5th Entry - Mac Thunderbolt Accessories

Thunderbolt accessories are still far more expensive than usb 3.0 / usb 2.0 accessories, there is a big price tag just to be able to use the extra afforded bandwidth.

I got Belkin TB dock 1.0, it is a nice piece of kit, and allows me to get three USB 3.0 ports, as I have only USB 2.0 on mid-2011 Macbook Air.

My gripe, I cannot boot from them, as the driver is not in the firmware and only loads after the Mac boot process.

I also noticed it is not hot swappable within other OSes, only within the native Mac OSes, i.e. OS X and Windows through bootcamp.

If I want say to use Linux, I have to switch on the dock and connect it before I boot into Linux (or Android for that matter).

Now to boot from thunderbolt, there is 2 solutions, one is a SATA hard disk dock which is from Seagate I think, and the other is dedicated external thunderbolt hard drives, and all these are priced over 120 UK Pounds (around over 180 US Dollars), too pricey in my view.

Booting from USB 2.0 is OK but slow.

Having a post 2013 Macbook Air gets you USB 3.0, but again too expensive just to get the privilege of USB 3.0.

I wonder when will Thunderbolt accessories drop down to a more affordable price bracket, such as less than 100 pounds, maybe when USB 3.1 is finally released?

Published by me on Hackintosh Forum.

4th Entry - my Computer hobby.

This is a post I published on Macbook Air on an Apple techie enthusiasts forum:

Finally, I could manage to get a genuine Intel Mac, and a nice bargain on ebay allowed me so.

MacBook Air 13" mid 2011.

My first Mac experience was through emulators such as SheepShaver and pearPC in a Windows computer, in 2003+

Then I purchased a Mac Mini and iBook in 2004 only to see Apple abandon the PowerPC platform a couple years later, together with these I got myself the wheel Ipod 40 GB, and then the Ipod photos.

After that, I could not afford Mac products anymore, and so thanks to the Hackintosh community, still enjoyed the Mac experience with Tiger, Leopard, Snow Leopard on an Intel Dimension 8300 Pentium 4.

I could afford later on the cheapest iPod touch 4th generation with 8GB storage, and not long ago the iPad Mini 2 with retina, amazing device, which made me wish to get a MacBook.

Selling some of my old gear, I found this great deal on ebay for the MacBook Air, and grabbed it.

Now I could get my hands on installing Windows with BootCamp, I was always curious how they did it, and oh boy, it is seamless, with both windows seeing the Mac Drive, and vice versa.

Even second hand, it is still pricey, but the quality is great, and now no reason to feel guilty using Hackintosh, as this way,  I paid the Apple Mac tax .

Macbook Air with other OSes.

So far, I managed to get 

Linux Ubuntu 14.04 and Android 4.4.2 running off the SDXC slot.

Linux just by pressing the Options key and in the menu it appears as a Windows entry.

Android by using windows 8 bootcamp, with easyBCD.

Chrome OS is yet to crack, as I cannot make the Macbook to boot directly to the SDXC or the USB, this is an Apple hardware limitation.

Linux Ubuntu 14.04 makes use of all the hardware which is great.

Android almost, only Bluetooth does not work, but a BT usb dongle worked, and the trackpad only allows navigation no clicking, so an external usb or BT mouse is needed.

In all much better than Acer Chromebook C720P for using other OSes.

Third entry, on me, Google OS and IT

I find it pretty hard to create my own content, and easier to react to content, such as commenting below the line on Newspapers, my favourite being The Guardian, in which I use different nicks because I get banned so often.

My views are not always politically correct nor mainstream.

My next posts will be about my comments on Newspapers, and things such as my support for the fight against neo-nazism in Ukraine.

I could label myself as a child of the Information age, or a victim of it and its instruments, such as comment sections of newspapers, news-feeds and as I am a techie, websites to do with Information Technology and Science.

I conceptualised the idea of an Operating System based on a Browser (now Chrome OS chromebooks, etc) in the 1990's when Netscape 2.0 saw the light of day.

In Moscow, in 1999, I even had an associate make me meet a group of Software developers who were working on such an idea, and they showed me their apps working from within a Netscape browser as plugins, one of which was a rudimentary Write Pad, and another a Paint Pad using plugins.

I tried to get investment for such an idea to a rich Saudi investor interested in technology but it fell on deaf ears.

He missed an opportunity seized by Google ten years later, and me the opportunity to make a dent in the Software Industry.

Instead, it still remains a hobby for me, an expensive hobby at that, but very enjoyable as a tech-savvy user.

Second Post

In life, for humans, things seem to repeat themselves. We are born, we live then we die. In the middle we live a trace of around maximum one hundred years, reaching then a rather decrepit and often despondent state.

I believe in a higher order, in God, and so in my view, everything happens for a reason.

It might not seem obvious, but as someone said, you will see it when you believe it.

I am not religious, as, again in my view, believing in God does not mean necessarily being religious, though many assume it is the same thing.

My experience of life is rather limited, because of my mental and physical health, but for someone afflicted with such, I have had some interesting and valuable experiences.

Naturally academically inclined owing to my upbringing and my application and propensity at wanting to learn.

This led me to pursue some academic endeavours, and meet some like minded individuals.

In the process I graduated and did some academic research, and was involved in scientific projects.

First entry

I have been commenting in Newspapers and Web Sites for many years, from politics, to science and technology.

It can be beneficial for me to gather my views and stories I wish to share in one repository, as a melting pot of impressions and reactions to what is happening around me, and maybe to be of benefit to some who stumble upon this blog...