making my ibook power pc g3 better?

I agree with your reticence in spending much money on the iBook.

How big is the hard drive and how much space remains available on it? If it's been awhile since you did any hard drive maintenance, you may want to try booting into Safe Mode. This will take quite awhile longer than a normal startup because it does a file check and repair of the hard disk.

You will see your normal desktop. Once completely started up in Safe Mode, restart normally, and go to Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility. Click on the top hard drive icon in the left sidebar and note the S.M.A.R.T. status at the bottom right of the pane. What does it say?

Select the named boot volume in the left sidebar ("Macintosh HD" unless you've renamed it). (This is where you can find the hard drive capacity and how much space remains available on it.) *Repair permissions on it.*

See if a little hard drive maintenance perks up performance.

I might suggest replacing the 128 MB RAM module in the one available RAM slot with a 512 MB module. It won't cost a lot, and you will see a bit of a speed boost.

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/100SO512328L/

Instructions for replacing the RAM can be found here:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=111918

Good luck with it.

Before I make any suggestions, I would like to know what is the hard drive capacity and how much space remains available on it? A too-full hard drive can cause things to slow down dramatically.

Try going to Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility. Select the named boot volume in the left sidebar ("Macintosh HD" unless you've renamed it). This is where you can find the hard drive capacity and how much space remains available on it. What does it say there?

If that iBook wasn't specially ordered with a larger hard drive, a (nominally) 10 GB hard drive (in actuality, even somewhat smaller) was standard on that model. I wouldn't recommend trying to squeeze the newer Mac OS X 10.4 on that small hard drive.

The 192 MB of RAM would be the total RAM (128 MB in the one available RAM slot and 64 MB permanently soldered to the logic board). You may see a speed increase by removing the 128 MB module and replacing it with a 512 MB module.

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=111918

An old G4 what, Alyssa? If you mean an old iBook G4, it should work.

However, it's a very difficult procedure to remove a hard drive from an iBook G4 and install it in an iBook G3. (A hard drive from a desktop G4 won't work in an iBook G3.)

I'd try the RAM upgrade first, but that hard drive is probably slowing you down, too. This little iBook of yours is going on 9 years old, you know?

Unless your brother is extremely experienced with Mac portables, he'd maybe better think twice about this.

Installing an iBook G3 (Dual USB) hard drive (12-inch model):
http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Repair/iBook-G3-12-Inch-Hard-Drive/130/1

Choose the proper link for whichever iBook G4 you have here:
http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Browse/iBook

No more expensive than a new hard drive is these days, I believe I would consider saving half the work, and just buy a new one to install in the G3.

_Internal Hard Drives at Other World Computing_

Just be sure that it's an IDE/ATA drive and NOT SATA.

Good luck.

The ones in the newer MacBooks are an easy replacement, but not so the iBooks.