Help!!

[novizmacuser]

HI

Im new here so take it easy on me!!

I have a slight prob. My old (or should i say new) mac has been stolen. this leaves me with the option of disgarding my life outside the real world untill i can buy another one or using the peice of crap i am using now which doesnt seem to even except explorer!! Can some one please show me the way to a cheap upgrade so i can atleast get safari on the brick!!

All the best,
Nov

 

[dpaanlka]

You have to tell us what the machine is first.

Any Mac built since 1992 will run some version of Internet Explorer. I'm sure whatever you're using isnt even close to being that old.

 

[novizmacuser]

well it seems to be a mystery you see not even the technitians at my work can tell me what it is. They just handed it to me and said good luck. PowerBook G3 seems to be the only thing i can find out.

 

[dpaanlka]

It says right on the machine what it is. Does it say PowerBook G3? There should be labels on the underside that are more specific. A date would be helpful if there is one. Is there a small rainbow Apple logo anywhere? Or are they all white? If you have some sort of PowerBook G3, you may be entitled to some very hefty upgrades. And I would hardly call any of them a "piece of crap" - if it doesnt have IE that means you didnt install IE, it doesnt mean its incompatible with IE.

Is the keyboard black, or like a translucent brown color? Do you have a ruler nearby? Can you measure the distance from one corner of the screen to the opposite corner diagonally? All of this information will help me tell you what it is, and I don't even have to see it in real life.

 

[novizmacuser]

its a powerbook g3 1999

it has internet explora but i am having to run it in 'classic' mode as it wont run normally. tried to put virtual pc onto it so it will run better but to no avail.

you will have to forgive me i am fairly illiterate when it comes to macs. i work on pc's all day and when i come home to this i get utterly confused. Having trouble running 256k bband at the moment of course i would like to go to a much higher speed for the bband but this isnt going to happen if it cant even run 256 well

 

[dpaanlka]

Ok well for starters, Virtual PC isn't going to make anything "run better" thats for sure...

If IE is running in classic mode, that is because you have the Mac OS 9 version of IE, or you don't even have Mac OS X to begin with. But since you even said "classic mode" I'll assume you do, in fact, have Mac OS X. None of this matters, of course, as IE for Mac is extremely outdated, and in fact you cant even download it from Microsoft anymore, and if you even try to Microsoft.com itself will say "do not use IE on a Mac, use Safari instead." IE is not a big player on the Mac, in conclusion.

Getting Safari to run would mean you need a version of Mac OS X that supports it. Safari came out fairly late in the 10.2.x era. What version of Mac OS is that computer running?

Go to the Apple icon in the upper left hand corner of the screen and choose the first menu option "about this mac" and it will tell you the exact version of Mac OS you have. Then we can move on from there. Safari comes with every version of Mac OS X that supported it, so if you don't have Safari, then you may have a very old version of Mac OS X, and an upgrade will be in order. Also, having a super early version of Mac OS X will actually make your computer feel a lot slower than it really is, as back then the GUI was not even close to being fully optimized (remember, Mac OS X is an entirely new, built from scratch OS, and it took many revisions to finally perfect it as it is today).

 

[novizmacuser]

translucent brown keys.,.... dunno bout the size

 

[dpaanlka]

You have a PowerBook G3 Lombard, either 333mhz or 400mhz. This machine does not support Mac OS X Tiger (10.4.x / aka current) without hacks, but does support Mac OS X Panther (10.3.x).

 

[spinne1]

As has been posted, you can find out about your computer by going to the blue apple in the upper left corner and selecting "About This Mac" (assuming you are running OS X). Do this and report back about both the machine and the OS you are running. Until then, we are all just guessing.

Now, what you really need to do is wipe the whole hard drive, reinstall OS X (I recommend Panther 10.3 for you) and start fresh. Then you will have a stable system, Safari will be loaded during the install, and all other quirks will be eliminated that may have been introduced by whoever ran that system before.

You can get Panther on ebay for a good price (I'm sure you can find it even in Australia).

Once you get the above all done, then we will be in a much better position to help you.