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Weekend thus far

This is the end of a three day weekend. I took Friday, my birthday off, to try to have a reflective day, a day of reconciliation, to recenter myself. Essentially, I wanted to sit on a mountaintop and think. I also wanted to use the day to close out some projects (mostly home projects including major cleaning and decluttering). Instead, I slept in, ate lunch (which was great), and shopped. Saturday was giving our old futon back to World Futon so they could refurbish it and pass it onto a needy family or sell it for profit; regardless, it did not end up in a landfill. Then I went to the Apple store in search of a miniTOSlink to TOSlink cable with much failure. After I get the cable, I’ll connect the Airport Express to our soundbar for AirPlaying our iTunes libraries. The rest of Saturday was devoted to Halloween costume shopping then relaxation. Sunday morning, I wanted to arise early and plan tomorrow’s scout meeting (which really should be planned a month or two in advance..yes I create unnecessary stress upon myself). Instead, I slept in a little bit but rose early enough to get caught up on The Walking Dead without exposing Cathy to it. Afterwards, I started planning the scout meeting but digressed into playing with my new Macbook Pro. I really haven’t explored it much. I have such great plans! Xcode is now installed. The children came home earlier than expected so we turned our attention to costume making. Now you are caught up.

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Reflector vs AirServer vs ??

So many different ways to share screens on the Mac. I was using Reflector on my PC. Now I need something for the Macbook. I like Reflector because I can record demos of my iPhone apps. Apparently you can do the same with AirServer but I would need QuickTime Pro (which I probably need anyway). I also think that Yosemite has similar functionality built-in. What do you use to share an iPhone or iPad to your laptop screen?

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My foray into the Cult of Jobs

When I moved daughter to New York City for college, a client needed something and I had not brought my wife’s netbook with us. At the time, I still worked on a desktop. I walked into Staples, and they had a 17″ full-sized keyboard with number pad Windows HP laptop on sale for $450. It was an i5 processor (maybe i7) with 4 gb of ram that I later updated to 8gb. Had HDMI out and so more ports than I ever used. It was a remarkable laptop. Over time, it slowed. It became problematic. A 5 minute task could turn into 30 minutes or an hour after troubleshooting. I’d get to bill my clients 5 minutes while losing an hour of my life. Eventually I opened it and replaced the CPU fan which was filled with animal dander and dust. The machine ran a little better but not enough. The time had come for a new machine. Laptops in the personal world probably have a 5 year livespan. In the business world, 2-3 years is typical.

I purchase a 15″ Macbook Pro Retina with 16gb ram and a 500gb ssd hard drive. My only regret may be that I did not shell out the extra money for a terabyte hard drive. This machine is remarkable. None-the-less, issues arise. Like when I attempted my first Garage Band project:

Could not find layout General Audio 10

A quick Google search found the solution. Simply look under the Garage Band menu, select "Restore Sound Library" then "Update Sound Library" and about 15gb laters, you’ll be functioning.