Nathan

powermac g5 user

Welcome to the family

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I swung by the local university surplus shop to take a look at some older iMacs, Mac Pros, and Macbooks to see if there were any deals that perked my interest.

Unfortunately, despite seeing a Mac Mini G4 there, everything ended up being a little pricy or just old enough to not be worth it. I nearly pulled the trigger on an early Intel iMac in good shape, but with RAM capped at 6 GB, I didn’t feel confident. So, I was about to leave when I realized that this gorgeous Mac-like monitor was calling my name. After hooking it up and giving it a test drive, I knew it was coming home.

Apple Cinema Display

Yes, I am now complimenting my trusty G5 with a gorgeous Apple Cinema Display. They go together like long lost brothers. They were made for each other like stars of a Hollywood romance. Maybe a “Han and Chewie” of the PowerPC era?

— Nathan

Coming soon

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I just got through a move to my new place of residence, so the G5 is currently disconnected, lying in bits and pieces in the basement. When I get it set back up, I’ll work on some juicy material for you.

What’s on tap?

Before Christmas, I am aiming to do a little walkthrough of some remote connection options for your G5. For example, how do you setup screen sharing, your own VNC server, telnet, etc? I’ll probably do them in bits and pieces though, rather than one big messy article.

Stay tuned.

— Nathan

Get an SSD

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If you are still on the fence about the potential of an SSD for your Power Mac G5 (or older computer), today is Black Friday, which means there are bound to be solid deals on solid state drives out there.

In fact, yesterday, I noticed the good people at OWC had a 100GB Intel 710 SSD for $29.00. That’s a great price for anyone on the fence about upgrading their older Mac. Unfortunately, the deal is sold out now, but you can also get a 300GB drive for $79, which is a very nice deal too. Go get it. Intel drives are always pretty good, usually built for enterprise which means they are made to endure in lots of configurations. And they are SATA II, which means they will work fine in our Power Mac G5s.

I am not affiliated with OWC in anyway, nor do I shill for them lightly. I have purchased RAM and other upgrades over the years from them and have never been disappointed. They are a great company that still offer some good hardware and resources for our older Macs, so today might be a good day to stock up on another upgrade or two.

If you notice any other good deals floating around, let me know.

Enjoy!

— Nathan

Introducing Power to the Mac blog

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Christian dropped me an email a couple of weeks back, expressing his appreciation for this site and the introduction of his new website, Power to the Mac.

Excellent work, Christian.

We always can use more voices in the G5 world, sharing ins and outs, spreading software wisdom, and helping us get the most out of our beautiful (if aging) machines.

By the way, to keep up with most G5 related sites, I do typically use viva PowerPC’s excellent “world” blog section which captures the RSS feeds of several sites. A great way to save time and see what others are writing about.

— Nathan

You Tell Me: How much have you/would you spend on your G5?

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One of our awesome readers, Adam, sent me an intriguing question that I get frequently: how much should I spend on a Power Mac G5?

I’m curious to know what some of you think. For those of you with G5s, what has been your budget to maximize your G5 with upgrades and fixes? For those of you looking to purchase one, how much are you willing to spend? Is there a limit?

I feel pretty content with my Power Mac at the moment, and in fact, over the last few weeks, it hasn’t been in much use with work life and family life keeping me on my toes. Counting the SSD (which was the last and largest bit of money spent on it), I feel like I have likely maximized performance too. More RAM would just be tossing money in a dark pit.

But what about you? I’d love to see your comments below.

– Nathan