Observations: the display is gorgeous. The built-in camera makes the output of this ancient “iSight” jobbie look like Kinescope.

The setup, involving “data migration” from the spousette’s MacBook Air, took an hour, but went seamlessly. At the receiving end the “Microsoft Office” suite was unusable, being all of them “32-bit” apps, but this was anticipated. The applications she cherishes/needs most—Zoom (shudder) and Microsoft Remote Desktop—function as formerly. It remains to be seen—I am faintly optimistic—whether the new (Intel) machine will boot up as a Windows 10 computer from the external HD that enables the Air to do likewise.

I note that while the 27" screen is dimensionally impressive, the box in which it arrives depicts a display about the size of one of the subordinate projection surfaces at your local multiplex.

cordially,

The machine shipped with “Catalina” and not, as it would have had I waited another month to order, “Big Sur.” The wife is leery about upgrading; my sense is that we should do it sooner rather than later, so as to limit the number of causes of conflict that are bound to accrete subsequently. If we wait four months to upgrade, it’ll all the harder to know where the gremlins might be hiding. Now that it’s had its first “Time Machine” backup, perhaps we’ll attempt that on the morrow.

She was curious to see whether the external SSD (an external Samsung repurposed in a third-party housing) I’d set up for her MacBook Air five years ago—it permits her to boot into the Windows 10 environment, running it entirely off the separate unit—would work on the new machine, but since the power/data connector proved to have been jostled loose from its soldered moorings sometime after the last time the device was in use, this must needs await the arrival on Tuesday of a new enclosure.

Since Big Cheese here has topped out (absent some advanced tinkering with its guts I don’t propose to undertake) at “High Sierra,” I have not been privy to sundry changes made in “Mojave,” “Catalina” and “Big Sur.” Where the fuck did the Documents folder go? In the fucking cloud? Well, I can see the advantage to that, but suppose the spousette doesn’t want her stuff at all available remotely? How do I turn that off? Well, er, it’s complicated (can be done. But it’s needlessly complicated). Most vexing is that the DVD Player app no longer plays the VIDEO_TS* format. WTF Apple? That is such an…Apple thing to do. Actually, as I read the discussion boards, the new version doesn’t even reliably play DVDs. Sheesh.

We await new revelations and surprises.

cordially,

*I have literally hundreds of flicks archived in this format on removable media of various kinds. Fortunately, the freeware app “VLC” can still do the job, but its interface has always been rather spartan. I am obliged to use it on the Cheesester, because the unit lacks an internal optical drive, and Apple’s application refuses to countenance playback on an external jobbie. I esteem the company’s products, but as a long-time customer (thirty-six years and at least a score of machines) I sometimes feel, not alone, as though I’m in an abusive relationship.

Well, yes, I knew that. The saved files are derived from commercial disks—owned, not rented—that (after stripping the copy protection) in the Before Time I would select and take with me to view as in-flight entertainment. But yeah, Apple is taking users in some strange directions…

cordially,