[conspire] request recommendation for webcam for Mac G4 PPC - Mac OS 10.4.11

[Darlene Wallach]

Rick,

This is Darlene.

On Wed, Jun 8, 2011 at 12:40 AM, Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com> wrote:
> Quoting Darlene Wallach (freepalestin at dslextreme.com):
>
>> My sister has a Mac G4 PPC - Mac OS 10.4.11. She is considering purchasing a
>> webcam. She wants it for Skype video chats - she communicates with her
>> friends in Gaza that have Skype video.
>
> This really is not a Macintosh OS X mailing list.  You would have a lot
> better prospects asking for advice on a Macintosh forum of some sort.
>
> That having been said, I _do_ think the best and highest use of a G4 PPC
> box is to run a Linux PPC distribution, such as:
>
> o  MintPPC 9 LXDE
> o  Lubuntu
> o  Debian
> o  CRUX
>
> You can even run the proprietary (and now Microsoft-controlled) Skype
> software on that, if you don't mind every spy or major criminal
> organisation on the planet being able to log, analyse, and listen in to
> your calls with trivial effort:
>
> http://www.fiercevoip.com/story/skype-back-door/2008-07-25
> http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2011/05/a-liberating-betrayal/index.htm
>
> Now, before you say so, I take it as given that your sister is not going
> to want to run anything but OS X, and is unwilling to consider running a
> different Unix (such as a Linux distro).  Part of the price that she is
> going to pay for that viewpoint is that OS X has for a _very_ long time
> been orphaned on OS X.  She could in theory upgrade to OS X 10.5
> 'Leopard' provided her PPC has a CPU clock speed of at least 867 MHz and
> a minimum of 512 MB RAM -- and if she can still find and pay for that
> version.  Absent those hardware minimums, it won't even install:  Sorry,
> Apple has abandoned your machine, and wants you to shell out for a new
> one.  But 10.5 Leopard, even at that, has itself been end-of-lifed since
> August 2009, so it's increasingly dangerous even to expose to public
> data, on account of unfixed critical security bugs that (now) will never
> get fixed.
>
> Likewise, _10.4_ 'Tiger', which your sister has, is an even more dire,
> actively dangerous case:  10.4.11, which she has, was the final update,
> in November 2007.  2007, Darlene!  On an Internet timescale, running an
> overfetured consumer operating system that has been completely
> unmaintained for _four years_ is a risk to security and privacy that I'd
> never wish on anyone.
>
> (That's not to mention that switching to LXDE on Linux gives you good
> performance even on old machine with slow CPUs and so-so amounts of RAM,
> but, hey, if she'd rather run a 4-year-old unmaintained, EOLed release
> of OS X, some people just refuse to be helped.  My view, yours if you
> want it.)
>
>

Thank you! I really appreciate your taking the time to inform me and
my sister about the security and privacy risks she is taking by using
Mac OS 10.4.11.

She uses Mac for editing video for her TV show on local cable access.
She doesn't want to use Microsoft. I don't know what to recommend to
her on GNU/Linux OS for editing videos.

I did not realize how old her system is.

As you can see, I'm cc'ing my sister. I do not forsee her switching to
GNU/Linux. Can you recommend a webcam that would work on her system?

Thank you

Darlene Wallach
-- 
equal justice under law