Smaller is Better

I’ve been wanting to upgrade my Mac for a while.   Or I suppose what I’ve been wanting to do is downsize.   For some time now there have been MacBook options that are significantly smaller than the one I got several years ago (and then got round two of after a rather unfortunate water bottle incident in Detroit).

And although I wanted smaller, I didn’t want to lose the capability to connect to my external Thunderbolt monitor.   It’s big, it has lots of screen real estate and it worked via this specialized Thunderbolt connector cable designed to work with my old MacBook.   And that was a problem.

Apple decided to get away from the external monitor business and that left me with a monitor that connected easily to the old MacBook but not at all to new MacBooks.   I wasn’t the only person disenchanted with this decision by Apple, but for a long while there was no easy solution save for getting a new laptop and a new monitor.

I liked the Thunderbolt monitor with the simple little all-in-one cable because it connected networking, external display, power and sound to the monitor.   And it was nice.   Partial solutions came out but nothing elegant and usually without the support for external sound.

Today, as I was at lose ends, I went back to Apple for probably what was now the fifth time to see if there was a solution.   And hey, there was.   There was a new connector dongle from USBC to Thunderbolt which would solve most of the prior connectivity issues.   In addition, there were also a few other little things in play that made upgrading a workable solution.   So I bought a new MacBook.

I got home, unboxed the new laptop and turned it on.  It asked if I’d like to restore from that nice Time Machine backup it saw on our network.   Why yes, I did, thank you so much for asking.    An hour-and-a-half later and aside from the smaller dimensions and slightly extra cordage coming from the laptop, I have a new, smaller, more powerful solution.   And it still looks and sounds just like I would expect it to on my Thunderbolt monitor.

New technology makes me happy.   New technology that works seamlessly and well makes me even happier.   Which means I’m pretty dang happy as I write this blog post tonight.

The Big Boy Update:  Today I tried to get my son interested in going to one of those entertainment places where there are go carts, a mini golf course and lots of video games with our sitter, only he had no interest.   He talked Blake into the trampoline place again.   And then he tired Blake out again.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  We’re going to set up my old MacBook for my daughter.   She will start using a standard keyboard to do typing next year.   I don’t look at the keyboard and I know where the keys are.   A blind person can learn the same way, only using audio feedback.   There are programs to help with this.   I’ll see if I can get her interested this summer in learning by installing them on the old laptop.