Chromecast Ultra

I splurged.

I have no 4K TV and yet I got a Chromecast Ultra via the trustworthy eBay.  I lowballed the seller and we met in the middle.  That's the only way to go.

Officially the Chromecast is selling for $35 and the Chromecast Ultra is fetching $69.

I don't know much about the technology, I think that kind of goes without saying as I am going through life without knowing anything basically.

I have tried that with Vudu watching what else America Ultra.  Both the video and audio are very good indeed.  Youtube casting is equally impressive.  I cast Youtube from my Mac desktop/Chrome browser as well as via iPhone's YouTube app.

Casting is a no brainer.

But setting up the Chromecast hardware needs a bit of work as I needed to install the Google Home App first.  I didn't know about it as I thought it was 100% plug and play.  Not so.  I can't remember exactly but a year ago, my LG was able to do casting without nothing installed both from Youtube and Netflix.  Then kind of all of a sudden the cast doesn't work at all.  So I always got the impression the cast just works.  So when I plugged in the CU into the HDMI, I thought it just works but neither the iPhone nor the Chrome on desktop would see the device.  I thought the seller sent me a dud, which is actually quite rare.  Knowing that I don't know nothing so I looked up the Chromecast hardware and bang installing the Home app.  I must have read it before when I did my research but since my experience before I just thought it would just work.  Oh well something something happened, which I didn't know better.

The video and audio exceed my expectation.

Haughty

I appear haughty and disdainful as I get older.  I always tilt my head when I talk to people as I need to look through the bottom of my trifocal lenses.

macOS Mojave 10.14.4 MacPro3,1 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770 2 GB

They work!

After a year, I finally got myself the GTX 770 2 GB card.  The display is much better now.  I am no gamer but I can appreciate some fluid browsing.

It's a little bit of a hassle, yes, anything involves any slight extra effort I consider it a hassle.

I got to order 2 power PCIe power cable for the card, mini 6-pin to 8-pin.  The card is a MSI branded one, it's very quiet "even" it has two big fans.  I don't think they are running but if they are they are awfully quiet.

The GPU is not a Mac specific graphic card but it boots up just without the boot screen which I can live with.  If I need it I can use the old card for this purpose.

Now this 2008 Mac Pro is more alive than before.

UPDATE:  I also have to live with the "fact" that the HDMI won't be outputting audio in this macpro3,1.  Oh well.  Let me return this card.  Just kidding.  I am happy this eBay dumpster diving found works.

How Long to Marinate

How long do you marinate?  Does anyone ever do any scientific study on this subject?  On poultry, red meat or even fish?

Would it plateau off or even suffer from diminishing return over time?

When I prepare a steak, I only season it instead of marinate it.

If I were to marinade any meat or poultry, I say probably one to three hours the least, if you are prepared, over night won't hurt, like brining an entire turkey overnight.

Hotpot via my iPhone

I meant to write hotspot but I guess subconsciously I love hotpot too much.

My FIOS connection used to be 75/75 and in most days the speed is up or exceed spec.  Linking my laptop through hotspot is not terribly bad actually.  Even when it is around 10Mbps download.

The screen capture is from Google's speed test.  So according to Google at 20Mbps it's already good for HD streaming.  When I am on hotspot via my iPhone's T Mobile data plan I don't watch YouTube.

UPDATE:  When you reached some cap it then limit your speed.  Oh well.

GTX 770

Latest distraction:

The GTX 680 is pricier and harder to come by.  So GTX 770 is.  The version I got is by MSI with I think 2 8-pin power interface.  Sometimes you asked the seller it takes them forever to respond or not respond at all.

Judging from the manufacturer's web site, it should be a 2 8-pin power interface.  As such I ordered 2 of those cables that enable than connect from the Mac3,1 motherboard to the GTX 770.  It should be a mini 6-pin to the 8-pin.  The thing with this is I don't know if 6-pin is considered mini 6-pin already, or 6-pin and mini 6-pin are two different standards all together.  That's the word mini is just an additional descriptor.  I do see some cable just marked as 6-pin to 8-pin without the word mini.

I hope this combo works as I expect.  It would work, just without the Apple bootup screen, which I can live without.

Probably in three days I'd find out.

Netgear AC750 EX3700

I bought this many years ago and left it alone and almost forgot about it except seeing its wifi id or ssid.

I never needed to power it down.  I just downloaded and installed the firmware to give it an update.

This thing just works.

MacPro3,1 macOS 10.14.4 ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT

This is a passable combination.

My complaint is the graphics is lacking or lagging in some cases.  I am not talking about editing 4K or any video editing at all.  I am talking about typing an URL at the address bar on Chrome.  It's slow.  And when I hit eBay to do some dumpster diving or rummaging, the page can look a bit torn toward the bottom, I don't know if it's some sort of script there that causes it.  My mid 2012 MBP doesn't exhibit these problems at all.  I understand this hack to put Mojave on unsupported Mac hardware has some graphics shortcoming, like dark mode or some sort doesn't play well.

I don't know if it's also because of the 256MB VRAM that's causing the general sluggishness.  This is the stock GPU that originally came with the MacPro3,1 or early 2008 machine.

The most popular GPU upgrade for this kind of Frankensteinish upgrade is the GTX 680 which still commands a some what high price on eBay "even" higher than the similar GTX 770 which supposedly is a marginally higher performance card.  But then again the GTX 680 is said to have a more consistent design across manufacturers making it more flash-able, which is what cheapskates do: buying PC GPU and flashing it to Mac using some ROM or firmware.  GTX 680 is considered very flashable whereas not so much for the GTX 770, unless you are some wizard.

GT630 has a 2GB version and I don't know if it would perform better.  It should be a simple install.
GTX680 or GTX770, more powerful GPUs for sure but you pay a higher price and you need to buy additional power cables to run from the MacPro motherboard to the card.

These cards designed for Windows will boot on a Mac but will not display the Apple boot up screen as they don't have the Mac firmware unless you flash the ROM to make them Mac if they're flashable at all.

MacOS 10.14.4 on MacPro3,1

I need to install this thing on my old machine again, almost from scratch but not quite.

I am not sure if it's worth the effort, not that I have something else better to do, but still.

The graphics card I have only has 256MB of RAM and it shows.  I need to upgrade that if possible.  There is an overwhelming amount of information out there regarding this but for the most part they are pretty confusing especially for somebody who isn't savvy enough.  I can hardly find information that can elucidate the issue somewhat.

Mojave or MacOS 14:
MacPro3,1 is not officially supported but with the right hack from dosdude1.com, it's doable
nVidia is the card that doesn't give problem
The equivalent GPU PC version card may work

I don't need any fancy 4K support, my display is only 2560x1080

Swollen Battery Apple A1382

The sign of a swollen battery was I couldn't press down the touchpad like I could before.  I have been using a separate keyboard and a touchpad for quite some time so I didn't notice that until I used the built-in touchpad.  I almost forgot if it's supposed to be that way.

An online search on the touchpad anomaly returns me the result that it may be caused by a swollen battery.  And as it turned out it was really the battery.

I removed the battery and the touchpad worked just like before.

I could work without the internal battery but anytime if the power cable knocked loose, the system will just shut down.

I went to the usual source like macsales but the third party battery is asking for almost $100.  I even went so far as to chat with them in order to get a discount coupon code.  Alas there was none for me.

After much deliberation, I ended up ordering from eBay.

The battery came as real as it can be except the serial number on the sticker doesn't match what's reported by the MacOS.  Battery health is Normal and has 2 cycle counts.  The manufacturer reported is SMP, same as the original battery that came with the MBP.

macsales still have video suggesting to calibrate the battery or the power management system of the MacBook ... On the other hand, there seems some consensus that the Li-ion battery doesn't need that or draining it to zero percent does harm to the battery actually.  I am a bit confused.  So I didn't do that calibration at least not intentionally.

The original battery is supposed to last for seven hours on a full charge.  It seems like the battery depletes on a linear fashion up to when it's 30% then before I knew it it dropped to 7% which stays there for more than 30 minutes and still going unchanged ...  I guess I am waiting for the system to shut down itself.  It's about 5 hours now.  I don't think it lasts 7 hours but definitely more than 5 hours and it's still going at 7%.  Maybe that's why it needs calibration, not so much on the battery but for the system PMS to know the battery better so it can accurately report the battery power as it depletes?  I really don't know.

100% Battery power began at 8:06 AM
7% at 1:34PM (It has been 7% for a long time)
7% at 1:51PM
2% at 2PM, also message to plug in
shutdown at 2:10PM
so it's 6 hours.

UPDATE: 4/6/2019
The replacement battery seems performing just fine.  So I am happy I didn't buy the more expensive one, most of the time the MBP is powered with an A/C adapter anyway.  Plus this is an old machine I don't want to invest more than I need or afford.  In a year or two I hope I can afford a better machine down the road.

Apple notebook butterfly keyboard debacle

This has been pretty much well documented.  From 2016 till 2018, the butterfly keyboard has nothing but trouble.  The latest being a Wall Street journalist did a piece on the keyboard and Apple acknowledged that there is a small number of keyboards that exhibit problems.

I was burned once by an iBook screen many years ago.  After that it took me like maybe a decade or so to buy another laptop from Apple.

Can you imagine people, well I can, or can I imagine myself spending $2,000 or $1,000 to buy a MacBook and ends up having problems with the keyboard all the time?  The keyboard is the major interface between the machine and the user, how can you screw it up?

Nobody ever asked for a new keyboard design.  Apple, come on, do better.  Fix that keyboard once and for all.