Monthly Archives: July 2008

Upgrading my PowerBook

I have finally decided it is time to upgrade my 12″ G4 PowerBook (1GHz).

First up I am replacing the non-functioning combo optical drive with one from eBay which works. I have a FireWire external DVD-RW drive so I don’t see the point in spending up big on a SuperDrive (I don’t burn DVDs away from the office, or very often at all actually).

I am then upgrading the slightly full 40GB HDD (1.5GB free) with a 160GB one. Having a camera that can take 5MB digital photographs can chew up disk space quickly.

I have previously upgraded the RAM from 256MB to 768MB and added an Airport card.

Finally I am upgrading to Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5). All of this will probably take a few hours to do but I should end up with a very usable Mac as a result. I just can’t justify spending the cash on a new one.

Fun with Newtons

I recently purchased a Newton MessagePad 2000 (upgraded to 2100 specifications). It came with:

  • An original stylus and leather wallet;
  • A recently repacked battery (that holds a charge quite well);
  • A black serial cable and adapter for plugging into the Newton;
  • All software disks and manuals;
  • A Lucent Orinoco Silver wireless card (that will work with the Newton);
  • A Palm Stowaway keyboard with adapter cable (that will also work with the Newton).

The battery, wallet and stylus are being used with my Newton MessagePad 2100 at the moment. Once I get the Stowaway keyboard driver working that will travel with me also.