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.

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.

As humans we have a knack sometimes for holding back what’s important.

Tonight, I showed up for class early. I have class on Wednesday evenings. I checked my work e-mail, and I had a message from a colleague. Finding out I have been ill, she wrote me to tell me she had found out. I wasn’t prepared for a note like that. It’s then I realized I probably don’t think too much of myself. I was overwhelmed when she told me she thought I was an amazing person.

I shut my laptop. I took a deep breath.

I’m going to be fine. But that note was profound to me. So are the actions of real friends.

Before class ended, I received two texts on my phone. One broke the news slowly. The other—just came out and said it. “Sad news – Uncle Steve is dead.”

No, he’s not my uncle. It’s a nickname we use. I put my phone back in my pocket. As I went outside to my car, the phone rang. It was my friend whom I’ve known since high school.

We talked about it.

And when I got home, all I could do was read the comments on blogs, and especially on the NY Times article. 528 comments. And I just kept thinking: “What a shame. It’s too bad he couldn’t read these… such an admired man.”

We shouldn’t wait to share how we feel about people. Of course the boyfriends, girlfriends, and spouses. Also your extended family. But also your friends and colleagues too.

Mr. Jobs may have lived a very full, yet short life. I know he wasn’t perfect. None of us are.

I hope he knew the reasons why folks admired him.

I feel fortunate today — to know in a small way that someone thinks I make a difference.

It’s worth it to share. Even when it may be uncomfortable.

I’ve been reflecting a lot lately.

With 9/11 at ten years this weekend, I’ve not only re-thought about that unfortunate event, but the last ten years of my life. I was working at Goochland High School – the new one opened just weeks prior – and was in a new position. Having the freedom to not have a class – we were struggling to get Internet, news, and our TV hadn’t yet been hooked up properly. Phone calls came in, and news reports weren’t terribly satisfying about what was going on. I had a friend living in New York City who lived among the chaos.

I realize that I’ve put a lot into my professional life over these ten years. While I’d be lying to state that I never took time to rest, have fun, or follow non-professional passion, my immersion in technology has taken a huge chunk of my energy. My own health of late is the root cause for my reflective process; chemical changes bring back previous memories and experiences, and this reflection has been interesting and hopefully educational (for me).

I’ve learned so much about teaching and learning over these ten years, too. Which isn’t something I ever aspired to be an expert at… I entered college focused on just a few things. Using tools to help improve the educational process wasn’t’ one of the things on my radar. Yet, the technology piece has always been in my life.

From Odyssey 2 by Magnavox, to TI-99 4/A home computer by Texas Instruments, to the Apple //e, the Apple Macintosh Plus, the Macintosh IIsi, the Power Macintosh 7500, and around 2001, the PowerMac G4 tower… I’ve been “computing” for a long time.

One of the things I’ve taken deep interest in since the early Mac days is typography and publishing. I remember with relish the time I visited my friend Lucas’ two uncles in California. One had a copy of Adobe Illustrator 88 that he let us copy (via floppy disk). That box was so damn gorgeous, Botticelli’s Venus wrapped around it, the numbers “88″ on one face to another, the box itself oozed design. I am not sure it was the actual latest version (this was 1992, I believe), and I think the one we began getting into at home was Illustrator 3. We’d seen Display PostScript attending the NeXT World conference in San Francisco the same trip. It was an influential time for me (likely for him too). And yes, Adobe was known too for their creation of fonts.

Among their most successful designers is Robert Slimbach, a name I’ve known for years. I just recently re-discovered his Brioso font, a most delicious Italian Renaissance style script. It was far more ambitious than Poetica, which is “too perfect” in some regards as a typeface. There’s enough variation built-into Brioso to, when used sparingly, fool someone into believing it may not be digital. Either way, I had a great 30 minutes examining Adobe’s 2003 specimen PDF (linked above).

It caused a flashback for me to college. My roommate my first two years of college was a computer geek too. He too took an interest in my fascination with fonts. One day he came in with some discs. “Some kid upstairs has some good fonts… check these out…”

Evidently, they were copies made from the infamous Adobe Font Folio. The mega-CD-ROM that had every Adobe Typeface on it. It was the holy grail, before independent boundaries began selling their own fonts. Back in 92-94, you only had some big names making fonts available in PostScript format, then of course, as TrueType came on the scene with Windows95, the Internet helped create a new venue for all types of font vendors to emerge profitable.

Yet, today even, the admiration and collection of fonts tends to be centered around folks who do type/design for a living. I still get great pleasure from using fonts that people who notice, say, “Hey, what font is that? Do I have that on my computer?”

“No, it’s not a default font…”

“Oh… it’s really nice.”

“Isn’t it?”

Can you imagine? All types of people you have nothing in common with, starting up intelligent, intellectual conversations about the art of letterforms. Okay, not all types of people. They were few and far between “common.” But after the secret pleasure of knowing I own a font someone else does not, the feeling suddenly fleets as I re-consider the competitive stance I first have taken. “Maybe I ought to develop this conversation, this is someone who has an eye for detail!”

I hardly have time today to get lost in the world of new and curious fonts like I used to. That’s why I actually treasure getting e-mails from the font vendors now — introducing new specimens and designers. There is life after Slimbach. But nothing was as sweet as discovering this digital art on my own, with special friends, in my youth.

Nothing quite beats sharing your passion for something with peers that share your fascination.

At the end of this past school year I migrated to a new laptop, and chose a MacBook Air over the heavier, more capable MacBook Pro. The two things I would give up were an optical drive and a physical hard drive. I’d have to be lean about what I kept on the laptop.

The optical drive didn’t really concern me. I rarely burned discs, and far less, did I find myself reading CD-ROMs.

But this article recently pointed out that Apple’s war against the physical disc is continuing now with their Mac mini.

Some criticism stems from the fact that they excluded the drive, but the space for it is still present in the case design. (A souped-up model can be ordered that places an SSD in the vacant chasm.) I really didn’t think it was a big deal; after all, the iMac still has a drive and so does their Mac Pro (the model I use at home). But as I pulled a CD from the shelf today, as I considered we need to upgrade soon another MacBook Pro here at home, the thought hit.

“How will we listen or rip CDs once all the drives are gone?”

Of course, Apple sells a stand-alone drive for folks who need it, but that’s extra money, and it’s extra space with a cord.

I agreed 100% with Apple on their decision in 2000 to ditch the floppy disc with the iMac line. Today, of course, flash drives have replaced floppies and even the larger copy-cats, the ZIP and Jaz drives. And with 4 GB flash drives becoming the norm, they’re replacing the tedium of burning data onto a double-sided DVD-ROM. But I am nostalgic for the CD jewel case, the booklet inside (most today are made of cardboard as opposed to plastic), and even though you can buy digital music with PDF-booklets, the booklet too many times is an afterthought. And the quality of an iTunes album isn’t the same as the 16-bit version on CD that’s endured as the standard for over 30 years.

The good news is that higher-resolution albums are now for sale. But before Apple ditches the optical drives forever, they ought to pave the way by innovating further in providing a superior experience with booklets, higher-resolution digital files (uncompressed, 24-bit would be ideal), and a backup solution that doesn’t require Joe Music to go out and buy a NAS device.