Category: Tech

All batteries have a shelf life, which means every single gadget you buy that comes equipped with a rechargeable battery will, over time, lose its ability to hold a charge until it’s completely useless. When your MacBook Pro battery is finally dead, your once-fancy laptop becomes an odd-looking desktop computer. So, rather then remain tethered to the wall the rest of your life, roll up your sleeves and replace that failed battery.

 

MacBook Pro Battery Replacement

When you finally decide your MacBook Pro battery is no longer performing well, replacing it is incredibly simple. So simple in fact that I’ll show you how to do it using only a gif. But first, you’ll need get your hands on a replacement battery, which is actually the most difficult part. Your best bet it to find one on Amazon that works with your model.

I’ve listed the three most common replacement batteries for a wide variety of 13″ and 15″ MacBook Pro models. Before you place your order, be absolutely certain your model is listed under compatible models for the battery you intend to buy. Installing the wrong battery will ruin your day and your computer.

• Battery for 13″ MacBook Pro: Mid 2009 – Mid 2012
• Battery for 15″ Macbook Pro: Mid 2009 – Mid 2010
• Battery for 15″ Macbook Pro: Early 2011 – Mid 2012

Once you have your battery, grab your Philips #0 screwdriver and the tri-wing screwdriver that should come with your new battery and get to work.

For those of you that hate gifs…

1. With your computer powered down, remove the bottom lid of your computer
2. Remove the tri-wing screws securing the battery to your computer and detach the power cable from the logic board
3. Remove the old battery and put the new one in place
4. Secure the battery with the tri-wing screws and attach the battery to the logic board
5. Screw the bottom lid back into place and fully charge your battery

 

Keep an eye on the health of your new battery

There are a lot of great 3rd party battery utilities in the App Store that provide a wealth of additional information about your MacBook Pro’s energy consumption and corresponding battery health. My favorite, however, is Battery Health by FIPLAB Ltd.

Battery Health, as the name implies, gives a detailed look at the health of your MacBook Pro battery and compares its current performance against its original condition when you first bought it. While the app is completely free, there is an option to pay $4.99 to unlock the full power history of your computer (since installing the app), a feature that is probably only useful for road warriors that really need to push their battery to the limit.

 

Calibrate your battery

Battery Health also comes with a clearly-outlined process for recalibrating your battery to ensure your computer is reporting the charge level accurately and the battery itself is making the most of its usable cells (the place energy is stored). That calibration list is as follows:

Perform this calibration every 6months or as needed
UPDATE: A fan of the site let us know that Apple officially calls for a battery calibration every month and even provides a link that adds a reminder directly to your calendar found here.

1. Fully charge your MacBook.
2. Once fully charged, leave it plugged in for at least another 2 hours.
3. Remove the MagSafe power adapter, and use your computer until you get the battery level warning message.
4. Ignore that message and keep running your notebook.
5. Eventually the machine will go to sleep.
6. Do NOT plug it in. Instead, let it sleep for at least 5 hours.
7. After the time has passed, plug it back in, and let it fully charge.
8. Once fully charged, your battery has been properly calibrated.

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While I’m a big fan of the latest and greatest technology, I’m also equally as into extending the life of my gadgets, or at least getting them ready for their next user. Keeping your gadgets functional and lengthening your upgrade cycle will save you a lot of money in the long run, and you’ll feel good knowing that your slowing down the rising tide of consumer electronic waste.

If you’re printing out documents just so you can sign and scan them back onto your computer, then something is seriously wrong with your workflow. Preview for OS X allows you to skip the archaic printing and scanning process by letting you put your digital Herby John Hancock on anything that Preview is able to open.

Here’s what you need to do so you can retire that multi-function printing monstrosity and finally go paperless.

What You’ll Need

• an Apple Computer running OS X with a functioning webcam
• a white piece of paper
• a black pen

Creating a Signature Using Your Webcam

1. Grab your black pen and sign your name in the middle of the white paper
2. Open a document you’d like to sign
3. Show the Markup Toolbar by clicking the little tool box next to the search box in the upper right corner of the Preview window
4. Click ‘Sign’ (conveniently, it looks like a signature)
5. Click ‘Create Signature’
6. Click ‘Camera’. This will activate your camera, showing a live feed with a thin blue line across it
7. Position your signature so the bottom of it rests on the blue line, and make sure it goes straight across
8. Click ‘Done’ to save your signature
9. Click ‘Sign’ once again and choose your signature
10. Resize your signature and move it around the document to your heart’s content
11. Save your signed document

If for some reason your Mac doesn’t have a working webcam or finding a paper and pen is just too much effort, you can create a signature using your touchpad, but the results will not look nearly as authentic as the paper, pen, and camera method.

 

Creating a signature using your touchpad

1. Open a document you’d like to sign
2. Show the Markup Toolbar by clicking the little tool box next to the search box in the upper right corner of the Preview window
3. Click ‘Sign’
4. Click ‘Create Signature’
5. Click ‘Click Here to Begin’
6. Using your finger, start on the left side of the track pad and draw your signature on the touchpad
7. Press any key to end the signature creation process
8. Click ‘Done’ to save your signature or hit ‘Clear’ and try again
9. Click ‘Sign’ once again and choose your signature
10. Resize your signature and move it around the document to your heart’s content
11. Save your signed document

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Now that you’re able to digitally sign documents, you’ll save lots of time doing something that should have always been simple, and you can feel good knowing that you’ll be saving some trees in the process.

[aside]My home network is called “Full O’ Viruses” – Bryce[/aside]

Most networking hardware vendors will have you believe wireless routers simply need to be taken out of the box, plugged in, and assigned a silly name so that your neighbors know how funny you are. This is not true, especially for city dwellers who must contend with wireless interference from living in close proximity to hundreds of people and hundreds of competing wireless networks.

Here’s how you can optimize your wireless network so your NSFW content and hilarious cat videos run silky smooth:

Step 1 – Hardware Check

The first thing you need to do is determine whether or not your current wireless router is capable of providing you with enough coverage at the speeds you want. This judgement is rather subjective, but as someone that loves top performing tech, I trust in Apple’s Airport gear to serve my networking needs, though anything capable of 802.11n wireless functionality will meet the needs of the average user. Also, a router that is capable of using the 5GHz spectrum is nice to have, so all the options I listed below have that ability.

Random Nerds approved Wireless Routers

• AirPort Extreme/Time Capsule – all high-end consumer networking options from Apple
• NETGEAR Nighthawk AC1900 – a high-end router for people that hate giving Apple money
• ASUS RT-N66U – an affordable wireless router with decent performance
• TP-LINK Archer C7 AC1750 – a usable wireless router with limited performance

 

Step 2 – Claim your spectrum

Wireless routers use radio waves to communicate with your devices. These radio waves are segmented into channels across a given spectrum, and routers are designed to automatically jump to the least congested channel. At least that’s the idea. Instead of letting your little box jump around the wireless spectrum willy nilly, take a peak at the wireless networks in your area using WIFI Explorer, and set your router to use the least congested channel.

Don’t be discouraged when you find that there is little to no uncluttered channels. Just find the best one with the weakest signals on it and that’s your best bet. Part of the performance gain comes from eliminating your wireless routers ability to assign its own channels automatically. Wireless routers that are constantly fighting for channels are using their limited processing power on that fight instead of routing your traffic.

Make sure you the set channels for the 2.4GHz and 5GHz radios if your device supports both.

 

Step 3 – Wire as many devices as possible

If you have devices close to your router that have an ethernet port, wire them to your network to reduce the wireless interference created by your own gadgets. Despite the fact wireless technology has come a long way and is more or less rock solid, nothing beats a wired connection, especially for game console where latency can mean the difference between winning and getting fragged.

If your wireless router does not have enough available ethernet ports, considering investing in a cheap gigabit switch. All you have to do is connect the switch to an available ethernet port on your wireless router, and you can add plenty of wired devices to your network.

The TP-LINK TL-SG1008D available on Amazon is inexpensive and requires no configuration whatsoever.

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Cat gifs, anonymous booty calls, offshore gambling, the internet is an incredible invention, there is no disputing that. But when your connection to the world wide web is sporadic and/or lagging, it becomes a tremendous source of frustration. If you take the time to actually configure your router to work properly amongst the other networks in your area, you should see a performance gain, and hopefully you’ll finally be making the most out of that internet connection that none of us can live without.