G4 Fancontrol app for ibook g4 & powerbook g4 to fight against overheating and protect your mac notebook!

I have a iBook G4 1.2Ghz 1.25GB Ram running Mac OSX 10.5.8 Leopard for about one month now. Here in sunny Southern California, there is a heat wave going on and it gets hot here-- outdoors and indoors.  Temperatures gets up to almost 100F Degrees!  My iBook G4 and my PowerMacs and iMac G3 runs hotter too!  On my PowerMac G4 MDD I installed CHUD Tools 3.5.2 which allows for Nap mode to be turned on so CPU workload would scale down and the temperature goes down as well when it is not doing anything processor intensive.

On the iBook G4, the way to cool it down is to install a fan control program called, "G4 FanControl."  This program or should i say app, helps you set the u of when the fans kick in to cool your iBook G4.  Version 0.6.1 is the latest version and u operate it via gui (graphical user interface) rather than command line-- which makes it easy to use! You get 3 sensors with sliders to set the threshold of when to fans kick in. The app has temperature in Celsius only so you might want to ran a temperature converter from Fahrenheit to Celsius converter online if you are use to Fahrenheit as your temperature gauge. On my iBook G4, Sensor 1 is the Ram/memory slot, Sensor 2 is the CPU and Sensor 3 is the GPU (graphics chip.) I set Sensor 1 (Ram slot) to 50C, Sensor 2 (CPU) to 51C and Sensor 3 (GPU) to 52C-- with this setting, it works well for me and the fans kick in sooner than later.  This app really protects my iBook G4 from heat and overheating and it will prolong the life of my equipment.

It requires Mac OSX 10.4.x Tiger or Mac OSX 10.5.x Leopard and iBook G4 or PowerBook G4, and some people say that it works on the White iBook G3 dual usb model as well but I can't confirm that.

Version 0.5.0 is the free version but is glitchy and is hard to find online.

Version 0.6.1 is the latest version but it costs $14.99 but it is worth it to protect our iBook G4s and PowerBook G4s.

Version 0.6.1 G4 FanControl app can be bought and downloaded here:
http://www.andreafabrizi.it/?g4fancontrol

With G4FanControl app, i can be at ease and not worry about my iBook G4 overheating in the summer:)

I will post on my blog about my recommendation for a fancontrol program for intel based mac notebooks in the near future soon.

Apple sets the threshold too high for fans to kick in and that is why the Mac notebooks overheat and the fans don't turn on much-- probably due to the late Steve Jobs' insistence on quiet notebooks over practicality = overheating and burnt out notebooks.  With an app like G4FanControl, we can lower the threshold so the fans kick in earlier and we don't have to worry.

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the newest webkit leopard web brower for 10.5 PPC & Intel users is the most stable and best version yet!

The latest version of Webkit Leopard is : Webkit 537.3.1 and it is the most stable version yet! And the problem with crashing on full screen html5 video has been resolved.  This version is very stable and less crash prone.

So if you haven't already, I suggest you head over to:
http://code.google.com/p/leopard-webkit/downloads/list

and download WebKit-537.3.1-Leopard.dmg

This is for Mac OS X 10.5.8 Leopard users running PPC or Intel based Macs.

Enjoy!
 

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in case you didn't know, LibreOffice 3.6 was released a little while ago

LibreOffice 3.6.0 is available for most major platforms, including: Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux.

LibreOffice 3.6.0 is a free open source full featured office suite that is compatible with Microsoft Office files and is a very feature rich package that can accomodate most people's needs.

LibreOffice 3.6.0 Final (2012-08-08)

This is the first release from the 3.6 branch of LibreOffice.
It contains many exciting new features, and is the recommended version for early adopters. (See this page for LibreOffice 3.5.)

The following notes apply:

• This release is bit-for-bit identical to the 3.6.0 Release Candidate 4, so you don't need to download or reinstall if you have that version already.
• If you update from an earlier version, spellchecking might be broken. In this case, the following workaround helps:
  • On Linux, in a terminal window enter "rm -r ~/.config/libreoffice/3/user/extensions"
  • On Mac OS X, in a Terminal window enter "rm -r ~/Library/Application\ Support/LibreOffice/3/user/extensions"
  • On Windows, in a Command Prompt window enter "rmdir /q /s %appdata%\LibreOffice\3\user\extensions"
  • After that, please restart LibreOffice twice.
• The distribution for Windows is an international build, so you can choose the user interface language that you prefer. Help content is available via an online service, or alternatively as a separate install.
• Our Windows binaries are digitally signed by The Document Foundation.
• For Windows users that have LibreOffice prior to version 3.4.5 installed, either uninstall that beforehand, or upgrade to 3.4.5. Otherwise, the upgrade to 3.6.0 may fail.
• For Windows users that have OpenOffice.org installed, we advise uninstalling that beforehand, because it registers the same file type associations.
• If you run Windows 2000, you may require this update before being able to install LibreOffice.
• If you run Linux, the GCJ Java variant has known issues with LibreOffice, we advise to e.g. use OpenJDK instead.
• A full list of annoying bugs is available from the wiki.

The list of new features can be found here: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/ReleaseNotes/3.6

Download at: http://www.libreoffice.org/download/

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using a 32gb sdhc class 10 as a boot drive for asus netbook running ubuntu 12.04 works pretty well!

My brother has an eee pc 900A white netbook-- dual core 1.6Ghz Atom CPU, and a small internal 4GB SSD drive running some crap version of Linux.  It has since been upgraded to Ubuntu 10 and then Ubuntu 11.10 but . . . the problem is that the internal drive is too small for updates and i can't upgrade it to Ubuntu 12.04 due to lack of space.

SSDs are pricey so . . . the solution was to get a sd card-- mainly a 32GB SDHC Class 10 (which is the fastest for regular SD cards) and i got it for $17 on sale @ Frys Electronics here in sunny California.

I formatted the 32GB SDHC card in native ubuntu linux format -- ext4 and not fat32.

I have to tell ya, Ubuntu running of this is a lot more usable in version 12.04 than version 11.10.

It is very usable and not very laggy as some people would think.

Remember to set the sd card as the primary boot drive in the BIOS and you are set!

It is a nice cost effective solution to a pricey ssd drive.

After the ubuntu 12.04 install, i ran a system update-- 329 files to update, which took about an hour and a half and after that , a reboot and everything was fine and dandy.

websites load fast in firefox, libreoffice writer launches in seconds and is ready to use, youtube flash videos play just fine in windowed mode and full screen mode.

ubuntu 12.04 is a fine os and it is free and works well with the sd card and  my brother's netbook and he is one happy customer!

A big thank you to Linus Torvalds and the open source linux developer community for fixing the Linux kernel in the way it handles sd cards! Now sdhc class 10 cards are usable in Linux as a boot drive and over all storage device!

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Software updates! VLC 2.03 and Tenfourfox 14 are released!

Software updates! VLC 2.03 and Tenfourfox 14 are released!


-VLC 2.03 was recently updated.

Get the Mac PPC & Intel versions here:

Mac PPC 32 bit: https://www.macupdate.com/download/42363/vlc-2.0.3-powerpc.dmg
Mac Intel 32bit: https://www.macupdate.com/download/36650/vlc-2.0.3-intel32.dmg
Mac Intel 64bit: https://www.macupdate.com/download/5758/vlc-2.0.3.dmg

** requires Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.8 and up!

What's New

Version 2.0.3:

--This release mostly targets the Mac OS X platform and adds support for OS X Mountain Lion. It also fixes the Qt interface's appearance on Windows 8 and includes improvements for the flv and ape demuxers as well as the http access module. Additionally, it includes updates for 18 translations and adds support for Uzbek and Marathi

-Tenfourfox 14 came out! 

G3: https://code.google.com/p/tenfourfox/downloads/detail?name=TenFourFoxG3-14.0.app.zip&can=2&q=

G4: https://code.google.com/p/tenfourfox/downloads/detail?name=TenFourFox7400-14.0.app.zip&can=2&q=

G4e: https://code.google.com/p/tenfourfox/downloads/detail?name=TenFourFox7450-14.0.app.zip&can=2&q=

G5: https://code.google.com/p/tenfourfox/downloads/detail?name=TenFourFoxG5-14.0.app.zip&can=2&q=

** Tenfourfox 10.0.6 can be downloaded @ its homepage:
http://www.floodgap.com/software/tenfourfox/

enjoy!

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ibook G4- the best cheap mac notebook for daily use

 The iBook G4- the Greatest yet overlooked deal in the aftermarket of used notebook computers

I recently bought a used iBook G4 from craigslist for $75.  It is a 1.2 Ghz G4 w/ 768mb ram, 30gb hard drive, combo drive (that still works!), airport extreme running Mac OSX 10.3.9 Panther. The seller thought his iBook G4 had a defective airport extreme card and told me the wireless was finicky and goes out a lot.  What he didn't know was that he didn't set up the networking settings properly-- he needed to specify the dns servers in the network settings and it will be ok.  He was tech illiterate and sold it to me for cheap-- one man's loss is another man's gain!

When i took it home, i wiped the hard drive and did an erase and install of Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.8 and installed iLife 09, VLC 2.03, MacTubes, LibreOffice, AuroraFox, TenfourFox, Ultima 3, and Power64.

I also ordered a 1gb ram stick from OWC for about $31.

My iBook G4 is truly the workhorse!  They are great for everyday usage and great to lug around for places you don't want to take an expensive MacBook or iPad.  In my honest opinion, the iBook G4 is the best alternative to a netbook.

If you want to get an iBook G4, i recommend getting ones from 1.07Ghz and up because these iBook G4s can use a 1gb ram stick and these are faster. These machines could max out @ 1.25 Gb ram or 1.5 Gb ram.

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Leopard Assist: Installing and running Mac OSX Leopard on a PowerMac G4 below system requirements

I upgraded and installed Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.8 on 2 PowerMac G4s in my house.  They are both below the system requirements; one is 400 Mhz and the other is dual 450 Mhz.  I was able to install it via a hack called Leopard assist.  Leopard Assist tricks the installer into thinking it is a 933Mhz machine and reverts back to normal after installation.  You HAVE to run Leopard Assist from an Admin account.

I have to say, Leopard is a lot snappier and more responsive on both the PowerMac G4s than Tiger for some reason.  Leopard on these PowerMac G4s work well! The key is to max out the ram with 2 GB and install a decent GPU; both these machines have Nvidia G4MX 64mb GPU- which is ok-- Rage 128 won't work or run in Leopard.

Leopard Assist is available here @ Macupdate.com:
https://www.macupdate.com/download/26562/la233.zip

All you have to do is provide the Mac OSX Leopard Install DVD and run Leopard Assist and that is it.

With Leopard, we get the benefit of having Safari 5.06-- remember to install the clicktoflash safari extenstion, and set the html 5 player setting resolution to 240p and this will allow a 400Mhz PowerMac G4 to play youtube videos smoothly! Ofcourse flash player has to be installed too but the clicktoflash will default the video playback to 240p html 5 video.

Leopard has breathed new life into these G4s!

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