IBook G4 - Upgrade or Buy New System

I need help making a decision: is it reasonable to upgrade my iBook G4 (RAM, operating system) (+bigger hard drive?); or do I need to abandon it and buy a newer system? My considerations are: 1) DC-inboard is probably flaky. Even with a new power supply and power adapter, the battery intermittently stops charging (the LED light goes out). I have to unplug it from the power strip and move the plug to a different outlet on the strip to get it going again. 2) I'm using Safari 1.3.2 and more web sites are thumbing their noses at my "unsupported/outdated" browser. 3) The other software I use is fairly basic: MS Word 98 (running under Classic); Reunion; Photoshop Elements 2.0; Appleworks 6.0. 4) The hard drive has about 15mb free. 5) It might be Christmas but I am seriously unemployed, which is why I have been waffling over this decision for months. Thanks for y'all's suggestions.

Hi, UUWoman:
Welcome to Apple Discussions.
It might be Christmas but I am seriously unemployed
That's a difficult place to be. I know as some of my family are there. However, even with your tight finances, it seems to be that updating your computer will be more cost effective than purchasing a new or newer computer. Let's take your issues in order..
1. We'll begin with the HDD. Your drive is dangerously full. Besides, your computer is now 5 years old. The average life of a laptop internal HDD is 3 to 5 years. So in addition to your drive being too full it is liable to fail without notice. I believe that is your top priority. You can buy a new HDD for $50 to $100. If you can install it yourself you will save $75 or so. The DC-in board can be changed at the same time. Cost less than $20.
Instead of Safari I suggest you try Camino 1.6.10, which looks like Safari, but it is faster, more stable and more powerful. Free download.
So, your costs so far would be, let's say $75 for a new HDD, $20 for the DC-in Board if you do it yourself, or add $75 for installation. For less than $200 you will have your computer functional again. You will need around $700 for a used MacBook or $1000 for a new one.
May I suggest that if you are unable to upgrade your drive and you have valuable information on it, that you back it up immediately. You can also try to lean things down, but with so little HDD free capacity you hardly have room for working. Dr. Smoke's FAQ Freeing space on your Mac OS X startup disk is an excellent guide for clearing some breathing space.
Please do post back with further questions or comments.
cornelius

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Easy,
Restart your PC, then restart your iPhone/iPad. Then once your computer reboots, connect the devices using the USB cable.
Let me know!
C

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Welcome to the Apple community Kobra.
Unfortunately, you cannot do very much with your phone unless you get assistance from the previous owner, they should either provide you with the password to unlock it or remove their account from the phone entirely remotely through iCloud.com > Find My Phone.

The most cost-effective long-term solution, Upgrade or Buy Newer Computer?

I am looking for the most cost-effective long term solution for me as an self-employed interior designer. I need help making a decision: Is it reasonable to upgrade my iBook G4 (RAM, operating system)(+bigger hard drive)(+buy new rechargeable battery)(+buy new portable power adapter)?; or do I need to abandon it and buy a newer apple computer (0-2 years old)?
ABOUT MY MAC:
Hardware Overview:
Machine Model: iBook G4
CPU Type: PowerPC G4 (1.1)
Number Of CPUs: 1
CPU Speed: 1.2 GHz
L2 Cache (per CPU): 512 KB
Memory: 256 MB
Bus Speed: 133 MHz
Boot ROM Version: 4.8.7f1
I will appreciate your suggestions very much! Thanks a lot in advance!

Hi Cali and Welcome to Apple Discussions,
I think that decision would depend on how you plan to use this laptop. In addition it would depend on your client base and the image you need to project.
I used to be a commercial producer. If I was still doing that today I'd need to project a successful up to date image. My clients at the large agencies were/are attracted to the latest technologies. I would have the hippest iPhone apps and probably a 15" Unibody MacBook Pro.
I have a pro photographer client who wanted to buy an iMac a few years back but I insisted she buy a Mac Pro with at least two of the largest Cinema Monitors she could afford.
She has thanked me multiple times since she says her clients are so impressed with her images when she displays them on those large monitors.
So it would depend on how you're using the laptop and your client base.
The first thing I see with your iBook is that your RAM is pretty minimal. If you update that would be the first thing to do.
This is actually the iBook that I use and for me it's very cost effective. They're both 1.2 GHz machines. I use a 14" around the house and a !2" when we're traveling. It is very cost effective for me as I purchased them broken for under $125 total. I use salvaged drives and RAM. It works for me since my business is repair and the clients are impressed how well my 5 year old iBook works.
Richard

Upgrading or buying new computer

Hello folks,
I need some help.
My current build is: normal PC, i5 3350P, 16GB RAM, GTX660. I have windows 8.1 and mac OS X 10.9.2 (hackintosh) installed on that computer. I installed OS X more for fun and to explore it as viable option to change my working OS.
After some testing I can say that photoshop is about 5-10% faster in OS X, than windows 8.1. I have more RAM available, no wacom tablet bugs and better workflow (I just LOVE mac OS color mixer, where I upgraded functionalities with plugins and is waaay better than in windows). That said, I prefer to work in OS X than windows enviroment.
But that is not my problem, my problem is slow response time of photoshop. I'm digital artist so I use photoshop mainly for drawing. brush, mixer brush, smudge and similar tools are my "main weapons" and all of those seem slow or have significant "lag". I tried many settings os OS itself, photoshop and brush settings, but nothing really improved my work. I currently work on mostly around 1920x1080 resolution with some pieces reaching 4000x4000 or maybe even more. But 4000x4000 picture is a big problem for my system and HD resolution is on edge of frustration. Sometimes I get lost in my work and I'm moving pen over screen pretty fast and photoshop just can't keep up with me, sometimes even with simple brush. I would love to swithc to 4K resolution this year so I can make bigger pictures and much more details.
Now my question is: is it possible to get rid of that lag? I have asked adobe and they haven't give me any good answer on that so I'm mainly asking people with better systems if they experience any lag at all?
I'm thinking about upgrading my system or buying mac pro (which would be currently overkill for me as I'm still learning to draw and use programs but I plan to learn about drawing and animation and some 3D modelling as well, but nothing too fancy). I was looking at 6-core, 16-32GB, 512GB, 2x D300 mac pro system, but it's pricetag is 4300+€ in my country and that is kinda pulling me off about my decision. I would gladly pay out that kind of money if I would be assured that my work would be smooth, but I don't really know if it is that much of an upgrade over my current system or in other words: is it worth buying it if I already have my computer that is not even outdated yet?
Thank you for your help and time reading my wall of text Sorry about english.
Best regards.

boo radley 2013 wrote:
I don't think I've ever seen a Photoshop without brush lag, no matter what system it's running under. There's always going to be a brush lag, no matter how small it is. Even on a Wacom Cintiq, when you glide the cursor around the screen without pressing the pen down, the cursor still lags behind your hand ever so slightly - this is the hardware. Also, I haven't seen any mention of what DPI anyone is using for their images - is it 72dpi or , say, 300dpi? Makes a *huge* difference.
I can have a 300dpi, 4000px x 4000px document, and paint with a normal soft brush at 400 pixels with very small lag time - but the lag is definitely there. Not enough to slow things down in a majro way though, I'm used to it and the lag time is very short. If I reduce that image size down to 72dpi, then the lag is even less.
For mixer brush, it will operate much slower if 'sample all layers' is ticked on. If you turn off this option, the brush will speed up dramatically. Also, I have had many instances where for unknown reasons, the mixer brush just slows down to a screeching halt, out of nowhere. And this is with 'sample all layers' turned off. I find that a way to fix it sometimes is click somewhere outside of my document window (click somewhere on the gray empty space in behind the document window) and then for whatever reason it's fixed. A bug maybe, I don't know. Also, your rbush spacing is a major issue as well - if your spacing is set to 1, then the brush is going to be slow. You can bump that up to 10 and maybe a bit higher, and not really see a visual difference in your painting (at least with the mixer brush, and the brush will really speed up (works for both normal brush and mixer brush though).
Anyhow, I think that even with a top of the line system like that, you're still going to get a lag under random circumstances - I'm not sure that investing that sort of $$$ is going to give you exactly what you want, because I don't know if Photoshop is capable of giving the kind of performance you 're looking for at all times. That's a lot of $$$ just to get rid of a brush lag - think about it. If the lag is that bad, I would consider spending a lot more time experimenting to find out what you can do to improve it, instead of dumping that sort of coin into something that's probably not going to solve your problem 100% of the time.
For what it's worth, I'm running a Windows7 64-bit i5 4570, 16GB ram, simple on-board video, and old hard drives... the scratch disk is on an older partitoned sata2 drive... and no problems here working with larger documents (300dpi 4000px x 4000px and even much larger than that. Brush lag is always minimal.
I know there will always be brush lag - it's the basic limitation of USB and CPU processing data from USB. I actually use cintiq which is very good tool and I got used to some little lag. But it is impossible to work when I get more than 2 second lag or even more. I usually do my work at 300dpi or 110dpi, never less and never more and I get some lag already at 100px brush and it's not only normal brush, but mixer and smudge tool as well. I use mixer smudge and normal soft brush a lot at blending and mixing colours.
I'm also trying to avoid using "sample all layers" on some tools, but sometimes some things are on different layers and I just can't merge them up because it would screw up my work. Instead I hide all uneeded layers and work only on 2 or 3 working layers. That seems to help, but when I get 2+ second lag, nothing helps, not even disabling sampling over all layers. I have tried many things, settings, drivers, nothing really really worked. I written to adobe and I got nothing usefull back from them.
Also this investment is not only because of lag brush but also because:
-I would love to buy myself 4K monitor and give back cintiq to my friend who lend it to me. Cintiq is great, don't get me wrong, but still very very limited at resolution and quality of picture isn't really the one of top monitor models.
-I would like to have a real mac instead of "hackintosh", because this just isn't working as it should (some things just doesn't work because it's fitting some software on hardware that is not designed for, no USB 3.0, sleep doesn't work,...). I found mac way better to work with than windows (less work distraction, better support programs, less clutter, not hassle about drivers, viruses and stuff like that anymore,...). I actually use windows now only for gaming when I have some free time.
-I would like to buy myself a good computer that will last me at least 3+ years. Until now I was upgrading my computer every year or two. Sometimes only GFX card, sometimes just some more RAM, sometimes new disk, sometimes whole new matherboard with CPU,... Never I had really really good computer. Every year I spend about 1000€ on computer parts and never I had good system tow work/play with.
As my options at apple computers are very limited I have only 2 actually that are able to run 4K display:
-mac pro - great design and idea. Computer is small enough to put it in backpack and carry it around and performance is good.
-macbook pro - I really don't need mobile computer, well at least not in a notebook format. Here performance suffers on account of mobility. In addition to everything I also don't really need built in monitor, because I will get myself better one.
There is also one more option I could go for:
-change GFX card on my current system that would support 4K monitor, but that would mean I'm still stuck with current CPU which just can't handle stuff I do and also stuck with "hackintosh".
I have read somewhere that 4th generation of intel CPU's are much better than 3rd generation, specifically GPU part. My CPU doesn't have a GPU as I got it cheaper and I bought GTX660 anyway. But that was a little mistake as nvidia only supports openCL 1.1 and AMD cards supprot openCL 1.2 which can be much faster in some circumstances. I can't upgrade to 4th generation without changing my motherboard as well and even that won't be much of an upgrade.
Thing is that with my current system I can barely work on 1920x1080 @300dpi.
I'm thinking a lot about that investment as it is really big even for me. I would just like to be sure if it is big enough upgrade to justify the cost or not. Few weeks ago when mac pro got released I tried it at apple store and played a bit and it is ultra fast. The test I have done wasn't really extensive as only had few mintues because more people were there waiting to try it out.

G4 400: Upgrade or Buy New?

Hi Everyone,
This is my first post after lurking in the shadows for a while. As you can probably guess I have a G4 400 that I've owned from new. It's getting slow(er) and I'm thinking of upgrading/buying new. I fancy a new Intel iMac but my budget can't stretch to it. Also the lack of CS in Universal is a MAJOR factor. I mainly use the Mac for general browsing etc and CS for Photoshop and graphic design. It's not a work machine so speed is not so important.
I was thinking of buying a G4 Macmini as a stop gap until I can afford the Intel iMac. Would this be better than upgrading the G4 400? See below.
On the upgrade path I was looking at: More RAM, CPU upgrade to 1.4MHz, bigger harddrive (I already have a 2nd 40GB drive).
What graphics card can I upgrade to? I'd like to be able to run a 2nd monitor if possible.
Any and all advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Steve
G4 400MHz, 448MB Ram, Mac OS X (10.3.9)

Hi i've just upgraded my Sawooth G4 to 1.4Gh Sonnet. It flies now! There used to be long waiting times in between rendering in Photoshop (but i'm used to it, then), but now, the spinning beach ball rarely make an appearance.
I was like you a few months back, and lots of people/friends adviced me to get a Mini instead. I'm glad i sticked with my G4 and upgraded parts, one at a time. I'm a Graphic Designer too. Though i'm using Photoshop 7, Illustator 10, Freehand MX, etc... Basically older versions.
Next up for me will be a Pioneer 110D, and i'm looking for ATI 8500 or 9000 through ebay. And maybe, just maybe a SATA card and HD.
Sawtooth G4 Sonnet 1.4Ghz Mac OS X (10.3.9) 1.75GB RAM 120GB + 40GB HD iPod 4G 40GB

Tune up and upgrade or buy new?

I have a iBook G4. It is starting to show wear and age. It needs a new battery (doesn't hold any charge)and a new power cord (fraying at the barrel). I have very little memory left and it runs very slow at times.
I was thinking of buying a new battery, power cord, and upgrading the RAM (current 512MB) and then possibly buying an external hard drive. Would this be a wise investment? Or should I retire this and look into investing into a new computer?

running my Ibook cooler
after owning my Ibook for more than one year, I finally figured out how to keep it cool and not overheating, which it would make the screen flicker and go blank, first of all I removed the bottom cover and drilled many holes in patterns including on the metal shield, this made a big improvement, I can feel the heat coming from the holes, but still not good enough, because I wanted to play /record Quick time movies and the system would heat quickly within 20 minutes and using a fan underneath,
I did some search and found G4fan control, http://www.andreafabrizi.it/?g4fancontrol:download
installed it and, I reset the defaults temp @ 130 and no more trouble as the matter of fact I have been recording audio with it while the temperature in the room was near 90 and the the graphic chip sensor never reached above 125 I have been recording for 3 days straight, how about that.
I also installed an Audio recording Jack so that I can transfer my audio cassettes.
Thanks for reading
Sigi

Power Mac G5: A common dilemma: to upgrade or buy new

I know there are a lot of discussions on this topic going around, but everyone's needs and uses are different, so I'd appreciate any input on my situation.
I own a Dual 1.8 GHz Power Mac G5 with only 1GB RAM and a failing 160GB hard drive.
At this point, I basically only use this machine for web browsing, iTunes, and Garageband, and am running Tiger.
I had been having some major hard drive problems so I wiped my system and re-installed Tiger , importing everything from my iBookG4 (which, I recently dropped and the screen connection has failed and is unusable except for as an external hard drive in target disk mode. it is probably too expensive to fix for what its worth so I will probably try to sell it for scrap).
Anyway, everything was ok for about a week until I opened firefox and noticed all my settings and bookmarks were gone. When I restarted my computer, my music, pictures, documents, and movies folders were all unable to be located (although my applications were fine and my hard drive still showed that the space was the same). I'm not sure if I imported some problem from my iBook or if my hard drive was just messing up again, but I've decided that I either need to upgrade or get a new computer.
Basically, I am thinking about upgrading my memory, getting a new hard drive, and upgrading to leopard (mostly for time machine). Or, possibly getting a new iMac or waiting a bit and then getting a new iMac or even (gasp) a PC (highly unlikely).
I was going to get the memory from ramjet and I was thinking of only adding 1GB to make 2GB but could be persuaded of getting more but 400Mhz DDR memory is a bit more expensive than other types. As for the hard drive, I was thinking about getting a Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 SATA 3.0Gb/s 320-GB Hard Drive with a 16 MB cache. I could pay $15 more for a 500GB with 32 MB cache but i really don't need the space and am unsure whether the cache will really help much. Seagates used to have a pretty good rep I thought, but now they seem to be getting mixed reviews, so I don't know.
Obviously, I am no computer expert, so any help would be great. Would it be worth it to spend between $250 and $325 to get the memory, drive, and leapord when I could maybe sell my G5 and my 23" apple cinema display (the old clear kind) and get an iMac? I could maybe get about $700 - $800 for the G5 and around $300 - $350 for the display. Will an iMac be faster than my G5 with the upgrades? I don't think I need a mac pro for my current uses.
Thanks for your help. Feel free to offer advice on what to do with my iBook too.
-rhineth

Memory: $60 for 2 x 1GB, I'd call that very affordable.
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/3200DDR2GBP/
Disk drives: 2 x $69 for pair of WD Caviar 640GB
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Western%20Digital/WD6400AAKS/
It is not about capacity as much as speed and quiet, cool, and how well it handles OS X. I use half the drive, other half is unformatted free space. I'd skip the Seagates. 7200.11 is current.
I expect new iMacs in '09 as they are overdue.
Hard drives you keep or put in FW case.
Current Leopard is 10.5.4 DVD but would be nice to see another DVD now with 10.5.6, $109 (Amazon, maybe less Newegg?).
iMac vs others:
http://www.macworld.com/article/133467/2008/05/imaccomparison.html
http://www.barefeats.com/harper7.html
http://www.barefeats.com/imp02.html
Sounds like three things you may not be doing or have:
SuperDuper for backups. You don't need Leopard.
Disk Warrior. Everyone, or I should say "HFS+" needs #1 disk repair utility.
Backup drives. Two backup sets you switch between, and a small "emergency" partition on one for running Disk Warrior and such.
I replace or move older drives to backup use and put new boot drive in on a yearly basis. Some new drives and memory should be all you need. A couple people even stress their system with graphics and video, and upgrading to 3 or 4 new drives revived their system so that they could hold on and wait another year.

Upgrade or buy new PC?

First off, yes, I have searched.
My Google web and group searches uncovered lots of Photoshop-specific PC build advice, but I found very little on the web, or on this forum, when it comes to Lightroom.
I have a 3.5 year old PC - Pentium 2.4, 1GB RAM, integrated onboard graphics, 2 internal HDDs, 2 external back up drives (1 offsite) and a (brand new) 22" Philips 'professional' CRT that I picked up six months ago. This has been a satisfactory set-up for my PS use, but with Lightroom it struggles. On my PC LR is borderline too sluggish to be useful, and I have never managed to get the slideshow module to work (perhaps my on-board graphics can't cope with a 1600x1200 resolution?)
In any event the HDs are all at close to capacity, so I have to buy some new drives soon at a minimum. So is it, as I suspect it is, time to start from scratch? Or if I bought some more RAM and a graphics card could I expect a noticeable jump in performance?
If I do upgrade do the same rules as spec'ing a PS machine apply (priority on lots of RAM; low-end graphics card and processor fine if on a budget)? Or are the demands LR make on a system quite different?
If going new my budget would probably be around US$700 for a box (keep existing monitor, keyboard, tablet, OS, etc)
TIA

A dedicated graphics card is of little to no added value in image editing apps, which are CPU and memory limited. Any modern integrated video adapter has enough acceleration to move windows around like paper, even at 1600x1200; you're only going to get the added advantage generally in 3D apps. A 3.5 year old one might have a little problem at that resolution, but I suspect the problem is more indicative that Lightroom is probably using DirectX calls for the slideshow that your video displays painfully slowly or doesn't support.
For $700 you can get a brand new pre-built Core 2 Duo or AMD 64x2 system with 2GB RAM (make sure you can expand to 4GB in the future) and 250+ GB HD without a monitor (use the one you got for now) which will make for a very snappy Lightroom and Photoshop experience. Pull one of the internals out of the old PC and buy an external USB/Firewire combo enclosure for it, for photo backups.
If you build it yourself, you can squeak out a little more performance for the same budget, but since you're asking this question in the first place I'm guessing you're not the type of personality inclined to that ;) For pre-builts I recommend HP, I think they beat out the competition in quality, and you can march down to Best Buy and take one home the same day for the same price as mail order (especially if you watch for deals). As much as some people complain about the big box stores, at least you have a physical place nearby you can bring the PC back if you have a problem vs. dealing with shipping.
IMO expanding the HD, RAM and video will cost 2/3 of the cost of a new PC and be useful at most for a year, whereas a PC will be good for 3-4 years and can be strung out to 5 with the right upgrades.
On a side note, I budget to buy 1-2 new external hard drives every year to handle storage demands, so it's a factor in the cost of a new PC, which includes a new HD in the price, but only a small one.
As a personal reference, I bought a $700 HP last year with 2.0 GHz AMD 64 x2 processor. I've probably doubled that price in expanding it from 1GB to 3GB RAM, separate video card (to play 3D games), new power supply to support the video card, and a 74GB Raptor 10k rpm drive (which was a huge disappointment). None of that you'd need for Lightroom/Photoshop, assuming it came with 2GB RAM in the first place.
EDIT: PS. I don't know if you're still running XP or the like and considering upgrading to Vista, but keep in mind a new PC will come with Vista pre-installed, saving you the cost of upgrading. Just another factor to consider...

Should I upgrade or buy new?

I currently use a G4 running OS 9.0 (400MHz, 128 MB, 20GB) for QuarkXPress and Photoshop/Illustrator. I also have access to my partner's Windows machine which I use for web browsing, email etc. I would like to be able to update/upgrade so I only have to use my Mac but am confused as to how to go about it. I also have a very limited budget.
Can I install newer OS on such an old Mac (is it capable of handling it, is it compatible) and can I do so without having to reinstall other apps (I have lost the installation disks for some of them). Also all my files are on the internal disk.
Would it be better just to buy a newer one (perhaps a reconditioned iMac) and new software? The cost of this (even an older new model) is scaring me slightly...

Hi! You are in a fix! Your best bet would be to start new but that won't be cheap as all your apps as well as your machine need a makeover. If you use Quark and PS for work you are wasting a lot of time. Frankly I didn't think PS would run on 128mb. You can buy a Mac mini used for 300-400 bucks that would be a step up and you could "probably" run your OS9 apps in "classic" mode under Tiger 10.4.You could upgrade your existing machine but a new processor and ram will run 350-500 bucks. A new iMac with new apps is the best approach but you talking serious bucks. I would probably advise you to buy a good used mac mini that came with the original Tiger install discs but you will need a higher version 9 os that is higher than 9.0 which you will have to buy. There are no real easy and cheap fixes in your situation. Tom

To upgrade or buy new mac.

i need to get some opinion from u guys out there. i'm using an 12.1" ibook g4 512ram for 2 years. Things are fine but lately i feels it is getting slow (maybe the softwares are getting more demanding). I thinking should i up the ram to 1.5 and add in the leopard software or should i sell the ibook and get a new mac. upgrading the ibook will cost about ~1000 rm. trading the ibook can fetch about 2000rm so i cant really decide. it is cheaper to upgrade but in the long run? can anyone give their opinion here

That sounds like a good option--there is nothing wrong with Tiger, and there have been some problems with Leopard--just peruse the Leopard forum some time. You may as well do your mobil computing and not be worrying about which printers will work or whether or not your menu bar is translucent and all of that stuff. After I upgraded my MBP to Leopard, the free printer that I got with the MBP would no longer work. Eventually I imagine there will be a driver, but I have encountered more than one 3rd party that is not yet up to date on OS 10.5, and I imagine that others will take a while too. So it could be a hassle if you have a lot of older software. As for free upgrades, I have no idea, but I think the problem would be waiting for them to have upgrades available.
One thing you can do is to use the free application WhatSize to check on what is using up your hard drive space.
http://www.id-design.com/software/whatsize/
Sometimes logs and caches can get out of hand and use up space and slow you down. But the additional RAM should give you a big boost in performance.
As to iMac vs. a MacBook, that's hard to say. It's really up to you. But since you need to save up a few bucks first, you will have time to mull it over. You might browse both of those forums for a while and then maybe ask your question on one of them if you are still undecided.
Good luck!

Buying new system

I'm investing in a new Mac system. I'm using it mainly for editing on Final Cut Pro. Any suggestions on what I should buy? What processor speed? Duel or Quad core? why?

All the Mac Pros are 8 core now, standard (2 quad core processors). If it were me, I'd go with the dual 2.8ghz. Then I'd load it up with 8gb of RAM, 3 additional SATA drives (1tb each), a second DVD burner and an ATI 3870 graphics card - all from third party vendors.
-DH

When to stop upgrading and buy new... thoughts

Hi there,
I have a early 2007 macbook 2,1. I have upgraded the RAM and now am thinking of upgrading my HDD, at the relatively small cost of 50 GBP.
I have no existing problems, (apart from a lack of space, and mid-speed RAM (less than 3GB is actually used of my 4)) but I wonder if it is a wise investment to buy a new HDD for something so old.
Here is my question, how long do you reasonably think my macbook will last? I am a heavy user - but good at maintenance. Will other expensive components limit the overall performance eventually?
cheers

At this point, I see no reason not to continue upgrading your computer. I have a late-2007 MacBook(which was purchased in March of 2008) that I have no intention of replacing until at least 2013(unless a major hardware issue shows up).
If your computer currently suits your needs, investing in a bigger hard drive is definitely worth while.
~Lyssa

License Question: Selling previous upgrade to buy new FCS upgrade.

I'm interested in selling my previous upgrade copy of Final Cut Studio 2 and purchasing the upgrade for Final Cut Studio 3.
Final Cut Studio 2 is an upgrade version. I already own FCP1, which I used as the base for the FCS2 upgrade. I want to sell the FCS2 upgrade, but not my copy of FCP1 (since I want to use this for my new upgrade version).
So, what I'd like to do is the following:
- Sell Final Cut Studio 2, but retain ownership of FCP 1 (that I've had for years)
- Buy Final Cut Studio 3, and upgrade from FCP1
What gives me pause is the message in the SLA that states:
Updates: If an Apple Software update completely replaces (full install) a previously licensed version of the Apple Software, you may not use both versions of the Apple Software at the same time nor may you transfer them separately. NFR (Not for Resale) Copies: Notwithstanding other sections of this License, A
I'm not quite sure how to read that. While I definitely see an issue with someone upgrading to Final Cut Studio, and then selling the software used as the base of that upgrade, what I'm doing is actually the opposite. (Selling the upgrade software, and keeping my original FCP Version 1 license so I can use it for a newer upgrade).
Is there someone in Apple legal I can contact about this?
Thoughs?
Thanks in advance,
Jim

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=10680183&#10680183
Hi Tom,
I see that Nick answered this question a little differently then you.( from a dig user with same question)
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=10680183&#10680183
Any thoughts on above thread. Anywhere I can get official word from Apple on this?
Message was edited by: harperjm

Upgrade or buy new?

I have the same problem as a previous poster -- streaming Internet content is often jerky or with lots of stops and starts. Nothing like having the audio portion finish 20 seconds before the video catches up! My question is this: if I max out the memory, will that allow smooth streaming? I assume the processor can't be upgraded, is that correct? Or would I be better off getting a refurb Macbook or G4? I'm far from a "power user," but I would like to be able to watch TV pilots, etc. Thank you!
G3, 600MHz, 256 RAM, dual USB Mac OS X (10.3.9)
iBook G3, 600 MHz, 256 MB RAM Mac OS X (10.3.9)

Hi, Lynnie.
Upgrading the RAM wouldn't hurt, but it may not help, either.
Try quitting all other applications other than the browser in which the video is appearing.
It may be the fault of your ISP. My cable internet was supposed to carry a download speed of 3 MB, but any time I checked it, it wasn't even making a 1 MB download speed. Even on my iBook G4 with 768 MB of RAM and 1.2 GHz processor, I was having problems when my download speed was under 1 MB. Since they have "upgraded" my service to "5 MB" (and now I'm actually getting close to the 3 MB I've been paying for), I no longer have problems with YouTube clips, etc.
You can check your download speed at http://speedtest.net/. That may be your problem. It certainly was mine.

IBook G4 - Upgrade or Buy New System

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