Loving Wireless Broadband, iBook G4 Deals, Email Migration from Eudora, and More

• Loving Wireless Broadband
• iBook G4 Deals at Overstock.com
• YouTube5 Extension Lets Safari 5 View YouTube without Stuttering
• Linux Prospects on $37 Netbook Computer
• Windows CE 'Embedded' on $37 Netbook?
• Email Migration from Eudora

Loving Wireless Broadband

From anonymous by request:

Charles:

I have service through Clearwire, and I do like the speed that they deliver. The problem that I have is my ping times are between 110ms and 200ms. When I had DSL (through the most dishonest phone company on earth), I had pings of about 25ms to maybe at worst 35ms, and jitter was very low. I have purchased an Ooma VoIP phone device and am no longer using the big dishonest phone company for anything. Clearwire offers its own VoIP phone service for an additional $20 per month for the 1.5 Mbps service and $15 per month for the 6.0 Mbps service.

The advantage that you have living in Nova Scotia is that you get to live in Nova Scotia... Nice.

Name and location withheld by request (so Clearwire can not try to keep my Ooma phone service from working)!

Thanks for the report. My personal frame of reference with broadband services is limited, but the wireless service I'm getting here is much faster than the library WiFi hotspot (router to a DSL connection) I used to resort to when dialup was just impossible.

My daughter, who lives in a city, and my summer neighbor from Cincinnati both tell me that the speed here compares favorably with what they're getting at home.

And yes, the privilege of living in a place like this does mitigate the inconveniences of living 50 miles from the nearest town. On a nice day in July, August, and September, I can't imagine there being a more pleasant place to be. The downside is that in the rest of the year, the weather is, well, "challenging." ;-) My wife, who is from Bermuda, has other words for it.

Incidentally, check out Live With Regis and Kelly on ABC this week (July 12-15, 2010), which is being broadcast on location from next-door Prince Edward Island, which has similar weather to ours.

Charles

iBook G4 Deals at Overstock.com

From Mike:

I was looking through the electronics section on Overstock.com. It appears that they are selling a (or several) 2005 12" iBook G4's. Low price of $260. Although the PPC chip is on the way out, this would probably be great for someone in the market for a netbook, or someone looking for a cheap replacement for an older PPC laptop that is not worth fixing.

Mike T.

Hi Mike,

Thanks for the heads-up. That is a super price for a lot of 'Book, and I would definitely prefer a G4 iBook to a netbook priced similarly.

I'm even tempted at C$331.55, which is what's quoted for Canuck buyers, and something of a profiteering peg, since the Canadian dollar is trading in the $0.95 to $0.97 range.

My wife is still getting great service from my old 1.33 GHz 17" PowerBook G4 running Leopard.

Charles

YouTube5 Extension Lets Safari 5 View YouTube without Stuttering

From Rob:

Hi,

Seeing as you wrote such a positive review of Safari 5 on Low End Mac, I thought I'd bring to your attention a rare benefit of "progress".

I enabled extensions on Safari 5 and installed the extension YouTube5, and now I can watch YouTube videos on my G4 iBook (1.33) without breaks, stuttering, hogging the CPU, or overheating the GPU chip! Look forward to trying it on my old 867 MHz DVI PowerBook - when I've rebuilt it and found my Leopard disc.

As I said, in a world where progress rarely benefits those of us using old Macs, we finally a seamless answer to a difficult problem!

Rob

Hi Rob,

Thanks for the report and tip.

I'm still very happy with Safari 5, which I'm actually using more than Chrome these days - something I never imagined wound happen given my general underwhelmedness with earlier Safari versions.

Charles

Linux Prospects on $37 Netbook Computer

From William:

Hello there (again!).

I read with great interest the first column on LEM where the $37 netbook computer was mentioned. Even with its limited processing power, the concept seemed very interesting. I've been sorely tempted to buy one, although it seems that the shipping costs more than the computer itself at $39. If I were to find one being offered with a lower shipping cost, I'd probably just buy it and see.

It's also not clear whether there is any way to restore the Windows CE operating system to its factory state should something go wrong.

Like others, I wondered about the possibility of using Linux on these. Windows CE just isn't very exciting software. (But oh, how it could have been! It's a long story . . . if you're interested, I'll tell you about it in a separate message.) The machines themselves seem to be using a Wondermedia or VIA CPU (Wondermedia is a division of the Taiwanese chip design giant, VIA) with an ARM core. One of the first things I found in my search for more information is a massive discussion on the Ubuntu forums. This is - as one of the linked pages below points out - a big mess. Still, it does have some useful information.

I ran across a few other links that seem to have some useful information as well. One of these suggests that the Wondermedia-based units behave differently than the VIA-based units, so it may be wise to try and find out what you will get, if possible.

• Linux on the EasyPC
• Easypc - Cheap Netbooks Wiki

The EasyPC Wiki looks promising but seems to be largely broken . . . or maybe it was never finished?

William

Hi William,

Thanks for the links and additional information. The shipping cost is a bit daunting indeed.

I don't claim to be any sort of authority on that matter, but my inference would be that Linux should work - perhaps better than Windows CE that comes loaded.

However, this machine has only a 300 MHz processor and 128 M of RAM, a spec that hasn't been contemporary in Apple laptops since the WallStreet in 1998/99. I did, however, successfully install both SuSE and Yellow Dog Linux on a 233 MHz WallStreet, and it performed decently. Today you can get more power in a smartphone.

Charles

Windows CE 'Embedded' on $37 Netbook?

From Mark,

Hi Charles,

I understood Windows CE was usually "embedded" in devices, so I don't know if it can be replaced. However, the photos and specs look very similar to the Linux Netbooks shown on LittleLinuxLaptop.com, so maybe!

Hope this helps someone.

Regards,
Mark

Hi Mark,

You could be right. My ignorance of Windows CE is voluminous. However, if these are Asus seconds, as has been reported elsewhere (but not confirmed), then I would imagine that Linux would work.

Charles

Email Migration from Eudora

Charles Moore,

I saw your review of MailForge from last year.

I'm a suffering Eudora orphan. I have PC Eudora (current 7.1.0.9) files from 1997 to 2010 (running via Parallels) and Mac Eudora files from 1994 to 1997. I want to move it all to native Mac.

Despite its limitations, I'm inclined to move to [Mac OS X Mail] and see what add-ons will get me some of the things I like (multiple personalities and signatures, etc.). It looks like Eudora Mailbox Cleaner can help me move my files over . . . so I'm looking for a consultant to migrate my data and help me get up to speed.

I've enjoyed being a beta-tester since my early days as one of the first desktop publishers, and am also open to considering any of the Eudora-wannabees - Thunderbird/Penelope, which is now the just-released Eudora OSE, or MailForge 2.0b2 - but they all seem dubiously "in-development" forever. And the Mac/Rosetta Eudora 6.2.4 sounds like it's missing too much. But if you use one of these as your primary mail application, I'd like to see it and consider that option.

Thanks,
Felix

Hi Felix,

I share your pain. After years of serenity and efficiency running classic Eudora, my email client world is fragmented these days.

Actually, I'm still using Eudora 6.2.4 in my old Pismo PowerBooks that run on OS X 10.4 Tiger, but on my MacBook in Leopard and Snow Leopard, I've sort of settled on alternating between Eudora 8/OSE and Thunderbird - usually whichever has the latest new release. I've found Thunderbird to be a very decent email client, while the Open Source versions of Eudora offer a familiar-looking user interface appearance. T-Bird and Eudora OSE also both use a common settings/archive folder (Thunderbird folder), so switching back and forth is very simple.

It's been a while, but T-Bird was able to import and archive my mailboxes from Classic Eudora with little hassle using the Import command.

Another T-Bird based alternative is Postbox, which recently released a free "Express" version.

I'm still not an Apple Mail fan, but I guess it's pretty good email software for those who don't object to its tendency to want to do too much for you. I like manual control, and I'm also not smitten with Mail's integration with the Address Book, which I've never learned to love.

You can find an overview and profiles of Mail alternatives in Seven Sweet n' Free Mac Email Clients. (I'm a bit confused, however, about PowerMail being included in a list of purportedly free apps. The website says it's still commercial software.)

Charles

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