So I named it “ExMachina”

[MareLuce]

I named my first Mac “ExMachina”. New laptops are so much fun.

ExMachina is a 2TB 15” MBP. It's receiving its first Time Machine backup to a new 3TB Western Digital MyPassport Ultra ***.

Started with the instructions on the Western Digital website re: Erasing the drive first, etc. But at some point, reality differed from instructions. Sierra just took over so I went with it.

My data point: The first 100GB backed up, encrypted, took 1 hour, 30 minutes.

Is this good?

*** 2 days later edit: I've used this WD drive forever with my PCs, but it does NOT work well with the MacBook Pro / Time Machine. I should have researched this better before purchasing. People below said it's Sierra or Time Machine, not the drive

The backup never finished. Caused a CPU Machine check. Then, the system would never complete booting with it plugged in. It just kept rebooting.

Odd that it took over an hour to calculate the time remaining (12 hours).

 

[xraydoc]

My data point: The first 100GB backed up, encrypted, took 1 hour, 30 minutes.

Definitely ok. Depends on how fast the target drive is, plus you loose a bit of speed with encryption.

I wasn't very creative... I named my new 15" MBP "MacBook XL" for its size. The first 15" laptop I've had since the 15" PowerBook G4.

 

[ocgirl]

Nothing related to your post but I was just wondering what was up with the cables ? Is that to avoid tearing ?
Nice machine, can't wait for my MPB Xs

 

[powerocool]

Congrats on the new machine!

What's up with that dongle?

 

[SoyCapitanSoyCapitan]

Change the HDD icon. Don't even know why Apple still uses it.

 

[MareLuce]

Nothing related to your post but I was just wondering what was up with the cables ? Is that to avoid tearing ?

What's up with that dongle?

I overdosed on texting on my Blackberry. Needed my thumb joint replaced. Closing a Ziploc bag felt like a lightning bolt was hitting my thumb. Was in something like this, only mine was blue to match my old iPhone case:
http://www.orthobrooklyn.com/public/31XTDnHwacL.jpg

Challenge: Reduce the pounds per square inch hitting my thumb joint. So this dongle thing affects me a lot more than the average girl ;-). But I actually like the USB-C ports. It's magical - like a chameleon. It can be whatever you want it to be.

Solution: A modification like below reduces the pounds per square in inch of pressure needed to remove or insert a cable by at least half. Sugru is GREAT for this, but I ran out. So rubber bands work.
Ex:

I was bummed the magsafe was eliminated for this reason.

Moreover, that darn Apple USB-C to USB dongle’s tolerances are VERY snug at the regular USB end, where the red cable connects. It takes a TON of force compared to any other USB cable to remove it. It made me say a swear word first time I tried. Someone else mentioned it in a different thread.

Nice machine, can't wait for my MPB Xs

What will you name it?

I started running out of I-names for my iPhones and iPads.
Ex: Ives, Igor, Ivan, Ivanna, Isaac. Had to consult a baby name database.
But never had a Mac till now. Was going to start with M-names till I recalled the DVD cover for the movie Ex Machina…

 

[R.P.G]

enjoy the new machine..i am yet to buy my first mac. still on fence..

 

[maflynn]

Nice machine, congrats

 

[Apple_Robert]

enjoy the new machine..i am yet to buy my first mac. still on fence..

You know you want a Mac. Take the Mac plunge. Don't make Jesus weep by continuing to sit on the fence.

 

[MH01]

Nice machine mate, enjoy it!!!

 

[Abaganov]

You know you want a Mac. Take the Mac plunge. Don't make Jesus weep by continuing to sit on the fence.

Tim we already talked about you pushing product on the forums..

 

[Karnicopia]

I'm going to call mine halo. I have a space grey 15" and it just seems like the Trent Reznor MacBook and its a nice play on hello. It's my first MacBook and I'm just amazed by it. For a 15" to be this comfortable to carry and use and still be powerful is something else. Really enjoying it so far.

 

[soulreaver99]

I thought you named it that because it's going to be your ex-machine due to everyone's complaints lol.

Enjoy!

 

[MareLuce]

For a 15" to be this comfortable to carry and use and still be powerful is something else.

Completely agree. The hardware is amazing.

I just wish my favorite text expander program from the PC worked on it (Breevy http://www.16software.com/breevy/ ) What's amazing about Breevy is how fast it is to create new abbreviations: a fraction of a second. So I use it all the time for everything. Links, distribution lists, a million work acronyms, commonly used paragraphs of text, etc. It's been the single biggest positive change to my productivity this year and last.

I thought you named it that because it's going to be your ex-machine due to everyone's complaints lol.

Nope, I'm probably keeping it. I only say "probably" because as much as I love the hardware...

1) I've had a bunch of crashes under load. MacOS does not seem stable at all to me.
(Would posting crash screen shots in a different topic reveal any info I should keep private? There's some UUID number I can see...)

I probably have a higher tolerance than most for technical glitches, but it's bad enough to make me worry about it getting worse. Much worse would be unacceptable, even to me.

2) My productivity is taking a big hit by the loss of a dedicated Page Down / Page up key
I press the Page Up / Page Down key on my Thinkpad several hundreds of times a day in docs, spreadsheets, powerpoint, web pages, etc.. Without conscious thought.

On the Macbook, I realize I could swipe using the trackpad. But that motion does not give a single page down consistently. In a spreadsheet or doc, I could miss rows / paragraphs. It takes a tiny of bit of extra time per page to make sure this didn't happen. That's jarring to my productivity. Pressing ctrl-whatever takes time to find the keys. Learning curve could fix that, but it doesn't seem the same key combination results in a page down across all apps. Odd...

Worse, this could double the number of keystrokes I make in a day for something I do hundreds of times a day. Gah!

I'm just really glad I have till January 8 to figure this out.

==================

*** I just added this to my original post:

2 days later: Do not buy the Western Digital hard drive pictured! I am going to return it. Although I have used these drives forever with my PCs, but they do NOT work well with the MacBook Pro / Time Machine. I should have researched this better before purchasing.

The backup never finished. Caused a CPU Machine check. Then, the system would never complete booting with it plugged in. It just kept rebooting. Known problem.

 

[Apple_Robert]

Completely agree. The hardware is amazing.

I just wish my favorite text expander program from the PC worked on it (Breevy http://www.16software.com/breevy/ ) What's amazing about Breevy is how fast it is to create new abbreviations: a fraction of a second. So I use it all the time for everything. Links, distribution lists, a million work acronyms, commonly used paragraphs of text, etc. It's been the single biggest positive change to my productivity this year and last.

Nope, I'm probably keeping it. I only say "probably" because as much as I love the hardware...

1) I've had a bunch of crashes under load. MacOS does not seem stable at all to me.
(Would posting crash screen shots in a different topic reveal any info I should keep private? There's some UUID number I can see...)

I probably have a higher tolerance than most for technical glitches, but it's bad enough to make me about it getting worse. Much worse would be unacceptable, even to me.

2) My productivity is taking a big hit by the loss of a dedicated Page Down / Page up key
I press the Page Up / Page Down key on my Thinkpad several hundreds of times a day in docs, spreadsheets, powerpoint, web pages, etc.. Without conscious thought.

On the Macbook, I realize I could swipe using the trackpad. But that motion does not give a single page down consistently. In a spreadsheet or doc, I could miss rows / paragraphs. It takes a tiny of bit of extra time per page to make sure this didn't happen. That's jarring to my productivity. Pressing ctrl-whatever takes time to find the keys. Learning curve could fix that, but it doesn't seem the same key combination results in a page down across all apps. Odd...

Worse, this could double the number of keystrokes I make in a day for something I do hundreds of times a day. Gah!

I'm just really glad I have till January 8 to figure this out.

==================

*** I just added this to my original post:

2 days later: Do not buy the Western Digital hard drive pictured! I am going to return it. Although I have used these drives forever with my PCs, but they do NOT work well with the MacBook Pro / Time Machine. I should have researched this better before purchasing.

The backup never finished. Caused a CPU Machine check. Then, the system would never complete booting with it plugged in. It just kept rebooting. Known problem.

The Time Machine problem is not because of the WD drive. If you search the forum, a lot of people are having a problem. More than likely, it is a software problem with Sierra.

I have 3 brand new WD My Passport drives (4TB model) connected to my AirPort Extreme via a hub for TM back ups and other media uses, and haven't had any problems thus far. Before that, I connected a WD My Passport For Mac 3 TB drive directly to the new 13" tMBP and the TM backup stalled at 90%, and I had to reboot and start the backup again.

 

[jclardy]

The Time Machine problem is not because of the WD drive. If you search the forum, a lot of people are having a problem. More than likely, it is a software problem with Sierra.

I have 3 brand new WD My Passport drives (4TB model) connected to my AirPort Extreme via a hub for TM back ups and other media uses, and haven't had any problems thus far. Before that, I connected a WD My Passport For Mac 3 TB drive directly to the new 13" tMBP and the TM backup stalled at 90%, and I had to reboot and start the backup.

This, it is a Sierra problem. Time Machine apparently hasn't been tested in the latest OS release, possibly given that the Time Capsule/Airport teams were disbanded this year. I also tried backing up my 256 GB rMBP (Starting fresh, not from a backup) to time machine on a newly formatted seagate drive, backed up about 90% then just stopped. Pausing and resuming did nothing. Tried it again and it froze at even less (After making sure my MBP's SSD didn't have any errors.) Some people are saying it is a spotlight issue, so I might try disabling spotlight (on the external) and see what happens.

 

[idark77]

Maybe it is a Sierra problem with 2016 MBP because with my 2015 MBP there is no issue and Time Machine works flawlessly.

 

[Karnicopia]

Completely agree. The hardware is amazing.

I just wish my favorite text expander program from the PC worked on it (Breevy http://www.16software.com/breevy/ ) What's amazing about Breevy is how fast it is to create new abbreviations: a fraction of a second. So I use it all the time for everything. Links, distribution lists, a million work acronyms, commonly used paragraphs of text, etc. It's been the single biggest positive change to my productivity this year and last.

2) My productivity is taking a big hit by the loss of a dedicated Page Down / Page up key
I press the Page Up / Page Down key on my Thinkpad several hundreds of times a day in docs, spreadsheets, powerpoint, web pages, etc.. Without conscious thought.

On the Macbook, I realize I could swipe using the trackpad. But that motion does not give a single page down consistently. In a spreadsheet or doc, I could miss rows / paragraphs. It takes a tiny of bit of extra time per page to make sure this didn't happen. That's jarring to my productivity. Pressing ctrl-whatever takes time to find the keys. Learning curve could fix that, but it doesn't seem the same key combination results in a page down across all apps. Odd...

Worse, this could double the number of keystrokes I make in a day for something I do hundreds of times a day. Gah!

I'm just really glad I have till January 8 to figure this out.

I've never seen that app but it looks really helpful, it would be really useful at work. I was reading on the toucher tips thread that there is an app called better touch tools and it lets you create custom buttons for the touch bar and you can assign them for particular applications. So maybe you could use that to create page up and down buttons in the touch bar for the apps you use it in. Seems like a really cool app but I think the touch bar portion is still in beta but I guess you can download it now and use it. I really haven't tried it yet I'm still getting used to the normal touch bar for now.

 

[xraydoc]

Completely agree. The hardware is amazing.

I just wish my favorite text expander program from the PC worked on it (Breevy http://www.16software.com/breevy/ ) What's amazing about Breevy is how fast it is to create new abbreviations: a fraction of a second. So I use it all the time for everything. Links, distribution lists, a million work acronyms, commonly used paragraphs of text, etc. It's been the single biggest positive change to my productivity this year and last.

Nope, I'm probably keeping it. I only say "probably" because as much as I love the hardware...

1) I've had a bunch of crashes under load. MacOS does not seem stable at all to me.
(Would posting crash screen shots in a different topic reveal any info I should keep private? There's some UUID number I can see...)

I probably have a higher tolerance than most for technical glitches, but it's bad enough to make me worry about it getting worse. Much worse would be unacceptable, even to me.

2) My productivity is taking a big hit by the loss of a dedicated Page Down / Page up key
I press the Page Up / Page Down key on my Thinkpad several hundreds of times a day in docs, spreadsheets, powerpoint, web pages, etc.. Without conscious thought.

On the Macbook, I realize I could swipe using the trackpad. But that motion does not give a single page down consistently. In a spreadsheet or doc, I could miss rows / paragraphs. It takes a tiny of bit of extra time per page to make sure this didn't happen. That's jarring to my productivity. Pressing ctrl-whatever takes time to find the keys. Learning curve could fix that, but it doesn't seem the same key combination results in a page down across all apps. Odd...

Worse, this could double the number of keystrokes I make in a day for something I do hundreds of times a day. Gah!

I'm just really glad I have till January 8 to figure this out.

==================

*** I just added this to my original post:

2 days later: Do not buy the Western Digital hard drive pictured! I am going to return it. Although I have used these drives forever with my PCs, but they do NOT work well with the MacBook Pro / Time Machine. I should have researched this better before purchasing.

The backup never finished. Caused a CPU Machine check. Then, the system would never complete booting with it plugged in. It just kept rebooting. Known problem.

Fn-up and Fn-down will do home and end.

 

[Murgatroyd314]

Fn-up and Fn-down will do home and end.

Correction: Fn-up and Fn-down are page-up and page-down. Fn-left and Fn-right are home and end.

And, for good measure, Fn-delete is a Windows-style forward-delete.

 

[xraydoc]

Correction: Fn-up and Fn-down are page-up and page-down. Fn-left and Fn-right are home and end.

And, for good measure, Fn-delete is a Windows-style forward-delete.

Ah, yes, thanks.

 

[R.P.G]

You know you want a Mac. Take the Mac plunge. Don't make Jesus weep by continuing to sit on the fence.

i am on fence not bcoz i dont want it..waiting for some "Incoming" dough..want to have Maxed out Mac.

Going to be my first mac..i want it to be grand..

 

[Apple_Robert]

i am on fence not bcoz i dont want it..waiting for some "Incoming" dough..want to have Maxed out Mac.

Going to be my first mac..i want it to be grand..

Getting your first Mac is like finally getting a date with the girl you have been crazy about for a long time. You pinch yourself to make sure you aren't dreaming, while visions of Apple dance in your head.