A Geek Goes Flying

coconutBattery report Early 2020 MacBook Air , I think the max spec vis-a-vis RAM ¹  (16GB) and CPU ²  , and a 512GB SSD ³  (it could have been upgraded to 2TB at the time of purchase). Apple claimed up to 11 hours of web browsing, but Google’s AI reports “many users find that active, mixed-use workloads (especially video calls) drain the battery within 4–6 hours.” I’m not getting 6 hours. With 81% battery health (after 280 cycles, but also 72 months), I should be getting about 3:14 from 100% to dead battery. I think I’m actually seeing ~2 hours, but I’ll measure eventually. Anyway. The question I’m pondering: Do I swap the battery ( $110 for the kit from iFixIt ), and it’s described as a “moderately difficult” replacement . Could probably also have Asurion do it; they did a good job with the MacBook Pro . I know Intel is a dead end, but this is probably the most capable Intel Mac I own, and there will likely be edge cases that I still need x86 support for, for a lo...

Following up from my earlier observations ; a 13.6" MacBook Air M2 seems to settle around 65W (on an  Anker 100W charger , observed using a SABRENT cable with a built in display ) while charging from 37% SOC and being used with, e.g., a Bluetooth keyboard  ( 5.1 ) and mouse  ( BLE ), WiFi, and screen brightness turned up (while listening to streaming music via hardwired headphones ). So while 30W is what it shipped with[1], and what can reliably power and charge it, the modern Airs will take advantage of more power if its on tap - at least up to a point. MacBook Air M2 13.6" consuming 65W USB-C PD So, battery packs like the Zendure SuperTank Pro and Shargeek Storm 2 , Shargeek 140 , or even the Anker 20,000mAh Power Bank (A1383) (for basically one recharge, or a partial top-off if charging while using the computer), are still worth toting, even if I could get by with something with lower power output.

I’ve been using a tomtoc Protective Laptop Shoulder Bag ($41 when I bought it, $48 now but with a 10% coupon as I type this) to tote my MacBook Air M2 13.6", and it’s ... fine ... But a tight squeeze with a bare minimum of accessories: A multi-day (or multiple device) 148 Wh battery pack ( Anker 347 Power Bank a/k/a PowerCore 40K ) with 2x USB-A and 2x USB-C ports (max output 30W, perfect for an Air; can be had for around $50) (this thing is huge ) Currently a 20W wall wart to recharge, e.g., the Anker 347 ( Anker 511 Charger (Nano Pro) , $12), but I should swap that for a 30W Anker 511 Charger (Nano 3) ($17) I have sitting around doing not much (the 347 will charge up to 30W over USB-C), that’s almost exactly the same size A pen Logitech M350 Pebble mouse ($22) (low profile) Small 5x6" mouse pad Anker USB C to Lightning Cable (1ft, $17) (to fast charge an iPhone or iPad) A short USB-A to MicroUSB-B cable (I’m not actually sure for what; recharging the keyboard on an iPad...

I’m finally embracing Thunderbolt. Most of the machines • I’m using these days has at least this port: Side view of Apple laptop highlighting Thunderbolt 1/2 port MacBook Air 13" 2012 (Core i5 1.8 GHz, 8GB RAM): Thunderbolt 1 (10 Gbps), Mini Displayport connector MacBook Air 11" 201 5 (Core i7 2.2 GHz, 8GB RAM, Crucial 1TB SSD ): Thunderbolt 2 (20 Gbps), Mini Displayport connector, backwards compatible with Thunderbolt 1 MacBook Pro 15.4" Mid-2015 (Core i7 2.2 GHz Quad Core, 16GB RAM, 256 GB SSD): Thunderbolt 2 MacBook Air 13.3" 2020 (Core i7 1.2 GHz Quad Core, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD): Thunderbolt 3 (40 Gbps)/USB 4 (USB-C connector) MacBook Air 13.6" (M2 3.49 GHz, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD): Thunderbolt 3 MacBook Pro 14" (M1 Pro 3.2 GHz, 16 GB RAM, 512 SSD): Thunderbolt 4 (40 Gbps)/USB 4 (USB-C connector) The idea was to be able to swap in a laptop into my corner workstation (eventually, when I get the Mac Pro running again, with a KVM (with Extended Di...

My 2015 Core i7 2.2 GHz 8GB MacBook Air 11" still had the Apple SSD AP0128H card, which was getting very cramped. This otherwise maxed out machine natively runs Monterey (and will r un Ventura under OCLP ). As such, and with a 91% original capacity battery, it's still a pretty viable totable workstation, especially now that I’ve got it recharging via USB-C . So I decided to swap in a larger, newer storage module. Opted to go with the best bang for the buck: Crucial P3 1TB PCIe Gen3 3D NAND NVMe M.2 CT1000P3SSD8 (PCIe 3.0 2280) $48 Sintech NGFF M.2 NVMe SSD Adapter Card $12 (The other options were the OWC Aura N2 or Pro, but for this already 8 year old machine, I didn’t want to put much more than $60 into this project.) It’s been a few months since I’ve torn apart one of these 11" MacBooks, but iFixIt reminds me it’s pretty straightforward . Removed the (8) pentalobe screws from the bottom plate with a PL4 driver from my Wiha set , and then removed the OEM SSD drive ...

MacBook Air charging via USB-C to MagSafe 1 cable This is a concise summary post; if you want the details of how I got here, and the technical specs beneath everything, click here . My setup: Zendure SuperTank Pro or Shargeek Storm 2 , each of which can supply up to 5A at 20V, for up to 100W. (Any battery pack that can deliver at least 20V ⎓ 3A (60W) will work.) These are about $170 on sale (which happens regularly). AreMe USB C to Magnetic L-Tip Charging Cable (MagSafe 1 for my 2010 Air) $13. AreMe USB C to Magnetic T-Tip Charging Cable (MagSafe 2 for my 2012 13" Air, 2015 11" Air) $13. Works better than I’d expected, charged from 71% to 100% (as reported by macOS) in about 40 minutes. It took a bit longer to trickle-charge up to an actual 100%, at least as reported by coconutBattery. This is definitely going to be a “go-to” travel solution, especially for higher risk environs (theme parks...). The one caveat, opposite to the Amazon listing and the usual operation of Appl...

And we come ’round full circle ... My foray into USB-C battery packs (and upgrading to 2020+ Apple hardware, decent keyboards and USB-C charging without an intermediate inverter and AC adapter) all started with wanting a portable setup for a full day of (at least intermittent) computing without access to a 110V socket. Back then, a USB-C to MagSafe 1/2 adapter seemed like a not great idea (ignoring all the negative reviews), as I didn’t have a battery pack that could deliver 60+ watts continuous. But now I’ve got several ( Zendure SuperTank Pro , Shargeek Storm 2 , etc). The MagSafe connector actually has a bit of intelligence built in: Teardown and exploration of Apple's Magsafe connector . Meanwhile, the power profiles appear to be pretty straightforward: MagSafe 2 85 W: 20V ⎓ 4.25A MagSafe 85 W: 18.5V ⎓ 4.6A / 16.5V ⎓ 3.65A MagSafe 2 60W: 16.5V ⎓ 3.65A MagSafe 60W: 16.5V ⎓ 3.65A MagSafe 2 45W: 14.85V ⎓ 3.05A MagSafe 45W: 14.5V ⎓ 3.1A The two 100W ports of the SuperTank Pro su...

I found a good deal on an almost maxed out Intel MacBook Air 2020 (Core i7-1060NG7 @ 1.20GHz, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD) and set it up today. I figured, since it’s fully supported, I’d start this one off on Ventura (macOS 13) from day one. It came wiped to a fresh install of Monterey (macOS 12). First I tried to do the ⌘⌥R restore method to install the latest operating system, but every time after about a half hour or so I’d get an error -2005F error and could go no further. (A little digging suggests that that error is WiFi related ? Wireless here isn’t awesome, I see 49 networks sitting in my living room, 21 of then 2.4 GHz, 28 in the 5 GHz band; there are no channels free from interference.) Tried both 2.4 and 5 GHz networks before giving up and completing the setup for Monterey, and then using Software Update to install Ventura. This was a mistake. I had the same issue this user had , where most of the .pkg files I tried to install (e.g., OpenJDK8U-jdk_x64_mac_hotspot_8u345b01.pkg ), ...

The Anker 511 Charger (Nano 3, 30W) Powering a MacBook Air Just a shout-out to this tiny little Anker USB C GaN Charger 30W, 511 Charger (Nano 3) charger (hooked it up to an early 2020 MacBook Air via an inexpensive Amazon Basics Fast Charging USB-C to USB-C2.0 Cable (USB-IF Certified), 60W - 10-Foot, White . Not much to say other than that it works. The Klein reports it supplying 19.92V at 1.40A (27.9W); coconutBattery reports the laptop charging with 8–15W (or more) while tapping this (Bluetooth keyboard) and streaming a high definition YouTube video over WiFi. It’s about 1/3 the size of the charger Apple bundles with the laptop, and makes a cost-effective option to keep a charger in another location. Dig it. Specs from the manual: Input 100-240V⏦1A 50-60Hz Output     5V⎓3A / 9V⎓3A / 15V⎓2A / 20V⎓1.5A (30W Max) PPS: 3.3-11V⎓3A Max (30W Max) 3.3-16V⎓2A Max (30W Max) Average Active Efficiency 82.24% Efficiency at Low Load (10%) 70.14% No-Load Power Consumpti...

Want to back up my MacBook Air to the NAS, which is running NFS and Samba. The existing guides I found weren’t complete. I ham-fisted my way to a solution that seems to be working. This is on High Sierra, the most recent operating system this old laptop will officially run. (Since verified to also work as far back as Lion.) I skipped using the graphical Disk Utility to setup the sparsebundle, and created it from the command line (in this case, 300GB to back up a 240GB internal SSD): $ sudo hdiutil create -size 300g -type SPARSEBUNDLE \ -nospotlight -volname " MBA2012TM " -fs "Case-sensitive Journaled HFS+" \ -verbose /Volumes/ nas / Time\ Machine / MacBook-Air-2012_TM .sparsebundle Then I mounted the disk image: $ open  /Volumes/ nas / Time\ Machine / MacBook-Air-2012_TM .sparsebundle Then I tagged it as a Time Machine eligible drive: $ sudo tmutil setdestination -a /Volumes/ MBA2012TM / # Under 10.7, omit the '-a' And then went into the Time Machine cont...