HOT 191: Moving From Windows to Mac - dd Command, Kindle Sync, Hotspots
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Coming up on the hands on the tech, we have a linux question. We've got a question about pasties. Yes, there's still more to learn there. Some talk about storage space and which networking system should a person use plus so much more with your questions answered on this episode of hands on tech. This is twit.

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Hello and are welcome to hands on tech the show where we I take a take questions and do my best to answer them with help of the chat at times. Um I am mica sergeant and this is another episode where you are writing in with the most wonderful, wonderful questions and I try to give you some answers that you know come close to being wonderful.

Um we have received especially this last week I was shocked at how many questions came pouring in in between, of course, the stupid uh, spam that makes its way into our our mail box. And so you know, I sort through do my best but you can H T A twitter TV to get in touch. And we would love, love, love to hear from you.

The first question that his Graced our mailbox this week comes in from, and here's the thing, person is in denmark, and their name is spelled O L E. That could be only that could be OLAY IT could be OLAY IT could be any number of things and so forgive me, uh, for mispronouncing your name, but we're going to go with OLAY who is written and says, I heard of a feature on linux that allows you to cut and paste your entire drive. The use case I have is that I have a five hundred gig about drive that is finally getting a little tight.

I plan on replacing IT with a four terribly drive. I understood that on linux, there's a feature of kin to snapshot on a syn ology nas that would allow me to move my system and files from one drive to another, with out having to install the Operating system again and maintain my existing partition system is IT possible. And how what I do that.

So when you are talking about, uh, this whole copy and pasting IT sounds to me like the thing thinking about is D D, which is also known as disk dump. But here's the thing, this dump has another name, a nickname, and that name is disk destroyer. Uh, and that is because disk dump or disk destroyer is very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very powerful.

Okay, hopefully that's enough varies. Um when we're talking about powerful in terms of computers, uh, particularly things that have with code most of the time what that means when someone says, oh, that's a powerful tool, a powerful utility is that IT is something that can really mess stuff up. IT has very deep uh, control of the system and control of the data and can mess things up. So before you think about using a this dump or disk destroyer, uh, make sure you've got backup PS in place. Um and then i'm going to talk about a couple of other options that are available to you.

Uh so with disk dump, the way that IT works is you connect both at five hundred gigabit drive that you have in the four terribly drive that you are planning on using um identify the names of the devices and their path so you can use uh f desk uh with will include uh a link in the shower notes that has information all about risk dump but basically you try to find out what the drive names are in their path and then you call the drive using disc dump. So what I will do is IT crab s the entirety of that five hundred five hundred gigi drive and moves IT to that for terror bite drive. Now here's the when you do that, IT does keep IT in its current partition, which is what you have asked for, but understand that means that the partitions are going to be the same size as the original drive.

So if you move that five hundred gig by chunk over to your four tea drive, you're basically creating a low partition on that drive that's five hundred gig bites. So you are going to need to use something like g party or partner to resize the partitions on that new for terrible drive to utilize the space after the fact. So whether you can do that up front, just understand that it's keeping IT kind of in its same low storage chunk, but that's the only way to do IT to maintain the system and everything else in this kind of quickly, easy copy and paste way as you're talking about.

The other option is to use r sink. Now if you use r sink, this is something that is powerful, but it's safer. IT is not as easy to mess everything up.

Uh, you should still do a back up. But using, uh, r sink is going to require you to partition the drive on that new drive. So you need to use g parted departed to create the same partition uh layout on the new drive.

And then of course you change the size as is necessary. You form at those judge of the same file systems a and then you can copy that data over with our sink and then also reinstalled the boot load. So yes, more complicated.

But IT is a little bit safer, especially if you use something like um if you use something like the the and now the term is escaping me, but basically the the more wordy version of our think it's going to give you all of the information about IT. Now I am seeing something pop up in chat a few times and this is the third option ah and so I want to cover this one, which is that it's a pretty easy tool to use. It's called clones illa.

So with clones illa, you can simply use this tool, which is a disk cloning and imaging tool, to clone the desk that five hundred gigabit drive and put IT on to the destination drive. And then after you clone, you can resize that partition on the new drive. So IT works a little bit like this dump, a little bit like dd, but it's a little bit more user friendly 啊。 And I can also be booted from a USB drive.

So you plugged in that USB drive with on zilla running on IT boot IT, and then say, hey, I want this moved over here. You moved over there. And then afterwards you can change the size of the partition. So you've got not just that five hundred gig bites that nearly about to run out of, but access to the whole thing while all of your files will remain on there. So if we're giving only exactly what only ask for D, D, this dump is probably what you had heard about.

What you're thinking of r, sink is a little more involved than is not at all what you are asking for but is a uh, verbose was the word I was looking for earlier um A A powerful and sort of safer way to move files over. And it's a little bit less like moving an image over and more like moving files over. And in the last option, which is the popular option, is close zilla, which is a third party tool.

So that is problem given that you said, um I understand that on linux, there's a feature a kin to snapshot. That's why I think you are probably thinking about disk dump. But clozel la is a great choice for you.

So thank you, Oliver writing in, and if you want to, you can write in and tell me how horribly I mispronounce your name or how perfectly i've pronounce your name. Who knows? All right.

Um this next question comes from Kevin. And this is the past keys follow up question that I wanted to address. So Kevin residence says, hello, mick, I just listen to your episode consulting package. And I have a question, are you able to log into a website using package if you have multiple accounts at that website? For example, I help manage my parents accounts, and we both have separate logging for the same bank.

Can I have a passion for my login at the bank and a separate pity for their logging at the bank on the same device? I may be over thinking this, but I thought that is an important question to ask since multiple loggins is not unusual. Thanks in advance.

So great question, Kevin. When you create this is the problem that I think leads to the confusion. Whatever IT comes to pakis is that if they're used to create new account, which is kind of the the whole thought here is a little bit simple er it's easier to kind of rock because you go I go to a website, I sign up forever n account. And at the creation of the account, I link a paste to IT.

And from that point on my packy is my log in for that account on that site, right? And so if I go to that site on day one, and I put in my user name, my email, a you know, mika, at website dot com, and then the next day I go back and I put in my, uh, I create a new account and it's a surge at website dot com, and I create a an account with that, and I create a paci. Those are two separate accounts with two separate logging for that same website.

And because i'm creating IT new, it's kind of easier to to to realize, right? It's linked to that specific account. So of course, I could create a new log in that separate from that.

But the way that things are working right now is we're taking account that already exist, and we are trying to add this new functionality to them. And so that's where I think the confusion kind of comes in, Kevin, where you're going. okay.

So if I got a wait to log into the account and my parents have a wait to log into account and then I create a pity for IT how you both of those accounts can have pass keys, as long as you log out and log in with your parents account and then go in to whereever IT says and create that packy. So if you both had an amazon account like this said, you had your parents password for their amazon account. When you log in, your aim is on accounting, you create parity because amazon is a site that offers packy.

That's one using as an example, it's saved on your phone if that's the way that you uses to do IT, not from a password manager. And then if you go to the amazon site and you log out of your account. And you log in with your parents information and you create an account, then are you you rather you log in with your parents and you create a pity it's going to be a pi created on your device but for their account.

So yes ah to put IT simply, it's a poor account logging in system. So as long as the accounts or separate, you and your parents will be able to log in with separate package for that account. Um so yeah I I understand the confusion there.

Don't feel bad about that. Um alright, we've got quite a few questions here. Uh actually i'm going to do one little follow up and then we will take a quick break to tell you about um club twice and then we will head back into the show great.

A questions for the second half. So the next question are the next bit of feedback comes in from gary and gary rights and and he says, uh, he was talking about follow up regarding the uh, kindle sink. So we had a person who wrote in and they were having trouble getting their kindle information to sink across devices.

So they were they had a kindle on their mac and they had kindle on an iphone. And I think that ipad or some other devices, and when they would read on one of those devices, they would expect that when they went to the next device and open up the kindle lap, that IT would be sinked and IT was not. And so we talked through some trouble shooting stuff there.

Uh, gary rode in to remind us of something important. Gerry says one thing that can disable kindle sink is to disable IT in the settings on a kindle or the APP. I'm not sure if your questioner has a kindle device or not.

In the latest firm, where is now called sink and not whisper sink. So for the longest time, amazon uh referred to its sinking functionality across the board as whisper sink and that is because amazon had created this at a time when sink as a concept for content was really just getting off the ground. Ah I can remember having a kindle keyboard that had whispers, sync functionality and IT was wide that I could opening up on my kindle keyboard and then later go to the site and look at that there.

And IT would be on the same page as IT was when I last picked IT up that is that whispers sc functionality is sync is now of a very common concept across things. So to have this sort of trademark system is not as necessary and particularly as auditable has become more integrated into amazon's own services. Uh the sinking functionality between audio books and a purchased title are also, uh, I make sense that nors call IT sink so yes, don't forget that also on the kindle or the kindle APP, you do need to go into the settings and make sure you have sink turned on and not disabled so uh, great reminder there from gary.

All right, let's take a little tiny break so I can tell you about club twit because we have a really exciting offer right now. Those of you who are itching to try club twit and have yet to do so right now for a limited time, we have a two week free trial of club to IT a twitter TV ssh club twit. So if you have yet to join the club, and you are wanting to check IT out to see what is available to you, wow, you can, for two weeks, uh, again, twitter up TV lush club.

Twit, uh, outside of that, it's seven dollars a month. And when you join the club, you get some pretty awesome things. Every single twitch show with no ants, just content. You gain access to the two plus bonus fee that has extra content.

You are finding where else behind the scenes before the show, after the show, special club to events, gap published there, access to the members only discord server, a fun place to go to chat with their follow club twit members and know so also those of us here at twit, access to the video versions of our club twit shows like hands on mac IOS today, uh, home theater geeks, hands on windows. Great time, uh, to check this out and become part of the fun, especially as this year is coming to a close. And if you are already a member of club twit and you're going, what about me? I don't worry because you also have an opportunity with our new referral program.

When you refer your friends to join the club, you can earn months of club twit for free. You can learn more about that a tweet that TV slash club to tweet slash referral. So thank you to those of you who have become members of the club, thank you to those of you who are planning on checking IT out and thank you to those of you who have referred your friends and earned some credits toward future membership payments. We appreciate you and um we thank you for your support.

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All right, let's head back to the show. H, we got a big question next from, and I love this question, so ronal is written and Ronald says, and we're going to read through IT and they're going to go back and kind of answered piece by peace wrong on the writer and says, I am planning to take the plunge and move from my dell windows ten desktop set up to a mac mini and I have a series of questions about that.

I ve greatly enjoyed your programs on the tweet network and realized that you would be the perfect person to advise me on my move. I already have an iphone and ipad and realized that many of the procedures will be similar on the mac. I am reasonably technically adept.

My needs are mostly text based, plus some like graphics. I have photoshop C S six on my windows machine and don't see that I will have many future needs for that on the mac. I am assuming that the built in apple apps will be adequate for most of those needs.

Since I plan to keep the windows ten machine around, I can always pull IT out for specific needs. I am planning to continue using two external dell monitors. They currently connect using display port.

The larger one has a variety of other connectors, including H D, M I D, V I D N V G A. The smaller one has display port and V G A. My thought was to cable, the H, D, my port in the mini, to a hub of some sort, and go from the hub to the monitors.

I have digitized what was a fairly large library of thirty three rpm records, thirty thirties and cds. I planned for those to be on the external drives. I also planned to to have most of my other files on external S S D drives, probably two overall, I have about two terabytes of data currently. But of course, there would be more in the future. I'd want additional USB supports for the keyboard, a microphone, speakers, additional temporary drives at set up.

So some questions, given my plans, how much rain will I need? Will sixteen gigabytes be enough? Also, would two hundred fifty six gig bites of storage be enough on a mac if the rest is external? The five hundred twelve gigg by many is a lump, but I could afford that if the overall usefulness would be Better.

Remember when to read to the questions, then we'll go back to them. Does that matter what a vy interface format I used for the external monitors? I know that the mini has an H, D, M, I output, is the best to use that for the larger monitor, or could I use any monitor display format that I want?

Uh, what hubs should I consider? Which ones have a lot of connectors and are reliable? I noticed that there are some hubs that designed to exactly fit the older mac minis on top and thought to possibly wait for the same would be available for the new mac mines.

And I correct that the mac equivalent to itunes could be run off of the external drives. I assume that new music, video and text files that set there could be saved to the external drives, and the mac could learn to use them from there. I plan to form at the external drives with x fat so that they could be seen both on the mac and my older windows machine.

Any potential problems with that? Can the mac format x fat? My understanding is that the mac has a somewhat different philosophy regarding file organization.

Will IT live with the organization that my existing files and folders already have? Or will he wants to reorganize them? Any limits to the size of the external drives?

With respect to the mac Operating system, I was thinking of four terabytes of external drives. One benefit I can see the using external S S, S with the mac many is that I could use Steve gibson's spin rights to maintain them. And I read about that.

Or what they use on the mac change, something I plan to continue looking forward to your H O T that hands on tech. And H O M is on mac podcast to learn about the mac. Any other good introductory sites or books you would suggest old, this is a fantastic question.

So you have done a great job of explaining what you plan to do with the machine and ask some great questions. I do want to go back to the part before your questions though, because there's a part where you say um my needs are mostly tax space plus some light graphics. I have photoshop sy a six uh and I think that apple apple be adequate for most of those needs.

So probably um if you are if you if you it's it's interesting that you use photoshop C S six. Uh, photoshop at all would suggest that you're doing some relatively involved graphics editing in which case the building tools that are by defauts with the mac may not be enough. But there are lots of third party apps out there that can uh fill in for you in those places.

And APP like pixel major photo matter, which was just recently acquired by apple, maybe of of interest to you. But if you're using photoshop to say just remove the background from an image or you are using them to just crop stuff, and yes, the building tools on the mac will be enough. And in fact, I encourage you to check out where you probably are, my latest series and H O M hands on mac, where I have been covering, uh, the use of preview and how powerful the preview up on the mac can actually be.

Alright, moving along, let's go down question my question. So the first one was how much rain will I need and then also asking about storage. So I have two um machines that I use regularly right now.

I'm coming to you from a mac studio and manu, this machine has a lot going on at all times. It's got multiple nations open. IT is streaming stuff if there is video on three different screens.

IT is pulling in video from a web cam and HDMI devices. And I mean, it's to do in the most. And so this has thirty two gig bites of RAM uh and IT is on the is an m one chip. It's pretty outdated in that way, but I have a mac book air that has the base level of RAM and I don't need to do the most on that machine and it's still source ah I think that with your light that you're talking about, the base model of RAM is going to be enough for you specifically. However, I say this with one little caveat.

I would want to know how often you get new machines if you're a person who holds onto a device for a very, very, very, very long time, then I just really encourage you to get the higher amount of rain because. Your needs may change and why not have more than what you need in case you ever do need IT? Um that is something that's worth worth considering whenever you're making this investment uh, in a device.

And so you don't you know you never know if at some point you're gna get interested in something that requires more RAM. And suddenly, like, well, I just invested in this machine. I you know, i'm gonna to trade IT in and the start going to be worth as much as what I paid for IT. And now i'm trying to get a more expensive one. So the best you can get at the time based on your budget and your needs is always my suggestion um and in that case, I think that it's worth having more RAM.

However, I will also say that I have not had again any RAM issues on either of these devices um with all of the things that I put them through and I put the I put even the little macbook air that you know get the basic level RAM through its paces and IT does just fine sort along just fine um now that said, you ask about storage. I have one great regret and that is that I only got one I think it's one terror but let me double check here yeah is that I only got one terribly of storage on this max studio um instead of opting for more storage space. So yes, external drives sore.

They zoom their quick, their fast, especially with the latest in U S B C in USB for now, although where maybe been going up to five um it's fast, but IT will never compare to having that storage right up next to that chip, just zoom and along as quick as IT possibly can. And so while you may think that it's easy to supplement the internal storage of the device with external drives, get as much stories you can afford built in because again, that is the one thing that I have. I, I, I have had no regrets when I come came to choosing that RAM.

I have had regret multiple times. So when it's come to having that storage space built in, it's just going to be quicker. And no matter what, having IT built in so and these tiny, tiny, tiny little differences, you know, you you're opening up a photo that is stored locally on your device.

And if it's on the exchange drive and it's loading that entire library photos, IT just takes a little bit longer than I would if IT was right there on device. So get the five twelve um even if that means sacrificing for the RAM get the five twelve storage space. I argue it's it's an odd thing because it's not usually something that I would suggest.

But when IT comes to the mac and apple silicon, IT is absolutely something I would suggest that the storage that's built in is more important than the RAM for these uses that you've talked about running. Now you've asked secondary aries doesn't matter what A V interface format I used for the external monitors, I know that the money has an H M. I output.

So for years I used to dell monitors like you talked about with my mac. And there are two options for how you can do this. If you are running them directly into the machine, then what I recommend is that you do H D M I for the one dell monitor that supports H D I directly into the mac mini.

And then for the other, there's a advice. Um there are actually this cable comes from multiple companies. But I got mind from cable matters.

IT is A U S, B C to display port cable. And so the display port goes into the back of your other delt monitor. And then the USB c obviously goes into your mac mini. And that provides display port a functionality for that monitor.

So you have one over H D M I, one over display port, which for some people is like it's fine, you're fine, they'll be fine, it's good um and then you will have those two monitors and that is how I did things for the longest time. However, we're gona talk about um harbin a moment. And so that's onna change my answer, just a hair.

So just keep that in mind that IT all depends on if you go with this hub or if you go with a different hub. So um once you have that figured out um using I as much as I can, I like to use display port and if I don't, so right now I have a dell monitor and I have apple's own um what is that? The studios display and the studio display is thunder able and the dell monitor is display port.

And again, before that, I made IT of the one of the monitors was definitely displayed part even though the other one enveloping hmi because IT plugs in because I was an htm port of the back. Um but I really like display port and I tried to use that as often as I can. Now moving onto the next question.

You say what hubs should I consider? Yes, there is a really cool hub out there that works perfectly with the current mac, many where he sits on top of or below I can't remember. Watch place a the the mac money and you know it's perfectly curved and carve IT IT IT looks all pretty a nice fine but IT has been my experience that there is no Better a dock than the dock offering from coalition on cow digit offers.

Uh the T S for, the thero station for and the cow digit T S for is awesome. Um this device has eighteen ports on. And IT is a dog. I I had the, so before they made the T S four, they made the T S three.

I had A T S three at the office of the studio and I had A T S three at home because I loved this dog so much, because IT actually works and works every single stink in time I have. IT is the only dog that is ever in the history of me having uh P C mac dogs. Ah IT is the only one that's ever been solid.

It's fantastic. IT is so good. And so that is why I really, really, really, really like IT.

Now as red con five was pointing out in the chat, IT is an expensive device. Ah the coleg T S force, almost the cost of a base mini yes. Um IT is a very expensive device, but it's so stinking good.

Uh IT is really, really, really good. And that is because as IT has all the ports you can ever need now anchor does also make one. Um that is my other suggestion.

If you can stomach the cost of the college T S. For, but what you get with the college T, S. For is straight up display port on the back of IT.

And so remember before I said you want A U, S, B, C to display port cable. In this case, you keep that display port to display port cable you already have in the back of that dell monitor. Put get directly into the cow digit, the caldigate runs thunder able into your mac mini.

And you have now two other thunderous ports on the back. You've got U, S, B, C ports, uh, by the not by the dozen, but by quite a few. You've got a bunch of U S, B, A ports and in your U S, D cards, slots and everything.

Microsoft, all right there. So this is the dog that I recommend. And honestly, I I can't recommend any others because he has been my experience through people who use those other docks that they work most of the time, but sometimes they don't work. And that is a frustrating experience, having to force, restart the dock, unplug the plug, deal deal with all of that have IT not properly uh, work like the USB suddenly stops working.

I ve never had an issue with that and I think that that's what you're paying for when IT comes to this um wow reconnection says that um he does have to remote his cow digit, which is bammer bite says about one a month less which is good but still that's that's kind of obama a and then yes, the anchor alternative is when we get that wow, it's not letting me highlight that. John, can you pull that up on the screen that you shared in the shown notes? Um there is the seven, seven, seven thunder able docking station.

A IT has twelve ports, although I think they are counting the power is one of the ports and in this case, IT has the uh HDMI option so you can plug in with HDMI. So that is an option. I know at least three people who have this one and they say IT works fine.

But yeah, I just I I hesitate to recommend anything other than the caldigate option because IT just worked so well. So that's what I have to say about that and I won't go on. And by the way, how digit is not a sponsor. I just um have used their stuffer long time and think it's great ah and by the way, if you decide to go with a different dog, but you're wanting to add more thunder able ports to your machine, how digit also makes A I think they call IT.

What do they call IT the um let's see IT is the element hub and the element hub has four thunder able four ports and or I guess it's three technically this is one of them is to actually connect IT and then four U S B four ports. So if you are looking for something that just adds more there and you can also kind of use IT as a uh charging base because IT has a bunch of ports that all can provide power. So uh that's another option as well.

The thunder about four years before element tub. All right, let's move on to the next question. And the adec is saying um uses the thunderbolt ment are the T S four with the T B hub, uh cow digits T B hub.

So there there are a lot of options from cow digits that are pretty great. Um and hi duck rock. Uh, the next question says I am, am I correct? The mac equivalent to itunes could be run off of the external drives.

I assume that new music, video and text files could be saved to the external drives and the mac. You learn to use them from there. IT is true, yes, that you can change the location of your music library and your TV library. The apps on the mac called T, V, and music. And it's as simple as well.

I will include a link in the show notes to which is you have to change where your music files are stored on the mac um and you can also just hold down the option key and click on the APP and then I will provide this little pop up that lets you decide where you want to store your music from that point on. So yes, you can use an external drive for that. And I know quite a few people who do and they have no problem with that as long as those external drives stay connected to device.

And in particular, if they are SSD, it's a pretty good experience there. Next question, I planned to form at the external drives with x fats so that they could be seen both on the mac in my older windows machine. Any potential problem with that? Can the mac format x fat? Yes, the mac can format x fat.

And in fact, that is what I recommend people do when they are using devices that are going to be storage devices that are going to be used on a multiple platforms. Discuss late is the tool that is built into the mac that has the power to create x fat drives for whenever purpose you have. Um I will include a link to the user guide for for discussion ity and I also did do an episode.

I think he was hands on mac and our hands on tech, but I D covered how to format to drive with expert. There is one thing that you need to know though is that um you want to make sure you use the G U I D partition map scheme when you create your expat drives uh M B R which is master boot record, is an older format or is an older scheme. And so you want to use the newer one, which is G U I D partition map.

Um here's the thing if you are planning on using these disks exclusively, or I should say inclusively so speak, between the two systems regularly, then x fat as a way to go. If you're wanting to use them as solely the external libraries for your content, I do recommend formatting them as A P F, S. Um you will likely see the slightest, actually you probably won't see this.

The computer will see the slightest bumping performance of those drives by having them in um aps. It's it's apple's own file system and apple does stuff in the background to keep those things nice and tidy. And because of that, that would be a reason to have them in p fs.

But again, only if you're working if if you're talking about storing you are photos, the library and your music library on that external S S D versus if it's just a place where you're kind of moving files between the two or accessing the files between the two, then you can have IT as x fat. And again, that's all I recommend. Whatever IT comes to bouncing between platforms, IT works on linux, IT works on a windows and IT works on uh on the mac.

And then the next question, my understanding is the mac has a somewhat different philosophy regarding file organization. Will IT live with the organza that my existing files and folders already have? Or will you want to reorgnization? Well, that depends on whether or not you are having the system manage your library for you.

So when you go into the music APP, there is a tool um let's sort of like up a little apple t that lets you create um or rather lets you will consolidate your library. And what that does is IT takes the existing library that you've created wherever you have IT and I can pose IT into its own little thing and organizes IT exactly as I would like. And so that does defer from how you do IT.

Then yes, it's going to change IT. But I spent my experience that I can play nice with your system um because I can drill down and figure out where your files are located. So if he wants to, it'll it'll get to IT. Yeah and I think that that the idea that I am curious maybe reckon you have a thought about this.

Um I don't feel like the whole file organization on a mac and windows are so different thing applies so much anymore because they both have really pushed toward using search as the means of finding your files and where on windows you've got you know you start see and then you you drill down on mac. You started your name and then you drill down from there, right? You you know your homework, so to speak, and you drill down from there.

So one is just like by the drive and the other is by the user, but they're still sort of parent folders and sub folders. I don't I I I think that that idea that the file systems or excuse me, the file organization of the of the file system is not that different from the two. Um i'm kind of rising here to see what reckon has to say about that um and I will go ahead and move on to the next question while I I hear the the thoughts there yeah so in both cases are kind of hiding files.

Windows is a lot more like mac nowaday says reckon, which was my my thought as well and IT seems like they are pushing toward. Just just use the search to find all your files, which I personally don't like. I like to know right where my files are but yeah um I guess when I use drop boxes, something like that, i'm using search and that's that's why um r let's see any limit to the size of the external drives.

With the respect to the mac Operating system, I was thinking of four terrible ox nal drives. I have not heard of any issue with external drive size. I imagine if you try to connect like up, I don't know sixty Peter bike drive IT might be going who are you and why do you have this machine in this sixty pedia drive? But um you're not going to have any any problems of a fortier by external drive at all or even multiple fortier by external drives connected um yeah not be fine.

One bit of what I can see the using external S D with a mac mini is that I could use Steve gibson spin right to maintain them and I write about that or their use on the mac change something well, I need you to understand that the process for using spin right, where with a mac as your primary machine is a little bit different. So i've linked to A G R C page, uh, for the bootiful tool that has information on using, uh, spin right with your mac. And you essentially need to create a bootiful version that you then run to access those s sd.

And that's a little bit different from windows where you can just run IT right on the machine. So yes, you can use spin, right, but it's a little bit different there. And so you just need to understand that going forward, that can also be one of the times where you head over to your windows machine and you take care of IT from that um right that as as uh policy modern max can't you spend right on their own exactly? Um and so you just need to use boot table to use IT via the boot table version, right? Um let's see.

Oh and in last but at least you said I planned to continue looking forward to your hot and home podcasts that hands on tech and hans on mac podcasts to learn about the mac. Any other good introduction tory sites or books you suggest and I have won that I want to recommend to you h my co host rosemary orchard and um my pal and a host of macro weekly Jason snow and many A A A tech journalist and tech writer and uh tech hot tour have written for the site. Take control that take a control bookstop com.

Why have I not in there yet? Maybe I need to help on that. Take control books. That com has a huge series of a books on using different apple uh features and devices and everything uh so you can head there and you can learn about securing your apple devices, iphone and ipad basics calendar reminders. These are updated regularly, which is fantastic.

You can learn about what you need to do with your apple account, which was one point called the apple I D that and that's a thing. Apple just changed apple I D to apple account and they have, uh, already updated that. So that's another awesome aspect.

This is that when you buy these books, they're not printed books, their P D F E pub books, and they will get updates and you will get those updates, which is fan stink tasted. So as it's noted in the thing, this book updates in replaces the earlier title take control. The apple I D, apple re named applied to apple account.

So we've changed the title of the book as well. You get these questions answered, uh, the intimidation glin flashman wrote that book in his, written a lot of the take control box. So yeah, check IT out. Take control books, start calm.

And maybe I need to reach out about, get them at list, try to see some other folks that you might know jeff carlson would also be another one who I think has appeared on hands on photography uh and if you are a clockwise listener, you would have heard of him from there as well um so yeah, those are some of the people and as I mentioned, rosemarie orchard already um those are the questions um from wrong and I thank you for those great questions. Those were those were awesome and i'm very happy to help help with that. And again, if have any other questions, let me know are we're going to do one little follow up.

And I had one of the questions I was going to answer, but we'll say that for next time. It'll be the the first one that we cover. So Stephen is in with and follow up regarding smartphone hot spots, and Stephen says a few episodes back you received the question regarding iphone hot spot compatibility with a network device and this pop and remind you all that someone had written in and they said, I am trying to use a legacy devices they call IT um IT was an old kind of smart home device and they wanted to use IT with their iphone hot spot.

They are basically using their iphone hot spot as their home network and I said, hey, if you you're one of these people who regularly uses your iphone, has your home network right in because I just want to talk to you, I just want to know I got some questions um because I had come up a lot enough I said, oh wow, this is something that people regularly do. I had no idea that you know enough people were using their iphone as their home network that I was hearing from a lot of them. So Stephen says why I do have home internet and do not use my hot spot as my main internet connection.

I do use IT as a back up from time to time like you do, because I mention that I have, uh, my ero network set up to use my hot spot as a backup. In cases when I don't have internet, I have a wifi repeat set up for my hot spot that I plug in when I need to use the hot spot at home, this can allow for a Better compatibility, and IT keeps my hot spot enabled. I find the iphone seems to disable the hot spot when not a news, this idea may assist the other user with their issue.

Steven, this is brilliant. How do I not think of this? So what Stephen is talking about here is you turn on your iphone hot spot and you buy a wifi repeat.

You connect the wifi repeat to the iphone hot spot and the wifi repeater, which is like a more standard wifi routing style device, is what that device that the smart device can connect to. IT makes perfect sense. It's such a great idea, and that also helps to spread that network connection around the home too.

So I love this city, but I think this was great. And I really glad that you wrote to suggest IT. Yes, if you can't get IT to connect directly to the iphone, that wifi repeat may have some more options on IT because that's one of the annoying things what the hot spot is. IT doesn't work like a Normal router or you can say disable the five digger hurts or or um you know um uh change the name of the the network and make the password this and and turn off W P A three in that kind of stuff no but with a wifi repeater that acts as a more standard wifi system. Yes, that's such a great idea.

So Stephen, thank you for writing in and that is why I encourage everybody if you have feedback ah if you're hearing one of these things, you're going I have the perfect for that right in I want to to hear IT I want to share with people and I makes me so excited to get to to to do that too so great works, Steven, and thank you to those of you who wrote in today to have your questions answered. Susan, you'll be first on the list for next time we uh, take questions. And thank you for writing in and will get to them.

But that is going to bring us to the end of this episode of hands on tech. I want to thank you so much for taking the time to tune today for this episode is my absolute pleasure to bring you the show. We record the show every sunday around about eleven A M pacific, and so be sure to tune in at that time.

If you have questions you would like answered H, O, T, at T T V is how you get in touch. Thank you. Chat room for all of your suggestions.

Stick around because this weekend is coming up later on the network and I will catch you, uh, in the week as well. Um oh yes. And I forget how that because I think it's spelled a certain way. But G L I net is the kind of travel router company that makes these little devices that are great for this. So um you might get one of those if you're trying to do that for you know home network is run by your your iphone hot spot and you thanks for joining in, will watch you again next week for another episode. Bye bye.