I recently purchases a Raspberry Pi 4 to run Home Assistant. It’s an open source home automation solution. All the instructions are here:
https://www.home-assistant.io/installation/raspberrypi
It worked fine doing it from a Mac. The process was exactly as described.
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The MacBooks from the 2015 era have a design fault where the anti-glare coating rubs off, leaving a very messy display. It’s most obvious when the screen is dim. It look terrible! Flaky. Dinted. Stained. Scratched. The glass screen is actually still in tact. It’s just the anti-glare coating that has rubbed off.
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Sometimes when I’m in a Zoom meeting I am a little far from my camera and wish that I could zoom in closer to my face without having to move the computer. I haven’t found a way to zoom or pan the built-in MacBook camera when you are using it as a camera in the Zoom meeting app. There are no settings in Zoom itself to control the level of zoom on your MacBook built-in camera. The good news is that there is a way to do it. You can zoom your camera by using a ‘virtual camera’. Here’s how.
Continue reading ⟩When I unboxed my new MacBook Pro I booted it up and followed the prompts to connect my old MacBook Air to transfer my old files across. For some reason it did not recognise my old MacBook Air. I used the USB-C cable that came with my new MacBook Pro to connect the two computers together. It didn’t work.
The next day I tried again, this time with a different cable, and it worked. The USB-C cable that is supplied with new MacBook Pro is NOT a thunderbolt cable. So you cannot use it to transfer data. Apple saved themselves some $$$ by throwing in a cheaper cable that you can only use to charge. Read on and I’ll explain the differences.
This is NOT a Thunderbolt cable. It’s very similar to a thunderbolt cable. Some of Apple’s cables USB-C cables are Thunderbolt and some are not. The cable looks the same shape, but the Thunderbolt cables made by apple have a thunderbolt symbol on one side. This cable will charge your computer, but not transfer data.
Have a look at these 2 items in the Apple Store:
These cables are both USB-C. (That refers to the shape of the connector on the end). But one is a ‘Charge Cable’ and one is a ‘Thunderbolt Cable’. If you look very closely you can see the Thunderbolt symbol on one side of the connector of the Thunderbolt cable.
The one on the left will charge your computer. That is all it will do. The one one the right will charge your computer and it will also allow you to connect to another computer, or a SSD drive, iPad or any other Thunderbolt device. Guess which one Apple included when you purchased your new MacBook Pro? The cheaper one. They will both charge your computer. But the cheaper one will not transfer data from your old MacBook to your new one.
I have no problem with Apple including the cheaper charge cable, but it would have bene nice to have a note about this, or option to upgrade at the time of purchase.
Here’s a screenshot from Apple’s support pages:
It gets even more confusing if you head down to JB HiFi and but another USB-C cable because it’s possible to get a USB-C data cable that has a slower charging rate!
When you buy a USB-C cable you can get ones that charge fast, charge slowly, transfer data fast, transfer data slowly, or don’t transfer data at all. Apple’s charging cable does not transfer data at all.
I wanted to order a cable to connect my old KORG Midi controller to my new MacBook Pro. One end needed to be USB-C, and the other end needed to be an older USB connector that I wasn’t sure of the name of.
Here’s a great chart from RS-components in Australia that names all the USB connectors to help you easily find the one you need.
If you don’t yet have an SSD in your Mac, it’s time to upgrade!
By far the biggest speed boost on a Mac comes with upgrading the Hard Disk to an SSD. A faster processor (i7 etc) will improve the speed of some tasks, more RAM can avoid a slowdown, but a faster SSD improves the speed of everything. If you still have an old Hard Disk I can’t say how strongly I suggest upgrading.
a faster SSD improves the speed of everything
I received an email today from Amazon telling me that 240GB SSD drives are AU$42.19. I just checked the US store and you can get a 1TB Crucial MX500 drive for $94.99. These prices are ridiculously cheap.
This article back in August 2018 is about how to upgrade to an SSD drive. But back then a 480GB drive was $1579.99!
If you are running a 2012 MacBook with an old SATA drive, or even a 2018 iMac without an SSD, grab one, and install it. It’s not complicated.
There are good instructions at macfixit.
Check out your Mac first to see if the Hard disk is upgradable.
I recently purchased a new Mac mini and it does not have a FireWire or Thunderbolt port. You will also have the same problem if you have purchased a very recent model MacBook Pro or iMac. The problem is I have quite a nice 3CCD Panasonic video camera that has a FireWire port on it. I need a Firewire to USB-C adapter but Apple don’t make one. They are changing ports faster than they can make new adapters.
Thankfully, as I found out today, you can plug your FireWire cable into a ‘FireWire to thunderbolt’ adapter and then you can plug this adapter into a ‘Thunderbolt to USB- C’ adapter. IT looks a mess but it works.
It may not be pretty, but the signal gets through. My computer was able to control the video camera and the video was able to import into QuickTime.
The hard drives in the new 2018 Mac mini are PCIe which means they are
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