It's Christmas in October: New PPC Media Center, Plus Pianobar, TSclientX, and SetEXIFDATA

As macOS Sierra is busy underwhelming the computer world, you'll be happy to hear there's still software being spun for good operating systems like Tiger and Leopard. I've gotten a few emails pointing to a few new titles, so I wanted to pass the word on.

First, there's an update to PPC Media Center, our favorite GUI frontend for youtube-dl. This brings it to version 6.5 (and requires 6.0 already installed) and includes many Theatre Mode improvements. Here's the download.

Next, Daniel Milisic tells me he has new versions of Pianobar and TSclientX for Tiger and Leopard PowerPC.

His port of Pianobar is actually called PianoPPC and brings back the Pandora terminal client to Tiger and Leopard desktops. I've tested it myself and it works fabulously. Here are a few brief instructions:

After unpacking the download, the application must be run only from the /Applications folder or it will not launch. Also, for automatic login with your Pandora email and password, create the text file ~/.config/pianobar/config and save the following text inside it:

user = your email
password = your password

That step may not be necessary if you already had an older Pianobar and its old config files. Also, if you're not sure how to create files in hidden folders like ~/.config, here's how:

First, check that ~/.config exists in your home folder by opening a terminal window and typing ls -a. If you don't see ".config", type mkdir .config to make the folder. With .config now in place, enter cd .config to change to that directory, then enter ls to list its contents. If you don't see the folder "pianobar", then create it with the mkdir command. Then enter cd pianobar, then ls, and if you don't see "config" listed, create it with nano config. This will open a new text file where you enter the user and password. Finally, use the commands ctrl + o to save and ctrl + x to exit.

Milisic's TSclientX is an RDP client for 10.4 - 10.6 and runs on both PowerPC and Rosetta. Since I didn't have any Windows networks to connect to I didn't test this extensively, but it looks good! This also must be run from your /Applications folder and won't launch if it's in any other location.

Feel free to email Daniel with feedback at the email addresses from the links above.

Finally Adam Albrec points me to SetEXIFDATA, a GUI tool for editing EXIF metadata that was previously Intel-only but was recently compiled to run on PowerPC. And also for photographers, don't forget RawTherapee for Leopard PowerPC.