hendron’sdigest

I loved this commercial for Apple and the iPhone 4S with Santa Claus.

Each one of their new 4S commercials has the same music, and really, the same type of scenario. People are presented doing their daily business, asking their phone questions (that it can now answer). It’s a combination of the simplicity of the act (and how well it really works), the music (for me it arrests your attention when it comes on TV and has a tinge of wonderment and also magic to it), and the knowledge that Steve Jobs is dead that makes them hit you (or well, me, actually) emotionally.

And today–is the anniversary of when, in 1996, Apple purchased NeXT Software. If there’s anything I’ve affirmed for myself over the past couple months in reading Isaacson’s book and thinking about Apple, it’s been that the details really do matter. In everything you do.

I decided to upgrade my music server at home — a 2009 Mac Mini (3,1).

By “upgrade” I mean, increase the RAM from 1GB to 5, and install a SSD drive instead of the default 5400 RPM drive. The original drive was 120GB, I believe, and the new drive is only 40GB, but since I run the music off of a FireWire drive, I don’t need a lot of space in the computer. (Consequently, I could have put a giant drive in there, but then it would have cost a fortune to go SSD).

OWC states that these two operations are “Advanced.” I should have listened. I’m comfortable tinkering around in computers, but it’s not part of my job. And I’d never gotten into small quarters like what we find in the Mac Mini. I am documenting this experience not to show my ignorance, but to hopefully inform others undertaking similar upgrades.

This is the computer that requires a putty knife to loosen the case to take it off. OWC has some great videos, and I suggest you watch them multiple times. I watched them multiple times, but should have watched them one more time.

The first step is undoing the antennas. This was simple. So was getting the four corner screws out. Since I do not have a magnetic screwdriver, I am not sure how I would get them back in. As it turns out, I lost one somewhere in the mini and it was not replaced. (Whoops #1).

At this point, you want to detach the top half of the mini from the bottom. There’s a cable in the back to undo, and on the side, undo the tape that’s holding the antenna wire. I did not do this, and consequently, I lost the connection of the antenna wire. (Whoops #2). This was awful to try and remedy.

You will notice in the picture above that only two wires are connected to the broadcom radio board near the back left. There are supposed to be three. The memory bank is in the front left; this was super simple to add one more DIMM to the original 1 GB for a total of 5 GB. So–big mistake on the antenna. I’d discover this later.

Now, to the top half to install the SSD.

The original HDD has a heat sensor taped to the back/top. Remove that (it’s stuck on there with stickum) and undo the taped wire. Four screws. Easy. These go in easy and are difficult to lose, so this part was fun. Getting the new drive in the slot was a little tough; don’t pinch the wire in there, and you have to use gravity and some rotation of the whole top half of the computer to get it aligned. Once it’s seated, put back the four screws, and replace the temperature sensor. Also recommended by OWC is to attach the two “spacers” which I also did on the top side of the new drive (again, attached with stickum).

Here’s the new drive in place. What would follow would be hell. This was all easy. Getting the thing back together, disaster.

So, I was so distraught I didn’t take pictures of the carnage. I next discovered that the cable to the antenna was not connected to anything. I had no idea where it went. It was still stuck to the side of the top, and the connector incidentally is on the bottom half of the mini (look for the Broadcom logo on the radio chip). They are tiny little connectors. Mine wouldn’t stick back on. It’s short and it’s not very flexible. I had to use an X-acto knife tip to re-shape the part that snaps down, finally it stuck. (Whoops #3–another one of the connectors would later become un-stuck.) So, next it was time to put the two halves back together.

They didn’t fit in like they do in the video. All those cables, where are they supposed to lay? I kept pushing down, wiggling, trying to get it right.

Then I pulled it off. Whoops #4, horror of horrors. I was pinching one of the antenna cables against the graphics card’s heat sink. It chewed through the sheathing and stressed the cord. It felt like it was about to fall apart into two pieces. I used masking tape to tape the wound, I should have used electrical tape. At least the SSD should keep the computer cooler.

So, that’s when the second antenna wire came off. Ok, fixed that. I was ready to throw the mess into the garbage at this point.

I finally seated the top on, with more wiggles and giggles. Then it was time to put the four screws back in the corners. Whoops #5: I lost the longest screw that goes in the right front. It’s somewhere in that computer.

It didn’t seem that important.

I put the antennas back on their posts with springs. Check.

Top goes back on. Pinched my hand good, and it was good enough to make me bleed. I had really botched this upgrade.

But, finally, I am happy to report it was successful, masking tape and all. The computer booted and the memory registered.

If I scared you with this upgrade, have a more experienced friend try it, or send it to OWC. I don’t work for them, but am always a happy customer.

Incidentally, like they suggest, I cloned the old HD to the new SSD using one of their Voyager devices (seen in the photo above, bottom right, cropped), using Firewire 800. CarbonCopy Cloner is another awesome product for cloning drives fast and accurately.

The Voyager Q accepts desktop-class drives as well as the mini-drives like the SSD I purchased and laptop drives.

For folks who attended my session on G21 at #VASCD11 on December 1st, here’s a copy of my presentation.

Other links of interest:

• John’s Goochland Blog
• G21 Page
• G21 Idea Machine

I’ve been enjoying reading Issacson’s book about Steve Jobs and have yet to finish it. But it seems there is still discussion online about Mr. Jobs each day, and among the things you’ll notice, is people wanting to remember Mr. Jobs through art.

This story and YouTube video of an artist re-creating Jobs’s face with white paint is amazing, but I think is also a behavior that’s akin to the creation of religious art, perhaps even icons.

To many fans of Apple products, Steve was a symbolic leader. For years, I’ve called him “Uncle Steve,” in conversations with Macintosh-touting friends, as in, “What will Uncle Steve announce tomorrow at MacWorld?”

But the artwork strikes me oddly; I think about Christian art and our desire to paint and sculpt Christ. I’ve always found this fascinating, as I do remember Biblical teachings saying not to create icons of God. Yet, our humanity prevents us from helping ourselves. We want to be closer to this diety, that we erect statues, paintings, mosaics and more in an effort to get closer to something many have difficult seeing, feeling, or approaching.

And now with the death of Jobs, I wonder if it’s the same mechanism at work. These guys you’ll see at the end of the YouTube video (there are more than the one example), have an uncanny ability to recreate what’s become a classic pose of Jobs, the one seen on the book’s cover I’m reading. And certainly they were artists before they turned their attention on Jobs.

But what is it — if not the fervor of a “religious” experience — that inspires them to recreate the likeness of Apple’s recently deceased CEO? I am not suggesting Jobs was a saint-like figure, nor deserving of a reference to Jesus Christ. But his many flaws help paint for us a picture of extremes and hopefully a better understanding of human potential. Greatness is achievable by some, but the cost to that end is sometimes severe.

Ten years ago, today, Apple introduced the iPod for sale.

Macworld magazine liked it. I remember not knowing if I wanted one or not… but my superintendent bought some on the first day at the computer store (Capitol Mac here in Richmond.)

He gave me one.

I carried the Capitol Mac bag home. It was a fond memory — I remember feeling well-cared for to be given one of these new gadgets. “What am I to do with it?”

“See what potential it has for education!”

And so I did.

In the photo above, taken today with my iPhone 4S (FaceTime camera isn’t as jazzy as the one on the back), I am holding the original iPod I received 10 years ago. It later got given back to the school division, and our media specialists used it as a backup drive.

One in particular told me it didn’t work anymore. “Should I throw it away?”

I took it from her.

It turns out her cable was bad. The iPod was fine.

I’ll have to find a 400->800 Firewire adapter to charge and sync it. 10 years. Wow. Time has flown. And so many things that fit in your hand just as easily have been developed.

If anything, being given this iPod was inspirational for me. I cared enough to keep it, ten years later. Sometimes objets d’technologie can be good investments if they inspire the end users. Building and designing things we want to touch, use, and own is a powerful enterprise. We shouldn’t ignore the affective nature of the tools we use. It can affect the work we do, for sure.