Category Archives: equipment

equipment, Macintosh, overview, recommendations, upgrade

Thoroughly Modern: Mini!

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The vast bulk of my clients with desktop Macs own iMacs. As their machines age out and they come to me for replacement computers, I’ve been steering them in a different direction. I thought I’d take the time to put this advice, and my reasoning for it, here in the blog for my general client base.

If you lived through the ’60s, you might remember the popular debates over which was the superior entertainment system — console models or component stereos? The factor that doomed the console model was component failure — if your component turntable broke, you could throw it out and replace it; but in a console model you had to discard and pay to replace all the working components as well, or live with a dead turntable indefinitely.

The iMac is the console model of computers. The screen, processor, camera, and speakers are yoked together. If any of them gets damaged or dies, you have to abandon the rest and buy a new unit, or live with the faulty component. In particular, if your processor becomes obsolete, you have to abandon a perfectly good, expensive screen.

The iMac has also become unserviceable by anybody but Apple, what with having to service the electronics by first removing the screen, which is often glued in and/or connected by ribbon cables so fragile that they have a life of roughly three insertions before dying. I used to perform hardware service on iMacs, but I simply no longer dare.

The alternative I recommend to my clients these days is the Mac Mini. It has processor, memory, and storage, all in a box you can pick up in one hand. Speed-wise, it compares favorably with the iMac — in current base configurations of both, the Mini is 20% faster than the iMac in single-core tasks, and up to 50% faster in multi-core tasks. And price-wise, it’s 40% less expensive — that’s $600 you can spend on the “other” components, and it’s the only time you’ll need to do that (all at once, anyway). It also has more connectivity ports than the iMac, some of which are on the front so you can plug things (like phones) in and out without needing to turn it around. You can tuck it way out of your way on your desk, or even on a shelf, especially with an Apple Bluetooth keyboard and mouse.

You’ll need to buy some other components for your (first) Mini.

(Brands, models, and prices of compatible gear mentioned below are for illustrative purposes only, and are not specific product recommendations.)

You’ll need a display screen. Practically no third-party screen will have the high pixel density (sharpness) of an Apple Retina screen, but that’s why the Apple screen is so expensive out of the box. A typical 27″ (larger than the iMac) commercial screen (ex: Dell S2725QC) runs about $325. Some (like the Dell) even include integrated stereo speakers for that price — often not superb, but absolutely adequate. And if you want to live large, you can run 32″ or even larger screens with the Mini (though the display price jumps quite a bit beyond 32″). You can also choose to free up desk space by mounting it on a wall — look for a model offering a large VESA mount support (to minimize twisting). You’ll want to make sure it has at least one HDMI connector (two gives you a spare), and that you have an HDMI cable of adequate length. (Some displays use USB-C connectors — they should also work with the Mini, though I haven’t encountered any on service calls.)

You’ll need a keyboard and a mouse or trackpad. If you’re upgrading from an iMac, there’s no reason you can’t use the ones you already have. (You’d be paying for a redundant bundled pair on a new iMac.) If you’d prefer something newer or nicer, you can obtain it at any time, on your own schedule.

The speaker on the iMac is… audible… but otherwise mono and unimpressive. On the Mini on which I stream videos, I have a pair of Bose Companion II’s, currently available on Amazon (refurb only) for $165. My other Minis are outfitted (if at all) with add-on speakers from older PCs, obtained from thrift stores for $5-$20 the pair, perfectly adequate for FaceTime, Zoom calls, and the like.

Aside from the display, the other thing the Mini absolutely does not provide is a camera. You can pick up an impressive Logitech C120 series for about $70 (or a Chinese knockoff for $30-40) if you think you need one. Or — if it’s something you use only occasionally — you can easily use your own iPhone as your Mini’s camera by enabling “Continuity Camera” in the Mini’s AirPlay options (I can walk you through this if you can’t figure it out).

If you’re upgrading to a contemporary Mac, there are a couple more considerations which will be true no matter what model you upgrade to.

First off, say sayonara to USB-A ports. No current Apple product (except the niche Mac Studio) offers them any longer. For each of your existing USB-A cables (printer, solar controller, USB hub, phone cable, or wired keyboard/mouse) you’ll need a USB-C/A adapter. Apple sells some, but they’re exorbitant. I’ve been buying (like Chiclets) the Elebase LKUSBCOTGA — four for $9 at Amazon. (Make sure not to order the reverse-sex model, with the male USB-A — they have their uses, but not for your Mac). Having a set of these on hand before unboxing your Mini avoids installation delay, especially if you have a wired keyboard or mouse.

The second general consideration is that all current Apple products are now built with Apple silicon (M-series), not Intel processors, and as of a few months ago all come with the Golden Gate release, which discontinued support for Intel apps. If you run nothing but Apple apps, that’s cool. If you are running third-party apps on your current Intel Mac (such as game collections, Microsoft Word/Office, Adobe suites, browsers, financial packages, or individual tools/apps downloaded from other than the Apple Store), they won’t work on your new Mac unless you upgrade to the corresponding app versions that run on Apple Silicon. The upgrade may or may not be free, and in the case of Microsoft (and possibly Adobe) apps, the fee may be significant. The last possibility is that there may be no Apple Silicon version of the app (because the app is no longer actively maintained), in which case you will have to find a different replacement or do without. Again, this is a problem you will have upgrading any Intel Mac to any Apple Silicon Mac — it’s a bullet you have to bite.

So if you’re thinking it’s about time for a new desktop Mac, give me a call to find out if the Mac Mini is the right choice for you.

Apple, equipment, networking, review

These are not the dongles you’re looking for…

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Ever since the “foresight” of Steve Jobs decreed that wired ethernet ports were obsolete and henceforth would be absent from all new Macs (on behalf of network engineers all over the world I curse you, Steve), those of us who need those jacks (because we’re responsible for getting wireless systems to work in the first place) have had to purchase add-on USB/ethernet adapters to do our jobs.

Until recently, I’ve been using this USB-2.0/Fast Ethernet dongle from Monoprice (#6150, no longer available).  It has worked fine, but it’s very awkward to use in the field with my laptop, where I literally have to use my lap, because the long, inflexible packaging continually threatens to angle downwards (or upwards, if the Mac slides off my leg) and damage the USB port of my laptop.

Since the amount of junk I have to shovel into a new router to make it work is getting larger, not smaller, I decided to find a USB3/GigE adapter, one where the end connectors were joined by a flexible cord, so as to eliminate the “big lever” effect.

Since I’m a fan of Monoprice’s products, I tried their #11195.  Networking-wise, it worked perfectly, but there was one major flaw: either the Ethernet (RJ45) jack was a hair too shallow or its rim was shaped badly, to the result that any Ethernet cable inserted (with very few exceptions) would not lock into the jack no matter how hard you pushed it.  In the workshop, it would stay connected pretty well (it didn’t jump out or anything), but in the field it was next to useless, disconnecting all the time.  I bought two of these units at the same time, and both suffered from this defect, so it wasn’t just one bad unit.

When I finally got tired enough of picking my cables out of the dirt, I went hunting again.  I found this unit sold by OWC.  Since it looked suspiciously similar  to the Monoprice, I wrote them before buying, to ask if they were rebranding that unit, and explained why I was asking.  I got this reply:

This adapter is one that we manufacture ourselves and we have no connection to Monoprice. Newertech is actually owned by OWC and is our own in house accesories brand. Unfortunately our adapter functions like the Apple adapter and the Monoprice one in which the cable will slide in, but it does not “lock” in place like what you are wanting for it. I do not believe that this adapter will be able to fit for your needs. Please let me know if you have any other questions.

Seriously? The $29 Apple adapter (which I’ve admittedly never tried) has this same, basic flaw?

I just can’t comprehend this.

Since they were invented in the 1970s, “locking” has been on the spec list of every RJ45 connector ever made.  Other than when a plug has had its prong snapped off, I have never experienced an issue locking any RJ45 plug into any RJ45 jack.

It seems incredible to me that in my search for one particular product (a USB 3 to Gigabit Ethernet adapter) I uncovered three different, independent units in a row suffering from an identical flaw never before encountered—and not even a functional flaw, but a purely mechanical flaw, in a commodity component.  What are the odds?

In case you’re wondering whether my search ever succeeded, I eventually found this product (which turns out to widely available from many outlets, both domestic and foreign) offered by a Chinese jobber for the ridiculously low price of $6.24 and free shipping (it took ages, but it was free).  The guts (Realtek 8153) are precisely equivalent to all the other GigE adapters I found, but this one actually lets Ethernet cables lock in.

Ah, all the competitors who screwed up… for want of a nail.

Afterword (May 19): I’ve edited the link to the final dongle to point to what I believe is a similar, authentic dongle (which, you will notice, properly admits to being USB2.0, not 3.0) at another vendor. The dongles I received from China worked for a couple weeks, then went belly up. The square logo on the wide end, which says “GIGABIT” on authentic dongles, says “GLAABIT” on the dongles I received, leading me to believe they are cheap counterfeits. Given that it took over six weeks to receive these units to boot, I refuse to recommend the vendor any longer.

I finally got where I needed to be by trying cable after cable in my Monoprice dongle until I found one that would lock in… then left it plugged in and put everything back into my computer bag. A kludge solution, but ultimately effective.

 

equipment

Don’t use the CD

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Several times a month, various clients will ask me about setting up a new printer they have acquired. I give them all the same advice:

Don’t use the driver CD that came in the box.  Leave it in the envelope.

Why do I advise this?

Consider.  Acme Products designs a brand new printer.  They manufacture a hundred thousand of them, burn a hundred thousand driver and software CDs, put them in a hundred thousand boxes, and ship them to warehouses all over the country.

For the next six months, the phones at Acme melt down. “This feature doesn’t work.”  “This option has no effect.”  “Everything I print from Microsoft Blarp comes out purple.”  “The instructions tell me to do XYZ, but the control for it isn’t there.” “Apple/Microsoft released a new version of the OS last week, and it broke the printer driver.”

Dozens or even hundreds of changes are made to the software, firmware, and/or driver to address all these bugs, errors, and documentation issues.  A new version of each of them is created with all (or at least most) of these problems fixed.

But they don’t get put into the boxes, because the boxes are long gone.  The CD in the box still contains all those bugs.  And if you use it, you can suffer from them all.

Instead, go directly to the web when you configure a new printer. Apple products (and increasingly, Microsoft products) have “add printer” functions that are very good about reaching out to the proper place on the web automatically, and downloading what you need to run a printer properly on the version of the OS you are running at the moment.  And if (as does happen) the Mac OS tells you it doesn’t have the driver and you have to download it from the manufacturer’s website, do it — what you get there will still be much improved over the one that came in the box.

While we’re at it, it’s always a good idea to visit the printer’s configuration pages, if they exist (System Preferences / Printers & Scanners / (choose a printer) / Options & Supplies / Show Printer Webpage) and see if there is a firmware update available for the printer.  I did this tonight with a printer that a client had just lifted out of the box this afternoon. Surprise, surprise — there was a firmware update available for a “brand new” printer. On top of this, the copyright on the webpages went back to 2015 — when the OS version my client was using hadn’t even been announced.

All this underscores the original advice: what comes in the box is almost always obsolete before you open it.  Always get the current versions online.  You’ll be glad you did.