Laptop

My New New New MacBook Pro

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Yesterday (as of writing not publishing this) I got my new MacBook Pro for work. I requested it in May and due to several factors I only received it in late August. The good news about living through a huge lead time was that after the new model was announced I got automatically switched over get that one since they couldn’t source the old one. Turns out they will order you a new computer when the battery starts bulging on the old one to the point where it won’t lie flat on the desk anymore. On top of the fact that it was out of warranty.

Thew new MacBook Pro is pretty nice. It is a well-equipped 15″ touch bar in space gray. I spent all of my spare time over the past two days including last night on my couch trying to set it up. In many ways this computer is more powerful than the 2015 13 inch pro I have. In others it’s not. It has the same amount of RAM. It also comes with the same SSD size. The processor is several generations newer. There is a discrete graphics card in it and it is the same weight as my old 13″ model since prior generations made the machines lighter.

The biggest first world problem I have with it is that it’s a 15″ machine. It doesn’t fit into the bag I have and love. It may be the same weight as what I had previously but compared to a new 13″ model it is a pound heavier. One of the reasons I opted for the larger one is that a lot of time I work from an office that I am not officially based out of that is nearby. I don’t always have the opportunity to get a desk with a monitor. Working off a 13 inch screen with my eyes isn’t the most fun thing to do in the world. The 15″ is a bit better but still not obviously the same thing as sitting in front of a 24″ or 27″ monitor.

The decision I had to make was what has become the typical laptop trade-off question. Do I go for size at the detriment of performance? Or do I go for the bigger much more powerful machine? In my case I yin-yang and went with the larger MacBook. The final deciding factor was simplicity. The size and configuration I ended up with is a standard offering. The smaller 13″ MacBook would have to be a special order and thus take more time. The feedback I got from friends who tried it said just buy the 15 inch and be happy with it. So I did the opposite of what I did several years ago when I went from a 15″ to 13″. I went from small to big. My reasoning changed because my situation changed.

One of the huge downsides of the new Macbook’s are the fact that they require USB C. Since most devices are not USB C I need dongle’s. I have two USB to USB C adapters in my bag. A USB C to DVI adapter in my bag. On top of that I have a small dock in the office I travel to and a full dock at my regular office. Hopefully more USB C native devices will come out however its been a few years since these models were launched and its not much better than it was when they first came out.

Next up is getting my stickers on it…

I Bought a Classic iBook G3 Clamshell Laptop

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One of the guys at work has been talking about some of the old computers he’s been buying and reconfiguring or restoring to get working. It’s fascinating to talk to him about it partly because he’s very passionate around the topic. Also it’s something that I have thought about doing with one or two computers but never had the space or time to want to do it.

I’m finding it very funny that for some time now I have wanted a classic iBook G3 Clamshell laptop circa 1999. I never owned one however they always did look pretty cool. I personally did not get into Max until the G4 around 2002. I’ve also wanted a lampshade iMac. For some reason I keep thinking about the 15 inch version although the 17 inch is better and the same physical footprint. I owned a 20 inch version of that computer and loved it. I was reminded of my desire to want the iMac when I was at my sister-in-law’s I saw that she had one and she commented about oh that old thing or something like that. I told her I’m jealous since I actually want one.

The final straw for me was when my friend was talking about how he bought and restored and upgraded the G3 iBook. I started asking questions around how we found a good one and how much it costs. He gave me a bunch of pointers on what to look for on eBay and I started to search. The prices weren’t too bad however I was surprised that a 18-year-old computer was worth even that much. It goes to show you that this particular model was in demand. I found a blue G3 that had its internals upgraded to slightly better variant that did not come in blue. It also had an SSD instead of an IDE hard drive. Even had a new power brick.

I was ex cited get the laptop however when I got it I realized there was something wrong with it. The LCD backlight was out. The seller on eBay was extremely accommodating and I sent back the laptop. He fixed it and send it back to me. I had a choice of a full refund or options on a different model but after I got the laptop it was in perfect shape other than the backlight and one hairline crack in the case. The crack was visible in the auction pictures even though I didn’t see it myself the first time. The computer was still functionally fine with the crack and he barely noticed it so I was happy to keep this particular computer if he could get the LCD to work. Thankfully he was and shipped it back the same day he got it after fixing it.

The girls wanted to play with it. Originally that was my idea to get it working with some educational software for the girls to use. Now that I have it however not so sure I want them playing with a vintage laptop. Just because it’s so cool I don’t want them to break it. It’s very heavy I’m not sure other than the LCD if they could break it but I don’t want to chance it. I do have a few use cases in mind for it.

My friend needs to own up and take responsibility for all the money I spent since knowingly or not he gave me the idea to go out and buy this laptop. I was just following is very bad/very good footsteps regarding vintage computers.

Next Gen MacBook Air

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After much pondering I broke down and put an order in for a new MacBook air 13 inch. I bought a 2011 model last August and I’ve been very happy with it, except for a few drawbacks. The new model seems to correct all the drawbacks I’ve experienced. The only thing I had to do to get it was spent a lot more money for it. I think it’ll be worth it in the long run. I have been generally upgrading laptops every year so, and in the near future I don’t think that’s going to happen with a baby on the way so I want to get the upgrade out-of-the-way and be happy with additional capacity now.

This new MacBook air is sporting eight gigs of RAM and a 512 gig SSD drive. The old model didn’t have enough memory for what I was using it for, especially running a virtual machine. I also maxed out the 256 gigs on the old one SSD, so going for the 512 gig SSD was a must. But that upgrade broke the bank. I contemplated going for a MacBook Pro 13 inch with the regular hard drive but the cost difference and the performance difference really didn’t make it worthwhile for me. I’ve been spoiled with the SSDs in the Air’s for the past two years so going back to a 5400 RPM hard drive wasn’t really something I wanted to do. Other notable improvements is the USB three, but I really don’t have any use for it at this moment. Also the Core i7 dual core processor is slightly faster than what I’ve been used to all my old air.

It doesn’t come with Mountain Lion, but I get a free upgrade when it comes out in a few weeks.  I will probably buy the upgrade anyway since I have other computers I want to upgrade anyway, and the free upgrade is only for this laptop.

So far I’ve been extremely pleased with the upgrade. Now all I have to do is eBay my old laptop.

The New MacBook Air

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This week turned out to be a two laptop week.  I was already thinking about selling my existing 2010 Macbook Air and upgrade to the new i5 2011 Air’s that just came out in July  when I convinced M to order a new Macbook Pro but I finally pulled the trigger on the new Air today.

I was waffling for a while since the 2010 model is still perfectly good.  The big drawback for me was the processor wasn’t anywhere near a desktop or even a bigger laptop’s speed.  That changed when the new i5 Air’s came out.  After figuring how much i could sell my old Air for i decided to make the jump and upgrade.

I have bought lots of stuff at the 5th ave Apple store but today was actually the worst experience i have ever had there.  It was super crowded and it took forever to find someone to help me, only to have them tell me oh you need to find a free computer and tell the ipad sitting next to it you need assistance and then you will go into queue to get help.  Problem there is everyone is on these laptops for hours surfing Facebook and two no one tells you that is the process.  I have bought more than one computer from this store and this is the first time i have ever had to do that.

Drama aside i was able to get the model I wanted and headed home.  Well after more minor train drama i was able to get home but that is another story.

I had already taken a backup of my old Air using Carbon Copy Cloner so setting up this computer was as simple as plugging in the backup hard drive and saying yes restore from an external hard drive.  For that function alone i have to love Apple!

 

 

Desk Reorg

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At home tonight I decided to reorganize my desk, again. About two weeks ago I moved things around on my desk(s). I have two desks and a little desk/cart arranged in an L shape since I can’t get the middle piece of my desk system in the color lament of the desks I have. So I have a make shift L. It actually looks pretty good. I love my Anthro Desks! I have been tweaking the setup since I got the smaller desk I used to make the L. Two weeks ago I took away my setup for my work laptop since i thought it was cluttered and put my media center iMac there in stead. I ended up not really using the monitor I freed up from the laptop setup so it was just sitting there idle.

Yesterday I got the idea to try a 2nd monitor on my iMac setup again. I also had the need for that laptop setup (using the laptop only wasn’t cutting it) so I decided to reorganize everything. I moved the media center iMac back to the center part of the L, returned the Dell monitor to setup my laptop again, and then broke out my old Apple 23″ cinema display to use as my second monitor alongside my 24″ iMac. I am not going to really be able to sell the Cinema Display since it is 3 years old so I might as well try to use it.

I know it sounds like allot of monitors, and it kinda is. But I accumulated everything over time. I actually have extra stuff I need to get rid of or give away that didn’t even make it to this configuration. I will use the main display on my 24″ iMac for personal stuff, the 23″ display on that iMac now sports a full screen XP VM that I can do work on. My 20″ iMac will remain as my media center and used for video processing and controlling my Apple TV & xbox 360 media centers. The other setup will be for my work laptop so I can do other work stuff on it.

Once I clean up everything I will take another Panorama picture of everything. Right now check out the before Panorama photos I took a few months ago when I still had my Macbook setup.

Desk Panorama Take 2

Before

After, TBD…

Its a Netbook

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I tried out an Asus eee 10000H back in August. I wasn’t a huge fan. The keyboard was too small and the battery layout was a bit awkward. Those reasons and the fact that at the time my main use for it was minimal I ended up selling the eee PC to Jayson. He loves it and uses it every day on the train to and from work.

With my new job I have had more of a need to have a really small computer that I can throw in my bag for chat and emails when I am out and about. The Thinkpad T61 from work is great (for a windows machine) but it isn’t so great to carry around unless I am going to and from work. For that reason I went back to looking at Netbooks. I looked at the Dell Mini 12, and the HP Mini 1000. The Dell wasn’t available to ship until January (come on dell) and I wasn’t sure if the 12″ netbook would be too big. That was my dilemma. I want a small machine, thus looking at a netbook in the first place, but I also have bad eyes. I want the biggest screen i can get. I think the Dell 12″ would be borderline too big. The keyboard on the HP Mini 1000 also got fantastic reviews for how good it was. I also looked at the Macbook Air. It was still light even though it was physically bigger than the other netbooks I was looking at. The Air did have a 13″ screen. The final deciding factor not to get the Air was price. It cost more than my regular laptop.

I opted for an HP Mini 1000 with a 60 gig hard drive and bluetooth from Amazon.com. Amazon Prime is great. I ordered the computer on Friday and for $3.99 it was at my house on Monday. Along with the Netbook I also picked up a Verizon Aircard for internet anywhere. I opted for the USB dongle device. I could have gotten a built in card for the mini but I wanted the option of using the device on my Macbook or Thinkpad also. So far the combo has worked out. I took the HP to work yesterday and got great signal on the Verizon Broadband.

I have yet to try out office or any real intense applications on the computer yet. One of the guys on my team did try loading videos from YouTube yesterday and said it worked great.

I am giving the computer a run for its money this week when I take it as my only computer to Jayson & Gretchen’s for a few days.

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How Some Hardware Companies Can Confuse Their Customers

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I wonder sometimes what Technology companies are thinking sometimes. A few months ago I bought a Microsoft Bluetooth Notebook Mouse 5000 to use when traveling with my Macbook. It is a good portable mouse. I had no real complaints about it. That is why when I needed to use a portable mouse with my Thinkpad T61 I wanted to configure the mouse for use with it. The Thinkpad has bluetooth. That is when my problems started.

It turns out that the Thinkpad does not have the control panel option for Bluetooth even though the driver is installed and working. Some forum searches later and I discovered that this is unfortunately common for SP-2 + installs of Windows XP. I can’t really setup a bluetooth mouse without that control panel applet. I then figured I could download the latest Microsoft drivers and mouse software for the Notebook Mouse 5000. I was hoping that maybe I could configure the mouse using the Microsoft Mouse software. This is when things got interesting. When I went to Microsoft’s Hardware site to download the drivers I couldn’t find the mouse I own in the list. I verified that I have the right mouse type and I still couldn’t find it anywhere on the Drivers & Download page.

I then decided to search the internet for references to drivers for this model mouse. After about 15 minutes searching I found several references to the same problem I was having of not finding the drivers. One of the posts was actually on a Microsoft Forum. The answer blew me away. Yeah, there aren’t any drivers to download. According to someone who seems to be working at Microsoft said that since it is a generic Bluetooth Mouse there is not specific driver set for this model. My response to that is, oh I am sorry that I the end user didn’t know that. How can you expect a consumer to figure that out? You sell someone a product but when you can’t find that product listed on support and download lists it is kind of frustrating. I can understand that I don’t need a driver or special software for the mouse. Wouldn’t it have been a good idea to have this model in the list of models to choose from on the support site and when you select it you get a notice about not needing to download anything special for it? Come on Microsoft you can do better than this.

In the end my problem is still not solved since I don’t have any way to pair the mouse to the Thinkpad. Lenovo hasn’t been very helpful either. I am still working on the issue but I thought my little story was odd enough to take a few minutes and write about it

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My New Monitor

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After searching far and wide for a good deal on a monitor I ended up ordering a Dell 23″ LCD. I got a nice discount and it was the right size for me. It also offered DVI & VGA inputs. I got it yesterday and it looks great on my new computer table add on. I am finally using Outlook the way it was intended (full screen with a nice big 3 pane setup so I can see everything).

Now all I need for the perfect computer setup is a better mouse and keyboard for my Thinkpad. I just got a Microsoft Wireless Laser mouse for my Macbook and it is really nice. Moves really smooth. I might get another one for the Thinkpad, but I can’t figure out what kind of keyboard to get. I love the Apple Wireless Keyboard I use on my Macbook, but I don’t think it will work with a Windows machine.

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The Weirdest Technial Problem

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On 2nd I wrote about a weird issue regarding my iPhone resetting. Unfortunately since then the issue happened on two other occasions. By the 3rd issue I decided to call Apple and open a ticket on my problem. They couldn’t help me much on the phone so they wanted me to bring the phone in and see someone at a local Apple Store. This is when things get interesting.

A few days before the 3rd incident with my iPhone I noticed that one of the external USB drives I have threw an error when I booted up the Macbook. I was bad and kind of ignored the error since I could see the drive mount and didn’t appear to have any issues. After a few reboots with the sam error I actually read the error and noticed it was warning about a corrput file system. Since this drive was a backup drive and only used as an archived copy of data I didn’t need the data I decided to pull the drive and use a spare I had. The next time I rebooted my computer Sunday night I got the same error, but this time it was on another 750 gig USB drive I had plugged into my Macbook. This time the error was on a drive that I do use and have critical data on. I was not hugely worried since I could still read the data on the drive. I decided to copy the critical data off onto another 750 gig drive that I decided to use as a mirrored copy of the data on the first drive.

Once I moved all the data off of the damaged drive, I formatted it and prepared to mirror all the data on the 2nd drive back over to it. I started off a replication of the good drive using Synk and then went to bed. This was the same night I called in the iPhone for support. I woke up the next morning to find that my Mac had crashed and never copied very much data. Once I rebooted my Macbook I noticed that the one good drive I had was now not visible in OSX. I checked the disk utility and I saw the drive but it was not available. A verify failed telling me the file system was messed up. I began to panic a bit. All my efforts to create a good backup process ruined by some weird fluke issue. At this point I had to take my Macbook and goto work.

After work I went to the Apple Store on 5th Ave and told the Genius Bar guy my woes. He looked over my iPhone and then my Macbook. After explaining what happened to my USB drives they decided that I can hold onto my iPhone but that they want to take my Macbook in to run some tests on.

Now I am without my Macbook, my iPhone works but has no media on it. I was instructed to reset it again, but not restore it. I am waiting to do that when I get my Macbook back. I can’t install anything without all the data on it. After a bit more panicking about the lost data on my hard drives I am feeling a bit more optimistic. I am using Data Rescue II to pull the data off my bad drive. It is taking ages to copy but so far I have been successful. I am about 70% done with my restore. I think the most critical data is already restored onto my good drive. Once I am done I will format the bad drive and mirror the data back over to it. I will then do what Jayson does and physically unplug the backup drive and sync it every week or every other week. Longer term I am looking to get another Drobo or some sort of other solution that does some sort of RAID.

While I wait for my Macbook to return I am not off the Grid. I am using my iMac I typically use for TV, and I have my work Thinkpad.

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iPhone 3G Reset

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My afternoon today was thrown for a bit of a loop when I tried to go out today and tried to play some music on my iPod. There wasn’t any. That was odd since I always have about 8gigs of music on it. I then went to sync it up again with my Macbook. That is when things got interesting. I kept getting an error saying the phone couldn’t sync and I had to reset it. I figured a quick reset and I should be good to go. Well that didn’t work either. I reset the phone and then it kept giving me an error. I couldn’t sync it, or boot it up. An Apple KB article said to reboot the computer so I did that. After about 3 more tries the phone reset and started restoring.

This is the problem with one converged device. I almost can’t go anywhere without it. It is my phone (only one except Skype until I get my blackberry from work). It is also my music player, and PDA. I am sunk if it doesn’t work. Today was a perfect example of that. 3 hours later I am back and semi running with the phone. My only lingering issue that I know of is my icon’s are all in the wrong order. I am more concerned with the fact that I don’t know if this will happen again, and I have no backup plan. I guess that is my operations mindset going. I always need a “plan B”. I am thinking about that, but for now I am just happy things turned out as well as they did. It could have been allot worse!

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