Apple updates vintage and obsolete products list ⇢

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Earlier today, Apple updated its “vintage and obsolete products” article:

Owners of iPad, iPhone, iPod or Mac products may obtain service and parts from Apple or Apple service providers for 5 years after the product is no longer manufactured (or longer where required by law). Apple has discontinued support for certain technologically obsolete and vintage products.

The company does this from time to time, but today’s update caught my idea because of the inclusion of several Early 2009 and Mid 2009 models.

What’s interesting is that OS X supports machines of this vintage, including Mid 2007 iMac.

I haven’t run OS X Yosemite on an iMac that old, but my guess is that while the experience isn’t great, it’s passable. Generally, OS X gets faster and lighter with each revision, giving Apple the ability to support hardware longer and longer.

This can put some customers in a weird position if something goes wrong, however. Genius Bars will support vintage products, but if there’s a hardware issue, are usually unable to do much besides send the customer to a third-party Authorized Apple Service Provider.

Kbase Article of the Week: iMac (Slot Loading): Install iMac Firmware 4.1.9 Before Mac OS X 10.2 or later ⇢

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Apple:

If you own an iMac (Slot Loading) computer, you must install the iMac Firmware Update 4.1.9 before installing Mac OS X 10.2 or later.

The iMac Firmware Update 4.1.9 is available on the Mac OS X Install CD Disc 1. It also available online and can be downloaded if needed.

To install the iMac Firmware Update 4.1.9, your iMac (Slot Loading) computer must be started up from Mac OS 9.1, or 9.2, which must be installed on the hard disk. You cannot install the firmware update if the computer is started up from a CD-ROM, or a network disk. If you normally start up the computer with Mac OS X, you must start up from Mac OS 9.1 or 9.2.

I remember clearly walking through these steps with the handful of slot-loading iMac G3s we had at the high school newspaper.

The Apollo Edition Mustang ⇢

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For nearly a decade, Ford has auctioned off custom cars in support of the Experimental Aircraft Association youth educational program. This year’s caught my eye:

“The Ford Apollo Edition Mustang salutes man’s greatest technological achievement, with the ingenuity, precision, and power that defined the spirit of American innovation,” said Edsel B. Ford II, a member of the Ford Board of Directors. “Inspired by the Apollo program, Ford Motor Company committed itself to including exhilarating power, cutting-edge technology, and extraordinary craftsmanship in this automobile, which will support the next generation of pilots in EAA’s aviation education programs for young people.”

The colors used on this car echo those used to paint the Saturn V rocket that carried men to the moon. I love it.

My backup strategy

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I last wrote about my backup strategy almost 5 years ago, and a lot has changed in my setup since then, so I though it’d be good to revisit the subject.

I shouldn’t have to preach the importance of a good backup system, but there are some key tenants that should be part of any approach:

  1. Be redundant. Having a single backup is good, but what happens if it gets killed by the same power outage that cooks your computer?
  2. Be easy to manage. Time Machine is popular because it’s easy to setup and doesn’t need on-going care. Anything past the built-in backup will take more work, but it’s good to minimize it.
  3. Be testable. Every once in a while, restore data from a backup to make sure everything’s going well. This doesn’t have to be some big, drawn out thing. For me, a small recovery can put my mind at ease every quarter or so.

My current hardware setup is pretty simple. I have a 15-inch MacBook Pro as my main machine, and a Mac mini hooked up to the television and a Synology DS415+ with 6.3 TB of disk space sitting in the closet.

Data-wise, things aren’t that complicated either. Everything on my MacBook Pro except my iTunes library is stored on my Dropbox Pro account.

(As an aside, I don’t consider syncing solutions like Dropbox or Evernote to be backups. Yes, they can act like backups, but multi-directional sync can be problematic. Backups should be — in my mind — a one-way trip for your data unless it’s time to recover.)

The Synology houses a lot of stuff. In addition to data I’ve accumulated over the years that I don’t need on the MacBook Pro, it houses the family’s iTunes library and acts as a Time Machine server for my laptop, the Mac mini and my wife’s MacBook Air.

Here’s how I keep it all safe:

Let’s talk about the NAS first.

Synology’s software has some great built-in backup tools. I use them to back up my two major shares (Data and iTunes) to a set of external USB 3 hard drives that I keep elsewhere and bring home just to update. So far, my data set hasn’t grown to where I’m hitting the size limit of the external drives I can buy, so this works, albeit, it may be limited longterm.

Additionally, I’m backing up both major shares to Amazon Cloud Drive. The Synology’s built-in tools can talk directly to Amazon, so I don’t have to run anything on a Mac elsewhere on the network to make it work. For me, that’s the biggest selling point after trying to trick other backup services into taking data from my NAS.

Amazon Cloud Drive is interesting. At $60/year, you get unlimited storage and bandwidth, which is a pretty good deal if you’re dealing with multiple terabytes of data. The UI isn’t great, but it gets the job done, and so far, I’m pretty happy with.

The MacBook Pro’s backups are a little more complex, but as I’m on it all day every day, I need another layer of security. I’ve got two Time Machine volumes set up: a local USB drive on my desk at the office and the other a volume on the Synology for when I’m at home. This just about guarantees any active work is being backed up as I go, complete with the revisions Time Machine is so good at providing.

In addition to this, I keep a bootable copy of my system on a USB drive at the office. I update it every two weeks with the excellent SuperDuper! application. If the SSD in my MacBook Pro were to go belly up, I could run from this external disk if needed without any fuss.

Lastly — and this is a new development — I’m backing up my home folder on the MacBook Pro to Amazon Cloud Drive using Arq.

Arq is an interesting and nicely-made app that allows you to encrypt data and back it up to a number of cloud services, including Dropbox, Google Drive, S3 and more. Just this week, it added support for Amazon Cloud Drive, so I’m using it as a target for this data as well.

While it’s taken me 725 words to get up to this point, having a redundant, multi-pronged approach to backup means my data is safe regardless of hardware failure or loss. My photos, documents and media exists in multiple locations, on multiple disks, prepared for the worst because — one day — the worst will come.

The best read-it-later service ⇢

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Robery McGinley Myers for The Sweet Setup:

In the read-it-later space, the two dominant players have long been Instapaper and Pocket. Each app has its own strengths and weaknesses, and Pocket has some features that could make it the ideal app for some use cases, but Instapaper is our favorite app for actually reading the best writing on the web … later.

I’m Going Independent

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I’m leaving my 9-5 job to work on Relay FM, 512 Pixels and my freelance business full time.

“If not now, when?”

About 6 weeks ago, I was driving to a client meeting. It was on the other side of town, and I decided to take a route that I normally wouldn’t, forgoing the highway to cut through the city. I got stopped by a light on my way, looked across the intersection and noticed this church sign, of all things:

As soon as I saw the sign, I sighed out loud, knowing it was my version of Myke’s shoelace story.

(If you never listened to Analog(ue) episode 9, you really should.)

That evening, my wife and I started figuring what it would take for me to quit my job and become a professional writer and podcaster. We had been talking about this for several months; that sign was the final straw.

The reality is, of course, that we’ve been working toward this for some time. Our vision was that Myke would go full-time into Relay FM first, but that I would follow. While I won’t be working on Relay 40 hours a week, I can tell you that this a welcome change for the both of us as we continue to grow our business together.

So, now what?

Starting at the end of this month, I’ll be working from home, recording and editing podcasts, writing here and elsewhere, including The Sweet Setup and monthly at iMore. 512 Pixels took the back burner when we founded Relay last year, and I’m looking forward to giving it some much-needed attention.

Thank you for the support, and as always, for reading and listening to what I have to say.

Let’s do this thing.

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Lifeline ⇢

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This little iOS game is a real gem. It’s a real-time, text-based game in which you are remote support for a stranded astronaut. While it just takes a few moments to interact with the game, I’m ready for my lost little buddy to wake up from his first night asleep so we can tackle whatever is next.

Images of updated iPods found in iTunes 12.2 ⇢

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Juli Clover at MacRumors:

A bit more digging around in iTunes 12.2 has unearthed additional iPod images, giving us a look at each of the new color options we might see should Apple be planning to release new models.

The images depict six different color options for the iPod nano, shuffle, and touch, showing each model in silver, space gray, red, bright pink, deep blue, and light gold. The latter three colors, pink, blue, and gold, are new shades that are not currently available. The space gray model may be slightly darker than the existing color, but it’s difficult to determine from images alone.

It’s been a long time since we’ve seen substantial iPod rumors. The iPod nano was last updated in September 2012, while the iPod shuffle was last updated in September 2010. The iPod touch was slightly refreshed in May of 2013, but it’s really the same device Apple launched in September 2012 with an A5 processor.

While this rumor seems solid, I’m a little surprised to see all three remaining iPod models being prepared for refresh. I can see a world where the iPod nano goes away without much fuss.

We

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While my week at NASA didn’t end as the agency may have planned, there’s no way around it: it was an incredible week.

Bonus: Check out my collection of photos from the trip over on Flickr.

If the first day was about why we do things in space, then the rest of the week was all about the how.

For example, we saw how thermal protection tiles — the tiles that allow vehicles to reenter the atmosphere without burning up — are made:

We also toured the Vehicle Assembly Building, where NASA assembles rockets. This image is from the center of the building, looking up almost 500 feet:

What impressed me more than the facilities, however, were the people getting things done: engineers, designers, project managers, bus drivers, press people and more, all pointed in the same direction.

Very quickly, I noticed something about these people, regardless of if they worked for NASA or a third-party company. They all use the word we when it comes to the work of space.

“Up on ISS, we have about 40 hours worth of experiments to run.”

“This is the pad we went to the moon on.”

“The SLS is what we will use to go to Mars.”

This sense of community and working toward a common goal was noticeable, no matter where I went last week. It’s something that I believe sets NASA apart in its work, and one of the factors in its on-going success.

Back to the Future is the most perfect blockbuster ever made ⇢

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My all-time favorite movie turns 30 years old this weekend, and Vox’s Todd VanDerWerff’s takes a look at what makes it so special:

Back to the Future works because, in the end, its stakes are so very small. Beneath all the jokes and the moments where a mother unknowingly flirts with her son and the time travel and the action-packed countdown sequences, all that remains is a theme so universal that we keep returning to it in story after story after story: can you ever understand your parents? And perhaps even harder: can they ever understand you?