I recently obtained a PowerBook G4. 667 MHz, 512 Mb PC-133, 30 Gb HDD. When I got it, it had no OS, but it now has OS X 10.4.10. I had tried with earlier versions (10.1, 10.3) and have found that this one is the most powerful and resource friendly. That's fine.
My problem is this: The machine itself is pretty powerful, enough for what I need. But FireFox runs really slow and the font size is a little big for what I'm used to. Is there another OS X browser that'll provide the same functionality (tabbed browsing, simple interface, browser and tab session restore) that would work better on this system? Also, how do I change default font sizes? Browsing the forums is a pain in the ass because what normally takes 1 page to me now is about 2.5. Also I could use a media player that has good support of .wmv and .asf files.
Also does anyone know any tricks to squeezing more power out of this laptop? I know I could upgrade the RAM, but even now it seems that 512 sticks of PC-133 notebook is pretty pricey.
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Basically, you make it go fast by only doing one or two things at a time, and not running extra stuff like Quicksilver or Shapeshifter. Sometimes on older hardware more icons in the desktop can slow it down.
Well, usually it's just me, but whatever.
As for browsers, the builtin Safari has everything you want, but Camino is better if you don't use iWeb (which is tied to Safari) or need a FF specific add-on.
For WMV you need Flip4Mac, which google will help with, and I've never used an ASF file ut I assume VLC can deal with it
And as for getting it to be abit faster? Well, for one thing it will eb atad slow for a day or two while Spotlight get its shit together but assuming you have 512 Ram there's not too much I can suggest (disabling Dashboard is a nice idea, but you might one day want it, so YMM)
Also check what your power settings are at. If you've got the machine plugged in, make sure that your power settings are set for 'Better Performance' and not 'Better Battery Life'.
http://www.rpm-mozilla.org.uk/
Can anyone tell me if the font size options can be adjusted? That's probably what is getting me the most.
All over the system?
No, just mainly browsing. Firefox doesn't have this feature (that I could find). But I downloaded one of those Camino builds and it has font customization. So I guess that about does it for the issues I had.
Now to save up and buy a couple 512 sticks and get this thing really moving.