MacBook SSD replacement, part three

The MacBook is up and running, with (pretty much) all my software installed and (probably) all the files I need copied over to the new drive. It’s definitely much faster than before. And it’s a much cleaner install, with a lot less crap in my ~/Library folder and elsewhere.

I left behind a few fairly big items, like VMWare Fusion, and my Windows XP VM, since I wasn’t really using it for anything, and I hadn’t paid to upgrade Fusion to a version that works on Yosemite. I don’t think I’ll bother buying the upgrade, since I really don’t have any need for Windows on the MacBook anymore.

And my MAMP stack is gone. I’ll probably want to get that set up again, but I don’t mind starting from scratch, since parts of my old MAMP stack were fairly out of date. I’ll need to do some research on the easiest way to set that up nowadays. I can probably use a guide like this one to get things going again.

As for the old drive, I just bought a $20 enclosure for it from Newegg. None of the enclosures I have now is USB 3.0, so I figured I should get a new one. I’ll hold on to the drive, as-is, for a while, then, after I’m sure I don’t need anything else off it, I’ll wipe it and start using it as a backup drive. Oh, and if the enclosure I just bought from Newegg is any good, I should probably buy a second one for the old drive from the ThinkPad.

I’m getting to the point now where I should really think about retiring some of the old drives that I have lying around the apartment. I’ve got maybe a half-dozen old drives, all under 200 GB, gathering dust. I guess they’re not doing any harm, but I should really get them together, wipe the oldest/smallest ones, and send them off to a recycler. Well, that’s a project for another day.

MacBook SSD replacement, part two

Yosemite is now installed, and I’m in the process of copying over data from the old drive to the new. That’s going to take some time, probably another couple of hours. Meanwhile, I went out to Home Depot and bought a precision screwdriver set that has the Torx bit that I need.

So now it’s back to the waiting game. Once the copying is done, I have a whole list of applications to install and configure. Then, I also need to decide if I want to use Trim Enabler. I’m pretty sure I do, even with the necessity of jumping through some hoops to use it on Yosemite. I also want to see if there’s an easy way to see if I need to run the performance restoration fix on my SSD. Since I’m pretty sure I have the most recent firmware, I don’t think I need it.

 

MacBook SSD replacement, part one

I decided to take the plunge today and replace my MacBook hard drive with one of the SSDs I bought last week. I had been going back and forth on whether to just copy the old drive to the new one and swap them, or to do a fresh install on the new drive, and then copy data and reinstall apps. After a lot of deliberation, I decided to do the fresh install. I’m not sure if I’ve ever even done a fresh install of OS X. I got my first OS X iBook in 2002, and I may actually still be using the same install from that, just upgraded and/or migrated over and over. So it’s time.

But so far it’s been a comedy of errors. First, I wanted to hook up the SSD to my ThinkPad so I could run the Samsung utility program on it, and make sure the firmware was up to date. I went ahead and hooked it up, using my BlacX dock, but the Samsung utility didn’t see it. I guess it only works on drives that are mounted internally. So I decided to just trust that it was in good shape and running the current firmware. (The other one was, and it’s reasonable to assume they came from the same batch.)

Next, I needed to make a bootable USB key with the OS X Yosemite installer. I didn’t save the installer after my upgrade, so I had to download it again. Then, I used DiskMaker X to create the USB installer. I got an error on that the first time I tried it, but I tried a second time, and it worked fine.

Once that was done, and I’d cleaned things up on the old drive and shut it down, I went through the work of unscrewing everything and replacing the drive. That was easy enough to do, with a little help from iFixit.

Then, I screwed everything together, booted from the USB key, and started the install. That went great, no issues. Until it was all done, and I saw that it was a 10.9 Mavericks install instead of a 10.10 Yosemite install. D’oh. Apparently, I spaced out and downloaded the Mavericks installer from the app store instead of the Yosemite installer, and didn’t notice it until after the install was done. So now I need to upgrade the Mavericks install to Yosemite. So I’m doing that now. It’s going to take a while to download, so this is really going to slow down the process. But it’s not the end of the world.

One other issue I’m having is that I don’t have the right kind of Torx screwdriver to remove the retaining posts from the old hard drive. That’s not a big deal, since the Samsung SSD seems to fit in there snugly without them. But I can’t fit the old drive in my BlacX dock with the screws still in it. So I’m putting it in a different enclosure instead, with the cover off, since I can’t slide it in with those screws sticking out. So that should be good enough to get the data over from the old drive to the new one, but I’m going to want to get those Torx screws out at some point, so I can fit the drive into an enclosure and use it as a backup drive.

Oh, and I guess the other error I made is that I’m not sure I got the right screws in the right holes when screwing the case back together, as apparently there are two slightly different kinds of 3.5mm screws, and I didn’t notice that, so not all the screws are quite flush, the way they should be. So I think I need to unscrew them, look at them more closely, then screw them back in correctly, so everything is nice and neat again.

Meanwhile, I’ve got some time to kill while Yosemite downloads. Sigh. Well, it’s time for lunch anyway.

SSD #1 installed

My two new Samsung SSDs arrived in the mail yesterday, and I set up the first one today. I used it to replace the drive in my old ThinkPad. It was pretty easy to clone the old drive to the new one, using Samsung’s software, and a BlacX dock that I had sitting around gathering dust. It took about 20 minutes to copy everything over. Replacing the drive itself wasn’t too hard; the ThinkPad is pretty easy to open up. (I expect a little more trouble with the Mac.)

The machine is definitely faster and quieter with the SSD than it was before. But it’s not an amazing difference, really. At least not that I’ve noticed so far. I’ll need to mess around with it some more and see how much snappier it feels with normal use.

I’m not sure if I’ll get around to replacing the MacBook drive before the weekend. I really want to, but I know it’s going to take some time to get it done. Definitely looking forward to it though, as I think the SSD will make a big difference with the MacBook.

Inbox (almost) zero, x4

I always like to post something when I get my inbox to zero. (It only happens once every couple of years.) Right now, I’ve got my work inbox down to almost zero, and my three personal accounts also down to almost zero. So this may be the first time that *all* my accounts have been completely processed.

I’ve been doing fairly well at keeping my work email inbox down to a manageable size. We have a pretty typical Exchange/Outlook setup, and most of my work falls neatly into project folders, so I just file stuff away in those, and use Outlook follow-up flags to keep track of next actions. And I keep project notes in OneNote, with next actions generally marked in there if they’re not already marked in Outlook. (I use OneNote rather than Evernote at work, since our setup is fairly Microsoft-centric.)

On the personal side, I’m trying to use GMail for all my important mail now. I have a couple of other accounts that were still getting a fair bit of important mail, but I finally cleared that up so that nearly everything is coming into GMail now. Also, I was being fairly inconsistent on the ways in which I was flagging stuff in GMail, sometimes “starring” stuff that I needed to follow-up on, and sometimes applying “Action” and “Waiting For” labels. And then, I wasn’t really following up on either the stars or the labels consistently. Well, I’ve now un-starred everything, and either assigned an appropriate label or processed the starred message. And I’ve gone through the labeled messages and cleaned up all the old ones, so there are now only a few tagged messages, and they’re all recent.

Now, I’m trying to think of ways to *keep* my GMail account clean. First, I’m going to avoid using the “star” feature. It’s easy to fall into the habit of using the “flag” button in the iOS mail app, which translates to a star in GMail. But I’ve been flagging too much stuff that way, and never really going back and reviewing it, to figure out if it’s actionable or not. So I’m going to try to consistently use my “Action” label for stuff that requires an action on my part, and “Waiting For” for stuff that I need to wait on someone else for. And I really need to start reviewing those labels on a weekly basis and clearing them out.

I think it’s actually going to be much easier to keep my GMail inbox clean, given some of the changes I’ve made, and some of the stuff I’ve cleared up. I’ve unsubscribed from several mailing lists, so there will be less cruft to sort through initially. And I’ve set up a few new filters to sort out some stuff into a “Read/Review” label. (I’ve had that label in place for years, but hadn’t been keeping up with my filters, so a bunch of stuff wasn’t getting tagged automatically.)

My big challenge, which I’m still thinking about, is how to manage the various notices I get relating to statements that I need to download. I still get my important bills on paper (credit cards, bank statements, cable & utility bills). But I get only email notification on several other accounts (401(k), EZPass, etc.), which I then need to download, in PDF form usually, from a web site. This has proved to be a challenge for me; I tend to put it off for months. It’s not really a big deal, since there’s rarely anything earth-shattering on my 401(k) statement, or my EZPass statement. But I’d really like to get in the habit of downloading and reviewing these more often. And I’d like to switch some other statements over from paper to PDF, if I can get things to where I can trust myself to download them on a timely basis.

FileThis is an interesting service that will download statements for you, and deposit them into your Dropbox account (or Evernote, or several other places). But, it does this by using your web credentials to log into your accounts, so you have to hand over your user names and passwords to them, and that’s pretty scary. And they don’t say much about this on their site, but I’d guess that I’d have to turn off two-factor authentication on any accounts I use them for, since I don’t see how they could possibly deal with that on their end.

I haven’t found any other good ways to automate this stuff. So, sadly, I think I need to continue to download statements manually. I just need to figure out how to do it more frequently and more consistently. My plan, for now, is to consistently mark the emails relating to this stuff with an “Action” label, and follow up on those emails at least once a month. I’m going to reinforce that with a recurring reminder in either Evernote or the iPhone Reminders app. If I can get in the habit of doing that, maybe I can switch some more stuff over from paper to PDF.

wrapping up the weekend

Well, I got a lot done this weekend, Friday and Saturday. But I’ve spent most of the day today moping around the apartment and napping, since I now have a cold. Darn. I was really on a roll for a while there.

I have, though, finally gotten all of my old notes out of Backpack and into Evernote, and closed down the Backpack account. I’m still ruminating on whether or not I want to try managing all my tasks in Evernote, or if I want to try using a second app to help with that. I downloaded a trial version of Things, and messed around with it a bit, but I don’t think it’s what I need. For now, I’m just going to keep using the Reminders app on my iPhone for simple reminders, and I’ll keep project lists in Evernote.

ScanCafe and Flickr – Mom’s photos

With all the work I’ve been doing this weekend to consolidate notes into Evernote and clean up my GTD lists, a few neglected projects have jumped out at me. A big one was my project to scan in all my Dad’s slides and negatives and get them up on Flickr. I started this back in 2010. I got everything scanned in by ScanCafe by mid-2011, in six batches. By mid-2012, I’d gotten five out of those six batches uploaded to Flickr, but I never quite got around to uploading that last batch. Well, I sat down and took care of it today. It’s all in a collection named “Mom’s Negatives Apr 2011“. The first five batches were all basically Dad’s photos. This one was Mom’s. Mom never really took that many photos, and most of these are pretty old. I know who some of the people in these photos are, but some of them are a complete mystery to me. Either way, there are a handful of interesting photos in the batch.

The next part of the project is going to be gathering up all the actual negatives and slides and consolidating those into a plastic bin and moving it into my storage unit. Or maybe just throwing them all out. I don’t know. But, right now, they’re all still in the boxes I got back from ScanCafe, piled up in a closet, which isn’t really a useful way to store them.

And the other part of this project, which I’ve done absolutely nothing on, is to take my Mom’s old home movies and get those scanned in and converted to digital files. Or just toss them out. Either way, I really need to do something about them, since they’re currently piled up under my kitchen table, with a bunch of other stuff that really doesn’t belong under the kitchen table.

Thanksgiving weekend

I spent Thanksgiving day with a friend’s family. It was a good day, but pretty loud and chaotic, which is to be expected when you put sixteen people (including three small children) together in a house on Thanksgiving.

I spent Black Friday home alone, working on some personal organization. I almost managed to update the map on my TomTom GPS, but hit a snag when the new map was too large to copy to the device. That led me on a wild goose chase that ended when I found a notice on the TomTom site that said they were aware of the problem and working on a solution. But it was a fair amount of wasted time. (I’d thought, at one point, that maybe they’d purposely made the new map file just a little too large, to force people with older devices to upgrade to newer ones, but apparently it was an honest mistake.)

I also continued my work on getting stuff out of Backpack and into Evernote. I’m almost done there, and I should be able to close down the Backpack account soon. I’m getting enough stuff into Evernote now that I’m starting to think about how I’m organizing things, and what kind of adjustments I should make. I read the book Evernote Essentials yesterday, and also listened to a podcast with a lot of Evernote tips, so I could hopefully stimulate my brain a bit and come up with some good ideas on how to best use Evernote. I found both the book and the podcast helpful, though there weren’t any earth-shattering revelations in either of them.

I had a page in Backpack titled “GTD”, and I was using it to keep, basically, GTD-related lists, like a “someday/maybe” list, a “waiting for” list, project lists, and stuff like that. But I stopped doing anything resembling a weekly review quite some time ago, and I haven’t really been keeping up the lists. So, for instance, one list item was to use a $10 Best Buy Reward Zone certificate before it expired… in 2011. So I’m not entirely sure how best to clean up and re-structure those lists in such a way that I’ll be more likely to use them.

I really like the general idea of consolidating as much stuff as I can in Evernote, and cutting down on complexity a lot, eliminating OneNote, Backpack,  DevonThink, and whatever else I can. But I also noticed that Things for iPhone and iPad is free this weekend, and the Mac version is 30% off. So maybe keeping my GTD stuff in Things would be a good idea, while using Evernote for reference material and archives. But Things doesn’t have a PC version, or a web version, so I’d only be able to access it on the Mac and iOS. Which probably isn’t really a problem, given the way I’m using my computers these days. (Also, “Things” is a horrible product name, and tends to produce a lot of irrelevant (but amusing) results when Googled.) I’ve already downloaded the iPhone and iPad versions, and have played around a bit, and like what I see. I’m planning on downloading the trial version of the Mac software today, so I can see if it’s going to work for me or not.

Meanwhile, I just ordered two 500GB Samsung SSDs, for $189 each, with the general idea of replacing the old-fashioned drives in my MacBook and ThinkPad. I’ve been meaning to do this for some time now, and I kept putting it off. But I keep hearing, over and over, from friends and random internet sources, about how much difference an SSD will make, so I finally had to go ahead and do it. So next weekend’s project will likely be replacing either the MacBook or ThinkPad drive. Or possibly both, if I have enough time.

I’m also thinking about going to NYC to see The Imitation Game, the new movie about Alan Turing. I don’t think I’ll talk myself into doing that today, given how cold it is outside right now. But maybe tomorrow, if it’s a little warmer.

Dynamics AX documentation annoyances

So there’s an event I can override, with the following signature:

public void cursorNotify(int _event)

So if I look that up in the documentation, I should be able to see what values I might get for the _event parameter, right? Nope.

It says there’s going to be a table of event IDs, but there is no table.
Go back to the AX 2009 documentation, though, and you can see the table.

And hey, it even has some example code. A lot of the AX 2012 documentation leaves me with the impression that it was automatically generated, and then never reviewed by an actual human. And that they don’t really want to bother updating it or improving it And, sometimes, I feel like I need to vent about that…

a bit more on Evernote

I’m making good progress with my efforts to consolidate all my notes into Evernote. All of the notes from OneNote on my desktop PC have been copied over or deleted. And I’m working through my Backpack notes.

I’m still thinking about whether or not Evernote is a good choice for the long term. There’s some interesting stuff in this recent article from The Guardian.

Stuff I like:

  • “We don’t data-mine your information, we’re not selling you to anyone. Our fundamental belief is that we make money when our users say ‘we love this product and we want to pay for it’.”
  • “It takes longer to get started, but ultimately it gives us a shot at building a 100-year startup.”
  • “If a third-party developer makes something great that gives people a great experience, we make more money. Other companies have this love-hate relationship with developers. For us it’s just easy: it’s love.”

Stuff that I’m maybe a little worried about:

  • “We’re about work. Last year we made the decision to really focus on work. We don’t really talk about Evernote [as something] for your hobbies any more.”
  • “We’ve never changed our price: we launched seven years ago at $5 a month, but we realised a couple of years ago that it was the wrong price.”

So, basically, I’m glad to see that they’re thinking long-term, and trying to monetize via paid subscriptions rather than selling info to advertisers, and I’m glad to see that they’re still supportive of third-party developers. But I’m a little concerned that they’re focusing on business rather than personal use, and that they may be mucking with the subscription price next year.