key each time you want to change your iTunes library.

Browser for Mac PowerPC (Re-revisited)

Yeah Yeah Yeah!, let’s re-revisit our favorite kind of apps, and if you thought that “re-revisited” is in regards to Metallica’s record Garage Days you are right.  In this post we will introduce you to some browsers that we did not check out before.  They’re very promising and will help you in your day-by-day browsing.  I’m really sorry that we don’t have Google Chrome available for the PowerPC platform and I don’t think we ever will.  So let’s appreciate projects like those listed here and others like TenFourFox, AuroraFox, SeaMonkey, etc.

*OmniWeb (5.11.2) Free – http://www.omnigroup.com/products/omniweb/overview/  (Tiger 10.4/Leopard 10.5) –  It’s a very interesting browser, which is light to run.  It’s very powerful, it’s fast and the most important thing is that they are still doing all the updates for either PowerPC 🙂 and Intel.  In OmniWeb you can find features such as WorkSpaces, Visual Tabs, Ad Blocking, etc.  Installing this browser in your Mac will definitely be a benefit for you.  I personally really like the idea of being able to show and hide the tabs.  It’s pretty cool and very easy to browse.

*Leopard WebKit – (Free) – http://www.webkit.org/ / http://code.google.com/p/leopard-webkit/  (Leopard 10.5) –  This is their own statement “The goal of this project is to provide builds of current WebKit sources for Mac OS X 10.5 (PowerPC only).  The built product comes with no support and is provided only for testing purposes.”  Well now, it’s up to you if you want to use this very promising project !

MacNote3 for Mac PowerPC

If you’ve been searching for a great notepad for a long time and have yet to find the right fit for your needs, I think your search is about to end right here.  MacNote3 is a very complete product that goes beyond the capabilities of a simple notepad.  It’s fast to use and has a very clean interface.  One very interesting point is MacNote3 is similar to Notepad or Scrapbook (applications familiar to users of Mac OS9).  This is such a powerful app, and I highly recommend it to all of you!

But now let’s check out the features, please pay special attention to feature #7 because it’s essentially what is missing from Notes and iCloud.

MacNote3 – 3.0.1 (Trial – $15.00) 10.4 Tiger / 10.5 Leopard / PowerPC – http://nsek.net/SYW/software/english/macnote3/index.html

If you check “Downloads” you can see a list of other interesting apps that they  have developed.

Features

1. Simplicity

The most important feature of MacNote3 is its simplicity. It can be used in a fairly intuitive way, and there is no need to pay any attention to its file structure, or worry about saving data. New data is saved automatically and in a manner compatible with unhindered use. I hope that, for purchasers, MacNote3 will always be the stationery of first recourse.

2. Link

The user is able in any MacNote3 page, to install links to URLs, Files, other pages of MacNote3 and messages in Mail.app. Thus, pages can serve as an application launcher or a bookmark. In OSX 10.4 or higher, it is possible also to make a link to a message in Mail.app, so it’s easy to organize a To-Do page.

3. Multi-Window and Tab

MacNote3 allows the opening of multiple windows. In addition, multiple pages can be opened, via a tab, in one window.

4. Incremental Search

MacNote3 provides a swift incremental search. The user can quickly locate a needed page, even though it may be hidden among many others. MacNote3 also provides a list of “Frequently-used pages” and “Recently-used pages”, so the user is free to store as many pages as required.

5. AppleScript

MacNote3 is AppleScript compatible. Text data from MacNote3 can be transferred to another application via AppleScript. For example: templates for creating mail messages may be stored in MacNote3, and by employing AppleScript, new email messages can be created from these templates. Or, by means of AppleScript, lyrics from iTunes can be imported into a newly-created page. AppleScript can edit text of MacNote3 too, so it’s easy to insert HTML tags and so on. Of course you can write a new script and expand the ability of MacNote3 by yourself.

6. Iconize

If the user so desires, MacNote3 windows can be made to appear as tiny icons, and thus can be displayed separately on the desktop. In this mode a MacNote3 window is unobtrusive, yet allows the convenient entering of new data.

7. Export to iPod

It’s easy to export page data to an iPod, and therefore memos can be read on an iPod. MacNote3 can export its page data to any kind of iPod – from the oldest models to the most recent touch iPod or iPhone (with the exception of shuffle). Now MacNote for iPhone and iPod touch “mmNote” is available (freeware). MacNote3 can synchronize its data with mmNote via Wifi, so the users can refer to and edit MacNote3 memo and its images on iPhone and iPod touch too. (Screenshot 1, 2, 3, 4, “mmNote” manual)

8. Compatible with other standard services of Mac OSX

MacNote3 is compatible with other services that apply in Mac OSX. A new page can be created via the “Service” menu of another application; a page in MacNote3 can be opened via Spotlight; a page previewed via QuickLook, and so on.

Boot your PowerPC from a USB for Mac PowerPC

Through my epic research, I found great information that I want to share with all of you.  Last year I unsuccessfully tried to find information on how to boot my iBook G4 from a USB.  If you have a PowerPC (most models) it won’t boot from a USB but I found a Ben Collins’ blog that teaches you how to do it, step by step.  Just follow the info in this link, and I know you will find the answer to your prayers!

* Boot from USB: http://ben-collins.blogspot.ca/2010/08/booting-your-ibook-g4-from-usb-stick.html

Web Browser Shiira for Mac PowerPC

During my morning research, I found a great browser called Shiira.  It’s a Japanese open source that was working out very well for PowerPC/Intel  users until recently.  Unfortunately, our Japanese PowerPC friend decided to discontinue this project in 2009 (after 5 years of life), which is too bad because Shiira had a lot of potential as a fast and simple browser, but seemed to also have a lot of bugs to work out.  The last version released was 2.3 and the developer’s site is not online anymore but if you would like to check this browser out, you can download from the link here:

* Shiira (2.3) https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/15032/shiira (Runs on Tiger or later.  You also can check this site: http://sourceforge.jp/projects/shiira/

If you take a minute to review some of the comments, you will notice that there are some disappointed people, but there is also a member who is using Shiira as his default browser on a PowerBook G4 running Tiger and he is pretty happy with the performance.  Well, the only way to find out what YOU think is to download it and do your own test drive.  Right now, the most important thing for me to find is ANY software that supports PowerPC!  This will make me, and all my readers, very happy!