Web Crafting for €30 (A retro macbook guide) Right now eBay is full of white polycarbonate MacBooks from 2006-2010, and many are between €20-€80; your local computer or recycling centre shop may even have them for free or a low cost!
If you are a first time laptop buyer or you want a dedicated web crafting computer, these machines are wonderful and one of the best homepage making systems out there for the price
This guide will give you all the info you need to acquire and setup a dedicated homepage crafting MacBook! (Although I will note, this is intended for first time and hobby homepages; sites like melonking.net with heavy 3D graphics are byond what these laptops can do, but for 99% of people they are perfect!)
I'd like you to meet
Fred! I found Fred for free in an e-waste pile and Iv been fixing him up!
Why Fred is good for web craft:- Fred is still pretty fast, has a good keyboard and a nice screen!
- Fred has many PORTS, including FireWire for connecting vintage camcorders and a DVD drive
- Fred can still run most modern websites with the right browser!
- Fred's Wifi works well and is FAST, even for downloads
- Fred has a lot of great software for web crafting, and you can find almost all of it for free online!
- Fred has few distractions, he's too slow for YouTube, and never gets updates
- Freds battery still works! (I got about 3 hours on battery, but you might not)
- Fred sticks it to the man by not buying into latest-tech consumerism!
- Fred can duel boot Mac and Linux if you want a more modern OS too!
- Fred gets you hip points if you bring him to a coffee shop!
Acquiring a Macbook:Check eBay and local computer shops for good deals on white (polycarbonate) Macbooks, don't pay more than €150 and aim to find one for under €50!
I also do wanna temper expectations, these are old computers, they won't be streaming movies or playing heavy games - but if you already have other devices to do those things on, these are perfect for web craft, media creation, writing, music libraries, DVDs & CDs!
What to look for when buying a Fred: 
- Look for a white Macbook, in good shape (make sure its a MacBook, not an iBook, it will say under the screen)
- The 2010 MacBooks have a more rounded body and are worth paying more for, HOWEVER they wont connect to a DV camera as they lack Firewire (USB cameras and SD readers will still be fine)
- Any aluminium Macbook Pro from 2006-2010 will also work fine, they are just less hip than the plastic ones! The same goes for iMacs and Mac Minis from the same era, you may be able to find one at a good price in your area!
- If you see a "For Parts" mac with a screen showing a folder with a question mark on it; this mac prob works fine but it needs a new harddrive! (this is a good buy; SSDs are cheap and easy to install on macbooks)
- Aim to have MacOS 10.6 Snow Leopard installed - (if you know how to reinstall the OS and/or plan to add an SSD, this is not an issue - newer versions will work ok but may make your system more sluggish) - Avoid 10.7! 10.8 Mountain Lion is ok! (good if you have a 2010 model) NOTE: Anything newer than 10.6 cannot run older PowerPC apps via Rosetta; if you wanna play with old apps stick to 10.6
- Don't over pay for a macbook with an SSD, or one running an OS thats very modern - these are overpriced and a bad deal unless you realllyyy don't wanna do it yourself.
- Ideally you want one with 2GB+ of RAM, if not you can upgrade this yourself later; it's very easy to do on the 2006-9 models, however buying replacement RAM is an extra cost that I'd try to avoid.
What extras should I consider? 
Getting Setup:Reinstalling: (if needed) 
If you added an SSD, or need to reinstall your system, you can find
MacOS 10.6.3 as an Archive, to install it, burn the .dmg to a DVD, or clone it to a USB drive (this is best done on another mac using Disc Utility), you can also clone it to a FireWire drive if you have one for better speeds! - Then insert your installer and boot the mac while holding the option/alt key - this will let you select the installer.
You should be able to boot into the installer; In the installer select "Utilities" and open Disk Utility, then Erase the harddrive as MacOS Journaled and name it "Macintosh HD" - then close Disc Utility and install MacOS from the wizard on your freshly formatted HD!
Basic Setup: 
Once you're in MacOS and you've enjoyed the funky setup music, you can connect to your Wifi and run the update! This will take you up to MacOS 10.6.8 (the final version) - then disable updates in the System Preferences.
Note this will replace iTunes with a gross new version, I recommend deleting it, then downloading iTunes9.2.dmg here!Next grab
iLife 06, and
iWork 08 (iWeb 09 is better, see Slix's comment) from the Archive and install them, that will give you all the basic mac apps!
InterWeb - this is a modern browser that should run most sites, its a bit heavy and makes your system run hot, so only use if when needed; for general development and testing I recommend Safari, but for the wider web, this will cover you!
Also - in Safari, go to Preferences/Advanced and enable Developer Mode so it has a web inspector and source view!
Apps for Web Craft: 
Here are a list of apps I would recommend for web crafting!
NOTE: many of these will require serials, if a serial/crack is not listed on the download page then I recommend downloading "SerialView-08-2021.sit" from this page, its a program that lists many old serials (Note, you should support small dev studios by buying their software if you can afford it, but using these serials is ok if you cant; also its no longer possible to buy new serials for much of this software, in that case I think its ok!)Version Note: I have listed/linked the best version number of each app for Macs running 10.6, if you are running a newer OS these should all still work fine, but you may also be able to run a slightly newer version too!Web Dev:- Espresso 2.0.5 - A really nice web crafting environment with Live Previews and a nice UI (download the cracked version)
- Coda 2.0.14 - An alternative to Espresso, also very good, you may prefer one or the other! (needs serial)
- TextWrangler 4.5.12 - A general extra text editor
Images & Design:Audio and Extra Media:- Audiacy 2.2.2 - General audio editor, useful for compressing audio too (install LAME for mp3 export)
- GarageBand - Useful for making sounds (included with iLife)
- Blender 2.76 - For making 3D models, X3D and VRML
- HandBreak 0.9.9 - For compressing video files
Utilities:SSD:- Trim Enabler 2 - If you install an SSD, run this to make it work better!
Extras:- Final Cut Express - A more advanced video editor if iMove is not enough
- Art Text 2 - For making text art (needs serial - at link)
- Comic Life - For making comics! (needs serial)
- Jam Packs Orchestra / Rhythm - Adds extra sounds to GarageBand if you wanna make lots of sounds
- Adobe Flash CS4 - For making flash animations and games (needs serial - at link)
You might also wanna pick up a cheap old Wacom tablet on eBay. If you do, some drawing software is useful!
Finally finally, I recommend you look at
Macintosh Repository for more software! Anything in the "Universal" architecture section should work great! Additionally
Macintosh Garden is great, their search is useless, but if you filter by year and then change the year in the url, you can get good results (2004-2011 will work best)
More Accessories: 
If you need extra storage or backups, then you can look on eBay for Firewire harddrives, they will be much faster than USB ones; G-Drive and LaCie ones with Firewire 800 connections are the best to look for - you can plug a FireWire 800 device into a FireWire 400 port (like the one on a white Macbook) using a 800 to 400 cable (often included, but not hard to find on Amazon).
If you need to connect a DV camcorder then you'll been a 4pin/iLink FireWire to Firewire 400 cable, these are also very easy to acquire.
A mouse may be useful as the touch pad on these systems is ok, but not amazing; any USB mouse will be fine, bluetooth mouses should also work!
Posts & Arts: 72/1k.beats
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