A Week in the Modern World with a PowerPC Mac

I have been using my PowerBook G4 as a writing and e-mail tool for a while now, and I thought I may be able to make it a complete daily driver. I work as an IT manager for a small design firm, and I oversee a network of Windows and Linux servers and Windows workstations. […]

OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard Is Still Good Enough for Me

Honestly, if they didn’t keep dropping support for OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard in new versions of Chrome, Firefox, and Flash, I’d have almost no reason to have OS X 10.9 Mavericks on my Late 2008 13″ Aluminum MacBook (that’s a 2013 OS on a 2008 computer). But my Mid 2007 Mac mini is limited […]

Using Skype on your PPC Macintosh in 2016

The way we talk on the Internet fundamentally changed over the past 20 years. When I came online through AOL in the mid 1990s there were chat rooms and instant messaging clients. I still remember the *beep* of my ICQ client when receiving a message all those years after.

Resuscitating a 17” Aluminum PowerBook G4

I purchased a badly abused 17” Aluminum PowerBook G4 in the summer of 2012. It had a badly smashed lower case assembly, missing Enter key, a nonfunctional LCD, a bum battery, and not very many screws holding her together. I’ve always liked the design of the 17” PowerBook and felt the Aluminum PowerBooks have the best […]

Best Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard Prices

It’s a real seller’s market. Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard retailed for $129 and is now selling online for $159 and up. However, you can save by ordering at the original price directly from Apple by phone at 800-692-7753.

Mavericks Already Dominates Among OS X Users

Apple certainly knew what it was doing when it made OS X 10.9 Mavericks a free update available to anyone running OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, 10.7 Lion, or 10.8 Mountain Lion. Released on Tuesday, Low End Mac site stats show that it passed Mountain Lion on Wednesday.

Power Mac G5: The Economical Alternative to a Mac Pro

2012 – Last week I went to a local Mac store so I could have a look at the latest models. Even though I am pretty much stuck on Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger (and happy with it), I closely watch recent developments in the Mac market. Being a fan of desktop computers, I’m especially interested in […]

Firefox to Drop Leopard Support. So What?

2011 – Netscape Navigator was the first widely popular Web browser, and when Netscape finally threw in the towel after years of fighting against Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, it made Navigator an open source project. That project, Mozilla, has been producing new versions of the Firefox browser for over seven years now.

YouTube on G4 Macs: The Battle Is Not Lost

2011 – We old time G4 users have grown used to the neglect by Apple and Adobe, which want to lure us into buying their newfangled stuff by constantly locking out older hardware. But, my fellow G4 users, the battle is not yet lost!

Is Leopard Killing My PowerBook?

I have been running Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard on my 500 MHz Titanium PowerBook G4 for a few months, and it ran very well, but the last week it has developed serious problems, and I am beginning to wonder if they are related to running Leopard.

Is Tiger or Leopard Better for Sub-867 MHz G4 Macs?

I’ve been using Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard on an unsupported Mac for a few months now. It is a 500 MHz Titanium PowerBook G4 with 1 GB of RAM. It runs a lot better than you might think, and I am happy using it for my daily machine. But how does Leopard compare to […]

Why Run Leopard on Slow G4 Macs?

Leopard officially requires an 867 MHz G4 – but that doesn’t rule it out – and then there is Tiger. Depending on your needs and depending on your level of expertise, you will choose either Tiger or Leopard. It is time to revisit the options for low-end G4 users.

Adding USB 2.0 to a Titanium PowerBook G4

2009 – Despite my 867 MHz Titanium PowerBook G4 (TiBook) being introduced in November 2002, making it nearly seven years old, it is still an excellent machine. Being an 867 MHz model, it is the earliest Titanium model to officially support Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, and it copes with it very well.

Snow Leopard Doesn’t Mean the End of the Road for PowerPC Macs

2009 – Low End Mac colleague Simon Royal says he didn’t believe the rumors last year that Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard would be Intel only. I have to say that at the early point when it was reported that alpha builds of Snow Leopard were being seeded to developers as Intel-only software, the proverbial […]

15″ MacBook Pro (Mid 2009)

For the first time in a long time, the 15″ MacBook Pro has become more affordable while adding an SD Card slot. The entry-level 2.53 GHz model doesn’t have the GeForce 9600GT M graphics chip found in the previous generation of 15″ MacBook Pros – and in the faster models in the current generation. Prices […]

13″ MacBook Pro (Mid 2009)

The long-awaited replacement for the 12″ PowerBook has finally been delivered. The 13″ MacBook Pro takes the successful Unibody Aluminum MacBook, ups the speed a bit, and adds an SD Card slot and FireWire, a feature the Unibody MacBook lost (in this case, it’s FireWire 800).