New purchases thread!

I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on the Netatmo when you’ve had a chance to play with it some.

Okay. The reason I chose it was that I had no need of a full blown setup which would require me to climb on the roof (me? as if!!) because thats the only way I could get both wind and rain readings. I’m a tree person and my yard is chockers. So wind speeds would never be accurate. If I later want to add those, I can.

I also chose it for its internal sensors which give readings on the health of the air in the house. I’m sure mine must be in the red most of the time, especially in summer when its a/c rather than fresh air. And, it uploads to Weather Underground so will be interesting to see how much of a delay there is (many claim that wunderground is useless because of delays) in showing readings in the wunderground apps.

Cant wait til it arrives, its taken me 6 years to make a decision on which weather station.

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Love Milkman beard oil. I use this all the time.

I’ve gotta say it’s rapidly becoming my favourite and the scent is pretty decent too.

I’ve tried several different brands over the years and started using Milkman about 2-3 years ago and it’s the only brand I use now. Quite partial to the Chai Latte scent.

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My local video shop is closing down. Pretty sad, loved that place and still went there once a week or so.

I bought the sign.

I haven’t decided what to do with it. Maybe frame and backlight it.

They’re selling everything at the moment, from the DVDs to the counters and fixtures. Even offered me some of the aisle shelving for $50 a section. I’m tempted to grab one, for no particular reason. Perhaps establish a mini video shop in the house somewhere, complete with video library and snack rack. (Not to mention I have a small DVD and VHS collection, coupled with an extensive Nintendo 64 collection that would certainly look at home on an ex-Blockbuster video rack.)

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Well gee. Its only when you get to read the FAQ (which I had to login to see) that you find out that Netatmo does NOT upload to wunderground. Weather Underground needs to remove it from the list of compatibles. Netatmo has its own weathermap, and alas, privacy is something they dont much care about because it locates you right in your house. So any other user can see exactly where you live. You can turn it off and I am going to do that in a minute.

This is how the app presents on your phone.

And this is the app I have chosen to go with because it seems to do a more thorough analysis. You can tap into various areas for more info, which you cant in the Netatmo app.

This is going to be just fine for me personally but will be useless for anyone else. I may, in time, get a more full blown weather station.

Oh yeah, and my air is fine. Except when cooking.

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Some additional pickups from the video shop.

Still more to come as well.

Also needed a DVD player to watch them, and came across a 2001 Toshiba SD-1300 for $19. No HDMI, RGB (YPbPr) only, but it produces an extremely nice picture. Connected to an external amplifier and speakers it doesn’t sound half bad either.

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I ended up buying a 2017 Honda CB500x with 2km on clock. 2019 version is around the corner but no exact date and/or new pricing… couldn’t wait and was happy with older revision. I really like it - but as most reviews say… Fuel injected bikes and that throttle control at low rev range is horrible. I am buying a throttle tamer to replace the OEM throttle tube because its very annoying.

And replaced our boat with a PWC - license, rego and other costs on these things in NSW was sky rocketed in recent years. NSW Government is squeezing out so much revenue from this area of the industry…

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My wife is getting her PWC license completed tomorrow, but not sure if I will go get my PWC license just yet.

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Got an officially installed by Apple Battery for my 2013 13" Retina Macbook Pro. They actually replaced the entire top of the base of the laptop, so the case, keyboard, trackpad are all new. It’s like having a new machine. It’s 5.5 years old now so hopefully this gives it another few years of life at least. Cost $289. Probably more than I was planning to spend but when the laptop now looks brand new I can’t complain.

Decided to bit the bullet and get a Freestyle Libre because I was not controlling my BGL. Imge nicked from the Libre website. Its bloody brilliant. And bloody expensive. No subsidy for me, for this.

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An Audio-Technica AT9945CM Stereo Video Mic for the Panasonic Lumix G7. I’d been considering getting a stereo microphone for outdoor and nature filming, and found this new open-box return for $99, down from $249 RRP.

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Picked up this positively beautiful example of the MacBook 6,1 for a very decent price. I’m going to put Mojave on it and toss in an SSD and 16GBs of RAM. But even with a spinner and 4GBs it is incredibly snappy. Very hard to imagine this only has a Core2Duo in it. The screen isn’t retina, but it is bright and clean and significantly better than the 2008. A truly excellent machine. My quest to save the polycarbonates continues!

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I agree, a beautiful machine.
Not compatible with Mojave as far as I know. Maybe you have a way to do otherwise.
And ram max is 8GB, again assuming this is a late 2009.

Bought mine maybe 2 years ago, put a SSD in it and ram still at 4GB, it’s surprisingly snappy. Great screen as you say.
Battery count was under 500 cycles and these are 1000 cycle batteries.

This machine a delight to use. For a 10 year old laptop these are a real bargain.
Running High Sierra on mine.

What did you pay for this ?

Yes, this is a 2009. I already got Mojave installed and running pretty okay. A bit sluggish compared to my 2015 MBP i7/16GB, but it’s probably due to the spinner drive and 4GBs of RAM more than the spec difference.

And darn, you’re right, the max is 8GBs. I assumed it was 16, because I’m used to 16GB in the unibody form factor, which this is, even though it’s polycarbonate.

Battery is still 86% capacity and well under 1000 cycles according to Coconut Battery.

I paid AU$264 for it (well, actually 20,000 Japanese Yen), which is about what this machine goes for here in Japan. I’ve talked a lot about this, but Macs in Japan hold their value even better than in Australia or the States. It’s why I had @jaysee sell me my 2015 MBP from Australia. Even with shipping and taxes, it was cheaper than buying it here!

Paid $270 for mine about 2 years ago so yes prices there higher. Was probably somewhat of a bargain when I bought it.
Great buy for you though, these are excellent even at 10 years old.

How did you get Mojave installed ?
Be interested to hear about this after SSD installed and ram updated.

I decided to leave the 4GB of ram because it’s one of my play machines. Not to say I haven’t considered it and may still do.
Mine still really in great condition, as it seems yours is.

Cosmetic problem I’ve seen with these white poly unibody’s is the rubberised back can delaminate. Mine is a little dirty but I think structurally sound.

This has a bit of surface dirt that I’ll clean off when I get to the office this morning, but otherwise looks like it has barely been used. But that’s actually not surprising. One of the reasons that Macs do hold their value so well in Japan is precisely because people really take care of their stuff here and everything is really nice.

Not sure if I have the RAM in my Box o’ Parts at the office, but I have a Samsung Evo 860 SSD I can put in today and test.

Mojave can be installed on these machines with the help of the dosdude1 patcher. Which I’ve used a lot for my own machines as well as for clients (after explaining what the patch is, how it works, and the potential if minimal security concerns). It has really helped lengthen the life of some of these older machines for clients that basically only do office tasks.

Thanks
Had read quite a lot about this patcher when it was clear the mini 2011 was not compatible with Mojave.
Revisited the dosdude1 page but think I’ll stay on High Sierra on both the mini and the Macbook unibody.
While I suspect there are minimal risks with someone who regularly uses this patcher, there are with someone who doesn’t. HS does the job for me.
And in the case of the mini the 2018 model is tempting.

So far I haven’t had any issues with the patcher, but is is true that at this point, I have used it on multiple machines. I’ve got 10.14.4 installed now, but I need to go up to 10.14.5. I swapped out the RAM and the SSD, and the improvement on boot times and certain animations was much improved, but it is still clearly a bit sluggish compared to my 2015 i7 MBP and my Mac Pro 3,1. But absolutely shockingly well for a 10 year old machine with a Core 2 Duo.

I’m curious if there would be any further improvement if I went ahead and pulled out the SuperDrive and put in another SSD in a RAID configuration.

Might be a little sluggish while spotlight does it’s thing on a new install.
My machine, that it boots to login screen in under 30 sec, and that I can start working after a minute or so, this is a very responsive computer. Apps launch quickly and pages load with only a momentary pause,
I like also it’s such a clean looking machine, has a great keyboard and screen is clear and bright.

You might be expecting too much comparing a 2009 core 2 duo with 8GB ram to a 2015 intel core i7 with 16GB ram. Just saying !

Did you clean your back cover with anything in particular ? Does look a lot cleaner than mine.