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Large capacity m.2 SATA drives are a bit harder to find but look to be still reasonably available, I'd go a western digital sa510 if it's easy to get. Silicon Power a55 drives might be worth a look too but I've got no idea what the long term reliability is like for that line.
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Jan 29, 2024 14:45
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I don't think this is really my Mac's fault but it might be and it's frustrating so I'm venting here. I have an Elgato CamLink 4k that I have used for like 2 years now to pipe a Sony camera in as my webcam. It's been plugged into a USB3 Hub via USB-A that was then plugged into an M1 Mac Mini via USB-A. It has worked totally fine. I got a new M3 Pro MacBook Pro from work and I added a little USB-C adapter dongle to the hub, and after about 30 seconds my video would freeze. Ok, I figure, the little dongle probably can't handle the data transfer. So I bought a high-speed A->C dongle off Amazon, and it still froze. I plugged that dongle straight onto the CamLink and into the MacBook and it works fine, so it's not the dongle. It's somehow the hub -> USB-A -> USB-C that is specifically the problem. So I just got a CalDigit TS4 and I'm having the same drat problem. Going straight USB-A all the way from the camera to the hub to the mini works fine. Going straight from the CamLink into the MacBook via the dongle works fine. Going CamLink -> any hub -> USB-C of any kind (USB3, Thunderbolt 4, whatever) makes it freeze after 30 seconds. I have to plug two things into my computer ya'll. This is such a burden.
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Feb 2, 2024 19:03
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I’m not 100% sure I’m parsing this right so grain of salt: I remember having an issue when I plugged more than one hubs/dongles after each other and some Apple or other tech support person said that thats one USBC thing that specifically won’t work well for ~reasons~. So it’s one dongle/hub max.
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Feb 2, 2024 19:23
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That's good to know generally. I am doing one hub at a time; the CalDigit replaced the old hub. By two things I mean right now I need to plug in a hub, and then also the CamLink via the dongle. It's silly but it's like a little piece of sand in your shoe. The point of a hub is to be able to plug everything into it. And that it worked before and now doesn't because the hub is connecting via USB-C/TB4 (going into a MacBook) instead of USB-A (going into a Mac Mini) feels really dumb. You'd think it'd be better.
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Feb 2, 2024 19:57
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I actually have a pretty similar setup, I can take a look to see if I have the same problem with my M2MBP. What CPU sku are you using? It's possible it may be rate limited in a similar way to how you can only, in theory, have some many external displays per CPU tier.
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Feb 2, 2024 20:06
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It's the 12CPU/18GPU M3 Pro chip. This is data coming in though, not going out. It's not an external display, it's camera data coming through a https://www.elgato.com/us/en/p/cam-link-4k, through a USB3 (and now TB4) dock. Plugged directly in to the laptop via a USB3 A->C cable it works just fine. Plugged through a TB4 hub it's not. When I was plugging it into a USB3 hub that plugged into a Mac Mini via USB-A it worked fine. Plugged into any kind of hub that connects to the computer via USB-C (whether USB3 or TB4) it freezes after ~30 seconds. If I turn the camera off and on again in Zoom (or Facetime, or whatever video app) it works fine for another ~30 seconds, then freezes again. It must be some kind of packet loss that freezes it up but you'd think going to TB4 that would be better, not worse. Riven fucked around with this message at 22:56 on Feb 2, 2024 |
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Feb 2, 2024 22:54
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I lost my MacBook Air in an airport (it got recovered, it’s just not in the same country as me right now) so I had to buy a budget laptop while here so I can work. I’m used to Windows anyway as I use it for work, luckily in a VM these days, but man the Windows laptop market will never fail to make me laugh. I know a lot of people in this thread don’t have to deal with multiple OS’ so probably don’t know much about the current landscape. I envy you. In a world where we laugh at 8gb MacBooks still existing, this brand new Win11 machine comes with 4gb shipped. It’s so easy to hit the limit, the OS itself is using like 80% before you even open something. Somehow I’ve not come across S Mode before. Apparently this is something you choose to have or not at purchase, which nope I didn’t and it came with it anyway. It essentially works like gatekeeper or whatever the MacOS tech is that puts a level up to stop you running unsigned code that’s trivial to go around. Well S mode is a DONT DEACTIVATE UNLESS YOURE REALLY SURE AS YOU CAN NEVER ENABLE AGAIN service. Which I had to look up, because the Windows dialog box had a link that took me to the wrong part of the settings system to disable it. So naturally I turned it off, and within 5 seconds a McAfee popup appeared on the desktop. Ah Windows and related vendors, you will and forever will remain absolute loving garbage. (And yes, the trackpad on this thing is absolutely awful)
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Feb 3, 2024 00:40
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EL BROMANCE posted:I lost my MacBook Air in an airport (it got recovered, it’s just not in the same country as me right now) so I had to buy a budget laptop while here so I can work. I’m used to Windows anyway as I use it for work, luckily in a VM these days, but man the Windows laptop market will never fail to make me laugh. I know a lot of people in this thread don’t have to deal with multiple OS’ so probably don’t know much about the current landscape. I envy you. I vaguely knew about S Mode but didn’t realize it was that hostile, drat lol
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Feb 3, 2024 00:55
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Last Chance posted:I vaguely knew about S Mode but didn’t realize it was that hostile, drat lol The S is for sanctimony
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Feb 3, 2024 01:50
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The very low end windows laptops always ship with S mode by default in my experience. Possibly to avoid people installing software that might tax the anemic specs. Or Microsoft might be subsidising the cost; who knows. Sadly the Microsoft store is such godawful garbage that nobody actually uses it. I think it was the software thread where I posted about my Dad’s religious conversion: the experience of using a cheap windows 11 laptop for roughly 90 mins was enough to make a 67 year old accountant return it to the store, and buy his very first Mac - a 15 inch air - despite having spend years ridiculing me for spending more than 1k AUD (the Mac was 2400) on computers and swearing up and down he’d never spend that much. Now after a couple months of ownership I get the distinct impression he thinks he’s time travelled to some kind of Star Trek future. Regrettably though he’s developed the ‘dock on the side of the screen’ perversion.
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Feb 3, 2024 04:36
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The Lord Bude posted:The very low end windows laptops always ship with S mode by default in my experience. Possibly to avoid people installing software that might tax the anemic specs. Or Microsoft might be subsidising the cost; who knows. Sadly the Microsoft store is such godawful garbage that nobody actually uses it. IIRC part of the pitch ~a decade ago was to make a Windows competitor to Chromebooks without having to create an entirely separate OS and hardware class. Windows S mode is the same Windows, it’s all technically one Windows so there’s no confusion with support/etc if you’re buying a computer for personal/elder family member/child use or if you’re the IT Person/Computer Instructor/etc at a school. You can technically upgrade to full-fat Windows if you technically want. The locked down nature is supposed to be a “feature”, both in terms of bringing down hardware specs/costs for what could ship with Windows S and in terms of being a device that you could deploy in a middle school or to a computer illiterate family member, etc. trilobite terror fucked around with this message at 07:56 on Feb 3, 2024 |
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Feb 3, 2024 07:50
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I’m sure at one point it was great in theory but Microsoft has so aggressively crappified windows; and there is so much variability in quality when it comes to windows laptops that personally I’d always suggest an MBA to a non tech savvy person who can afford it; especially if they already have an iPhone or iPad.
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Feb 3, 2024 08:00
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The Lord Bude posted:I’m sure at one point it was great in theory but Microsoft has so aggressively crappified windows; and there is so much variability in quality when it comes to windows laptops that personally I’d always suggest an MBA to a non tech savvy person who can afford it; especially if they already have an iPhone or iPad. Yeah it flopped as a Chromebook alternative because it was both way too late and way too clunky Microsoft really beefed the whole Chromebook thing I’m old enough to have seen school computer labs go from Macs to Win95 to Win98 to XP, and MS had a good like 15 year run of being pretty much the standard in US schools with a couple schools and districts going Mac here and there and p much all of that got swallowed by Chromebook carts. You’ll see iPads deployed in specialty roles here and there in most schools, often as personal devices for kids who need some kind of occupational therapy or learning assistance or have a disability or for running specific poo poo, but mostly it’s ChromeOS as far as the eye can see. (Teachers are on Windows or MacOS of course)
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Feb 3, 2024 08:15
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The norm in Australia is for all kids to have their own laptop; either supplied by the school or the parents; chromebooks aren’t common. My Aunt is a highschool teacher and says there is minimal charging infrastructure and so kids desperately keep their laptops at minimum screen brightness to get through the day. Back when I went to school (started high school in 2000) there were windows 95 desktops in computer labs, and we each got 40mb of storage on the school server and a floppy disk to move files between home and school. I don’t think Macs were ever common here; my primary school had a mix of windows 95 desktops and older windows 3.1 desktops; no computer labs but usually 1 computer per classroom.
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Feb 3, 2024 08:25
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Was wondering what became of your Dad's adventure into Macland. Glad to see he adjusted okay.
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Feb 3, 2024 08:42
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The Lord Bude posted:personally I’d always suggest an MBA to a non tech savvy person who can afford it; especially if they already have an iPhone or iPad. Let me add a recommendation to buy refurb Apple devices. You save a hundred or two dollars, don't get the fancy packaging, but you do get the warranty. It's also amachine that already had a part fail and been replaced, so if anything, it's more reliable than a retail-priced system.
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Feb 3, 2024 09:04
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mllaneza posted:Let me add a recommendation to buy refurb Apple devices. You save a hundred or two dollars, don't get the fancy packaging, but you do get the warranty. It's also amachine that already had a part fail and been replaced, so if anything, it's more reliable than a retail-priced system. it used to be a better deal in the past IMO, also the refurb store often stops making sense when products start aging, etc and they’re discounted in a way that doesn’t make them appealing alternatives to getting the same device on sale elsewhere from a newer/newest generation
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Feb 3, 2024 09:13
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Tayter Swift posted:Was wondering what became of your Dad's adventure into Macland. Glad to see he adjusted okay. He’s doing fine. He’s still playing around with numbers to see if he can eventually get it to do what he needs vs continuing to pay for MS office - he’s got both installed at the moment. The major sticking point seems to be that there is no way to make numbers draw a double underline in a cell other than to create a really thin row and underline two rows of cells (which strikes me as quite an odd omission). And of course he appears to have mutant, Touch ID resistant fingers - we’ve tried multiple fingers across 3 devices and his successful unlock rate is about 10% lol. But he’s happy.
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Feb 3, 2024 09:22
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The Lord Bude posted:The very low end windows laptops always ship with S mode by default in my experience. Possibly to avoid people installing software that might tax the anemic specs. Or Microsoft might be subsidising the cost; who knows. Sadly the Microsoft store is such godawful garbage that nobody actually uses it. S-mode to full windows mode used to be a paid upgrade but abysmal sales for s-mode laptops had the OEM revolting, so it's free now.
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Feb 3, 2024 10:09
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The history and reasoning behind S mode is interesting, I’d somehow not heard of it until this encounter. My favorite part was the laptop simply not seemingly knowing it was enabled outside of the setting, the dialog box that popped up when I tried to install something thought it couldn’t run for an entirely different reason so led me nowhere. Googling brought up the correct reason and solution.
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Feb 3, 2024 11:47
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The Lord Bude posted:He’s doing fine. That’s a standard issue dad curse right there
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Feb 3, 2024 12:46
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The Grumbles posted:That’s a standard issue dad curse right there I really don’t understand it. He’s not doing anything wrong in how he registers the finger; it just straight up doesn’t work.
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Feb 3, 2024 14:36
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we got my fil a blue imac christmas before last i think. it replaced the chromebox we had gotten him quite a while back (which was fine aside from printing difficulties). he's been over the moon with it, it's easier to help with technical issues, and while facetime wasn't new to him, being able to use it and messages from the desktop was a real delight for him
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Feb 3, 2024 15:31
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The Lord Bude posted:I really don’t understand it. He’s not doing anything wrong in how he registers the finger; it just straight up doesn’t work. how dry are his hands
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Feb 3, 2024 15:31
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The Lord Bude posted:He’s still playing around with numbers to see if he can eventually get it to do what he needs vs continuing to pay for MS office - he’s got both installed at the moment. The major sticking point seems to be that there is no way to make numbers draw a double underline in a cell other than to create a really thin row and underline two rows of cells (which strikes me as quite an odd omission). Get him a perpetual, non-subscription copy of Office 2021 for Mac (the most recent version) for $50 USD here: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3898368&perpage=40&pagenumber=1&noseen=1 mediaphage posted:how dry are his hands dad wet so what
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Feb 3, 2024 17:13
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mediaphage posted:how dry are his hands Yeah dry/calloused fingers don’t work well. Source: my step dad lol
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Feb 3, 2024 17:14
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trilobite terror posted:Get him a perpetual, non-subscription copy of Office 2021 for Mac (the most recent version) for $50 USD here: Hard agree LN is a treasure.
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Feb 3, 2024 17:22
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mediaphage posted:how dry are his hands He does have issues with his hands getting dry and cracked. He spends most of his time in a nursing home helping to care for a disabled/immunocompromised person so he’s constantly washing his hands and applying hand sanitizer. If he ends up deciding that numbers just isn’t for him then getting a perpetual MS office licence is what we’ll do when his current subscription year runs out; but for now he’s content to muck around with numbers and try to make it work (I think it’s as much a fun project/mental stimulus exercise for him as anything else).
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Feb 3, 2024 17:42
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The Lord Bude posted:If he ends up deciding that numbers just isn’t for him then getting a perpetual MS office licence is what we’ll do when his current subscription year runs out; but for now he’s content to muck around with numbers and try to make it work (I think it’s as much a fun project/mental stimulus exercise for him as anything else). This is dumb. Not even Apple pretends that people actually use or want to use Numbers Getting him on the software that he already knows and relies on is going to go a long way toward making his migration experience much better. It’s already going to be a chore to relearn the muscle memory of replacing Win/Alt with Option, etc. No need to make it harder for him by forcing him to learn a whole other “we have Office at home” software suite that Apple themselves don’t treat as a serious product
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Feb 3, 2024 18:04
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trilobite terror posted:This is dumb. Not even Apple pretends that people actually use or want to use Numbers it really depends on what you use it for, and if you don't need a license why buy one if it works out The Lord Bude posted:He does have issues with his hands getting dry and cracked. He spends most of his time in a nursing home helping to care for a disabled/immunocompromised person so he’s constantly washing his hands and applying hand sanitizer. ask him to up his moisturizing routine, no joke. get him some quality lotions if he don't already have some
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Feb 3, 2024 18:10
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trilobite terror posted:This is dumb. Not even Apple pretends that people actually use or want to use Numbers he has both installed, this is coming from him, not me. To be clear, he’s retired, he’s not doing any serious work on it beyond personal finance stuff. mediaphage posted:ask him to up his moisturizing routine, no joke. get him some quality lotions if he don't already have some Yeah he’s got stuff that he uses.
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Feb 3, 2024 18:25
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The Lord Bude posted:Regrettably though he’s developed the ‘dock on the side of the screen’ perversion. A man of taste and distinction, I see. 
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Feb 3, 2024 19:26
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dad sidedocks so what
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Feb 3, 2024 19:37
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The real question is what side he's docking too; you can tell a lot about a person from whether they're a Left'r or a Right'r
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Feb 3, 2024 19:52
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Mac Hardware: docking daddies ITT
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Feb 3, 2024 19:56
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Canned Sunshine posted:The real question is what side he's docking too; you can tell a lot about a person from whether they're a Left'r or a Right'r He docks on the left.
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Feb 4, 2024 01:45
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Wait, is this the same guy we had a whole thing about a few months ago with the highly specific hangups? If so, welcome back! Buy your old man an account.
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Feb 4, 2024 02:26
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Warbird posted:Wait, is this the same guy we had a whole thing about a few months ago with the highly specific hangups? *sigh* yes. I tried a few years ago, but he’s content to troll people on whirlpool and various car forums (his ~3 year saga trying to pick a car to buy was quite something) when he isn’t getting banned from them. Realistically he has maybe 90 mins of free time per day, so between playing with numbers and trolling Tesla fanboys he doesn’t really have time.
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Feb 4, 2024 02:41
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He sounds like a delight
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Feb 4, 2024 02:55
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Your old man would fit in here nicely.
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Feb 4, 2024 04:37
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