Mac: Going without power

My daughter is home from college for the weekend to celebrate Easter. I always love when she comes home - she really is a fantastic kid. She arrived a little early yesterday and filled me in on what was happening at school. Then she said:

"Daddy..."

When my daughter addresses me as Daddy that means there's a problem. Usually I'm Dad, Dude or "Yo!".  Daddy = not good.

"Daddy, the check engine light on the car came on right before I left campus. My cell phone died and I need to get it fixed. Oh, and I forgot to bring the power supply for my MacBook so I'll need to borrow yours."

I absorbed and slowly processed each of these statements, giving her a vacant look while my brain worked overtime. A check engine light is not good but the car is still under warranty so I'll figure that one out. That damn cell phone is not quite a year old and we had to sign a two year contract when we got the thing since she had to have the built in MP3 player on it. "It's so cool Daddy, please?". Now I have to yell at some poor Sprint store clerk in order to get this stupid issue resolved. This is not going to help me get an iPhone.

A little red light went off in my head. Power Supply? Did she say she needed my MacBook power supply? What the deuce??

How the hell am I going to use my MacBook for more than a couple of hours without a power supply? Sure, it's got great battery life and all but it ain't gonna last an entire weekend. I like to leave my machine on at all times - on the rare occasion I'm not actively using it I like to know it's there when I need to, say, write a quick blog post. Like this one.

So now we have to share a single power supply, like a couple of scuba divers sharing a bloody air tank when one of them fails. Shortly I'll have to enter her room and find the power supply in the debris field that happens when she returns home. How a little weekend travel bag like hers can disgorge enough crap to fill a room is beyond me, yet somehow a power supply couldn't find it's way in there.

When did I turn into a grouchy old man? Oh yeah, three teenage kids. Nevermind.

Well, we have to go out and run a lot of errands today so my Mac won't be used a lot. And I was looking for an excuse to visit the Apple store while we are out; maybe I'll pick up a spare power supply.

I'm pretty confident this is going to happen again.

Comments

Joel Esler said…
It's not that bad, my wife and I share one when I come home, so I don't have to take my supply out of my briefcase every night. You figure, one is always plugged in at a time, so, the battery on one is either fully charged or on it's way.

The rest of the time, the other machine is plugged in. Turn the brightness down on your macbook, it'll save some battery life.
March 22, 2008 at 10:21 AM
Mike D. said…
You could also set a hot corner to put the display to sleep, and set the power savings to put the computer to sleep after whatever time is right for you.

I'm enjoying the blog, I'm a new Mac owner also (Time Machine was the final selling point), and learning a few good tricks along the way.

Thanks.
March 22, 2008 at 10:38 AM
David Alison said…
@mike d.: glad you're enjoying the blog! I'd write a longer comment but I'm down to 73% battery life :-)
March 22, 2008 at 10:41 AM
Unknown said…
Yeah, That might be true joel, but after you have a laptop that you do that with for quite a while and the battery no longer holds a charge. You will sing a different tune.

Unless your handy with a soldering iron that can be costly. After paying 125 bucks for a new battery from a online store. (260 local) I swore I would never use it on battery power. If their was a plug within distance no matter what.

Well after my gf used her laptop battery up doing the exact same thing. I bought batterys from a online store that matched the spec'd batterys in the case and soldered them in and voila 43 bucks and a new battery that held a higher charge then before.

Also on a side note. I would hold off on spending the 80 bucks or so that I am sure apple will glady charge you for that power adapter. I am sure you can find one online used or new for a considerable amount less.
March 22, 2008 at 10:42 AM
Unknown said…
Mike D. Wait till you buy a new mac and you connect your old mac to copy over the account. After a short time and a reboot everything including your software is their, hell even your bookmarks... I find this impressive cause I have yet to EVER get that to work on any Windows OS that wasn't a ghost image.
March 22, 2008 at 10:44 AM
David Alison said…
@mikez101: $80 for a power supply? Hmm. May have to rethink that. BestBuy carries them and I have a discount card there. (71% battery)
March 22, 2008 at 10:46 AM
Unknown said…
David, I've been reading your blog regularly and really enjoy it, especially since I have the same development environment (VS on a Mac through Fusion). Anyway, I work for Sprint as well so if you have an issue getting that phone repaired, let me know and I'll submit a ticket to have it looked into.
March 22, 2008 at 2:14 PM
David Alison said…
@josiah: Just got back from the Sprint store - had to visit one that had a tech department. They determined that the phone was dead, likely from a drop that broke the antenna connection. The manager there was about as nice as can be and offered to give my daughter a refurbished Fusic replacement for $35 - and we didn't have to extend the contract to do it.

She's happy, I'm happy. I think she went through 30 or so text messages in the last 45 minutes. Amazing how a good customer service attitude can make a big difference. Kudos to Sprint on that one.
March 22, 2008 at 3:03 PM
tzs said…
You might want to consider a third-party power supply. Kensington makes one that is very thin. It is longer and wider than an Apple power supply, but overall fits much nicer in a bag or backpack, because of the thinness.

But the best part is that it has removable tips on the end of the cable. You can get tips for the various Mac laptops, and for iPods (and I think for various cellphones).
March 22, 2008 at 3:13 PM
Unknown said…
So I went and looked it up my guess was 1 buck off. Its 79 bucks. What a rip-off.

http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore.woa/wa/RSLID?mco=816A0BD3&fnode=home/shop_mac/mac_accessories/power&nplm=MA938LL/A
March 22, 2008 at 3:35 PM
David Alison said…
@Mikez101: I saw that today at the Apple store. $79 - ridiculous for a simply power supply. I'll check out the Kensington - thanks for the tip Tzs.

My turn with the power supply so I'm recharging and nearly up to 100% again.

On the other hand while I was at the Apple store I got a chance to play with what I really want next: a Mac Pro. A spare power supply is looking pretty cheap right now.
March 22, 2008 at 4:17 PM
Chris Howard said…
Dave, I reckon you'd be better off spending money on a spare battery than spare power supply. You'll prob get a lot more use from it than the power supply.
March 22, 2008 at 6:57 PM
Anonymous said…
David .. I just started following your blog recently. Good stuff.

I have only 1 child, a daughter recently out of college but my heart is in sympathy with you! ("oh, Daddy ...")
I've been in the same multi-catastrophe situations with mine.

You'll get past them, my friend .. just in time for the next set ..
March 22, 2008 at 7:25 PM
David Alison said…
@ravhowie: Thanks for the laugh man. Girls just have a way of turning fathers into irrational idiots. As soon as she whips out the "Daddy..." I know I'm in trouble. The best part is that my youngest daughter watches and learns from my oldest - they know how to get what they want from me. Somehow I'm okay with it though ;-)
March 22, 2008 at 9:02 PM
Dylan said…
I always buy a second AC adapter for my laptops. One stays plugged in where I usually use the laptop and the other stays in my travel bag. Then when I want to take the laptop and go I don't have to crawl under the desk or behind the couch or whatever.

BTW, if you haven't bought the adapter yet, get the one for the MacBook Pro. It's overkill for the regular MacBook but it costs the same, will charge the battery a little faster and be usable when (not if, heh) you upgrde to a Pro.
March 24, 2008 at 5:00 PM
David Alison said…
@Dylan: I came within a couple of heartbeats of buying a Mac Pro while at the Apple store today. Sooooo close - decided to order it online in a week or two.

I've been to the Apple store so much lately they must think I'm stalking the place.

No MacBook Pro for me anytime soon. I'll keep the MacBook as my portable device and use the Mac Pro to replace my Windows machine.
March 24, 2008 at 5:20 PM
Anonymous said…
I have one Mac Book Pro, and three power supplies. In the places I don't leave a power supply (work) I leave the extension cord thingy. In other words, I feel your pain.
March 24, 2008 at 7:59 PM
Bowen said…
Hi, David, I am very enjoy your blog, Each article in your blogger contains valuable informations, I will pay attention to your blogger for a long time.
August 30, 2010 at 7:29 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Keyboard vs. Mouse

Image
Late in the 20th Century Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott is at the PLEXICORP offices with Dr. McCoy and trying to explain how to construct "transparent aluminum" to Dr. Nichols, the plant manager. Scotty is offered up the use of a Macintosh sitting on a nearby desk in order to demonstrate the design. Scotty speaks out in a loud voice: "Computer..." The Mac Plus sits there. Bones grabs the mouse and hands it to Scotty. Scotty pulls the mouse up to his face and says "Hello computer?" Dr. Nichols looks concerned and instructs Scotty to "just use the keyboard". Scotty says "The keyboard... how quaint" After stretching his fingers like a concert pianist Scotty begins typing furiously on the Mac's keyboard, quickly producing a detailed 3-D graphic to describe how to manufacture transparent aluminum. As Scotty would tell you, using the keyboard is clearly better than using a mouse. I mentioned before that one of the myths that I cl...
Read more

Some cool Firefox add-ons

Image
For the last week and a half I've been trying out Firefox as my primary web browser. Back when I was a Windows guy I switched to Firefox because of the innovations it introduced and most importantly the extensions available for it. Now that I'm exclusively a Mac / Linux guy I figured I would check out the Firefox add-on market and see what's available. It's important to note that the web browser is more than just a device to view web pages. I personally do a lot of data entry through web pages, mainly with this blog. Since I use Blogger I end up composing these posts using the in-page editor. Obviously if you comment on this blog you will be using a simple text editing surface to enter your comments. This can extend further when you look at online products like those offered from Google, including e-mail, word processing and spreadsheets. I also do a lot of my development work using a web browser. In some cases it is to simply see the results of the application I am wo...
Read more

A hardcore Windows guy gets a Mac

I have been a Windows developer for many, many years. Before I was a Windows developer I was a DOS developer. I've always been a Microsoft fan, heavily invested in doing Windows development. Really, since 1984 - my first job doing professional software development - I have been true blue Microsoft. When I would watch the Mac ads with the nerdy PC guy and the cool Mac dude I always secretly rooted for the PC guy. Last year something interesting started to happen. Many of the people in my network of friends and family started buying Macs. They were sick of the hassles of Windows, with the viruses and spyware and ever slowing performance. They seemed to be drawn in to the Apple advertising - it spoke to them. And they seemed very happy. I wrote that off as non-techies just looking for something new and easy. The Macs did look better with Mac OS X - it seemed like a really smooth operating system. But as far as I was concerned it was just a fad. Then my daughter was accepted to go to V...
Read more