17" powerbook 2005

Forgive newbie question. I just bought a 2nd hand '05 17' G4 POWERbook. My first Mac,so I don't understand much about it. It still thinks it's the first owner's computer. It works fine for me, but I want it to know who's the new boss.
There must be a procedure for this. Any advice will be much welcomed.
Thanks, "olechuck"

Do you know the current users admin password?

If you don't know the last owners admin password, I believe this will work for you:
how to remove password mac, powerbook G4, macbook, G5... (factory reset) without disk (EASY STEPS) - YouTube

to Louishen: Sorry, I don't. Last owner no longer knew it either. I tried that.
to Chrisman87: Um, probably the youtube vids have the info...just have to watch often enough to pick up the line commands. But it looks promising.
thanks loads for the very quick responses. this seems to be an excellent forum.
When/if I know more, will add to this.
olechuck

By the way...any tips on G4 Powerbook quirks or peculiarities I ought to know about, now that I'm committed to this one? I tried to find a sticky or the like on this...but I'm guessing most people have moved on to newer machinery. Tho I've tried (briefly) a newer Macbook, I must say (for now) I like the Powerbook better...don't understand why that should be so. Possibly a reflection of my own archaic nature.

They are pretty nice machines for age. If you plan on keeping the machine for regular usage, I'd recommend purchasing a Leopard retail disk. Make sure it is the black disk with the X on it, and not a gray restore disk. And if the RAM isn't already maxed out, I'd recommend doing that, max for that machine should be 2GBs.

olechuck said:

By the way...any tips on G4 Powerbook quirks or peculiarities I ought to know about, now that I'm committed to this one?

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Stretch said:

If you plan on keeping the machine for regular usage, I'd recommend purchasing a Leopard retail disk. Make sure it is the black disk with the X on it, and not a gray restore disk. And if the RAM isn't already maxed out, I'd recommend doing that, max for that machine should be 2GBs.

Click to expand...

This.

Leopard runs great even with my 768MBs RAM. I will be maxing it out to 2GB as soon as it gets here (delayed due to Hurricane Sandy). I also recommend removing any apps that you will not use with Appcleaner (free to download) and also remove extra languages with Monolingual (free to download as well).

I'd also use Disk Utility to check/fix permissions and maybe even OnyX to clean things up (another free app).

Many thanks for additional tips. Already have max ram, fortunately. Don't want to delete languages (I think), as I use German also and feel it could be useful...or not. Haven't tried yet.
Local Mac fans have said NOT to download apps allegedly for Macs. So I have to ask: have you tested these recommended apps yourself? I'm a fan of good free apps, got real fond of "ASC" free for my old IBM. Does a good job at registry cleaning, etc. Evidently, there isn't anything of the sort that's safe for a Mac...I'm told. What the heck, I'm still feeling my way around here.
And, as long as I'm bothering others, I have another question. My P-book came with an aftermarket charger. OEM style apparently has little lights to show if it's charging--a nice feature not on the aftermarket unit. Once I heard about this, I looked for an OEM unit, but couldn't find one. So...would I be smart to keep trying? I've always heard that Apple equipment is very touchy about non-Apple stuff.
Thanks heaps for all the friendly replies.
"olechuck"

olechuck said:

Don't want to delete languages (I think), as I use German also and feel it could be useful...or not. Haven't tried yet. Have you tested these recommended apps yourself? I'm a fan of good free apps, got real fond of "ASC" free for my old IBM. Does a good job at registry cleaning, etc. Evidently, there isn't anything of the sort that's safe for a Mac...I'm told. What the heck, I'm still feeling my way around here. And, as long as I'm bothering others, I have another question. My P-book came with an aftermarket charger. OEM style apparently has little lights to show if it's charging--a nice feature not on the aftermarket unit. Once I heard about this, I looked for an OEM unit, but couldn't find one. So...would I be smart to keep trying?

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Well the nice thing about Monolingual is that you choose what languages to keep.

I have personally used all of the apps I recommended without issues. They're all great. Your Mac comes from the factory with Disk Utility and it's also a great app.

Check eBay for OEM chargers. I'm pretty sure yours is a 65W charger. I recently made the mistake of buying a 45W one by accident (I didn't know there were different ones) and it does not work on my PowerBook so be sure to get the right one.

And again, thanks, Chrisman. I note you're in NY. Hope you're not in the storm-damaged area. Man, that looks ugly. I sympathize, cause we got clobbered by Hugo in '89 when we were back in Carolina. Never again I hope. We seriously thought we were going to die. Had trees piled up on/around the house for weeks. No power for nearly a month. Thankfully little flooding where we were. Others had it worse, of course.
I'll try your suggestions and pass on anything worthwhile that I learn.This is a great forum.

olechuck said:

And again, thanks, Chrisman. I note you're in NY. Hope you're not in the storm-damaged area. Man, that looks ugly. I sympathize, cause we got clobbered by Hugo in '89 when we were back in Carolina. Never again I hope. We seriously thought we were going to die. Had trees piled up on/around the house for weeks. No power for nearly a month. Thankfully little flooding where we were. Others had it worse, of course.
I'll try your suggestions and pass on anything worthwhile that I learn.This is a great forum.

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I've got a bunch of down trees in my town and power was out for me for about 40hrs but it's back now and all is well. Luckily my family, car and house are okay. NYC and NJ got hit pretty hard.

'89 huh? I wasn't even born back then lol

One more question about this 17" Powerbook: it's large, heavy and, with polished aluminum body, slippery as ****. It already slipped away & dropped once on me--fortunately, not far and to a well-carpeted floor. Don't think it got hurt.
Does anyone know of something I can apply to the outer surface (other than duct tape) to minimize the slipperiness? I looked at 'skins' for laptops...they're all ugly and don't actually seem significantly lmore 'skid-proof.'

olechuck said:

Does anyone know of something I can apply to the outer surface (other than duct tape) to minimize the slipperiness?

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Are you comfortable with painting the outside? Maybe try white Plastidip? It can be peeled away if you do a bad job, don't like it or it doesn't help.