Swindon Mac

Making an old iMac faster... 🏃

Here's a quick peek inside a 2017 21in iMac that was beginning to show signs of age, with applications lagging and the dreaded spinning wheel starting to take up almost permanent residence on-screen.

While upgrading a drive on a desktop should be a relatively painless task, we all know that iMacs can be… different. So, after cutting the screen adhesive tape and carefully removing the screen (making sure not to crack it in the process), the insides are revealed.

The main logic board is front and center with the speakers left and right. In the center is the fan that cools the CPU and other parts. The old hard drive sits just below the fan and has been replaced with a 2.5in form factor SSD. This is the bit that transforms the 21in machine's performance. Goodbye horrible, slow, and cheap spinning disk; hello solid-state speed and reliability.

With the screen glued back on, the only clue that the machine has been upgraded is the new speed and usability. While the cost to do this depends on the size of the SSD (up to 2TB is common, but 4TB drives exist), the value in terms of usability is enormous.

If you want your iMac supercharged, drop us a line! 💫

Padlock, what padlock?🔓

It seems like we have been told since the beginning of the internet that the key to secure online shopping was to “check for the padlock icon”, ie make sure the website you were using was secures using HTTPS rather than plain old insecure HTTP.

So, how come when shopping using any version of Safari (on Mac, iPhone or iPad) the reassuring padlock is now nowhere to be found? Has all online shopping become insecure?

Far from it. It’s a sign of the times, and the now almost 100% use of HTTPS and SSL security. Apple feels that web commerce is now so secure that it’s become more useful to warn shoppers only when the site they are on ISN’T secure. Since Safari v18.4 the new standard is a pop up dialogue warning you that a site is potentially fraudulent.

So, it’s farewell to the green padlock that kept us secure in days gone past and hello to the warning pop up of doom!

Time will tell if this inversion is a positive step (I imagine data on fraudulent website transactions will give the answer), but for now another piece of internet iconography has become history.

It's a far cry from the current Apple prices, but the very first Apple computer sold for $666.66. The Apple I was priced because it was a markup on the whole sale price and they liked the idea of repeating digits... nothing to do with it being the number of the beast... apparently! 😈