http://coldmac.macfixer.com
Status ColdMac 2011 is finished, and archived. This data is not live.

Older Updates
Extremes
Logging Started On: Dec 22nd 2010

Highest Internal Temperature: 126° F
Lowest Internal Temperature: 59° F

Highest Ambient Temperature: - ° F
Lowest Ambient Temperature: - ° F

Highest NWS Temperature: 73° F
Lowest NWS Temperature: -1° F

Highest Relative Humidity: 100%
Lowest Relative Humidity: 14%
Specs Machine: Early 2003 iBook G3 14"
Processor: PPC 750fx G3 900 MHz
RAM: 256 MB
Hard Drive: 40 GB
Wifi: 802.11B
Mac OS X 10.4.11 (Tiger)
Apache2.2 / PHP5 / MySQL5 via MacPorts
Apple's Spec Sheet
Official “Limits”
Operating Temperature: 50° to 95° F
Storage Temperature: -13° to 140° F
Relative Humidity: 20% to 80%
7:19 up 3:08, 1 user, load averages: 8.62 8.74 8.71
-° F
Internal
-° F
Ambient
-° F
NWS
-%
Humidity
Internal - SMART temperature sensor inside internal hard drive
Ambient - Currently no ambient air sensor
NWS - Regional temperature reported by National Weather Service
Humidity - Relative Humidity reported by National Weather Service

Coldest Day of Season
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Daily Temperature Range
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Synopsis I had an old iBook that needed a purpose. I always wondered what would happen if I stuck a computer outside, and left it running through a cold New England winter. So I threw a web and database server on the iBook, and now that iBook lives in a very cold shed, hosting this very website about itself.
Donations I don't need money, but I could use some hardware donations:

• Mac-Compatible USB Thermometer(s)
• Mac-Compatible USB Hygrometer
• 512 MB iBook G3 RAM

If you have any other thoughts, of things that might make this project more interesting, let me know!

DetailsThe newest version of OS X this iBook can run is 10.4.11. There is no known way to hack 10.5, so it will run on a G3. After many failed attempts, I got Apache/PHP & MySQL installed via MacPorts. This iBook is running newer versions than my real production server.

Getting temperatures is easy. Temperature Monitor has a CLI app that gives me the hard drive's temperature. And the National Weather Service has many XML feeds. So I wrote a php shell script that runs every 5 minutes, and loads the current temperatures into a database.

To make sure the Mac doesn't go to sleep, I had to take the back cover off of the iBook's display, and use a soldering iron to remove the reed switch off of the reed switch board. Now as far as the iBook is concerned, its lid is never closed.

This web page, all of the scripts, and all of the databases, are all running on this iBook as right now. The only part that's not hosted on the iBook are the images. The iBook only has B-speed wifi, so I don't want it bogging down my network too much. I also enabled mod_deflate on the server, to compress all of the html/js/css that the iBook sends out.

The iBook also runs Seti@Home at 50% power, to stay warm.