It’s the end of the year, and I’ve been cleaning up my digital clutter and revisiting my backup strategy. Since I last wrote about the subject, my storage requirements have grown. My 1.5TB Photos partition has turned into a 2TB partition, while my video projects span 1.5TB and 1TB drives. Here’s what’s changed over the … Continue reading Backup Strategy 2010
Rae and I are at SFO right now, awaiting our red-eye flight to Boston. We are headed to Maine for a Labor Day weekend wedding at which we will be the photographers. For the past several years, I have endeavored to lighten our luggage on all our our travels. While I didn’t think it was … Continue reading Lightweight Travel to Maine
Update November 23, 2010: Updating the MiFi to firmware 7.3.11 appears to resolve these problems for me. The updater is currently available only for PCs, so Mac users will need to borrow a friend’s computer or use Fusion or Parallels to install the firmware onto their MiFi. Daniel Odio has additional details on his blog. … Continue reading Verizon MiFi Disconnects Constantly in WiFi Mode
Weeks after I updated the firmware on my Seagate 1.5TB hard drives, I learn that the previous model, the 1TB 7200.11 Barracudas might also have a firmware bug in them. Great. Just great. I have several of these drives, most of them being used as my main drives or as backup/offsite backup drives. Four more … Continue reading Potential Seagate 1TB Hard Drive Failures
I recently bought three Seagate 1.5TB drives from NewEgg. Before I bought them, I had read the reports of drives freezing under certain operating systems and conditions, but I was crossing my fingers that I wouldn’t experience any such issues. Well, count me wrong on this one. This morning, I started a SuperDuper Smart Update … Continue reading Updating Seagate 1.5TB Drive Firmware
2010-12-29: I’ve updated my backup strategy post here. I’ve been making backups since I started using computers back in the early 1980s. Software at the time came on cassette tape and 5 1/4-inch floppy disks before transitioning to 3 1/2 inch floppies and CD-ROMs. When my love affair with the Mac began in 1989, I … Continue reading Backup Strategy
News that Stanford will be conducting a class on iPhone Development, taught by my friend Adam Nash brings back good memories of my time on the Farm. I smiled when I read the press release from Stanford announcing the Stanford iApps Project. A suite of five software applications developed by students is now being tested … Continue reading Newtons and iPhones at Stanford
I recognize that this blog has become very technical lately. Forgive me, ever since I was a kid in San Diego playing Ultima I through V on the home Apple ][ computer, I’ve always wanted to talk computer stuff! Today, I tested the performance of the MacBook Pro hooked up to my Apple 30-inch Cinema … Continue reading MacBook Pro, Aperture, and 30-inch Displays
During the three weeks we were in China, the computers in our home office were turned off. Our electricity bill for the month was $24 cheaper than the previous one. In fact, our electricity usage has been steadily going down after we switched to compact fluorescent lights (CFL) and became smarter about turning off unused … Continue reading Electricity Usage Around the House
The MacBook Pro (MBP) is my first Intel Macintosh. For the past couple of years, I’ve been using a Quad G5 as my primary machine and a first-generation PowerBook G4 12-inch for travel. Before I purchased the Quad G5 in 2005, my desktop was a Quicksilver PowerMac G4, purchased in 2001. Though the PowerMac G4 … Continue reading Aperture Benchmarks between Quad G5 and MacBook Pro
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