are the GeForce systems truly obsolete
as a reseller of Max and being that I
sell a lot of GeForce system still
thought I would put this to the test so
I decided to spend an entire week using
nothing but g4 computers of course I
still use g4 systems all the time for
example my file server is a Mac Mini g4
which is connected to six terabytes of
external storage daisy chain through
firewire I also have a g4 Mac Mini
connected to my bedroom TV which I use
to watch movies and TV shows that are
stored on my file server my laptop
computer is an 800 megahertz iBook g4
which I used for mostly just reading
email and web surfing when I'm not at my
desk granted I have tons of mac books
around with Core 2 Duo processor since I
repair and sell a lot of these too but
I've never really bothered to upgrade my
own laptop because it already does
everything I need so that basically
leaves my main computer which is a 20
inch iMac with a Core 2 Duo this is
where I do all of my main work for my
business process and edit videos and
play games so for this week I'm going to
remove the iMac and store it away
in its place I'm going to put a g4
laptop now since I'm going to have to
live with a g4 I'm going to take a
top-of-the-line model this is a 14 inch
laptop with a 1.4 2 gigahertz CPU and
1.5 gigabytes of RAM and running the
leopard operating system so for starters
I'm actually going to be doing all of
the editing for this video right here on
this computer so let's see how it goes
day 1 I'm not a big fan of touch pads
fortunately my Apple Magic Mouse works
just fine with the built-in bluetooth on
the iBook and since I'm going to be
doing serious work on this computer I
decided to forego the Wi-Fi it hooks
straight into Ethernet I wanted to get
started with editing the video so I
installed an older version of Final Cut
Pro since the new version requires an
Intel processor
I found that Final Cut Pro 5 works just
fine and the video you are seeing was
completed with this product
I needed to record the audio narration
for this video so I connected my blue
snowball USB microphone and it worked
just fine - I downloaded the Power PC
version of audacity a popular audio
recording program and it worked
beautifully to record my narration for
this video
naturally I need to pull the videos off
my video camera and had no problem
connecting it up and copying off the
videos however the computer is too slow
to play these High Definition 720p
videos in compressed form so I went
ahead and converted the videos over to
the Apple intermediate codec to make it
easier to edit them since editing these
videos does require a lot of storage
space
I found the internal 60 gigabyte drive a
little bit inadequate I could have
upgraded the drive but it was easier
just to connect up a terabyte external
firewire drive to work off of however in
the end I actually never needed the
extra space and never really use the
external drive day 2 business must go on
and I have shipping labels to print
invoices to create and databases to
update I have standardized on OpenOffice
years ago and OpenOffice is available
for PowerPC Macs so I installed the
latest version and it works very well
and of course I had no trouble printing
to my network color laser printer well
one program I did have to give up was
Google Chrome which is the web browser
are typically use unfortunately it is
not supported on the PowerPC platform I
tried several other browsers and decided
that Comino is still the best browser
for PowerPC computers in fact I found an
unofficial version which is compiled
specifically for the g4 processor rather
than the universal binary on their main
website this seems to work really well I
had no trouble syncing and charging my
iPhone 3G or my iPad the irony here is
that the iPad is worth more money than
the g4 I book but the iBook is
infinitely more versatile ok well that's
the end of day 2 and so far I haven't
found anything I really can't do on the
g4 day 3 I am NOT a huge gamer but I do
like to play Starcraft 2
and unfortunately Starcraft 2 is not
supported
on the powerpc platform which is not a
big surprise considering it doesn't even
work on some of the Intel machines if it
doesn't have a sufficiently good video
card however the original Starcraft
plays beautifully on the g4 without even
a hiccup as most g4 users probably
already know YouTube runs very sluggish
on the G form this is actually due to
the awful performance of the PowerPC
version of Adobe Flash fortunately I
found a program called YouView which is
still in beta but works perfectly this
program is a standalone application that
lets you search for and play YouTube
videos and they play perfectly even in
high-definition
I didn't see Apple again day 4 since the
iBook g4 doesn't have a built-in webcam
I connected an external USB webcam and
it works perfectly so yeah I hooked up a
little webcam right on the top of the
iBook and even though the webcam doesn't
even advertise this compatible with
Apple it actually works just fine even
with the g4 and I'm able to run
photobooth and I chat and you know any
other applications that requires a
webcam day 5 well it's on day 5 and
truth be told I I really haven't begun
to miss my iMac that much I mean it had
a bigger screen and it was faster but
they're really so far hasn't been a
whole lot that I hadn't been able to
accomplish on this g4 even though I'm
not currently designing anything I
thought I'd check out Google Sketchup
it turns out the newest version won't
run on the g4 but previous version runs
very smoothly and I could use it to
design just about anything
day6
I had a little time for recreation today
I'm actually a bit of a retro gamer so I
took the opportunity to try out
emulators of several older computers and
game systems I had an absolute blast
playing Commodore 64 games using a
program called power 64 followed by some
time playing old ms-dos games using
DOSBox and then I fired up the Nintendo
emulator and play some classic Super
Mario Brothers and it even works fine
with my USB retro game controller
day seven so I'm nearly done and I've
been editing the video for a while and
you know I just wanted to point out that
a lot of people consider video editing
to require a very high-end computer and
yet I've done all of the editing and
post-processing on this g4 and 720p
high-definition by the way and I really
haven't had any problems you know it's
really kind of sad that I receive emails
from time to time from people saying
that these these g4s or power pcs
they're obsolete pieces of junk and I
can't believe that I still sell those to
people or that people would even still
buy them and you know and that's bad
because I mean I was pretty much able to
conduct all of my business and personal
life over the last seven days with very
little problem on this g4 and I would
say sure they're past their prime
there's there's no questioning that but
and you know give it enough time they
will be considered obsolete pieces of
junk just like any piece of technology
but here and now and today they are
still pretty useful machines and they
can usually be bought it at bargain
prices and so you know I wouldn't put
too much credit into those people that
say they're obsolete pieces of junk