How Do You Make a Man Happy?

Saturday, 2022-11-19

The long-awaited moment is finally here. With the visit of our eldest daughter from Canada, I also got a new 14" Macbook Pro M1 2021 with 16 GB RAM and 512 GB SSD. It looks sleek and slightly smaller than my old 2011 15" Macbook Pro (i7). The old Macbook still runs well and fast since I replaced the hard drive with SSD. The problem with older Macbooks is at one point, you won't be able to upgrade the operating system (OS) anymore. I'm stuck with macOS High Sierra (version 10.13.6), and many new apps do not support the OS anymore. The graphic card, AMD Radeon HD 6490M has been dead for more than six years, and this has been a known issue with the 2011 Macbook series. I have tried reballing the graphics card, but it didn't last long. The workaround was to reconfigure and switch to the onboard graphics card, Intel HD Graphics 3000. I can salvage and still use my old Macbook.

I almost threw this old Macbook away but finally managed with great difficulty to get it to work again by switching to the onboard graphic card.

It looks almost identical to my wife's 2019 13" Macbook Air.

Although the new Macbook has a smaller screen size, it has a higher display resolution, 3024 x 1964 retina as opposed to only 1440 x 900 on the old Macbook. I have not had the opportunity to test it with any video or photo editing software yet but I could feel a snappy response and the power under the hood ready to be unleashed.

My new toy. It looks sleek and sexy yet powerful!

I developed an app with Filemaker version 16 in 2019 for our retail business. It runs on my old Macbook, and I have been using it for more than three years, and when I installed Filemaker 16 on the new Macbook, it failed. The new MacBook runs on macOS Monterey (version12.6.1) and only supports Filemaker 19. The easy solution would be to buy a USD 594 license for Filemaker 19, an expensive solution. Another solution would be to develop a new app using the no-code platform, and my research has narrowed to Google AppSheet. With Google AppSheet, I could easily create mobile, tablet, and web applications. AppSheet supports data sources like Google Drive, DropBox, Office 365, and other cloud-based spreadsheet and database platforms. It looks very promising.

Besides the new Macbook Pro, I also got 2 Ledger Nano X cold wallets. I have bought and invested in several cryptocurrencies, and I know a cold wallet is the best way to store cryptos. However, keeping cryptos in a cold wallet won't earn any interest from staking. It seems that every problem has a solution, and every solution creates a new problem!🤔

We are happy to see our daughter come back to visit us even though only for a short time. Next week we will be doing a 10-day trip driving across Java island. Our first destination would be Yogyakarta in Central Java. We plan to stay there for a few days and then continue eastward to our hometown, Malang in East Java and stay there for another few days. I reckon I would put 2000 km on the mileage by the time we return to Jakarta.

Thank you for reading and for your support.

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A baby boomer who's trying to embrace and adapt to the new digital world. Worked for over 30 years in the IT industry before retiring and now run an online vegetable delivery and hydroponics equipment business. Enjoy traveling, cooking, writing, playing pool, and all IT-related stuff. You're always welcome to leave a comment or feedback, and an upvote or reblog is also greatly appreciated.