The Lance J. Technoweb

At this time we have installed Sierra on about 50% of the Macs we maintain, and so far it is going well.  Performance and reliability seems on-par with El Capitan: No kernel panics No significant bugs/failures or "first party" app crashes No app compatibility issues No performance issues No data migration issues (we use Migration Assistant)  Here is our hardware minimum: 4 GB of RAM.  We have Sierra running well on machines with 4 GB of RAM.   Although the majority of our Macs have 8 GB, 4 GB is totally acceptable.  We haven't had a machine with less than 4 GB of memory for several years. As we've said earlier, if you're upgrading from less than 4 GB of RAM and need to buy new RAM, we suggest buying 8 GB. Amount Today Advice Rough Price Less than 4 GB Go to 8 GB $40 4GB + Do nothing $0 Non-Traditional Drive.   As of earlier this year, we no longer have any traditional hard drives in o...

The 2009 MacBook Pro's days are numbered.  As you likely know by now, the 2009 MacBook Pro will not be supported by Mac OS Sierra.  I have one of these beasts, and it is a wonderful machine despite 7+ years of heavy use. But that doesn't mean my 2009 MacBook Pro is dead or will become immediately useless.  Quite to the contrary, I expect to use my MBP securely for several more years. Mac OS X El Capitan will continued to be supported by Apple with security patches for some amount of time.  How long?  My research shows that Apple supports a deprecated operating system for at least two years after the release of its subsequent operating system. So if Sierra is released on October 1st, 2016, El Capitan will be supported by Apple until at least October 1st, 2018. Then what?  Well, by rights, most people should no longer use El Capitan as it becomes security-obsolete.  But some more technically-minded people might have some options: Hack Sierra on...

Even in the later half of 2016, the 2009 & 2010 white MacBook can be a fantastic laptop if upgraded with modern parts.   Here's the deal. I am responsible for maintaining a small fleet of these MacBooks, and have found that it is very easy to upgrade these MacBooks to perform in a manner competitive with a new, $1000+ laptop. 2009-2010 "A1342" white MacBook The upgrades I typically perform on these MacBooks are Memory, Storage, and Battery .  Depending on your needs, this can typically cost from $25 to $125 if you buy and install the parts yourself.   This is a great way to get another 3 or more years out of your MacBook. Let me be clear:  I am talking about the white plastic unibody polycarbonate MacBook from 2009 and 2010, as exactly pictured above.  Check out "About this Mac" under the Apple menu of your Mac to verify that you have a "Late 2009" or "Mid-2010" MacBook. Here are the details of the upgrade parts I usual...

I've installed many SSD drives in MacBooks.  Here are some answers to about the best approaches for a MacBook SSD upgrade: Q: Should I bother to install an SSD, or just get a new MacBook? New Macs can be mighty expensive, so I suggest you look into an SSD upgrade if you have a traditional hard drive. I have found that replacing a hard drive with an SSD results in a substantial increase in performance.  I guesstimate that a MacBook with an SSD "feels" more than three times faster then a MacBook without an SSD. Q: Which SSD drive do you buy or recommend for a MacBook? I think that most any good laptop SSD will do. These days, I have been buying SSD drives that are about 250 GB, as they are often well under $70.  In particular, I have installed these SSDs with great success: Crucial BX100 @ 250 GB Kingston SSDNow V300 @ 240 GB PNY CS1111 @ 240 GB    When shopping around, look for bargains.  I found a special deal and bought this great SanDi...

After a few years of fooling around, I decided to make up my own ultimate Mac Boot USB stick. My goals:  When I administrate computers, I want to have most everything I need on a single boot device so I don't have to fool around downloading, installing, or searching. My boot stick includes the software that I need most frequently.  It isn't that complicated, but it took a while to actually figure it all out.  Best of all, you can easily make your own! Required Stuff: A 32 GB (or larger) USB 3.0 "thumb drive".  These devices are inexpensive, portable, fast, and readily available.  I use something like this PNY USB 3.0 stick. What not to use: Small thumb drives.  You may be able to get away with a 16 GB device, but anything less than 16 GB will limit your flexibility.  Hard disks or SSDs.  They're more expensive, bulky, and HD's are less reliable SD Cards.  An SD card is an option, but the truth is that a standard USB 3.0 thumb ...

I'm the type that tries to get the most bang out of a computer - where many consider a 3 year old computer "end of life", I can easily double that lifespan. A lot of people ask me what I've done for upgrades to the Macs I manage.  Here are some examples of what I did. 2009 MacBook (6 years old) 1 TB Hybrid Drive (originally a traditional 120 GB drive) Seagate 1TB Laptop SSHD 4 GB memory (originally at 2 GB) G.SKILL DDR2 RAM 2009 MacBook Pro (6 years old) 250 GB SSD (originally a traditional 250 GB drive)  Kingston 240GB SSD 4 GB of memory not upgraded.  I find 4 GB to be plenty powerful. 2010 MacBook (5 years old) 250 GB SSD (originally a traditional 250 GB drive) Kingston 240GB SSD 8 GB memory (originally at 2 GB) G.Skill DDR3 RAM  Although 4 GB is powerful enough, I was upgrading it from 2 GB.  So using the principle of upgrading as few times as possible, I moved it to 8 GB. 2011 iMac (4 years old) 8 GB memory (original...

My iMac (2011, 21.5-inch model) was feeling down.  It was running out of disk space and everything was slowing down to a crawl. So a about six months ago I decided to upgrade my iMac with a larger hard drive and increased memory, restoring performance to be faster than ever.  It was far cheaper to upgrade my Mac, and it was much easier than I expected. It took me about 30 minutes to do the upgrades, and my iMac is much, much faster. Here are the specific parts I used for my upgrade: Hard Drive I went with this 4 TB Seagate Hybrid drive for a few reasons: It's HUGE.  At 4 TB, it is eight times bigger than the stock 500 GB hard drive. It is affordable.  Per GB, it is far cheaper than any SSD. Being a "Hybrid" SSD/Hard drive device, it is FAST.  The modern OS really expects fast disk devices. This sped up my Mac a lot. It is a one-for-one replacement for the old device.  It easily fits inside the case. [Update: this driver has remained fast...

Repairing and upgrading an older 12-inch Apple iBook G4 laptop. A great friend of mine had a 12-inch iBook laptop from 2005 - with a broken keyboard.  She asked me to help her shop for a new Mac to replace her old tried-but-true laptop. Whenever anyone asks me for computer advice, I ask them what they want to do with a new computer. She told me that she used her computer for basic email and surfing the web - she said the old iBook was great for many years, but that now, with a broken (and dirty and gross) keyboard, it was time to move on. After thinking about it for 15 minutes with her, we concluded that the best approach was to fix her old laptop.  A little upgrade is a LOT easier than going out and buying a new machine, and then migrating 6 years of data and apps.  Also, the price is a lot less than a new machine. We went on-line and bought two things: A replacement iBook keyboard , for around $40, and A 1 GB memory stick , for under $20. The ...

I have been very interested in the new iPhone 3GS, and so I decided to take a look to see if it'd be possible to upgrade. I made a few phone calls and did some research. I learned that AT&T will allow me to upgrade to the iPhone 3GS without special charges after 1 year and 8 months under contract ... so, happily I don't have to wait the full 2 years to get my hands on the new iPhone. But since I somewhat recently bought my iPhone, I still have to wait another year before I can upgrade. However, since I can't wait, I can upgrade to the new iPhone 3GS for a fee - they'll let me upgrade to the new phone if I pay a $200 premium. That means that I'd pay $399 for a phone that usually goes for $199. The $200 "surcharge" is a number that's comparable to the "contract early termination" fee. I bought my 16 GB iPhone 3G for $299. If I sell it now, I'll have a newer battery and a newer warranty. I feel those improvements are worth $50 to me...

It's been a long time since I wrote this article, but the fact remains: The good old eMac can still be useful if you take the simple steps to keep it as good as it can be.  All can run Tiger, and most can run Leopard - great operating systems for their day with a bit of useful life.  This article describes the procedure I used to upgrade my old eMac, including: Replacing the internal hard disk with a large capacity drive. Increasing the memory for performance Upgrading the operating system Here I'm upgrading a 700 MHz eMac, but the procedure and tasks for upgrading other eMac models should be almost identical. Upgrading versus Replacing My sister's eMac is of the 700 mhz variety, with 256 MB of memory. The machine seemed to be getting "slower", and the original 40 GB disk was becoming jammed packed with photos and iTunes, and within a few months she'd be out of disk space. There were two options to address the problems: upgrade the eMac, or go o...