Author Archives: admin

Mission Accomplished

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I have finally finished re-building my PowerBook G4 12″ (1GHz). I have upgraded the hard drive (40GB to 160GB), replaced the broken combo drive (got one cheap off eBay) and upgraded the operating system (10.4 to 10.5).

To others considering a similar mission:
  • The hard drive is much easier to replace than the optical drive;
  • The 160GB 5400 RPM Western Digital Scorpio disk runs warmer than the stock disk (to be expected really *);
  • Remember where all the screws came from (I didn’t);
  • Use the right tools for the job;
  • There are a few service manuals available on the web. Use them.
I can’t really justify a new laptop at the moment. I think these upgrades have extended the life of my old one a bit longer.

* Edit: this may be due to the fact that the original disk was 4200 RPM.

List = List + 2

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Went on a Birds WA walk on Saturday and added two more birds to my life list:

  • Inland Thornbill (Acanthiza apicalis);
  • Grey Shrike-thrush (Colluricincla harmonica).

Both were seen in the Dell Forest in Kalamunda. Thanks to Maris Lauva for helping me find the Grey Shrike-thrush – it helps if someone knows it’s call.

Thousands of tiny screws…

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The 12″ PowerBook G4 is a real pain to take apart. I am in the process of replacing the HDD and optical drive and you have to strip the PowerBook down completely. Everything from the motherboard up needs to be removed before you can extract the optical drive. The HDD is only marginally easier to get to.

Anyhow, last night I reached a milestone. I am now putting things back together instead of taking them apart. In all honesty I probably have another 6 hours of tinkering to do.

The end result will be a very usable PowerBook with a working optical drive and a 160GB HDD. I think it’s worth it…

Birding Target Groups

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There are a few groups of birds that I haven’t been very successful in seeing (and identifying).  The more obvious groups (parrots, finches, honey-eaters etc) are well covered in my list but the following are not:

  • Cuckoos (I have only seen two species);
  • Waders (especially migratory);
  • Penguins (a trip to Penguin Island was a failure);
  • Quail (and other small ground-based birds);
  • Some of the more difficult water birds (Crakes, Rails etc).
A pelagic trip earlier this year helped me out in the seabird category, now all I have to do is organise some excursions to see some of these.  Looking at the Birds WA Sightings page, now seems to be a good time for the cuckoos…

Updating the Macs

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Migrated Kylie from her Sage iMac (450MHz G3) to her “new” eMac (1.25GHz G4) last night. All I need to do is install iLife (which should arrive tomorrow from Apple). The big advantage is the USB2.0 ports on the eMac – allowing her to read camera memory cards and use her iPod a little more effectively.

As a result of the upgrade I moved the RAM (a single 512MB stick) from the iMac to my dual-G4 500MHz PowerMac, giving it a total of 1GB of RAM! This is my first home computer to reach the magical 1GB mark 🙂

I will be keeping the iMac – it is too nice a machine to get rid of.

Edit: Yes, this means that Kylie’s Mac is the fastest in the household and the only one running Mac OS 10.5. And I am OK with that…

Website Migration

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In an effort to be independent from whatever ISP I happen to be using, my website is now hosted on the Google Sites servers. Here is the URL. I guess I am now tied to Google (what with email, Blogger and now Google Sites). At least Flickr is separate…

The old Optus webpage will be removed and redirect to this one shortly.