Replacing the Optical Drive with HDD on 2010 Mac Mini

Recently I bought an SSD for my Mac Mini – not wanting to spend too much money, and knowing I would have plenty of storage with my servers in my house, I figured I’d opt for a low-storage model – 60Gb.  However, I realized it would be very convenient if I could also keep the current 320 HDD – perhaps by replacing the optical drive.

I chose to get the 60GB SSD with the “Data Doubler” from macsales.com (“Other World Computing”/OWC); it can be found here: http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other+World+Computing/DDAMBS0GB/

The data doubler bracket is pretty nice – it is, what I’d guess, a nice solid piece of aluminum; very sturdy.  Presumably it would fit very well into your Macbook or Macbook Pro, as that’s what it was designed for, but I chose a different route.

Tools you’ll need:

• #00 Phillips
• Torx T6
• Torx T8
• 1/16″inch drill bit – I used a Craftsman Titanium bit, but that’s because I had that set laying around
• Drill gun
• Small hand saw – I used a coping saw, again, because it was laying around

Resources to look at:

• ifixit’s Mac Mini teardown: http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Mac-Mini-Model-A1347-Teardown/3094/1

Here’s a picture of the data doubler, annotated with the modifications we’ll be making:

1. Start by taking your Mac Mini apart, following the instruction’s from ifixit’s teardown.  I’m not going to repeat them here (if the link fails or their page goes down, let me know).
2. Once you have the optical drive out, you’ll need to take it out of it’s bracket, remove the connector and the thermal sensor.
3. Start by placing the data doubler bracket on a table surface, and place the optical drive bracket over it – I’m sure you’re smart enough to figure out the orientation to make that possible (I forgot to take pictures)
4. One side of the brackets will line up the screw holes on the optical drive bracket with the frame of the data doubler – mark these holes with the tip of your drill bit.  The other side won’t match up the holes too well – I wasn’t concerned about this, because the optical drive bracket will also hold the data doubler bracket tight up against the top of the case when all is said and done (in fact, I’m pretty certain you could avoid drilling these holes and be fine, but I chose for the extra support)
5. Carefully drill through the data doubler – You probably only need to go about 1/2 way through (maybe 2 or 3mm?), but I made life easy and just drilled all the way through.  Make sure you drill straight and level
   
6. Most importantly, we need to cut out part of the corner for the IR sensor and power light.  Follow the pictures to see where this was done – make sure you line it up right so you don’t end up having to shave off a millimeter or so.
7. Lastly, put it all together!  See the pictures below for my placement of the thermal sensor – you’re somewhat restricted to placement because of the length of the wire, but there should be enough slack to put it just about anywhere on the hard drive

Right- and Left-Handed Laptops…?

So here’s one for you to actually comment on: I’m sitting here using my MacBook Pro, with an external mouse, and all my things plugged in to all the ports… on the left side of the computer. Which works great for me, because I’m a righty, so my external mouse is on the right side of the computer. But what about lefties? Wouldn’t having all those plugs on the left side make using a mouse a little challenging? Or do most lefties use the mouse on the right side anyway?

Standards

I love standards. Being able to go from one application of an idea to another, while keeping the same basic fundamentals of the purpose of the application the same – it fits in so nicely with my mild OCD. As such, I cannot stand what I will blame the entirety of Microsoft for – their lack of standard-following applications. From IE to Word, they’re always messing with me. IE is the big killer – they have never created a browser that follows standards, and it’s just obnoxious. Even if they were the very first browser – standards are created for a reason, and it’s a good idea to follow them. There is a need to have a unique product – but Firefox didn’t get popular just because it followed the open source mentality or just because it followed the standards – it is faster, smoother, and has more options. It is simply a better browser.

As for Microsoft Word – I understand that the free OpenOffice suite came later, but someone needs to pick a standard and stick to it. I prefer using OpenOffice because it’s, well, free. However, if you take the time to meticulously format your document, don’t expect the formatting to read well in Microsoft Word. I’ve had to resort to exporting most of my formatted documents to PDF in order for others to read them properly. Extremely frustrating.

More later. Back to work now.

Google Wave Doesn’t Suck

So with all the posts on how Google Wave Sucks, I don’t think that all the arguments are valid.  Google Wave is phenomenal – for collaborating, which, as I understand it, is what it was created for.  I particularly dislike the comment that Google Wave “sucks” because it doesn’t notify you when there is a new message.  To that, I ask: when email first started, and we didn’t have PDAs and cell phones with email, or even desktop email clients like Outlook and Thunderbird – how did you check your email?  You had to log in and check it manually.  Google Wave is in its infancy.  I’m sure soon enough there will exists integration with desktops that will allow for instanteous notification – I would be surprised to not see a Google Wave iPhone/BlackBerry/Palm app in the near future.  But for now, we have to remember that this is a new technology that needs a lot of work.

As for comments regarding the inability to recover deleted content and such: I’m on the fence.  When collaborating, I don’t think there’s ever a need to delete anything, ever.  Even if something is a bad idea now, or a bug you were discussing that got fixed, there’s never a need to delete that information.  Now, I will admit I am a data nut – I love knowing everything about everything.  The other possibility is that the developers haven’t come up with a good method of deleting content from the current wave but keeping the ability to bring it back – though I’m sure if they put in an hour’s thought they could come up with something good (in fact, I’m sure myself and just about all the other tech-savvy people could too; I just don’t have five minutes to spend right now, with final projects I should be doing instead of writing this post).

More later.

Google Apps Fail

By Google Apps, I’m referring to most of their services – Google Wave, Google Docs, etc. Why do they fail? Because every once in a while, I’ll go over to open a new tab and put in google.com/docs, and it seems to get stuck in some sort of infinite loop. It could be Firefox, it could be Google, but more than likely it has to do with me not deleting cookies/sessions. Why does Google still fail? Because I shouldn’t have to. Which leads me to my next post, in which I bash a technical university for bad technology.

Blog Writing

So I think I’ve discovered the cause of my lack of blog writing – combined with my OCD nature and being a student, I need all my writing to be perfect before I let anyone else see it.  As a result, I write something, and then it just sits there (I hate reading my own writing, which makes revising and editing a bitch) for quite some time.  Instead, I’ve adapted a new philosophy: I write, you comment, I fix.  No one there to read the posts?  More than likely, but then that’ll mean that the post is perfect, because no one is posting revisions to it!  =)

Anyone, plan to hear more from me soon.

-Peter

Socialized Medicine: An American’s Encounter

Recently, I took a trip to Canada’s Royal Military College, located in the city of Kingston, in Ontario, for the RMC Invitational fencing tournament. I was with the team from RPI working mainly as a coach for the men’s and women’s epee teams (although initially I was supposed to fence, but injuries have added up over the years).  During a very unfortunate accident, one of my fencers received a significant injury to the cheek, directly below the eye (see “Safety and Stupidity: The Thin Line”). During the ensuing four hours, I had my first experience with socialized medicine. Read more ›

Swiss Health

Turns out, the Swiss have a very good Health insurance program that the citizens are generally very happy with.  A little late, but interesting article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/01/health/policy/01swiss.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=swiss%20health&st=cse

Writing in the Digital Age

So today begins what I hope will be a series of posts for my “Writing in the Digital Age” (WDA) class at RPI.  The professor, Dr. Jan, is extremely forward-facing, always pushing her students to see the edge of what’s available with technology.  Even after the first class, there was quite a bit that even I had never heard of or spent time with, in regards to the technology mentioned.  However, I will admit that some of the articles I plan on writing about here are a bit “old” (a few years); nonetheless, they are still quite prevalent, and contain plenty of useful information, so I recommend reading them yourselves.  Mostly these are my own notes and thoughts, but please feel free to comment yourselves!

“Web 2.0: The Power Behind the Hype” by Jared Spool
Jared’s article briefly discusses the technologies behind today’s web, and how they can be and are being harnessed to change the world as we know it today.  APIs, RSS, Folksonomies (which was a new one to me), and Social Networking are all discussed, in terms of the good and the bad, as well as some brief history of each (did you know the Microsoft Office had an API?).  (For the record, Folksonomies refers to the process by which one or many people can tag articles, postings, pictures or just about anything to create a new taxonomy for whatever it is they are discussing, as I have here for this post.)  Since I began the REMO-ALS project and founded PRM Technologies with Robbie, my mind has always wandered when learning about a new technology – what can I do with this?  How can I make it work for me?  How can I make our products better?  The thought of integration with Google Maps for tracking providers throughout the region, or of creating an API for user-created programs of our data popped into my head.  Certainly things to think about.  RSS is a technology we have already employed in the CME calendar, allowing anyone to import it into their favorite reader.  New ideas for social networking popped into my head, as the author went over the good, the bad and the ugly, and didn’t even mention Facebook or MySpace!  Overall, a brief, simple but informative article.

“We are the Web,” by Kevin Kelly
An interesting article discussing the history, present, and future of the web, and how it is indeed comprised of its citizens – us.  The author gives a rather expansive overview of the past ten years of the web, the web of today, and his predictions for the next ten years.  However,  I do have some comments for one section, in which Kevin begins to discuss The Machine; that is, the web, as a singular being.  Although it may in fact be extremely reliable, and never go down as a single computer might, without access to the internet, the Machine may as well not exist.  What is the internet to me, if I cannot access it?  That being said, the prevalence of web-enabled hand-held devices (read: iPhones, BlackBerrys (or is it Blackberries?), etc.) and their increasing abundance is certainly helping to bring the internet to you, everywhere you are.  However, it simply changes the access point: no longer are you required to sit at home, or at school, or at the library, but rather, you must sit where you have cellular reception.  Some day, one can hope, cellular – or similar – reception will be available everywhere we go, allowing for a truly global machine that would always be running, and always be accessible.

Very interesting read.  I don’t quite grasp if the author is referring to a literal or a figurative Machine, but the figurative notions he mentions are indeed intriguing.  The belief and realization that we are creating history, that this moment in time is truly pivotal, is truly breathtaking; however, I do wander if that moment is now.  Perhaps, though, such pessimism exists merely because I am living through it (though it could certainly be because of my innate pessimism).   Nonetheless, one to make you think what the future will bring.

“What Is Web 2.0?: Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software” by Tim O’reilly

So I’ll be honest: I haven’t finished reading this one yet.  However,  I briefly skimmed over it, as I remember some of it from last year when I started taking WDA.  A long, but another very intriguing article bringing up the major points of Web 2.0 and discussing them in detail.  Everything from programming languages and user integration,  to the influence of users on developers to the physical technology such as PDAs and cell phone, as well as the idea of a “Perpetual Beta”.  This latter point one of the keys to the new web: there are no development version, no specific “builds”, but rather just continual upgrades and updates.  Fix a bug, make sure it doesn’t cause another bug, and put it in to application.  Develop a feature, debug it, make sure it doesn’t have security leaks, and put it in to application.  Don’t wait to fix several bugs and add in dozens of features over periods of months or years; do it immediately.

More to come.

-Peter

NCEMSF Mentor, US Army Surgeon, Killed

The following is a letter address to the National Collegiate Emergency Medical Services Foundation (NCEMSF): 

NCEMSF,

It is with great sadness that I share with you the passing of Major John Pryor, a great friend and mentor to NCEMSF and many of its members, and a fervent supporter of collegiate EMS. He was serving his second tour as a combat surgeon with the United States Army. He was deployed on December 6th and had been on location with a forward surgical team when he was killed by enemy fire in Iraq on Christmas morning.

I fondly remember my first interaction with Dr. Pryor. We were sitting in the trauma bay waiting for the next patient to arrive when I asked him if he would be interested in speaking at our 2005 conference. As we talked about NCEMSF, he marveled at the existence of an organization dedicated towards supporting collegiate EMS. From that conversation, his involvement has continued not only through repeated lectures and key note addresses, but as an advocate for
campus EMS. He was instrumental in the development of MERT, the student-run medical emergency response team at the University of Pennsylvania.

His passion for the field of trauma and the care of his patients provided an inspiration to many of our members to pursue medicine and to always strive to make a difference. He always was willing to provide career advice and guidance. The impact that he has left through his interactions with undergraduate students is immeasurable. He was an outstanding role model, a gifted teacher, and a talented surgeon.

He is best remembered by his favorite quote by Albert Schweitzer. “Seek always to do some good, somewhere. Every man has to seek in his own way to realize his true worth. You must give some time to your fellow man. Even if it’s a little thing, do something for those who need help, something for which you get no pay but the privilege of doing it. For remember, you don’t lie in a world all your own. Your brothers are here, too.”

Throughout his entire life, he dedicated himself to providing emergency care to people in need. His passion for EMS was cultivated during his undergraduate years at Binghamton University through his involvement with Harpur’s Ferry Student Volunteer Ambulance Service. He completed medical school and general surgery training at the University of Buffalo, in Buffalo New York, and completed fellowship training in trauma surgery and critical care at University of
Pennsylvania. He served two active duty tours as a trauma surgeon for the 344th Combat Support Hospital in Abu Ghraib, Iraq in 2006, and then with the 1st Forward Surgical Team (FST) in 2008.

His sudden death, while serving our country as a physician on the battlefield, is a tremendous loss to the collegiate EMS and trauma community. He will be greatly missed. Our thoughts are with his wife, three children, and entire family this holiday season. We will pass on further information as it becomes available regarding services and ways in which we can help the Pryor family.

George J. Koenig, Jr, DO
President, Board of Directors
National Collegiate Emergency Medical Services Foundation (NCEMSF)
Email: president@ncemsf.org  Web: http://www.ncemsf.org
Phone/Fax: 208-728-7342
Postal Mail: PO Box 93 / West Sand Lake, NY 12196
 
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Founded in 1993, NCEMSF is a 501(c)(3) non-profit professional organization committed to scholarship, research and consultancy activities and to creating a safer, healthier environment on college and university campuses. Comprised of approximately 200 college campus based emergency medical service (EMS) agencies trained to respond within minutes and provide care tailored specifically to campus emergencies, NCEMSF’s purpose is to support, promote, and
advocate EMS on college and university campuses nationwide. In addition to providing for the acquisition of medical knowledge, campus based EMS allows student participants to develop certain life skills including leadership, communication, and decision making. NCEMSF provides a forum for communication and creates an environment where ideas can be exchanged and problems can be solved.
 
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This e-mail sent courtesy of the National Collegiate EMS Foundation
PO Box 93, West Sand Lake, NY 12196
Please visit the NCEMSF Web site at http://www.ncemsf.org/ for more
information and resources related to collegiate EMS.

Although I can’t explain why, this letter exemplifies why I must become a surgeon, and to serve my country where it needs me.  I need to be on the forefront of medical care, and that exists solely in this country’s military.  Although I may risk my life, there are those that need me.  I strive to be the best surgeon or physician that I can, and if I will possess the skills that can save the lives of our soldiers, then I will take those skills to wherever the soldiers are.

-Peter