Hi, this is Allison Sheridan of the NosillaCast Apple Podcast, hosted at Podfeet.com, a technology geek podcast with an EVER so slight Apple bias. Today is Sunday, October 31, 2021, and this is show number 860. Happy Halloween, everyone! The live chatroom is a bit of a ghost town this week (see what I did there?) but we’re still having fun.
CCATP #703 – Bart Busschots on PBS 128 of X – JavaScript Module Basics
Quick Musing on M1 Max Macs
This week Steve and I took delivery of our 14″ M1 Max Macs and we’re both over the moon about them. I can’t remember the last time I’ve been this excited about a new Mac. Each Mac I’ve gotten has been faster and niftier than the one before, of course, but this is different. In the past, I’ve upgraded every 3 years but this time it was only 2, and yet the change to the M1 is just as amazing as everyone says it is.
I’ve said before that I’m pretty superficial in that if a device doesn’t look different I have trouble noticing how much better it is. In this case, going from the 16″ behemoth down to the 14″ is a huge physical change. In addition, the form factor is a throwback to the old PowerBook dates with the chunkier, squared-off style. So my computer is thinner, lighter, and at most of the things I throw at it, way faster.
Steve and I decided to do the live show from our new Macs. Even as I speak, we’re using macOS Monterey in its very first week, on a brand new hardware design with a clean install of all of our software. The software we use to mix the video and audio for the live show is called mimoLive from Boinx Software, and it’s not even released for m1 yet – we’re running a beta version! This is like juggling chainsaws and hand grenades on a tightrope 100 feet above a pit of very hungry crocodiles.
But guess what? It’s working beautifully. We did some test runs this afternoon, and for the first time ever, we saw 0 frames dropped for the entire test. Normally that is an ever-increasing total and you can see the choppiness of the video. But not with these beasts! Steve’s decked-out 2017 27″ iMac would struggle with the once-considered-great Intel CPUs churning away in the high 90% range, but his tiny 14″ MacBook Pro has been running at around 35%!
When Steve’s iMac was churning away, the fan noise was pretty noticeable. Surprisingly, the fans on Steve’s 14″ are spinning up too. They’re not terrible, and definitely not feeding into his microphone, but they are getting a workout. I suspect the beta version of mimoLive may be the cause because it may not be optimized yet.
You all know I was a big defender of 1Password when they switched over to being an Electron app and I continue to think it wasn’t a bad move. One of the main reasons I support them on this is that their Electron app is very fast. On the M1 Max, it’s a blink of an eye to launch or maybe not even that long. However, most of the other Electron apps I’m running are just as dog slow to launch as they were on Intel. Discord, Slack, GitKracken, and Visual Studio Code all take more than 5 or 6 seconds to launch. I know that sounds like I’ve got my schedule too tight if I can’t wait that long but it’s an eternity when you’re waiting to get to work!
I’m sure I’ll have more to say over time about the new Max Macs, but as David Roth put it so eloquently in a text to me about his, “I’m head over heels in love.”
Blog Posts
Tiny Tip(s) – Use the Path Bar by Helma
Encrypt.me VPN Is Under New Ownership
Support the Show
As we continue to honor the long-time patrons of the Podfeet Podcasts, I’d like to throw a special shout out to this next batch of fine folks who have been supporting the show for four years. We’ve got Paul Markham, Rally Barnard, John Haller, Tim Jahr, Rick Cartwright, Stephen Ewell, Jens Judge, Terry Austin, Mike Price, and Bruce Wilson. All of you fine people have helped make this show possible and I thank you for four full years worth! If you’d like to be fine people like them, please head over to podfeet.com/patreon and show your support in a financial way.
Security Bits — 29 October 2021
That’s going to wind this up for this week. Did you know you can email me at [email protected] any time you like? If you have a question or a suggestion just send it on over. I’ve left Facebook (at least for now) so Twitter is a good place to follow me online at @podfeet. Better yet, join our Slack community at podfeet.com/slack where you can talk to me and all of the other lovely NosillaCastaways. Remember, everything good starts with podfeet.com/. You can support the show at podfeet.com/patreon or with a one-time donation at podfeet.com/paypal. And if you want to join in the fun of the live show, head on over to podfeet.com/live on Sunday nights at 5pm Pacific Time and join the friendly and enthusiastic NosillaCastaways. Thanks for listening, and stay subscribed.