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Cool Hardware

New technology at the auto service center

I took our truck in for service at the local Toyota dealer yesterday. When I drove in, I had to drive over one of these big black things:

I figured it was just a speed bump to get drivers to slow down as they entered the service bays. But when I inquired as to their purpose, the answer was more technologically interesting: It's a tire tread depth scanner. As you drive over, lasers shine on each tire, measuring the remaining depth in each tire's tread. Quoting the immortal Dr. Evil … "lasers!"

Of course, when I parked, the technician went around to each tire, sticking his finger in the tread to check the depth. I said, "What about the fancy machines?" 'Oh, they're not quite ready yet; still have to do it the old fashioned way for another few days.' Oh well. Next time.



Cutting the (headphone) cord

Until very recently, I wasn't a user of Bluetooth stereo heaphones. I don't necessarily have a good answer as to "why not?," other than I recall trying a pair early on, and not being impressed by sound quality and battery life. That was, of course, years ago, but I hold grudges for a long time, it seems.

Recently I thought I'd try cutting the cord again; there are any number of Bluetooth headphones available—including some very expensive models. Needless to say, these are not in my budget as a casual music listener. I was more interested in something in the $100 or less price range, and in an over-the-ear (versus on-the-ear or in-the-ear) model.

While browsing Amazon one day, I stumbled onto these headphones, with possibly the longest product name I've ever seen in Amazon: Sentey Bluetooth Headphones v4.0 with Microphone B-trek H10 Wireless Headphones Headset Foldable with Mic for Running Sport or Travel, 40mm Audiophile Drivers - Also Comes with 3.5mm Cable -Up to 15 Hours Battery - Comes with Free Transport / Protection Carrying Case Ls-4570.

Rolls right off the tongue, doesn't it? I'll just call them Sentey Bluetooth Headphones. Although they list for $100, every time I've looked, they've been listed for sale at $50. And with over 100 very positive reviews—and Amazon's easy return policy—this felt like a safe bet. So I ordered a pair, and have had them for a few days now.

So were they worth $50? Absolutely; keep reading for my review.

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Use a mouse and keyboard…and a trackpad

When Apple released its new accessories, I thought it might be time to revisit my input setup. For a few years, I've been using the original Magic Trackpad and the Logitech Wireless Solar Keyboard.

While this setup has worked well for me, I missed the precision of a mouse (so much so that I kept a corded one nearby, and plugged it in when I needed to do such work). So I thought I'd check out Apple's new gear, with the thought of either upgrading to the new Magic Trackpad, or perhaps moving to the new Magic Mouse as my pointing device, and maybe replacing the Logitech with the new Apple keyboard.

Unfortunately, the local Apple Store only had the mouse in stock, not the keyboard or trackpad. Unable to compare the pointing devices, I just bought the mouse. After setting it up, I loved the added precision it provided over the trackpad. But if I was going to be using a mouse regularly, I wanted to narrow the reach from keyboard to mouse, so I pulled out my old Apple wireless keyboard, which is about six inches narrower than the Logitech.

This setup seemed really good, except that I'd be giving up a lot of features by removing the trackpad: I use it with BetterTouchTool and our own Butler (as well as Keymo and Moom) to execute all sorts of gesture-related actions.

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Migrating away from FireWire hard drives

If there's one downside to my new Retina iMac, it's that it completely lacks FireWire ports. While my main data storage is a Thunderbolt RAID array, all my backups (Time Machine, offsite drive, boot drive clone, and extra paranoid backups) are done on FireWire drives.

My setup precludes using Apple's Thunderbolt to FireWire adapter. (Because I use two external non-Thunderbolt displays, they end any sort of chaining capabilities. With some rewiring and an expensive Thunderbolt dock, I can sort of work around that problem—but those docks are pricey.)

The money-is-no-object solution is, obviously, to replace all the FireWire drives with Thunderbolt drives. Given I drained the computing budget to purchase the Retina iMac, that's not going to happen any time soon. ($400 for a 4TB drive, and I'd need three of them plus a smaller drive for the boot clone.)

After some digging, I managed to convert from FireWire without buying new hard drives, and spent just over $100 in total. The solution? The more-than-fast-enough USB3 bus in the new iMac.

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A very quick look at the Retina iMac’s graphics performance

While I'm still busy setting up my Retina iMac—given I always do this by hand, it's time consuming—I did take a few minutes to see how the graphics performance compares to that of my mid-2011 iMac.

To test the Macs, I use a visual benchmark called Unigine Valley. This benchmark puts the graphics card through a real workout, and is fun to watch while running. Before the results, here's a quick comparison of my two iMacs:

2011 iMac2014 iMac
CPU3.4GHz Core i74.0GHz Core i7
RAM16GB24GB
GraphicsAMD HD 6970MAMD R9 M295X
VRAM2GB4GB

And here's how they did…

2011 iMac

2014 iMac

I'm no math whiz, but it looks like the new Retina iMac is over twice as fast in the graphics realm as my older machine. I knew it'd be faster, of course, but I wasn't expecting that kind of speed up. Wow.



Quick poll: How many iDevices do you own?

From fiscal 2002 (the iPod's launch year) through fiscal 2014, Apple sold 1,224,700,000 iPods, iPhones, and iPads. That's a lot of iDevices! In looking around our (four person) home, I count more than I would have expected. So that got me thinking, how many of these things do other people own?

Hence this simple poll. It doesn't matter if the device is in use or not in use, working or not working…I just think it might be interesting to see how many of these things each of us owns.

Voting is 100% anonymous; I'm not collecting or tracking IP addresses or any other identifiable information. So take a second and tell the world how many iDevices you own.



How I configured my 5K TV with bundled computer

After seeing the new iMac with Retina 5K display (I'm just going to call it a Retina iMac from here on out, or even riMac for short), I decided it was time to upgrade my aging but still oh-so-functional mid-2011 27" iMac.

For those contemplating the same upgrade, you may be mulling decisions on processor, RAM, storage, and graphics cards; here's the logic behind each of my choices in those areas, in case it helps you with your decision.

CPU

This was the simplest decision to make—I always buy the most powerful CPU I can afford. In the case where the choice is a Core i5 vs. Core i7, I will always go for the Core i7. That's because only the Core i7 supports hyper threading, which, as Apple writes, is "a technology that allows two threads to run simultaneously on each core. So a quad-core iMac has eight virtual cores, all of which are recognized by OS X. This enables the processor to deliver faster performance by spreading tasks more evenly across a greater number of cores."

In addition, by upgrading the CPU, I make the machine more usable many years down the road—whether for my own use, or when reselling to someone else.

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Portable power pack products prevent powerless problems

"Hello, my name is Rob, and I have a portable power problem. It's been six days, 13 hours, and 23 minutes since I last bought a portable power solution."

OK, so that's a bit over the top. But still, I find portable chargers appealing, as I don't like being without power when away from a wall outlet. Whether it's a long flight, a camping trip, or a Mother Nature-induced power outage, I like having alternatives. That's why there are currently eight chargers in my collection, as seen in the image at right (click for larger).

And while I can't pretend to be anywhere near as thorough as The Wirecutter, I thought it'd be interesting to compare all eight of these portable chargers.

The following table provides baseline specs on all eight chargers, and shows how much power you're getting for each ounce of weight you carry (mAh per Ounce) and how much you'll pay per milliampere-hour (mAh per Dollar)—so you can choose by power effectiveness or cost effectiveness. (The order of the table corresponds to the numbering in the above-right photo.)

My two favorites are highlighted; the Jackery is an ideal size to carry around nearly everywhere, and the EC Technology is excellent for camping trips or other extended periods away from power. Beyond the table, I share a few thoughts on each of these power bricks, in case you're really interested in these things.

#ProductSize (LxWxH, inches)Volue (cubic inches)Weight (oz)Capacity (mAh)mAh per OunceCost ($)mAh per Dollar
1OrigAudio w/ Oracle logo3.751.750.805.34.11,000243.9----
2Sony CPV3 Portable Power Pack4.001.500.754.53.02,800933.3
3Sony USB Portable Charger5.132.750.638.89.610,0001,041.7
--Sony Cycle Energy - 2+3 sold as a set13.312.612,8001,015.9$83.85152.7
4Zagg 6000 battery pack4.252.751.7019.97.56,000800.0$55.89107.4
5EC Technology Power Bank6.302.900.8014.615.422,4001,454.5$45.95487.5
6Jackery Giant+ Portable Charger4.303.100.8010.710.412,0001,153.8$39.95300.4
7Boostcase Hybrid Battery Case5.502.380.405.22.82,200800.0$99.9522.0
8JunoPower JunoJumper5.472.950.599.57.26,000833.3$99.9960.0

Read on for a little blurb on each charger…

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It’s the iPhone 6 Plus for me…I think

After a few chats with AT&T and Apple online reps, some spreadsheet work to examine the costs, and much thinking, I've believe I've figured out how I'm going to order my iPhone 6 at 12:00am Pacific time tomorrow morning. Here's what I'm going to do…

I'm going to order the "contract free" 64GB iPhone 6 Plus directly from Apple. The phone is listed as "T-Mobile," but after chatting with Apple and AT&T reps, and hearing from people in the Twitterverse, it seems this will be usable on AT&T with a simple SIM card swap at the local AT&T store. And buying it off contract means I can keep my AT&T discount, as discussed in the above-linked article.

Update: Based on some comments on this article, I've changed my mind: I'm going to try AT&T Next 12. It can be paid off early without penalty, the total cost over two years is the same as buying up front, you still get the $25 monthly discount, and you save the up-front cost.

Why buy directly from Apple, and why choose the monstrous 6 Plus?

The Apple bit is simple: it's due to their friendly 14 day return policy. (I've also confirmed they'll take back an activated phone without any issues.) AT&T offers a return program, too, but there's a potential restocking fee for opened devices.

Buying from Apple gives me the chance to test the monster phone in my hands for a week or so before deciding if it's right for me. I've been "testing" this week with the cardboard-and-coin monstrosity seen at right. Somehow, it's not quite the same—though I think the call quality is a touch better than on my real iPhone badda-bing. I really need to have the beast with me for a week to see how it goes.

Why did I choose to start with the monster phone? First, because I'm really interested in the optical image stabilization feature, and want to see how it works in real life. Second, because I tend to think the Plus might be the rarer of the two phones, therefore harder to get if I do decide to do an exchange in a couple weeks. Finally, it's the most-different device from my current phone—if I'm going to make a change to something bigger, I might as well start with the really big one.

Of course, I may change my mind at 11:59pm tonight, and start with the smaller Six, with the option to return and replace for the Plus. I figure I've got about eight hours left with my two cardboard stand-ins (yes, I made one for the regular Six, too) before I have to make up my mind!



The AT&T Family Share Plan’s vanishing discount—don’t get burned

The popularity of this article led me to write two followups:

Please give these a read if you'd like to know even more about AT&T Next.

Tomorrow (starting at 12:01am Pacific time, apparently) you can order a new iPhone 6/6 Plus. But you probably already knew that. What you may not know is that if you're on AT&T's Family Share Plan, and you enrolled in that plan with phones on a two-year contract, you'll see a large increase in your bill if you upgrade to a new on-contract iPhone 6—even if your current contract has expired and you're now contract-free.

Why would your bill go up, simply moving from an older to a newer iPhone? That's never happened in the past. But we've not had the Family Share Plan in the past. And when AT&T rolled out this plan, they gave folks an incentive to move to it: they offered a discount for on-contract phones, from a $40 per month per device cost to either $25 (for under 10GB of shared data) or $15 (10GB or more) per month per device. So if you look at your bill, you'll see something like this:

That discount was applied to the under-contract (at the time) iPhone 5 I moved to the Family Share Plan; the other two lines we have in the plan show the same discount. But if I buy a new iPhone 6 under contract, the discount will go away. If we upgrade all three phones with contract iPhone 6's, that'd be another $75 per month!

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