About two weeks ago I decided to send in my MacBook Pro for repairs. The repairs were to replace a defective LCD panel and top case (I had been putting it off since they were more annoying nuisances ). During the time my computer was in Texas, I decided to pull my now-ancient iBook G3 off the bench for daily use.
A little bit of background on my old iBook—it’s a 600MHz G3 rocking 640MB of RAM and an 8MB ATI Rage Mobility 128 graphics card. Although state of the art when new in late 2001, It is a mobile dinosaur in today’s world. It is currently running Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, as Leopard had left the computer behind. I copied some various settings to a flash drive and decided to get to work. After my computer was long gone on the FedEx truck, I learned some important lessons.
Prepare Your Files
Logically, I thought that since this computer ran Mac OS X and I had copies of the applications I use regularly, I’d be able to open my files. Unfortunately, I failed to realize that earlier versions of Pages cannot open files that are created with the latest version (which is what I use regularly). I didn’t have other programs, like iPhoto, Photoshop, or even Keynote loaded on it, but wasn’t expecting to do anything with those anyway. If I had, I would have to use older versions, and, in the case of iPhoto, downgrade my library, which would not be an easy task.
The same is true with Microsoft Office—the bloated product known as Office 2008 (which is good, but uses a lot of resources) generates XML files which are incompatible with earlier versions. Either save your files in Office 2003/2004 formats or expect them to be unusable.
Modern Technology Hates the G3
Although the G3 has a lot of processing power, with a clock speed similar to that of my iPod Touch, it just cannot handle even basic web browsing on par with more powerful machines. Flash ads on the web simply bog down the processor. Thankfully tools such as ClickToFlash help. This has been moved to my MacBook Pro now that I have it back.
Additionally, don’t even bother watching YouTube videos or having more than a couple of tabs open in Safari or Camino. I think this really proved the point to all those that expect multitasking or Flash on the iPhone to be as great as it is on their full-blown computers. It won’t.
Much is the Same
I was able to transfer much of my things from Apple’s applications, such as Mail, iChat, and Safari with no trouble. Mail simply ignored my work Exchange account from Snow Leopard, but I was able to recreate it as IMAP. Other than that, my messages, mailboxes, and attachments that were stored locally on Snow Leopard appeared just fine on Mail 2.
Similar Form Factor, Different Features
For basic things, such as checking email, web browsing, and instant messaging, the iBook worked quite well. I could get by doing those things on my iPod Touch, but having a larger screen and keyboard were more comfortable. What I did find was that I missed certain things from my MacBook Pro, such as the Multi-Touch trackpad, MagSafe connector, and USB 2.0. Other than that, I was able to get by, although with a bit of adjustment.
Almost Made It
Unfortunately, my computer came back with the wrong repair done, so I had to send it back for a few more days. On this attempt, I opted for my G4-based Mac mini, due to the need for more processor intensive tasks (I had a presentation that was due and also wanted to do some work on Pages documents that were too new). I think that if I had time to prepare, or keep my documents in a format that was a bit older and a bit more universal, I could have gotten by with my iBook. Its battery still holds about an hour and a half charge, too. Rather impressive for a machine that was made 8 years ago.
One Response to “Living Off of a G3”
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12/06/2009 at 11:48 pm
I jusr want to mention that Microsoft has a plug-in for older versions of its Office suite for Windows wich when installed makes it possible to open these new xml office file formats (the new file formats have an x at the end of the name). I don’t know if they have done a similar plug for the Mac version but if not I would guess it’s on the way.
I also belive OpenOffice.org can open the new formats.
Googles web apps might be able to open them as well. I belive both th OO.org and Googles web apps matching the Office programs aims at being MS compatible and should therefore be considered as a tools fto use for existing MS Office files.
For a more Macish experiense with the OOo functionallity there are the NeoOffice.app.
In this perspective I find the Apple programs you mention unnessesary crippled frontwards compatibillity wise. I once made a web site with iWeb. Later, after having updated my OS and iLife I discovered that I would need to have some files from the site project stored on my local machine. to be able to open the site in IWeb. That was so unbelievably stupid (if nessecary at all it could go with the site files and be stored on the web server) I made it to be my first and last experience with iWeb. If an entry level web design application adds complexity and uncompabillity to something that not even the entire Adobe CS Web Premium über suite need, I say it has implemented stupidity in its design.
MS Office is a great example of bloat ware but the iLife or iWork stuff seem to be crippled instead. Of course if you know this or put in an effort to read the documentation you can avoid some of this but the unplanned frontwards compatibillity issue is in Apples hands. For once it is MS that has shown how to do it right! Maybe one should consider saving files in an uncomplex file format beside the ordinary format for back up reaspns!? One day it might turn out that you would be happy just to be able to extract the information from a file. The looks and the rest of the bells and whistles isn’t always nessesary and could be added again to the plain text, picture, video and other information carrying files, when implemented in some new or different program.