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Category: Hardware
This morning, I noticed that this blog has been getting hundreds of additional pageviews coming from a Reddit post, and they’ve all been going to an article of mine from 2014: Old tech of the day: Optical disk cartridge and friends. In honor of the renewed interest in old removable storage tech, I present you with the video above, showing an optical disk cartridge’s shutter in action. Enjoy!
My 2014 article features pictures from an eBay listing for a 2.52 GB optical disk cartridge, which featured these photos:
These were mostly used in enterprise computing in the mid- to late-1990s, around the time when external storage technologies were exploding. Back then, I lived in Toronto and was a regular customer at CCBC — short for Computer Consumables Buyer’s Club — where I’d drop money on SyQuest cartridges (44 MB and 88 MB), Zip disks, Jaz disks, and CD-Rs, and look with curiosity at Bernoulli disks, EZ disks, and SparQ disks.
Do you have any online photos of old storage tech? Send me a link in the comments, and I’ll update this post and credit you.
Every now and again, Facebook shows me an ad that I feel compelled to click, simply because I can’t believe what I’m seeing and need to know more. The latest of these ads is for the product pictured above: the AutoExec AECRATE-15, which retails at Home Depot for…
$300.
More precisely, it retails for $296.93, which rounds up to $300, but to my mind, that seems pretty exorbitant for a milk crate with a power inverter and stands for a tablet and smartphone. The manufacturer doesn’t even attempt to hide this fact: it’s listed as “Milk Crate Vehicle and Mobile Office Work Station with Phone Mount, Tablet Mount and Power Inverter”.
I’ve designed and developed mobile apps who primary users are people that work in their cars and trucks, so I understand the usefulness of the AECRATE-15, with its ability to support and charge your electronic office equipment and store your paperwork.
Surely this is something that you could put together for considerably less than three “Benjamins”.
| Component | Price |
| Bestek 300W Power Inverter (Plugs into your car’s “cigarette lighter” outlet and provides two household-style electrical outlets and 2 USB electrical outlets) | $36 at Amazon.com |
| Phone mount for cars | $10 – $30 at Amazon.com |
| iPad mount for cars | $20 – $40 at Amazon.com |
| Juggernaut storage milk crate (Assuming you don’t simply grab one from behind a convenience store, just like every university student building makeshift furnishings or any self-respecting DJ) | $26 for 2 at Amazon.com |
| Total | $102 – $132 |
Still, if you have the money and feel that you need the factory-made version, you can pick it up at Home Depot. Enjoy!
The quick summary: If you’re in the Tampa Bay area and need your Mac repaired, Steve Bush of Screwbox will come to where you are, pick it up, repair it, and bring it back to you. I needed repairs done on my 2014-era MacBook Pros, and Steve did a fantastic job fixing them — and I didn’t even have to leave my house!
My old MacBook Pros are still solid development machines
Even though the new M1 Max-powered MacBooks are singing their siren songs to me, I’m still doing my independent work on my personal MacBook Pros:
- A refurbished mid-2014 15″ MacBook Pro that I bought in early 2015 for a nice discount, back when I was working for a company that expected you to provide your own laptop, and
- A mid-2014 13″ MacBook Pro that a client gave to me in 2016 for building an iPad app in lieu of cash. Ah, the joys of freelancing when the company you work for cuts its workforce…
They’ve served me well…
- I used them to write every app that I’ve ever put into the App Store, as either the sole author or as part of my job.
- I used them to write my half of the code and text of The iOS Apprentice, 8th Edition.
- It’s been a part of every “audition” I’ve had for a tech position since 2017, from applying to join raywenderlich.com’s Android team (I’d never written an Android app before) to landing my current job at Auth0. You may have seen the output from these “auditions”: The raywenderlich.com application became this article, my test to become a developer advocate at Auth0 became an article in the Auth0 Developer Blog, and the one app I wrote for a prospective employer who ghosted me at least made for a good video.
- It was a key part of my creating my Apple augmented reality presentations at RWDevCon (the shorter one is available on YouTube) and this ARKit course at raywenderlich.com.
- It’s what I used to teach the online Python and JavaScript/React courses I taught on behalf of Computer Coach when my job disappeared in 2020 due to COVID.
- I took it with me on the StartupBus 2019 hackathon, where my team — Hyve — made it all the way to the finals.
- I’m currently using it to make a new series of YouTube videos on all sorts of aspects of software development. I’m also using it for music production for these videos.
I’m still doing all my “side hustle” work on these machines, doing iOS, Android, and Python development, along with video and music production. They do the job just fine, which includes composing this post and the images that go with it.
That being said, we’re at the point where the current version of macOS — version 12, a.k.a. “Monterey” — won’t run on them (version 11, a.k.a. “Big Sur”, is the latest version that runs on my MacBooks). Between that and Apple’s move from Intel processors to their own amazingly fast silicon, I expect to buy an M1 MacBook as a birthday present to myself in November and put my old MacBooks to work as home servers.
I needed repairs
My 15″ MacBook Pro was still processing just fine, but its trackpad was no longer responding to touch or presses, and in fact, it was becoming quite difficult to “click”.
The 13″ had a different problem: sound, especially once the volume was past the 50% mark, was distorting, which meant the speakers were damaged.
There were free workarounds for both issues, but I decided that I wanted repairs done, if available for a reasonable price. I asked around, and got a couple of enthusiastic recommendations for Screwbox.
My experience: Great!
I filled out the contact form at the bottom of Screwbox’s home page, and Steve Bush got in touch with me via text shortly afterward. The description of my MacBooks’ issues was enough for him to diagnose their problems:
- With the 15″, the trackpad didn’t work because the battery was bulging, and the battery is located beneath the trackpad. His recommendation: Replace the battery. After watching this video to see what the procedure was, I opted to have Steve do it.
- The solution for the 13″ was obvious: replace the speakers. I thought that I might want to try this myself, so I watched this video. The process is less complex than battery replacement, but in the end, enlightened laziness (one of the great programming virtues) won out, and let Steve do it.
As promised on the site, Steve gave me a flat rate quote for the work: $199 plus tax for each repair, for a grand total of $431.83, payable in advance via Zelle. He would order the parts, pick up the MacBooks from my place when the parts arrived, perform the repair at his shop, and drop them off at my place once repaired. Once you factor in the cost of labor, parts, and travel, it’s quite clear that he’s offering a deal.
I Zelled him the money, and he picked up my MacBooks a couple days later when the parts arrived. He returned my fully-functioning MacBooks a day later, and I didn’t even have to leave the house!
Steve’s service was helpful and fast, and I wouldn’t hesitate to contact him again for Mac repair. If you’re in the Tampa Bay area and need a Mac fixed, you’ll want to reach out to Screwbox and Steve Bush.
If you’re looking for an inexpensive Android phone for doing development work or testing, or just as a phone, Motorola, my go-to vendor for inexpensive Android devices is having a Labor Day sale!
Here are three of the phones that are currently on sale that I think would be good for someone who wants to get started with Android development. Yes, you can always use an emulator, but there’s no substitute for developing and testing on an actual device.
All of these devices are fully unlocked, which means they’ll work on any carrier. Motorola don’t include much junkware on their phones — it’s as close to stock Android as you’re going to get without buying a Pixel. All were released this year.
Motorola’s G line has always been a reliable way to get mid-level features at a starter phone price. If you want to get a device that performs at the level of the typical Android phone for users who live outside the G7 bubble (and let’s face it, that’s most of the world), or need to provide a workforce with a mobile computing device, you want this one.
- Release date: January 14, 2021.
- OS: Android 10
- Chipset: Qualcomm Snapdragon 662 (11 nm). Here’s a list of phones that use this chipset.
- GPU: Adreno 610. Here’s a list of phones that use this GPU.
- Memory: 2 versions
- 3 GB RAM, 32 GB “disk”
- 4 GB RAM, 64 GB “disk”
- Main camera:
- Selfie camera:
- 8 megapixel sensor, f/2.0, 1.12µm
- Shoots 1080p video at 30 fps with gyro-EIS
- Battery: Li-PO 5000 mAh
At the current discount price of $250, the Moto G Stylus is the phone on this list that provides the best bang for the buck. As its name implies, it has a stylus, and if you’re looking for a cheaper alternative to the Galaxy Note line (and a much better choice than the LG Stylo), give this one a look.
- Release date: January 14, 2021.
- OS: Android 10
- Chipset: Qualcomm Snapdragon 678 (11 nm). Here’s a list of phones that use this chipset.
- GPU: Adreno 612. Here’s a list of phones that use this GPU.
- Memory: 4 GB RAM, 128 GB “disk”
- Main camera:
- Selfie camera:
- 16 megapixel sensor, f/2.0, (wide), 1/3.06″, 1.0µm
- Shoots 1080p video at 30 fps with gyro-EIS
- Battery: Li-PO 4000 mAh
I’m including this phone in this list just to make this list of $500-and-lower phones complete. My personal recommendation is to pay $50 less and get the RedMagic 6R, which gives you Samsung Galaxy S21-level power.
At its normal price of $700, I’d say “no”, but at a $200 discount, I’d say “think about it”. You’re getting near-flagship level features at mid-level prices. This phone boasts a 144Hz screen refresh rate (good for gaming), a solid chipset, and cameras with great specs.
But still, I’d say that if you’re looking for maximum computing bang for the buck at this price point, you want the RedMagic 6R, which currently starts at $450.
- Release date: September 2, 2021.
- OS: Android 11
- Chipset: Qualcomm Snapdragon 778G 5G (6 nm). Here’s a list of phones that use this chipset.
- GPU: Adreno 642L. Here’s a list of phones that use this GPU.
- Memory: 8 GB RAM, 256 GB “disk”
- Main camera:
- 108 megapixel wide sensor, f/1.9, (wide), 1/1.52″, 0.7µm, PDAF
- 8 megapixel ultrawide sensor, f/2.2, 119˚ (ultrawide), 1.12µm, AF
- 2 megapixel depth sensor, f/2.4, (depth), 1.75µm
- Video:
- 4K at 30 fps
- 1080p at 30, 60 or 120 fps
- 720p at 960 fps
- Gyro-EIS
- Selfie camera:
- 32 megapixel sensor, f/2.3, (wide), 0.7µm
- Shoots 1080p video at 30 fps with gyro-EIS
- Battery: Li-PO 5000 mAh
If you say that the (purportedly) little-used thing you’re selling is “like new”, you might want to give it a little cleaning before taking its picture.
