This Old Mac

As I write this article I am still working on resurrecting my PowerMac G5 Quad. But that project is on hiatus due to limited time and fundings. My PowerMac G5 Dual 2.3 Ghz is still in active service. All my project documents sit on this server as well as my home intranet video streaming library. I am still a die hard Mac guy. Sorry, you'll have to pry the UNIX from my cold dead hands! But my sons are tech geeks too and they venture out more and have their Windows 7 gaming systems. Since I work and save on a centralized server, my PowerMac G5, and I like consolidating libraries, my home needed a means to centralize access across different operating systems. And 'this ol'Mac' running her UNIX operating system (well Mac OS X 10.5.8) had the answer. NFS! NFS is an acronym for Network File Server . I was surprised at how easy it was to setup NFS on the PowerMac G5. Did a little Google-ing and in an 1/2 hour I had my sons Windows 7 gaming PC mounting a volume off my Pow

Well as luck would have it I managed to score a Power Mac G5 Quad core on e-bay. Shown in the pic to the left. The top G5 is the Quad core and the bottom is Dual core G5 (currently in service). I found an e-bay auction where the system had no OS installed and was offered as parts or repair. The seller wanted $120 firm but I low balled him since there was no proof of long duration operation. I was denied my "bid" and I moved on in life. Well, I didn't know that a seller could actually accept your bid after you were denied. In my in-box a week later was an invoice for the G5 I made an offer on and was turned down. No worries. The system had all the signs of being able to at least boot up. When the UPS shipment came in late November with my newly acquired G5 it was like Christmas came early. The Power Mac G5 Quad core to the mac geek is  a kin to 69 Dodge Charger to an auto enthusiast. A lot of vintage horse power. I unpacked the G5 and removed the boot drive from Dual c

My PowerMac Dual-core 2.3GhZ PowerPC G5 is still a strong working pony in my computing arsenal. Despite Firefox balking at me to upgrade my hardware, I press on with the most awesome computing hardware ever to come out of Apple.  I own an iMac dual-core intel, but there is something more ominous about the PowerMac computers. There life and their future was cut short by intel platform macs. This afternoon I decided to setup the iTunes on my PowerMac to SHARE my video library to my Apple devices, the iphone and the ipad. What a nightmare this turned out to be. Somehow, Apple, the purveyor of cool computing gadgets thinks us geeks own no more than 5 computing devices. Yes, your iTunes library will only let you authorize 5 computing devices to stream to inside your own wi-fi intranet. So the hammer came down to ditch iTunes as a video server and I searched the Internet for other viable streaming applications. I came across two which I liked, vlc streamer and air video server . The f