Everything Apple (the Mac heads thread)

Nice!

Hope it solves the issue.

I'm trying to get the camera as close to my eye level and direction as possible when I'm in a video call and looking at someone else.

If anybody else is interested in this type of thing: GoPro8 now has usb-webcam functionality (with special firmware and driver) it only goes up to 1080p (and not larger) and always wide-angle. It's better than having to buy/source a capture card especially if you already have a Hero 8. Last I tried (about 2 weeks ago) 1080p had a interesting/unwanted slo-mo effect in Meetup but it was fine on the 720p setting. DCRainmaker has a post about this feature.

Laptop's running a bit slow. Anyone got any tips? Maybe the advertised PowerPC upgrade is worth it. Must get in touch with my local Apple service centre to replace the 33MHz Motorola processor.

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That touchpad. For the worlds tiniest hands.

That's a touch-ID button.

Macbook Air 2020 for sale.
i5 processor
256gb SSD
8gb DDR4 RAM
Space Grey / Touch ID / Magic Keyboard etc.
Battery cycle count: 28
£900

Any interest here?

What condition is it in? Any defects/cosmetic wear and tear? Warranty remaining?

Could be interested for the mrs. Will know more tomo.

Great condition. No visible signs of use. Warranty until April 2024

I need to back up/store about 1-2TB of artwork currently on Dropbox Business. What’s the best method? Another cloud based solution eg Dropbox, iCloud or Google etc or an SSD?

The files won’t all need to be readily accessible immediately, but it would be good to have a reliable option moving forwards. Any ideas?

Why don't you keep it on the Dropbox?

I might be changing job, and it would be handy to have access to my previous work for my portfolio and also to not start from scratch with much of the work. If I leave, I'll lose access to the Dropbox business account I setup and be required to hand it over to my successor. It would even be useful for my portfolio and as samples etc moving forwards.

Ah, ok.
Well then you just have to decide whether you need / want it to be accessible from "anywhere", right? ..and if not I'd just get a reliable external drive (not even a SSD necessarily).

I am old fashioned, I have 3 hard drives with identical content. just spinning drives, not SSD.

Looking at options. I think external HD is best? The price compared to cloud storage isn't really comparable once year on year costs are taking into account.

Magic Keyboard and Sidecar!

Has anybody noticed that the Magic Keyboard now works in Sidecar, so you can type on both keyboards? I'm sure this wasn't a feature before?

external HD is best?

..yea, I mean like I said - if you don't need to access the files from wherever you are but are comfortable with plugging in a little drive whenever you need to use them then an external drive is a cheap and reliable solution.
Compare the prices of spinning drives vs. solid state and decide whether you like to spend more to get the smaller size and higher speeds the latter offer.
Either way personally I'd go with Samsung as they never gave me any grief, but I'm sure there are other good options as well.

I wouldn't touch spinning disks for this. They're designed to be regularly running, not on and off once in a blue moon. Cloud would be perfect here. Maybe AWS?

Copy them to another cloud service (it can be AWS S3 Glacier, Google Drive, or another, personal Dropbox account) but I wouldn't store 2 TB of nontrivial stuff only locally, on mechanical, optical or otherwise. Stuff gets lost, breaks, burns/floods, and you can't really replace the data once it's gone. If it's very important I would go with multiple cloud providers plus maybe a local copy on SSD.

Backblaze offers cloud storage as well as backups and claims to be 1/4 of the price of Amazon. I use that to back up entire HDDs that I don't plug in often, as well as the normal backup service for the computer.

wouldn't touch spinning disks for this. They're designed to be regularly running, not on and off once in a blue moon

spinning discs have worked quite well as backup drives for a few decades now to be fair

Happy for you

Hey,
So my 2011 imac 27 finally died and I managed to get some money from my home insurance. Due to lack of work during covid (I’m a graphic designer) I can only really afford to spend the money from the payout. I’d really appreciate a second opinion before I talk to Mac salesperson... Do I buy a top spec 21.5 inch or low spec 27 inch?

I know only the 27 allows aftermarket upgrades which is tempting as I can upgrade the ram as work starts to roll in again? Any advice on this would be greatly appreciated.

Budget is £1,600-£1,800ish

Guessing you can’t wait at all? Rumours of an all new design iMac coming in September/ October.

I'd go for a 27 as I'd like the 5k screen.
Mid spec 27 I can see for £1,754.40 with an education discount. So if you know anyone that could do that...