Recycled Computing

Bumps in the Road for G3 Macs

- 2008.07.28

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When you are using an old computer like my Pismo and G3 iMac, occasionally there are bumps in the night.

MobileMe Won't Sync

When Apple changed from .mac to MobileMe, I was all excited about it (as were many Apple users). Unfortunately, while my sage octopus (the iMac) will sync with MobileMe, my beloved Pismo has a log in error every time I try to sync. Apparently something had gone bump in the gentle Apple night.

Being the complete idiot that I am, I thought that it might have something to do with the Xubuntu that I had installed in the first partition of the Pismo's hard drive. I wiped the drive (after cloning it to my backup drive on a hard drive module I purchased from MCE) and cloned back to the Pismo's internal drive. This made no difference.

I decided to reinstall Tiger and wiped the drive again, installed Tiger, and migrated from the backup drive. Still no change.

At this point I was so desperate that I emailed Apple.

Let's be honest, Apple is having enough problems with getting MobileMe working with Intel computers, so I'm sure that some old fart with an ancient G3 Pismo is the last thing on their collective minds.

I did not get any answers from the mothership.

I was going through my Address Book and noticed that my card did not have my photo on it. I quickly made my card into My Card and said to myself, "I wonder if that's what's hanging up my login to .mac?"

Well, Skippy, that's what it was. I now can sync my computers with MobileMe. Of course, I don't get "push" email, but my 8-and-a-half-year old Pismo can still use the latest stuff from Cupertino.

Skype Doesn't Have Software for G3 Macs

I don't know about you, but my cell phone bill sucks. Sure, it's nice that I can reach the other 4 members of my family, but since 3 of them are teenagers....

I finally canceled my land line and decided to take the plunge into VOIP. I found that Skype was the cheapest way to make phone calls over the Internet, but . . . oops, another bump in the night. I could not install Skype software on the two G3 Macs. (Are you trying to tell me something, Steve Jobs?) Sure, I could install Skype on my sons' Dell and my daughter's G4 iBook, but nothing doing on the G3s.

So I emailed Skype and asked if they had an older version of Skype I could try. I received the following reply:

Hello John,

Thank you for contacting Skype Support.

Unfortunately, we cannot provide you with an old version of Skype. Also, we do not encourage our users to downgrade, since with each new version a lot of problems are fixed. However, you may download older versions of Skype from websites that provide them (http://mac.oldapps.com).

But please note that downloads from web sites other than skype.com are not officially supported by us and we cannot guarantee that the download works. Skype recommends to always use the most up-to-date version of the program.

We apologize for the inconvenience.

Best regards,
Mihkel S.
Skype support

I went right to mac.oldapps.com and downloaded the an older version of Skype, and before you can say "lower phone bills", I was phoning the relatives. Coolness.

Not only can I make phone calls from my Pismo, but I can still keep it in sync with any other Mac I own now and in the future. I know that an Intel Mac is in my future, but I can purchase it on my own schedule. Whew.

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