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Somebody at my university's IT department did me a favor

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Cancelled
Original poster
Apr 19, 2014
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I figured you guys might like this. My university has a number of sites that make fairly heavy use of Javascript and images. I routinely use my PowerBook to visit them and often disable Javascript to make them run more smoothly. The mobile versions do not have this problem.

Well somebody in the IT department must have been looking through the logs and had a chuckle when he saw my user agent string, because now the site looks for "macppc" in the user agent and gives you the mobile site if it's there. Changing it to "i386" or "amd64" provides the regular desktop site. This only happens on Firefox on OpenBSD, so I'm pretty sure they did it just for me.

Thanks, whoever you are. :)
 
ptdebate

ptdebate

macrumors 6502
Jul 3, 2014
333
4
Dallas, Texas
556fmjoe said:
I figured you guys might like this. My university has a number of sites that make fairly heavy use of Javascript and images. I routinely use my PowerBook to visit them and often disable Javascript to make them run more smoothly. The mobile versions do not have this problem.

Well somebody in the IT department must have been looking through the logs and had a chuckle when he saw my user agent string, because now the site looks for "macppc" in the user agent and gives you the mobile site if it's there. Changing it to "i386" or "amd64" provides the regular desktop site. This only happens on Firefox on OpenBSD, so I'm pretty sure they did it just for me.

Thanks, whoever you are. :)
Click to expand...

That's very cool! We use Intel iMacs at work and there's really no reason or opportunity for me to use my own computers, but I'm pretty sure they wouldn't do me much good given that our software is x86-only :p
 
eyoungren

eyoungren

macrumors Penryn
Aug 31, 2011
28,793
26,883
LOL, I wonder what they'd do with my user agent at work.

Mac OS X 10.10.13/TenFour Fox 17 Intel.

LOL! :D
 
eyoungren

eyoungren

macrumors Penryn
Aug 31, 2011
28,793
26,883
redheeler said:
By default it looks like this, actually: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.10; rv:17.0) Gecko/20130124 Firefox/17.0 TenFourFox/386
Click to expand...
Yes, I didn't have time to find the UA string when I posted that. Thanks!

----------
ptdebate said:
Why not just use official FireFox? :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
You know what? Cameron Kaiser asked me the same question, so I will tell you what I told him.

Because I don't want to. I use, believe in and support PowerPC. So, even though I am using an Intel Mac at work I use T4Fx 17 Intel because I support Kaiser and TenFourFox. And to my mind, this is a way for me to zing Apple for abandoning PowerPC.

The next question I get then is usually something along the lines of security. As in, current Firefox will be way more secure than T4Fx 17 Intel. And that's true.

But I work for a newspaper. Other than this site, one or two other forum sites and Google News, I go to just a few sites that are specific to my job. There is nothing of any value to anyone at any site I visit. Which does not mean I take security lightly, it's just that we aren't guarding or accessing Fort Knox here. We're a community weekly newspaper for the citys of Glendale and Peoria, Arizona.
 
Last edited:
ptdebate

ptdebate

macrumors 6502
Jul 3, 2014
333
4
Dallas, Texas
eyoungren said:
Yes, I didn't have time to find the UA string when I posted that. Thanks!

----------


You know what? Cameron Kaiser asked me the same question, so I will tell you what I told him.

Because I don't want to. I use, believe in and support PowerPC. So, even though I am using an Intel Mac at work I use T4Fx 17 Intel because I support Kaiser and TenFourFox. And to my mind, this is a way for me to zing Apple for abandoning PowerPC.
Click to expand...

A true champion of the cause. I respect that! (no sarcasm) :)
 
redheeler

redheeler

macrumors G3
Oct 17, 2014
8,419
8,841
Colorado, USA
ptdebate said:
A true champion of the cause. I respect that! (no sarcasm) :)
Click to expand...

He really is :)

That being said, using an older version of TenFourFox on Intel is not the best way to support the cause, using PPC Macs with TenFourFox a little bit every day is. I just might substitute my rMBP with my favorite PPC Mac, a 12" iBook G4 1.33 running the latest version of TenFourFox on 10.4.11, for the day.
 
eyoungren

eyoungren

macrumors Penryn
Aug 31, 2011
28,793
26,883
redheeler said:
That being said, using an older version of TenFourFox on Intel is not the best way to support the cause, using PPC Macs with TenFourFox a little bit every day is. I just might substitute my rMBP with my favorite PPC Mac, a 12" iBook G4 1.33 running the latest version of TenFourFox on 10.4.11, for the day.
Click to expand...
True enough.

But the MP is the work Mac. It's not my personal Mac and it was purchased to replace the G5 when it died a little over a year and a half ago.

My boss gave me the G5 and I replaced the CPU/Logicboard as one unit.

However, I brought it back to end the endless complaining about how slow the G4/450 here at work was. Haven't heard a peep about slowness since the G5 came back to work.

I have two G4s sitting right next to me that are on 24/7 and still working, as well as the G5 my coworker uses.

I bring my A1013 to work with me every day and at home my QS is on 24/7 and my family uses PowerPC Macs (12" PB, 15.1" TiBook 1Ghz DVI and 14" iBook G4).

I have ONE Intel Mac but I've only had it for the last 2.5 weeks and it shares duties with my A1013.

I've been on PowerPC for work since 1999, personal use since 2001 and my mom had PowerPC Macs in the house in the early to late 90s.

I think my support for PowerPC is pretty strong considering. :D

No heat, anger or annoyance in this, just talking about my support. :)
 
eyoungren

eyoungren

macrumors Penryn
Aug 31, 2011
28,793
26,883
ptdebate said:
How's the MBP working out for you? What are your likes and dislikes so far?
Click to expand...
I am discovering that there are 64-bit Intel Macs and there are 32-bit Intel Macs.

I have a 32-bit Intel Mac.

So…it's still a bit like PowerPC/Intel in that I find an app that says "Snow Leopard" but it won't run because it's 64-bit and not 32-bit. Kind of like going back a few years finding apps that were labeled as "Leopard" only to discover they were Intel Leopard. It's a spot I've been in before. I don't like it, but there isn't much I can do about it.

I do like SMC Fan Control. G4FanControl never worked for me.

Snow Leopard is not much different than Leopard, just improved. Which I'm cool with.

What I've done is split my web browsing purpose between the 17" PowerBook and the 17" MBP. The MBP stays at home and the PB goes to work with me. When I get home the PB stays in my bag and I use the MBP in the evening. When I go to Starbucks the MBP goes with me.

On the weekend I use both, especially if one or the other is busy doing something.

The MBP is certainly fast during browsing, especially with all my optimizations. But I don't necessarily prefer it over my PB because the speed increase is not significant enough over my PB due to those optimizations.

I do like that with a combination of Obsidian menu bar, Candybar and XtraFinder I have finally managed to have an entirely dark UI. Something I have not been able to do with the PB.

So far though I haven't found anything I've been able to do with the MBP that is either better or unavailable with the PB.
 
128keaton

128keaton

macrumors 68020
Jan 13, 2013
2,029
418
eyoungren said:
I am discovering that there are 64-bit Intel Macs and there are 32-bit Intel Macs.

I have a 32-bit Intel Mac.

So…it's still a bit like PowerPC/Intel in that I find an app that says "Snow Leopard" but it won't run because it's 64-bit and not 32-bit. Kind of like going back a few years finding apps that were labeled as "Leopard" only to discover they were Intel Leopard. It's a spot I've been in before. I don't like it, but there isn't much I can do about it.

I do like SMC Fan Control. G4FanControl never worked for me.

Snow Leopard is not much different than Leopard, just improved. Which I'm cool with.

What I've done is split my web browsing purpose between the 17" PowerBook and the 17" MBP. The MBP stays at home and the PB goes to work with me. When I get home the PB stays in my bag and I use the MBP in the evening. When I go to Starbucks the MBP goes with me.

On the weekend I use both, especially if one or the other is busy doing something.

The MBP is certainly fast during browsing, especially with all my optimizations. But I don't necessarily prefer it over my PB because the speed increase is not significant enough over my PB due to those optimizations.

I do like that with a combination of Obsidian menu bar, Candybar and XtraFinder I have finally managed to have an entirely dark UI. Something I have not been able to do with the PB.

So far though I haven't found anything I've been able to do with the MBP that is either better or unavailable with the PB.
Click to expand...

What would be impressive is if you got a black macbook (something I've been trying to do) and swap its logic board out for a mid-2009 non-unibody book that way you'd have 64bit EFI. What you are mentioning is something that has plagued the owners of the MacPro1,1/2,1, the 32bit EFI is what causes it not to be able to natively install Mountain Lion +.
 
ptdebate

ptdebate

macrumors 6502
Jul 3, 2014
333
4
Dallas, Texas
eyoungren said:
I am discovering that there are 64-bit Intel Macs and there are 32-bit Intel Macs.

I have a 32-bit Intel Mac.

So…it's still a bit like PowerPC/Intel in that I find an app that says "Snow Leopard" but it won't run because it's 64-bit and not 32-bit. Kind of like going back a few years finding apps that were labeled as "Leopard" only to discover they were Intel Leopard. It's a spot I've been in before. I don't like it, but there isn't much I can do about it.

I do like SMC Fan Control. G4FanControl never worked for me.

Snow Leopard is not much different than Leopard, just improved. Which I'm cool with.

What I've done is split my web browsing purpose between the 17" PowerBook and the 17" MBP. The MBP stays at home and the PB goes to work with me. When I get home the PB stays in my bag and I use the MBP in the evening. When I go to Starbucks the MBP goes with me.

On the weekend I use both, especially if one or the other is busy doing something.

The MBP is certainly fast during browsing, especially with all my optimizations. But I don't necessarily prefer it over my PB because the speed increase is not significant enough over my PB due to those optimizations.

I do like that with a combination of Obsidian menu bar, Candybar and XtraFinder I have finally managed to have an entirely dark UI. Something I have not been able to do with the PB.

So far though I haven't found anything I've been able to do with the MBP that is either better or unavailable with the PB.
Click to expand...

I've been enjoying my Intel MacBook so far. Browsing is faster and HD playback is a breeze, but the graphics are utterly horrendous. How they were able to greenlight a chipset as bad as GMA 960/965 is beyond me. That doesn't matter at all though since I don't use it for games.
 
redheeler

redheeler

macrumors G3
Oct 17, 2014
8,419
8,841
Colorado, USA
128keaton said:
What would be impressive is if you got a black macbook (something I've been trying to do) and swap its logic board out for a mid-2009 non-unibody book that way you'd have 64bit EFI. What you are mentioning is something that has plagued the owners of the MacPro1,1/2,1, the 32bit EFI is what causes it not to be able to natively install Mountain Lion +.
Click to expand...

A 32-bit EFI and a 32-bit CPU are two very different things. An Intel Mac with a 32-bit EFI but a 64-bit CPU can run 64-bit software and even ML+ with a bootloader to boot the OS on a 32-bit EFI.
 
128keaton

128keaton

macrumors 68020
Jan 13, 2013
2,029
418
redheeler said:
A 32-bit EFI and a 32-bit CPU are two very different things. An Intel Mac with a 32-bit EFI but a 64-bit CPU can run 64-bit software and even ML+ with a bootloader to boot the OS on a 32-bit EFI.
Click to expand...

*facepalm* when I wrote this, I forgot about CoreDuos, 32bit CPUs. I could've sworn the 1st gen MacBook Pro had a Core2Duo, not a CoreDuo. Oh well!
 
poiihy

poiihy

macrumors 68020
Aug 22, 2014
2,301
62
MacCubed said:
I would have hated that feeling. Like a little under a year after I got my MPB the rMBP's came out and I felt like I should have waited.
Click to expand...

That's not very bad... many people still want the optical drive and deliberately buy the old one.
 
bunnspecial

bunnspecial

macrumors G3
May 3, 2014
8,317
6,373
Kentucky
redheeler said:
I would say those who bought the late 2005 PowerBooks were slightly more screwed over ;)
Click to expand...

I started college in the fall of 2006, and my freshman year room mate had a 15" DLSD Powerbook.

He had actually bought it after the Intel switch and the first Macbook Pro were announced. Although I was a PC guy at the time, I was following Macs pretty closely and asked him why he had chosen it over the Macbook Pro.

His opinion-and something I heard several other people say-was that they felt the first Intel Macs weren't quite ready for prime time and that support and application selection were much better for PPC.

I was heavily into photography at the time. The prominent(and somewhat infamous) blogger Ken Rockwell bought a G5 Quad around the same time(I think spring or summer of '06 if I remember right) and said much the same thing. At the time, Photoshop CS2 was the name of the game, and the Mac version was PPC only.

http://www.kenrockwell.com/apple/quad-g5.htm
 
redheeler

redheeler

macrumors G3
Oct 17, 2014
8,419
8,841
Colorado, USA
bunnspecial said:
I started college in the fall of 2006, and my freshman year room mate had a 15" DLSD Powerbook.

He had actually bought it after the Intel switch and the first Macbook Pro were announced. Although I was a PC guy at the time, I was following Macs pretty closely and asked him why he had chosen it over the Macbook Pro.

His opinion-and something I heard several other people say-was that they felt the first Intel Macs weren't quite ready for prime time and that support and application selection were much better for PPC.

I was heavily into photography at the time. The prominent(and somewhat infamous) blogger Ken Rockwell bought a G5 Quad around the same time(I think spring or summer of '06 if I remember right) and said much the same thing. At the time, Photoshop CS2 was the name of the game, and the Mac version was PPC only.

http://www.kenrockwell.com/apple/quad-g5.htm
Click to expand...

The same case could be made of MagicBoy's post. The performance increase from the Core 2 Duo wasn't huge, and nothing was 64-bit only in those days (very few if any apps were 64-bit at all). Rosetta did a decent job with PowerPC emulation for PPC-only apps, and in the long run the switch to Intel has made a huge difference. Plus, there's no denying that the displays on the early MBPs are better than the ones on the PowerBooks, and that kind of difference does help with apps like Photoshop.
 
MagicBoy

MagicBoy

macrumors 68040
May 28, 2006
3,947
1,025
Manchester, UK
128keaton said:
Maybe at production Core2Duos weren't avaliable?
Click to expand...

They weren't. Intel announced about 3 months after I bought mine ... on impulse. I was on Holiday in the US and encountered an Apple store in a Mall. Saw the shiny, did some man maths and flexed the credit card. I'd been keeping an eye out for a ThinkPad T60 before that.

Apart from the 64-bit there was very little performance difference between the two. So it boils down to Lion not working. In retrospect that's no bad thing as Lion is the worse OS X release I've had the displeasure to use.

redheeler said:
I would say those who bought the late 2005 PowerBooks were slightly more screwed over ;)
Click to expand...

Perhaps. PowerBooks and iBooks were still in the stores with a hefty discount when I bought. Outside of Apple's software most the applications ran via Rosetta for a good 12-18 months after the launch. That's no criticism of Rosetta, it's a blinding bit of technology and like Classic mode on the PPC it's virtually seamless.

----------
bunnspecial said:
I was heavily into photography at the time. The prominent(and somewhat infamous) blogger Ken Rockwell bought a G5 Quad around the same time(I think spring or summer of '06 if I remember right) and said much the same thing. At the time, Photoshop CS2 was the name of the game, and the Mac version was PPC only.

http://www.kenrockwell.com/apple/quad-g5.htm
Click to expand...

I don't quite get that. CS2 would run on an Intel Mac via Rosetta. Unless the 2Gb memory limit on the early Core Duo machines was an issue for him?
 
P

Pojo99

macrumors newbie
Mar 28, 2015
6
0
Last week I bought a Macbook Pro 1,1 (2.0 ghz core duo 15") off of craigslist for $75. The reason I did this was because my most "modern" laptop just died- an Asus with a 1.8 ghz turion x64 from 2007. It had been limping along with a dead optical drive until the nvidia mobility 7600 decided to die. I took the maxed out (2 GB!) ram from the old laptop and replaced the 512MB that came with the Macbook Pro. The screen on the new Macbook Pro has a few pressure marks but all in all I'm quite pleased with this "upgrade". It runs Halo better than the Asus, and that's the only Mac game I play these days.

I've been following eyoungren's saga and his experiences with the intel Macbook Pro echo my own findings. I still have a few PPC macs including a 2003 1.8ghz Power Mac G5, and a 1.33ghz 12" Powerbook. I actually debated purchasing a craigslist 1.67 Powerbook 15" for $50, but decided it wouldn't offer much advantage to what I had already. And I wanted to "test the waters" with an i386 mac (why not 286 or 486?) running snow leopard because leopard is what i'm used to. Rosetta is nice, but I'm hoping there will be a 32-bit version of the new Microsoft Office for Mac. It was a pain to patch the NTP vulnerability because all of the easy, ready made .pkg were 64 bit only.
 
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