Yes, the iBook is cool, if a little goofy looking, resembling a breath mint on steroids even more than the iMac does. And yes, it's a hot machine with impressive stats. But it won't be the 300 MHz G3 processor, the 32 Mbytes of RAM, the 56k modem, the built-in Ethernet, not even the low price tag that moves these things out the door.
No. What will sell the iBook is that Jobs understands that consumers want more than megahertz and memory -- they want to be entertained.
Chris Allbritton, salon.com
You are not able to use the Youtube platform on your Clamshell iBook any more? The Freeware Program MacTubes (min. MacOSX 10.4.2) searches the Youtube platform and displays a list of videos that match your keywords. Permform a download and play the MP4 video files using the VLC Player.
Unfortunately, the flash-based Youtube movies ask too much of the iBook hardware. My workaround: Save Youtube movies with a little help from keepvid.com in mp4 format. The video player VLC (OSX 10.3.9 at least for the current version), is able to play these files even on a 300MHZ Blueberry or Tangerine iBook in its original resolution. The option to skip frames should be activated.
If you're interested in running an older Windows Version like Windows 98 on your iBook, you should take at look at VirtualPC. The best Version for the Clamshell is Version 5, it was sold as standalone software or as a bundle with DOS or Windows. It is better to install it under OS9 because of the limited ressources of the iBook. The more RAM you have the better for the performance, the installer dialogue allows you to allocate part of the RAM for you virtual Windows machine, starting with a minimum of 64MB. Some years ago Connectixx was bought by Microsoft. You can still find a good documentation and FAQ at macwindows.com.
It is possible to install the free recent version of Ubuntu Linux,8.04 Hardy Heron on the Clamshell iBook. The PowerPC Desktop version needs at least 256MB RAM, i've installed it without problems on a 300MHZ Clamshell. This LTS (long time support- 3 years) version comes as a Live CD, that means that you can test it before you install it on your harddisk.
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