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This is a bit of a departure from web design, but I feel it could be helpful for some of our customers. I’ve had my Macbook Pro for over five years now, and to say it’s performance has been getting a little slow would be an understatement. Slow boot times and waiting seemingly forever for basic programs to start was slowing my business productivity and becoming increasingly frustrating. When I shared with a family member that I was in the process of searching for my next Mac, he told me that he had recently upgraded his hard drive to a SSD and doubled his memory, and that his old MacBook Pro was like a whole different computer. I followed his advice and gained such an extraordinary improvement myself that I felt I needed to share it. My goal in writing this article is not to give a complete “how-to” tutorial, but to let you know the possibilities for getting a little more life from your Macbook.

There are several web sites that will help you determine the correct memory and hard drive to purchase for your particular Mac. I used Crucial.com for my memory purchase and Macsales.com (Other World Computing) for the SSD hard drive. Crucial just happened to be having a good sale that saved me $20 on my purchase or I would have used OWC for both. You will need to know the model of your Mac or Macbook in order to use their hardware selection wizard. Clicking the Apple icon at the top left hand corner of your screen and selecting About this Mac will give you the model info. Mine is a MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2009) for instance.

The keys to this upgrade are maximizing the memory and purchasing the largest SSD hard drive you can justify. The maximum memory my machine will take is 8GB of RAM so that is what I purchased (double what came with my machine). SSD drives, in case you aren’t familiar, use the same type of flash memory that your thumb drive uses. Therefore, there are no moving parts and access times are FAST. These drives have come down in price recently so now you can get a decent sized drive for not too much cash. The sweet spot for me was 120GB. I keep most of my larger files on an external drive and stream most of my music, so space isn’t that big of a problem for me. I’m interested in getting the most performance for the fewest dollars.

The installation is simple to do and there are videos online that step you through everything. I recommend doing a clean install of the operating system using a USB drive with the OSX software installer. It is important to get your data backed up so that you can transfer all of your files to your new hard drive following installation. Most of your programs will be easily downloaded from the Apple Store or other online resource.

My old, 2009 model Macbook Pro now boots in about 30 seconds as opposed to minutes and opens programs almost instantaneously. For less than $200 in parts, I know I have added another couple of years to the useful life of my daily work computer.

I would be happy to help you with more specific directions if you would like. Just use the Contact form to connect and get more information.

This seemed to be a common question for many following the New Bern Now Social Media Summit last September, and, in my opinion, the answer is a definite “Yes.” That answer usually brings the next questions which are “Do I have to be on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, LinkedIn, etc.” and then “who has time for all that???”. No, I don’t think you need to be on every network. I feel that you should investigate each of the more popular social media networks and determine one or two that works for you. As for time, I recommend that new social media users schedule time to interact online whether it be daily, weekly, or whatever you decide. This will help you be consistent with interactions, but also help you avoid the inevitable time suck that can come from getting lost in your community’s conversations.

Your business or non-profit usually revolves around a particular product or community that will more than likely be better associated with one or two of the bigger social networks. Searching for conversations that include your product or non-profit area can help you narrow down a network as well. Google+ and LinkedIn even have individual communities within the network for common groups like “IT Professionals” or “Cavalier King Charles Spaniels” for example.

When you select a social media network to become involved in, it’s good to remember that you are still communicating with people. Those are real fingers attached to a real person typing at that keyboard or phone keypad on the other end of your conversation. This is a real community and you should be interacting genuinely with others as you would do in person. Just as you wouldn’t (or shouldn’t) enter a room of strangers and shout that you have the best widgets in town and that you are selling them for $XX.00, you shouldn’t do that online either.

I believe the most important rule for social media interaction is this – be HELPFUL in your community. I like the formula that Chris Brogan of OwnerMag.com shared in a recent email – “Be helpful + meet helpful people + connect really helpful people = potential for future amazingness.” I think that is a good strategy for online and off, and it reminds us to put other’s needs before our own.

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