Aug
29
2020
After trying out various new MacBooks I came to the conclusion that although I really like having a new MacBook, I really don’t like the prices of new MacBooks. I don’t travel with a computer nearly as much as I had in the past so it’s hard to justify spending the kind of money that new MacBooks cost. I decided that I wanted to get a new Mac but at a lower cost. I ended up deciding to try a Mac Mini. I used a tool called refurb tracker to watch for refurbished Mac Minis with the specs I was looking for. The refurbished models were few and far between for a while but I finally saw one that I could live with. It is a 3.2 Ghz I7 model. It only has a 512Gb SSD drive but that should be plenty for my Boot drive. I can keep things like photos and music on an external drive. I got the model with only 8Gb of RAM since Apple is ridiculous with their RAM prices. To upgrade to 32GB they wanted $600. I was able to get 32Gb of Crucial RAM on Amazon for $140 and I installed it myself. The install process is not as simple as it used to be but using a tool kind that I bought last year and the iFixit video/guide I was able to upgrade the RAM myself in about half an hour. Now I have the Mac Mini driving all three of my older Dell monitors and have not had any performance issues so far. I am pretty happy with the performance and price since I paid less than have of the cost of the 6 Core MacBook that I had tried recently.
By gwheatley •
apple, Mac Mini, Technology
Aug 10 2021
Calibrating Weather Station
This Spring I received a Weather Station for my Birthday. It was something that I had wanted to do for some time and so far I am happy I did it. The Tempest Weather Station is a newer technology for Weather Stations as it has no moving parts. For the most part I have been very please with the Tempest and it has been fairly accurate with one exception. That exception is rainfall. The haptic rain sensor has been off by quite a bit according to the rain gauge that I have about 10 feet away. I am currently going through the process to have the station calibrated by the vendor to see if we can increase the accuracy. I hope so but even if the rain is not the most accurate, I have found the rest of the station to provide good data and I enjoy having it.
By gwheatley • Technology, Weather 0