Don't Forget Your Laptop Charger

My oldest son is visiting my youngest son in Ohio for the remainder of the week. I got a text from him this morning that he forgot to bring his laptop charger for his MacBook Pro. He has one of the latest models that still uses an Intel chip. That means he has pretty good battery life but not as good as the recent models that use the M1 chips. It also means that his laptop uses a USB-C connection to charge the battery.

I am not a fan of Apple constantly changing how to charge their devices. It doesn't matter if it is an iPhone, iPad, or a laptop; the charger used today will be changed on newer releases of the hardware. I did like the change to USB-C for their laptops though as it does offer alternatives to using Apple-specific chargers. Hopefully they stick with it for awhile.

When my son mentioned that he left his laptop charger at home, I suggested he try connecting his phone charger to his computer to see if that will work for the week. I know that USB chargers have some intelligence. They will start charging at the lowest specified power and then negotiate to charge at the highest power possible. The Apple-brand charger for their laptops are rated at 96 watts where a phone charger is rated to only a few watts. My son tried that and an hour later after not using the laptop at all, his battery power increased from 16% to 17%. That wasn't going to work.

Ultimately my son had to run into town and get a charger from Walmart. They had one for $40 instead of the usual Apple price of $70 so he could save himself some money. Having left my laptop charger at home on more than one occasion, I could feel my son's pain. Fortunately he came up with a relatively inexpensive solution.

Time for Another New Laptop

My youngest daughter and I got to spend the day together. My wife is accompanying my youngest son on a road trip as he moves to Ohio. That allowed my daughter and I to spend the day together rock climbing, buying wood to replace our backyard fence, and watching a movie together. During the course of the day, my daughter told me it is about time to replace her aging MacBook. I asked her why and she reminded me that her current computer is 8 years old. I think she may be right about replacing it.

I recently went through the exercise of replacing a computer and know that you pay a premium when you buy a Mac. However it is hard to argue with the fact that her current Mac is 8 years old and lasted her well. When I bought her that computer, I told her to take care of it as her next one would be her responsibility. She has treated it well and only now does she need to replace it.

Having spent 8 years with a Mac makes it difficult for her to want a Windows computer. She knows all of the ins and outs of the Mac operating system. I think a shift to Windows would confuse her. I asked her what she wants, thinking that she might go for the less expensive MacBook Air. Nope, she wants another MacBook Pro. Given the difference in prices, she will end up spending about $400 to $500 more than for the MacBook Air. I thought about it for a bit and realized that the Pro will probably last another 8 years while the Air would only last 4. That justifies the cost of the more expensive laptop as it will ultimately be cheaper in the long run.

It is important to note that not all Mac laptops are supposed to last that long. My oldest daughter gets only a couple of years before things start breaking as she is a little harsher on her computers than my youngest daughter. My youngest daughter also really only uses her computer to do things like visit social media sites and browse the Internet. She is not a software developer nor does she require a lot of horsepower.

My daughter didn't order the computer today as she is waiting to make sure she doesn't have any expensive bills coming up any time soon. She doesn't want to deplete her savings until she does a little financial forecasting first. This is good as it will give her some time to evaluate which options she wants and is willing to pay for. I'm sure she will be excited when the new computer comes.

A New Laptop . . . Again

Last week I thought my IT department was to blame for the poor performance of my laptop. It turns out that my laptop really did break. There is an internal ribbon cable for my keyboard and mouse that needed replacing. I could have fixed it with an $8 part but my IT department just gave me a new laptop instead. The bad ribbon cable is a common problem with that era of MacBook Pro.

One of the reasons I keep adding to this blog is that it serves as a technical notebook. When it came time to copy all of the stuff off my old computer, I just looked up what I did the last time and that allowed me to get my new machine set up quickly. I picked up the new computer on Monday and returned my old one this morning. The only thing I had forgotten to include in my last instructions is to copy over the VPN settings. While my IT department set up the primary server settings, there is an older secondary one that will often work when the other doesn't. For those keeping track, I made sure to:

1. Copy all of the files from my backup
2. Copy bookmarks from my browser
3. Set up printers
4. New: copy VPN settings

I'm not sure I like the new computer though. While my old computer had an intermittent keyboard and trackpad failure, my new computer likes to crash and reboot itself every 10 minutes. I have tried a number of troubleshooting techniques to figure out what could be causing the problem. So far, I haven't figured it out. Monday I had a number of problems with the laptop and then it ran flawlessly on Tuesday. Yesterday the crashing returned. Today it has run without incident all day. My hope is that the crashing is related to copying all of the old files onto the computer and then having to encrypt the files. Time will tell.

A New Work Laptop

After almost 5 years with the same work laptop I broke down and ordered a new one. I really liked my old 15-inch MacBook Pro and didn't want to take the time to get a new machine configured. The thing that caused me to finally break down and get one is that my old laptop needed a newer version of the operating system. The brain trust in our IT department recommended against an upgrade and so I took this chance to fix a few things that I didn't like about the old one.

This time I went smaller. I opted for the 13-inch MacBook Pro with the Retina display. So far I have to say that I really like the smaller form factor. My computer bag is so much lighter and I appreciate that. Sure I would have gotten more horsepower out of the 15-inch, but I mostly use my laptop for e-mail and spreadsheets. If I need more computing power, I have 2 desktops for that.

This time it was fairly painless setting up my new laptop as I had a nice backup of my other computer. While the old backup took about an hour to copy to my external USB drive, it only took 7 minutes to copy to my new computer, thanks to the USB 3.0 port. I highly recommend one.

In addition to copying files and setting up e-mail, which my IT department took care of, I also had to copy all of the bookmarks out of my browser. Fortunately this was a great time to go through and clean them out. I only ended up keeping about a half-dozen of them. I also had to go through and set up printers. The process was painless but something I had to remember to do so I could print my airplane ticket for tonight's flight.

I still have my old laptop for the next couple of days. My hope is that I don't have to turn it on. Then I will feel safe giving it to our IT department. Naturally I will remove all of my files from the machine as opposed to assuming it will get done for me. Then I really hope I got everything.

Apple Blue Screen of Death

Friday night I was at the airport in Oakland headed back to Utah when my MacBook Pro's screen went blue and stayed that way. I was hoping it would fix itself, but it didn't. I had to turn it off so I could get on the plane. Needless to say I wasn't happy to have my Mac crash like that.

All I could do on the flight home was worry about what went wrong. I have been working on a number of projects and if my solid-state drive (SSD) went bad, I would have to recreate everything. I was also headed to Utah for the week and if I couldn't get my Mac back from the dead, I had no way to log into the servers back in my office.

I got home and used another computer to do a search on the Internet trying to figure out how to do a hard reboot for my Mac. Normally I would unplug the laptop and remove the battery. Unfortunately these new MacBooks don't have a removable battery. A quick search told me to plug in the laptop and then press the shift, control, and option keys at the same time as the power key. That resets everything on the computer.

I followed the instructions and then turned the computer back on. It booted right up and was back from the dead. The whole reason I moved from Microsoft Windows to the Apple Mac was because of Window's blue screen of death. Now I am getting it on the Mac, albeit not nearly as often.

Big in Japan

There is a song by Alphaville that was popular when I was in high school entitled "Big in Japan." I have been singing the song this morning as I am in Japan and I think I got a hotel room normally set up for the locals. I am used to the beds being low, but this trip it feels like the sink in my bathroom is set unusually low. In the United States, I am of average height. Here in Japan, I feel taller than normal.

My flight was unusually empty last night and that was nice because I could spread out on the plane. I was able to grab a couple of seats by the window and didn't have anyone in front of me or behind me. That kept someone from leaning back on me and I didn't have to worry about leaning back on someone else. Oh the luxuries of an empty plane. This allowed me to pull out my computer and work on an article I am writing for a game development magazine.

There is nothing quite like a 12-hour flight to test the battery power of your laptop. Tablets are known for long battery life, but they are best suited for tasks that don't involve typing unless you have an optional keyboard. I brought my tablet with me on this trip but opted to leave the keyboard at home for weight-saving reasons. I needed my laptop anyways and pulled it out after watching a relaxing movie. The nice thing about using word processing software like Microsoft Word is that it does not eat a lot of battery juice. I cranked out around 1000 words yet used only 10% of my battery power. I could have kept going but my own personally battery needed recharging and so I took a nap.

My oldest daughter recently replaced the battery in her MacBook and found a really great deal. It was probably too great as she only gets about 2 hours before it is time to recharge. I can get close to 10 hours on my factory MacBook Pro battery if I am power conscious. The 2 hours works fine for my daughter who rarely is away from a power source for more than an hour. However if you intend be away from a power outlet for more than that, I highly recommend investing in a quality long-life battery.

Two Computers

I have a daughter headed to college in September. That means I got to buy her a computer that she will take to school. Luckily her birthday is in July and so I could get the laptop as a gift. I just had to decide which one to get. When I started writing this blog, one of my first postings was on which computer was the best to send with your kid to college. I was sending my oldest daughter off to school at the time and decided the MacBook was the best choice.

It is now 3 years later and the MacBook is no longer an option. Apple has two models, the MacBook Air and the MacBook Pro. Each one has a number of options ranging from screen size to memory. If you are really looking for the original MacBook, you can pick up a refurbished model from MyService. I sat my daughter down and gave her a choice between the Air, Pro, or a refurbished MacBook. Naturally, she didn't want the refurb and I can't say I blame her. I told her I would give here the difference in price to help pay for tuition and she still wanted the new computer. While the Air is a very light computer, my daughter wanted something with a little more horsepower. So I got her the least expensive MacBook Pro.

A few days later, one of my oldest son's old roommates sent me an e-mail asking for help getting a computer. I have a corporate discount to one of the major laptop manufacturers and could save him about $100 on an $800 laptop. I mentioned that my daughter turned down my corporate discount option and went for the more expensive Apple computer. His budget wouldn't let him spend more than the $700 and he wasn't interested in a refurbished Mac. We played around with the configuration and kept the price withing his budget.

My daughter loves her new computer and has been using it constantly since her birthday. I will be interested in comparing the two computers over their respective lives. When I bought my oldest daughter her computer, I was confident it would last. Now I have two computers bought at the same time to compare against each other.  Time will tell which is the best deal, but I'm betting on the Mac. My oldest daughter's MacBook has required an upgrade or two, but is still running strong.