Everything Apple (the Mac heads thread)

You have a good point.

no significant recycling happens to any of the tech that the human race produces, it all goes to landfill.

One of the big shifts that we globally really need to happen is for the circular resource economy to go from an often talked about idea to a reality. We need to separate our natural/degradable resource stream from our mineral/non-degradable resource stream. All tech needs to go back into the resource stream. We need to stop digging shit out of the ground and landfilling it.

Does anyone have a 30-pin adapter knocking about?
Either to Aux or to Lightning as it's for music

I’m trying to have a clear out of all the Apple kit through the years that I’ve put into a box and tried to ignore. It’s quite a bit of stuff, with ancient iPads, iPhones etc and a couple of laptops. One of the laptops, a 2009 MacBook Pro I updated the RAM and changed the drive to SSD. It’s all going to eBay, but is it worth putting the laptop back to it’s original configuration with the RAM and HD? I spent a fair bit upgrading the laptop, and it looks like it’s only going to sell for a couple of hundred pounds if even that.

In the process of ripping my old cd’s so thought I’d rip my old DVD’s and blu-Ray’s is handbrake still the go to for ripping video content from disc?
Let me know.

On a different subject.
Looking to get a digital replacement for my moleskine notebook, something that recognises handwriting, and can create documents from it, as well as sketches/doodles.
If I can import the 1k+ notes I’ve got in my phone that would be great as well.

Was thinking about the remarkable 2, but I don’t know anyone whose used the previous version and it feels a tad pricey at over £300, could try and get an iPad Pro I suppose but that feels super overpowered for something replacing an analog notepad and i don’t really want to use it for connecting to the internet as that’s enough of a time sink as it is..,

Thoughts

Every new iPad supports one or other version of the Pencil now.

There is a digital moleskin I think?

https://gb.moleskine.com/smart-writing-set-ellipse/p1314

Thank you for the detailed answer. I have experienced some sudden SSD failures so realised they don't give you the time to react that HD are inclined to.

You mentioned more than one network and different sites in your first reply and that's partly why I was asking the question as I've recently built a multi site multi network installation for my home/office/workshop setup which involves a 5g bridge and consequently I've been feeling that I'm closer to an ideal situation regarding backup than ever before. Basically data is being backed up off site so I'm wondering whether cloud backup is something I should still be considering.

I'm probably not your average user as I've professional experience in IT dating back to the mid 80's so it was great to have a detailed response. Especially underlining what I had already found through my 10 years experience of SSD failures, they are by no means safer than HD but most users seem to think they are infalible.

I guess it'll sell for not much if you put it back to the original configuration..

MakeMKV is great, especially since you are using Plex if my memory serves me.

I used MakeMKV for free for a month before paying the £50 purchase price. It's been worth it to rip 350 dvd's and blu ray. You really only need to pay to rip blu ray.

I think I mentioned in the audiophile thread the drive type I'm using which is apparently the least prone to errors for blu ray ripping.

Have a look at the benefits of the MKV format and Plex.

Will look at it. My dvd and Blu-ray collection is relatively small, so shouldn’t take longer than a week or so, depending on how quick the ripping is..

I’ve seen that before but was thinking of an all digital scenario, feels like that’s a halfway house, a bit like the Wacom inkling that was out a few years back.
Will pop into a moleskine store and ask some questions before I cross it off the list though..

I'd keep things simple in your scenario.

I'd have a NAS in each location, and SyncThing installed on both... and let the software keep things replicated constantly.

But what’s the handwriting recognition like?
If it can’t learn my handwriting and automate into text, then there’s not much point. Doing a bit of googling looks like you use notes and then cut and paste the handwritten sections to them turn into text. Which feels like a couple of steps too much.

Apologies if I sound negative, I’d assumed we’d got to the point where you could write on a screen and have it be recognised and turned into text. We’ve been promised this since Apple brought out the Newton..

Blu ray ripping is free for the first month. I began buying blu-ray again once I started using Plex so I had to pay.

It rips fast on the ASUS BD-16D, you can also flash the drive to allow ripping of 4K blu-ray. I don't have any 4K so I've left the drive as is but you can buy them pre-flashed. From memory it's ripping about 7x for blu-ray.

Want to buy a Newton? :)

Far too late to keep things simple!! :)

I purchased ChronoSync a few months ago having trialled both. I know you've mentioned your appreciation for SyncThing before so I'll have to look again and see what the differences are.

Pulled up short of buying a NAS at the moment. I was starting to look for server software thinking it might be better to run an NUC with attached storage. Partly because I wanted to run Roon and Plex on an i7 or similar and that level NAS is £££.

At the moment I'm using a 2010 Mac Pro as a main computer with 22TB on a mixture of HD and SSD and I'll probably add an ARM Mac mini when they arrive and relegate the Mac Pro to server, maybe run linux on it and share a monitor with the arm Mac mini.

On the other network I have apple time machines backing up the system disks of 2 main computers that are based on the first network. That's the end that could use a NAS but that's why I'm thinking cloud storage for those backups would make sense since I'd no longer have to worry about network connections, drive reliability or power consumption. It's a big step for me having dealt with the storage/backup cycle professionally and as a user for 35 years.

iPad (including non-pro) and pencil will do it. In iOS 14, which is upcoming very soon, there’s a new feature 'scribble' which looks great for note taking to text. It might be what I need to push me over the edge and buy a pencil.

https://www.macrumors.com/2020/06/25/ipados-14-apple-pencil-scribble/

I'd second MakeMKV. I don't think Handbrake can rip direct off all blurays, you need something to get the files off first.

Hi all

I've used Carbon Copy Cloner to back up my Mac to an external disk. The process converted that disk to APFS. Now I can't access the files that were originally on that disk: they seem to have been moved to a 'Data' partition that I can see in disk utility, but can't access via the finder. How can I get to these files? Ta!

Can anyone advise what to look for to get best "bang for buck" on a second hand iPhone? Looking to spend ~£200

Can you up your budget? Seems like you can get an SE for 330ish. Think those extra £130 will go a long way here

So... it looks like I might be losing my job at the end of September... maybe a blessing in disguise as I'll be able to buy a new iMac and hopefully delve into a bit of freelance design... from what I've heard and read, Apple charge way too much for their RAM upgrades... can anyone suggest a good place to get some from that won't kill my computer?

If you’re going freelance get a laptop.