The other day, I won an ebay auction on a 450mhz PowerMac G4. I’ve got it hooked up to a 19 inch Acer monitor. I installed Tiger on it and it runs okay.

I’m not a fan of the 20GB hard drive, so I’ll be swapping it out with a Seagate 120GB later this week. I’ll probably use the PowwerMac as a test bed for experiments. I’ve been thinking about making it a server and / or making it a “widget machine.”

For some time now, I’ve been thinking about having a “widget machine.” This computer would have either Yahoo or Dashboard widgets displayed on a monitor. It would have news stories, weather, sports, pictures, and maybe tv listings.

Before more RAM was installed into the Titanium PowerBook that was its function. It would display images as a screen saver. I had the crazy idea of taking pictures of the inside of the fridge so when the screen saver would activate, I could get an idea of what was possible for dinner. It also had (then Konfabulator) widgets displayed with sports, weather and news. Plus, it was an internet terminal when I needed one in a pinch.

At worst, the PowerMac G4 will turn out to be a widget machine. If you’ve got ideas, let me know.