欧州自転車レース追っかけ日記

Do I need the Bluetooth function for A1025 or A1054

A1025 (or other Titanium series PowerBook) was not shipped with Bluetooth function and Apple seems to have never bothered to provide any solution to this plight inflicted on many users. They (PowerBook G4 Titanium series) did not have any BT (from here BT is used in place of Bluetooth) internal modules nor antenna for it.

One can provide one on the outside as a USB dongle provided one can find the driver software for it (the chip). PowerBook G4 Aluminum series and iBook G4 series (that followed Titanium series) had built-in BT function or could be shipped with BT function as an option.

My A1025 does not have BT at all. My A1054 (1.07 GHz iBook G4) was not shipped with the BT module inside. I can buy the BT card and antenna kit from, say, The Book Yard and install inside it if I want to.

I was also looking for another solution. Are there any USB dongles that work without any additional driver software, in other words, ones with the same chip as later G4 Macs had so that Tiger or Leopard can natively support.

There seems to be also a solution for A1025, a PC Card style BT card on the market that seems to work.

MacRumors Forum is the best place to look for the answer. I did find Cisco-Linksys WPC600N when I looked for a wireless network card that is natively supported by Tiger or Leopard.

This time I found three possible candidates. D-Link DBT-120, Belkin F8T001 and LogiLink BT0015.
I searched ebay for them and found the two former ones are not exclusively but mainly sold in the USA. They are available on ebay USA but for me it means that the shipping charges are dear and additional import tax on me. The last one seems to be available in European market (or only in Europe?).

If I buy one (or two), it should work right out of the box as long as the manufacturer has not changed the chip inside. Some products change the internal guts but keep the same model names.

Should I buy one (or two)? Do I need BT for my A1025 or A1054? A wireless headphone or a wireless keyboard?

A note TenFiveTube Preferences

I once wondered why I could not sign in on my account on YouTube but one day I could do it.

When I pushed the "sign in" button, TenFourFox started up with a window showing the YouTube sign in page.
I wondered why. One day, however, I realized that I could sign in within TenFiveTube. I did not know why and how I could.

Later I knew why and how. What happened was I toyed with the Preferences panel and changed some settings. The reason I could suddenly sign in on YouTube was I changed the "Advanced" settings so that I could open any URL other than m.youtube.com.

In other words, TenFiveTube graciously asked TenFourFox (or whatever browser the system recognizes as the default browser) to help open the sign in page as TenFiveTube was not allowed to open it.

It makes a perfect sense. I wonder if this small caveat note is mentioned on the MacRumor Forum where this software program was introduced.

Anyway, I wish that author wicknix had the kindness of telling me about this a bit earlier.
In Japanese: 続きをどうぞ [Bluetooth for A1025 (PowerBook G4 Titanium)?]の続きを読む

テーマ:Mac - ジャンル:コンピュータ

1. 2021/11/29(月) 22:37:11|
2. MacBooks and Macs
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Names of the months

January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November and December are the months of the year. Some of them derived from the names of ancient (Roman or Greek) gods, some of them are names of ancient Roman leaders' names and the rest of them are just numbers.

Sept- has to be related to 7, Oct- has to be related to 8 and Nov- to 9 and Dec- to 10 but two incidents of intrusion of Roman emperor's names made them wait for another two months.

Ancient Japan used the Lunar calendar system and 12 months had ancient elegant names. They still use those names on many occasions and even refer to the Solar months with Lunar month names.

When they (Japanese) adopted the Solar calendar system back then when the Samurai government gave up the sovereign power to the emperor, the new government had to decide on the "new" months names. They just seemed to have decided to call them by the number like First month, Second month Third month and so on.

This was practical but less elegant. No place on Earth does the system of numbering the date like 01/01/2022 fit as in Japan.

Anyway, in the old system of the Lunar month, December was called like No-Gods-Month because the ancient lore goes that all the gods (Japanese had and has still believed in pantheism) abandon their normal hangouts and gather in a divine meeting.

Those gods are supposed to come back in January.

Lazy Sunday

Doing nothing at all! It is not good but I could not help it.

In Japanese: 続きをどうぞ [September, October, November and December]の続きを読む

テーマ:猫のいる生活 - ジャンル:ペット

1. 2021/11/28(日) 23:59:11|
2. Diary
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Cisco-Linksys WPC600N Dual-Band Wireless-N Notebook Adapter

Designed for Windows XP / Certified for Windows Vista
Windows 2000 with Service Pack 4 or XP Service Pack 2 or Vista
Operates in the 2.4 and 5GHz radio bands

These phrases are only part of the pitches that this manufacturer put on the box.

So this card is ancient. Probably released around the time Windows Vista came out, which according to Wikipedia was around 2007.

Tiger came out in 2005 and Leopard in 2007. A1025 (PowerBook G4 Titanium) came out in November 2002.

Leopard natively support this chip in this card and this means that some models (iBook, PowerBook Aluminum, Mac mini, iMac or other models) had the same chip onboard or Apple's AirPort cards had the same chip. I don't know the name of the chip vendor but that does not matter for now.

Rising number of PCR test positive people?

Really? Are we going to have another lockdown here in Luxembourg?

In Japanese: 続きをどうぞ [How to spend the winter holidays and what to do]の続きを読む

テーマ:Mac - ジャンル:コンピュータ

1. 2021/11/26(金) 01:27:27|
2. Diary
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A1025 (PowerBook G4 Titanium 1 GHz) is now connected

I am writing this on my A1025 Two and now it is connected via Cisco-Linksys WPC600N network card. It did not require any additional driver software.

I am writing on my A1025 Two (PowerBook G4 Titanium 1 GHz). This A1025 Two works fine except that its left speaker for some reason does not speak. It came with a defect HDD but it got the HDD from A1025 One (which has a defective hinge).

Today (Tuesday, November 23, 2021) I picked up the package sent from the U.S.A containing Cisco-Linksys WPC600N, a PCMCIA CardBus wireless network card.

A1025 Two is running a modified version of Mac OS X 10.5.8 called Sorbet Leopard (self-claimed 10.5.9). It is working fine, at least it seems to be.

According to some comments on MacRumors Forum (PowerPC related), this wireless network card works out of the box and recognized by the Mac OS Leopard as a genuine Apple AirPort card.

So I was going to find out if this was true. This is the first objective. My second objective is, of course, to use it and connect my A1025 Two to the Internet and do something useful like updating the blog.

The Verdict

The first question: Does this card work at all and if it does, does it recognized as an Apple genuine card as some commenters on the forum claim (in other words, no additional driver software)?

Answer: Yes, it did work without additional software driver. It came up as an AirPort interface.

The second question: How does it perform?

Answer: I don't know because I don't have any network testing software. It seems it is working well.


Supplementary

I installed the genuine Apple AirPort Extreme card on iBook G4 (A1054 1.07 GHz) and configured it successfully under Mac OS X 10.5.8 (or its slight variant Sorbet Leopard). So I think I know what to do and how to do it.

The first thing I did was to open the "System Preferences" and then click on "Network" .

On the left window, "AirPort" (A1025 internal AirPort card) was visible and it was made OFF because it does not work with modern routers with some newer security features.

I saw another AirPort interface in the window called AirPort 2. It was a very corny name but I knew it was the Linksys card. So it was recognized.

The problem was that I could not make it ON by clicking "Turn AirPort On" button. I knew then what to do. By clicking on the AirPort interface (internal one) and make it selected and then click on the small "- (minus)" button down below. This will eliminate this interface. After this it was easy. Now the former AirPort 2 was renamed AirPort and the Linksys card is working as it should.

Now my A1025 is connected to the Internet via my small router.

Actually there is another way to accomplish the same thing without buying any newer more up-to-date than 802.11b standard cards. I could change the settings on the router to lower the security level and use the old and less secure PSA (one or original) so that the AirPort card supporting only 802.11b standard can connect to it. It costs way less and maybe much easier.

while this cheat (method) would work but only in my limited and less secure home network environment, I can not take my A1025 out to some cafes and use their free wireless network there.

So I decided to pay a substantial amount of shipping charges (and import tax, etc. but the price of the card itself was almost nothing). In other words, I have to take my A1025 out and use the it to connect to other people's networks. It is the third objective.

In Japanese: 続きをどうぞ [First updating from A1025 (PowerBook G4 Titanium 1 GHz)]の続きを読む

テーマ:Mac - ジャンル:コンピュータ

1. 2021/11/24(水) 00:06:08|
2. MacBooks and Macs
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The second dose of Moderna Biotech vaccine injected!

I had a shot this afternoon. Finally I got it although I did not like it. I am totally against the vaccination. I hate it.

Then why did I have it shot? Because without the vaccination (and the certificate), it is almost impossible for me to work.

Two of them arrived as ordered from USA

I woke up to the terribly loud doorbell this morning. It was a postman ringing the doorbell. He told me that I owe him some amount of custom tax. At this moment my slow drowsy brain caught up and it dawned on me that something outside the EU zone arrived.

I knew what it was before I opened it because of the size of the padded envelope. It must contain two (2) of Apple AirPort Extreme card for iBook G4 (A1154) and other Macs manufactured around that time period.

Yes, I was right. I installed it hurriedly in my iBook G4 12" (A1054 1.07 GHz) and booted it up.

I had to configure the settings for the AirPort card to bring it to work with my WiFi router.

"I have a problem."

As you may have known, my A1054 has not been well for the last few days. Its HDD is dying and it works for a short period of time and goes amok. Sometimes it can not finish the booting process at all. Its HDD sometimes gives up a terrible sound when the power button is pressed.

I could see at least one of the cards function well. It is a shame that the HDD just died (is dying) on me.

How many times have I plugged the FireWire cable into it and putting it into Target Disk Mode and use Disk Utility to repair the HDD inside A1054.

Anyway, I am writing and uploading this on my A1134 (iBook G4 14.1") Two who just got a treat of 1 GB RAM module. Now it boots on 1.5 GB of RAM memory and working fine with Sorbet Leopard.

Speaking of A1134 (iBook G4) Two, I also swapped the keyboards. I borrowed the French keyboard that came with A1134 One. I thought I bought a US keyboard long time ago and I thought of using it on Two naturally.

Alas, it turned out that the US keyboard was also broken. Some keys around "P" (like 0, [, ], and etc.) were not responding.

In Japanese: 続きをどうぞ [2 AirPort Extreme cards arrived]の続きを読む

テーマ:Mac - ジャンル:コンピュータ

1. 2021/11/22(月) 16:58:30|
2. MacBooks and Macs
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Does Sorbet Leopard work on my PowerBook G4 Titanium?

Technically it should work but the author recommends at least 1.25 GHz of clock speed for a machine if Sorbet Leopard to be comfortably usable on it.

Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5) requires minimum of 867 MHz of CPU clock speed as Apple told the disheartened owners who PowerBook did not meet the requirements. Officially the PowerBook G4 Titanium (A1025 867 MHz) was the least powerful Mac to run Leopard. Mine (A1025 1GHz) is just a neck above the water.

And my impression of Sorbet Leopard is that honestly I did not see any great improvement of overall performance on my PowerBook G4 Titanium (1 GHz) after toying with it for an hour or so. Maybe I will in future.


No time to die 2021

I will talk about or write about the latest James Bond movie that I just watched once. Once for the moment because I will have to watch it a couple of times to understand (if any) hidden themes behind the story.

Wikipedia helps. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Time_to_Die)

I have to read the contents there to understand what was actually going on in the movie.

I was shocked to see James Bond to die in the end. The movie title suggests that it was not the time to die, I thought. Wait a second, it says "No Time to Die" and not Not the time to die.

What happens to the next 007 movie? I knew that Daniel Craig was out and he wanted to his version of James Bond to die in the end to hail the ear for another actor who becomes a new James Bond.

In Japanese: 続きをどうぞ [Sorbet Leopard on my PowerBook G4 Titanium (A1025 1GHz)]の続きを読む

テーマ:Mac - ジャンル:コンピュータ

1. 2021/11/22(月) 00:41:10|
2. MacBooks and Macs
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Sorbet Leopard working on A1054 (iBook G4 1.07 GHz) and more

Today (Sunday, November 17, 2021) I grabbed one of the FireWire cables, MacBook Pro 13" (Mid-2010) and some PowerPC G4 macs and started installing Sorbet Leopard.

Target Disk Mode

Since the days when Apple started selling PowerBook (68k) machines, the idea of putting PowerBooks into a external disk mode has existed. Back then all the Macs had SCSI disks inside and (nightmarishly various) SCSI ports. I don't remember the name Apple gave to this external disk mode back then.

With the advent of FireWire (successor of SCSI), this "mode" was called "Target Disk Mode" as far as I know.

. . . back to installation and the results A1054 (iBook G4 1.07 GHz)

My initial try on iBook G4 seemed to have some issues and I had to do it twice. The first time I booted it, it seemed to work fine for some minutes but the Finder stopped working normally and I had to force-shutdown it.

The second installation seemed to remedy the trouble. The iBook G4 (A1054 1 GHz) now works very well with Srobet Leopard (a.k.a. Leopard 10.5.9) now.


Now I know why the first installation failed. The HDD inside it is dying. Now it does not boot. The booting process gets stuck somewhere and when I put the left palm rest area (where its poor dying HDD rests below), I hear a faint sound of the seeking head trembling. It needs a replacement disk now.

Now it (the HDD) works sporadically and sure is dying.

How about A1025 (PowerBook Titanium 1 GHz)?

The second machine I grabbed was my A1025 Two. The installation went smoothly and now it works fine with Sorbet Leopard (at least it seems so far).

In two days I will pick up Cisco-Linksys WPC600N and put it in the slot of my A1025 Two. I will see if it works (it should) and it will connect to the Internet for the first time (with me).


How about A1134 (iBook G4 1.42 GHz)?

Now I am writing this while restoring the HDD inside A1134 Two from the Sorbet Leopard disk image file. It should work fine after the installation.

How about A1106 (PowerBook Aluminum 1.67 GHz)?

I am not installing Sorbet Leopard for the moment. It is working fine with Leopard (10.5.8) and it has some apps and others on it already. I have to first transfer the apps and personal files to some secure place before installing Sorbet Leopard on it.

How about two? of Mac minis?

I think I have two Mac minis. They will also have the pleasure of getting Srobet Leopard in near future.

In Japanese: 続きをどうぞ [Sorbet Leopard on PowerPC G4 Macs]の続きを読む

テーマ:Mac - ジャンル:コンピュータ

1. 2021/11/21(日) 20:24:16|
2. MacBooks and Macs
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Dooms Day (Vaccination Appointment Day)

Next Monday, I will be having the second dose of Moderna vaccine shot.

Cisco-Linksys WPC600N is almost there

I missed the delivery, of course. I only got a notice slip in the mailbox as usual. The notice says that it will attempt to come to me on Next Monday. I have an appointment just mentioned above on the same day and will be absent around 12:00 to 14:00.

I tried to change the delivery schedule by accessing the site (of the delivery agent) but I could not. I guess the truck (or van) is still on the road. The delivery driver has to upload the data (that the delivery failed) once he/she is back to the base.

By this evening or Tomorrow I think I can change the course of delivery. I will have it delivered to one of their "pick-up stations" near me. I will get it on Monday, I hope.


Later I successfully redirected the delivery to a pick-up station in Luxembourg city. I will pick it up on Tuesday, instead of Monday.

Sorbet Leopard downloaded

I have downloaded the Sorbet Leopard from the German mirror site as I live close to Germany. It is now sitting one the HDD of my Xubuntu Compaq Presario CQ56. I will write it on some media (USB stick? maybe) and handle the file on one of my Macs.

The fist machine to run Sorbet Leopard will be my A1025 (PowerBook G4 Titanium 1 GHz). I will see if I can install (the installation requires "restoring" with Disk Utility) it on one of my iBook G4 via Target Disk Mode.

In Japanese: 続きをどうぞ [Dooms Day, WPC600N and Sorbet Leopard]の続きを読む

テーマ:Mac - ジャンル:コンピュータ

1. 2021/11/19(金) 16:24:09|
2. MacBooks and Macs
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Mac OS X 10.5 Sorbet Leopard

I found this on the MacRumors Forum (www.macrumors.com) when I was looking for the information about the network card that was going to be delivered in a week of so (Cisco-Linksys WPC600N).

(https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/sorbet-leopard-10-5-reinvigorated-updated.2300924/)
The original poster is called z970

It is an enhanced version of Mac OS X Leopard (10.5 to 10.5.8) made by a user (or users?) but not by Apple.

It was released to the public just recently (I am writing this November 2021).

I was going to install Leopard on my newly acquired PowerPC laptops in near future as I had an Install DVD in my possession (but somewhat missing in my messy room) that came with one of my Mac mini models (I have several of them. Or did it come with one of my PowerBooks or iBook?).

It sounded really promising and I want to try it. It (the pitch the creator gave) sounded good. Basically what he is saying that he (or she?) mixed the never-publically-released-beta-version Snow Leopard for PowerPC architecture with Leopard 10.5.8 and other updates (QuickTime and others) and at the same time disabled some of the unnecessary features to make the CPU / Memory use lower.

It also includes visual effect features from more recent OS X versions like Mountain Lion, High Sierra and others.

Doesn't it sound perfect? It is exactly what I needed.

Download
(http://macintoshgarden.org/apps/sorbet-leopard)

The download is about 4 GB and the file is a dmg file (Disk Image). The downloaders are supposed to restore it to the destination media.

In Japanese: 続きをどうぞ [Sorbet Leopard 10.5 ]の続きを読む

テーマ:Mac - ジャンル:コンピュータ

1. 2021/11/15(月) 22:41:05|
2. MacBooks and Macs
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ebay purchase WPC600N has landed

According to the tracking information, my Cisco-Linksys WPC600N was cleared by the customs at the SCHIPHOL (Amsterdam) Yesterday (I am writing on Sunday, 14 November 2021).

Wow! It is now on the European Continent and will be here in a week or so. My A1025 (PowerBook G4 Titanium 1 GHz) will surf on the Net soon.

Hello to Winter Tires!

Today I finally changed the tires. Four of winter tires on wheels were lying in my room and I took them out and installed on my Mazda MX-5. During the process, I found that I installed the H&R tread extenders incorrectly the last time.

I had wondered why the front tire was a bit too out of fender for the last few months on the left side. I installed the thinner extender (25 mm thick, I believe) on the rear and the thicker (30 mm thick, I believe) on the front.
I corrected my error and also put the winter tires on the car. Now I had no worries driving in the cold weather.

The correct Torque spec for tightening the nuts on the wheel is around 110 NM to 140 NM according to some paper that I found on the Internet. I torqued them to 110 NM (Newton-Meter) as I did not want to over-tighten them.

And of course I used the torque wrench to tighten them securely.

In Japanese: 続きをどうぞ [Cisco-Linksys WPC600N has landed Europe]の続きを読む

テーマ:Mac - ジャンル:コンピュータ

1. 2021/11/14(日) 23:25:58|
2. MacBooks and Macs
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A1134 Two began to gave me a woe

I noticed Yesterday (November 13, 2021) that "D" keyboard went broken.

Chronically, I just booted my A1134 Two up to do nothing but see if it was fine. Then i noticed that it was responding somewhat sluggishly. I suspected Spotlight was indexing and that was why it was so sluggish.

I clicked on the Spotlight icon on the menu bar and the text input pull-down opened. It was soon filled up with "ddddddddd...." and that was when I knew what was happening.

The "D" key was running amok. I had not noticed it before and I was able to type normally. The D key went broken suddenly.

I tried to remedy it by pressing, tapping and even pulling the D key but the syndrome remained though slightly improved.

I will see if the spray for cleaning electric metal contact points can improve.

This A1134, almost accidentally acquired when I was looking for parts-donor A1025 candidate on ebay and purchased a "job lot" deal containing four PowerPC Macs, came with almost broken keyboard (only handful keys worked. Later I swapped the keyboard with the one that came on A1134 Three.

In Japanese: 続きをどうぞ [Suddenly the D key went stuck?]の続きを読む

テーマ:Mac - ジャンル:コンピュータ

1. 2021/11/14(日) 18:15:14|
2. MacBooks and Macs
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iScroll2

iScroll2 is a well-known utility software that enables two-finger scroll on some iBooks (and PowerBooks?) that had no such functionality. I knew about it for some years but never owned such machines that would required this.

iScroll2 did not like A1025. The trackpad on it does not meet the spec that iScroll2 requires.

On the other hand, iScroll2 did install on A1054, the iBook G4 12" that I have. The description of the software states that it requires 10.4 or 10.5 but it works on 10.3 (Panther) on my iBook G4 somehow.

The images down could be magnified when clicked. They are screen capture clips that I made on my iBook G4.




There are three tabs or panels inside when you open it. The first one is about scrolling, the second one is about clicking and the third one is about it (credits or so).

Later I patiently fine-tuned it and found it very useful. I was also a bit surprised that it worked on 10.3 as the description stated it would not (or would require 10.4 or 10.5).

I just wanted to use vertical scrolling so I let other controls off. I had to set the scrolling speed very low. Otherwise, it is too fast or zippy.

The clicking almost emulates the "mouse second button" gesture. Two-finger tapping is not possible by this software but two-finger touching and clicking the trackpad button click gives the context menu. The "Tap" control makes it possible to evoke the context menu by just a simple tap but this has a good side and bad side as you can see. A tap on the window normally brings it forward but if this "Tap" is set to secondary button, it won't bring it forward. So I let this "Tap" off.

In all, I found this utility software very useful.

One caveat: I noticed that the iScroll2's settings did not survive a restart or shutdown on my iBook G4 (A1054 1 GHz) running Mac OS X Panther 10.3.3. I have to reset the settings after a restart or shutdown (and subsequent boot). I don't know why but the description of the software that it was meant to be for 10.4 and 10.5 was, I guess, true.

One a related note, just out of curiosity I run the installer (iScroll2) on A1134 running Tiger. It refused to install on it as expected. As some of you (who? I know nobody is reading this) know that A1134 iBook G4 does support two-finger scrolling. It does not, however, support two-finger tap. I can scroll with two-finger gesture but I can not evoke the context menu with two-finger tap.

Bluetooth on A1054

I found that A1054 could indeed be upgraded to have the Bluetooth function by installing the right kit. I found it on The Book Yard site while looking for the US keyboard. The kit (they called it) included the board, cable and antenna cost a bit more than I wanted it to bit. Since I don't need it anyway, I opted not to buy it.

On the other hand, I am considering getting the US keyboard. While it cost rather dearly, the comfort that the US keyboard brings to me is significant.


A1134 One, Two and Three

The A1134 Two that randomly shuts itself down does need some minor repair. It shuts down itself suddenly and abruptly because the DC plug is not securely plugged in. When I gently giggle the plug, the connection is lost. I guess the inner pin that bring the DC 24V is not securely hugged by the metal. Maybe I just need to bend the two hugging (I imagine they are two pieces) metal parts closer together. Otherwise this A1134 Two is very sound internally. Since the operation of opening the chassis requires much more patience and work than that of PowerBooks does, I don't intend to do this operation in near future.


One of the two batteries that came with A1134 One and Two is totally broke and holds no charge at all while the other one holds some. By plugging the "good" one into this A1134 Two and connecting the charger, I finally fount out the cause of sudden death.

Actually the naming them One and Two is wrong. I have A1134 already, which I purchased more than two years ago. It did not have an HDD inside so I disassembled it and it has been like that for the last two years. It worked fine.

So it must be A1134 One. These two newcomers shall be called Two and Three then.
And I actually bought a US keyboard for it and I do have one leftover working French keyboard. I will use it on this A1134 three as now it has a defect UK keyboard from Two.

In Japanese: 続きをどうぞ [iScroll2 and A1134 One, Two and Three]の続きを読む

テーマ:Mac - ジャンル:コンピュータ

1. 2021/11/08(月) 23:24:01|
2. MacBooks and Macs
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Cisco-Linksys WPC600N purchased!

Following the bold purchase of two Apple AirPort Extreme cards (802.11g) for my little A1054 (iBook G4 12 inch 1 GHz), my eyes were fixed on this item also from a seller in the United States of America.

This seller did not offer cheaper shipping charges (but only normal tracked express shipping) and the expected obligatory import charges (tax), the total amount of money was a bit too much. Not too much, of course. It will arrive sooner, a lot sooner than the previous purchase. By the way, both of them were on sale at ebay.

From what I read in some thread on MacRumor Forum, it works like a charm, no additional software driver needed. With this my A1025 will have a smooth and fast access to any modern WiFi routers anywhere.

I have to clean my room that is totally like a sty and find the Leopard Install Disc that came with one of the G4 Mac minis. This is the easiest way to install Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5) on two A1025, one A1054 and one A1134. I have also a USB stick with copied Leopard Install Disc which with a help of OpenFirmWare (how do I correctly write this word?), I can also use it to install Leopard on them.

I should avoid doing this OFW method with A1025 as its USB transfer speed is very slow.

MeowTalk app

I got to know about this app on YouTube and tried it myself. I found it entertaining and useful. My dear Hannah does not meow too much but when she does, I would like to know what she is telling me.

I had a few successful moments with it and with Hannah.

Once she came to my side and meowed something like a chirp of a bird. It turned out to be "I want to be loved". She was waiting to be petted.

Once I hold her against me and she meowed several times. I knew she wanted to released but this was the easiest way to make her meow. Those meows turned out to be "Get out of my face", "I need to calm down" and something similar.

So it works! The translation seems to be mostly correct.

In Japanese: 続きをどうぞ [Cisco-Linksys WPC600N purchased!]の続きを読む

テーマ:Mac - ジャンル:コンピュータ

1. 2021/11/07(日) 21:17:03|
2. MacBooks and Macs
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Project 1: making iBook G4 A1054 Early 2004 up-to-date 2021
This smallish 12-inch iBook G4 was one of the four laptops sold together (a job lot as the seller called them) and I did not expect it to work at all. When I began inspecting these 4 old laptops, I was surprised to see this smallest iBook start up gingerly and stably work. It is the lightest one of all. It is the slowest, too (as far as the raw CPU power is concerned).

I decided to beef it up and use it casually and one day take it outside to a cafe to use the obligatory free Wifi as I sip a cup of coffee while net-surfing.

What do I need? More memory and Apple AirPort Extreme card (802.11g). Luckily I have several 1 GB memory modules that would fit in this iBook. As to the AirPort Extreme card, I ordered two of them form the U.S.A. I found a seller who would send the merchandise by slow boat. It takes almost a month (estimated delivery time) but the shipping charges were very low. Hopefully they (two of them) would arrive before Christmas.

I would very much like to get a US keyboard for this iBook but so far I have not found a reasonably priced (including the shipping charges) US keyboard. I will keep looking for it.

So by Christmas, this iBook will become a beast that I can take out to a local café.

Project 2: making PowerBook G4 A1025 up-to-date 2021

This one is dubbed as A1025 Two as it was the second one I owned. This is structurally sound except for minor dents, missing foot rubbers, the silent left speaker and other minor issues. So I will give it a way to connect to modern WiFi routers. Cisco-Linksys WPC600N, a dual band 802.11n CardBus PCMCIA card.

I have already acquired a US keyboard for this. Actually it was meant for A1025 One.

Project 3: repairing PowerBook G4 A1025

This one is dubbed as A1025 One. It works fine but the left (near F12 key) hinge is broken. I would very much like to repair it. I will repair it some day.

In Japanese: 続きをどうぞ [PPC G4 laptops projects]の続きを読む

テーマ:Mac - ジャンル:コンピュータ

1. 2021/11/06(土) 01:21:44|
2. MacBooks and Macs
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What to do with them?

I have now 3 of PowerBook G4 Aluminum A1106, 2 of PowerBook G4 Titanium A1025, 3 of iBook G4 A1134 and 1 of iBook G4 A1054. That is a lot of laptops.

Some of them are missing a HDD or have a broken HDD inside. I like them. I will use them as much and often as possible.

I have to spend some more money to make them nicer cosmetically or work better.

For instance, I want to repair the hinge of the A1025 One (the one I got first). I want to get a WiFi card that would let A1025 connect to any modern WiFi network. I want to get an AirPort card that would work inside the A1054.

In Japanese: 続きをどうぞ [PowerPC G4 laptops to wrap up]の続きを読む

テーマ:Mac - ジャンル:コンピュータ

1. 2021/11/03(水) 10:39:34|
2. MacBooks and Macs
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It has landed finally

I was expecting them (4 of Macs) this morning as the tracking information was just update around 8:30 in the morning and had told me that the package had been on its way to me.

I got it around 09:00.

I hurriedly opened it and began checking one by one. Here is the short brief report.

1. A1025: PowerBook G4 Titanium
Cosmetic conditions: OK
It has two minor dents; one on the panel where Apple Logo sits and the other on the bottom. The hinges are sound. Painted parts are fine.

Does it work?: Yes but . . .
Its HDD was broken. It made faint click noise, which I diagnosed as a failing head arm. I swapped the HDDs (between now two A1125 PowerBooks) and voila! it worked.

Specs:
CPU 1 GHz
Memory 1 GB

2. A1054: iBook G4 12-inch
Cosmetic conditions: Good except for the missing foot rubbers
Surprisingly clean appearance. The keyboard is mat (almost no shiny used keys!). Everywhere I looked it looked clean.

Does it work?: Yes!
It had Mac OS X 10.3.3 on it, which later I botched. The optical drive seems to be vigorously work.

Specs:
CPU 1.07 GHz
Memory 256 MB (soldered on the board) and one empty slot
No AirPort Extreme card present

3. A1134: iBook G4 14-inch
Cosmetic conditions: Not Good
The obligatory missing foot rubbers.

Does it work?: Yes, kinda
I am not so sure about the optical drive. Otherwise it works fine. It had Tiger 10.4.11 on it. Its keyboard was not working well almost dead.

I later found when I peeled off the keyboard that there was a stain left on the back of keyboard and the area around. I think it was made by some fluid spilled over the keyboard, probably coffee or fruit juice? The keyboard was broken.

I then swapped the keyboards with the other one and it (the other keyboard) worked very well.

One piece of memory module is now implanted in the A1054 and successfully recognized.

Specs:
CPU 1.42 GHz
Memory 1 GB (512 MB x 2)
AirPort Extreme card present


4. A1134: iBook G4 14-inch
Cosmetic conditions: Not too Good
The obligatory missing foot rubbers.

Does it work?: Yes, kinda
It worked fine at first but began to shut itself off suddenly after a while. It could have been caused by the stuck DVD-R, which was already inside the drive. I could eject it first but it got stuck when I re-inserted it back.

Later I could successfully retrieve the DVD-R. It now has a broken keyboard on it.

It had Tiger 10.4.11 on it.

Specs:
CPU 1.42 GHz
Memory 512 MB
AirPort Extreme card present


Conclusion:
I got a working and cosmetically fine except for the minor dents and missing foot rubbers A1025. On the other hand, the purchase did not get me the parts I wanted to have (the hinge or LCD panel) so I have to keep looking for the parts donor on ebay.

The 12-inch iBook G4 is neat. I like it. I botched the system when I tried to erase the user accounts by deleting /var/db/.AppleSetupDone file. After this, it boots but does not reach the desktop. Just a blue screen with a mouse cursor appears.

Oh, well I just have to install the memory and install Tiger or Leopard on it.

Then later when I turned the A1054 on, the setup screen came up and I could successfully set up a new admin user on it. Now it works even better with more RAM (256 + 512 MB = 768 MB). It has "Classic" environment. It means I can run software programs made for System 9. I don't have any for the moment.

In Japanese: 続きをどうぞ [The package from the UK has landed!]の続きを読む

テーマ:Mac - ジャンル:コンピュータ

1. 2021/11/02(火) 15:40:49|
2. MacBooks and Macs
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TenFiveTube 5.0 revisited

TenFiveTube by wicknix is a YouTube viewer for TenFive (Mac OS X 10.5.*). It works on PowerPC powered Mac products.

As the name suggests, PowerPC powered Macs that can run Leopard (10.5.*) can be only either G4 (clocked more than 867 MHz?) or G5 Macs.

I have several (and 4 more coming, sigh!) PowerPC-powered Macs. All of them are qualified to run Leopard. I run it on my most powerful G4 Mac, PowerBook G4 A1106 (1.67 GHz). It has TenFourFox (latest or last version Feature Parity Release 32 SPR 4) on it but playing YouTube videos is impossible as the CPU usage gets 100 % almost all the time.

TenFiveTube to the rescue!

I installed it long time ago and tried it. For some unknown reasons, it had never worked well. For example, I could not log in on YouTube with my account. The video playback was, to my recollection, sluggish and skipping frames so I stopped using it and let it rot on my PowerBook G4.

Today I tried it again and I could log in on YouTube. I played some videos and it played fairly well (not perfectly smoothly but comfortably smoothly). This is the fastest G4 model I own. I will see if it works well on other slower PowerBooks or Mac minis.

The package has not arrived yet

The tracking information has not been updated since Saturday. I was expecting some changes on the status but it never materialized. I hope Tuesday will bring some update on the shipping progress.

I am talking about the package that contains 4 PowerPC laptops from the UK.


In Japanese: 続きをどうぞ [TenFiveTube (5.0) revisited]の続きを読む

テーマ:Mac - ジャンル:コンピュータ

1. 2021/11/01(月) 21:00:40|
2. MacBooks and Macs
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