The trip I mentioned in the last post went well!
It was a very long day, but I survived it somehow.
I upgraded my gaming PC last year, recently got a new work laptop, so I’m in the market to next upgrade my personal laptop. My current laptop is an Acer Swift X purchased in 2021, and it has served me very well, serving as my main machine for over a year after moving.
As I’ve hinted, my plan is to replace the laptop with a 13″ MacBook Air or 14″ MacBook Pro: I’m leaning towards the Air as it is just slightly more portable not to mention less expensive.
Next on the upgrade list is my Mac Mini. Oddly enough, I can build out the Mini with the same hardware as the Air, which will be nice. My current Mac is an M1 Mini that has served me very well with one regret: I only got 8GB of RAM in it, and that gets a bit scarce at times, especially if I’m testing something in a Win11 ARM VM.
The plan I have for both the Air and Mini is the standard M4 chip with 24GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD. This should be perfect for my needs, but Apple may announce M5-equipped Airs and Minis soon, so I’ll adjust as needed when the time comes.
Lastly, I probably need to upgrade my phone at some point: its battery is pretty shot from excessive charging with all the windshield time I had a few years ago for work. I had planned to upgrade to the iPhone 17 a few months ago but cancelled the order when UPS tried to deliver it to my apartment door vs. using the lockers downstairs. I’m glad I didn’t upgrade as I would need to get used to Face ID when I find Touch ID to be a lot better for me.
Maybe I’ll just get a new battery for my current phone and wait another few years: after all, it’s still getting new iOS releases, so it’s not entirely unsupported yet.
I’ve got the portable network project on hold as well as rebuilding my homelab. I’ll eventually get both of those going, but I’m doing zero travel for work, and as I’ve mentioned, I can take my 5G hotspot with me and connect back home with WireGuard as needed. For the lab… the big issue is I need to really figure out if the rack will even fit in the bedroom. But that’s a problem for future me.
Until next time!