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Re: So do most people convert their external devices to be compatible with High Sierra? - 5 years ago

QuoteI think you meant to say that there's a downside to converting them to APFS. HFS+ gives the most flexibility, works with old and new OS versions. Yes, whoops, that's what I meant.

by FormerlySaleenl - Tips and Deals

Re: So do most people convert their external devices to be compatible with High Sierra? - 5 years ago

Your High Sierra machine can deal with APFS *and* HFS+ seamlessly with no issues. Your Sierra and older machines can deal with HFS+ but will not work at all with APFS drives. So if you have older machines, there is a big downside to converting your external drives to HFS+. In my opinion, the very small amount of benefit to converting your external drives to APFS does not outweigh the convenience

by FormerlySaleenl - Tips and Deals

Re: Did anyone buy Appliances from Costco? - 5 years ago

I ordered an LG washing machine from Costco last summer. Placed the order 7/5, "order received" 7/9, "order shipped" 7/14, contacted by local logistics firm 7/18, delivered 7/25. Hope this helps! Sarah

by FormerlySaleenl - Tips and Deals

How can you verify that your Kindle Fire has been backed up? - 5 years ago

I have googled and searched Amazon's help but I can't figure this one out. I have a Kindle Fire I want to trade in - but only if it is backed up so that I can restore it to a new one. In settings, the back up option is selected and Amazon's help site says "Your device will automatically back up once daily when it is on standby and connected wirelessly." It's been set to back up for a we

by FormerlySaleenl - Tips and Deals

Re: New 2TB SSD. How best to set up? - 5 years ago

Hal - I started reading DealMac before Mike wrote CCC! But, yeah, I still read the forum every day and if I see anything CCC related I try to respond. We have one new thing on the horizon that we're excited about and haven't yet made a public announcement - APFS snapshots. We received an entitlement from Apple and CCC now has direct access to create and delete snapshots on APFS volumes. (You

by FormerlySaleenl - Tips and Deals

Re: Permanently decrypt a drive converted to APFS (encrypted) format? - 5 years ago

You have a couple of options. One, you can boot from the MBP, attach an external drive, and run CCC on the MBP to clone it. You can then boot from the clone, re-format the MBP's internal drive, and clone it back. This is the fastest way to undo the encryption. Two, you can decrypt the drive in System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Filevault > Turn off Filevault. This takes forev

by FormerlySaleenl - Tips and Deals

Re: VPN, again... - 5 years ago

I have been happy with Private Internet Access and often find that it speeds things up for me. I have Comcast and there are frequent bottlenecks/routing issues in my area that can be fixed with VPN. No VPN: PIA connected to London: PIA connected to "Midwest": We have 150down/10-20up - in theory.

by FormerlySaleenl - Tips and Deals

Re: Paging all Minecrafters - 5 years ago

Oh, Minecraft. My son plays a lot of Minecraft. The Java-based Minecraft is different from Minecraft PE, which is what you play on most devices. The only version that kind of crosses over from game platform to PC is the Xbox version, but really that just means that if you have the Windows Minecraft version, you can play something that resembles PE (it might actually be PE). So basically, if your

by FormerlySaleenl - Tips and Deals

Re: HVAC Question—Baseboard Hot Water, or Ducted Hot Air? - 5 years ago

Did your son get a Mass Save evaluation done? That can lead to rebates on insulation and hvac equipment. Also - fun fact - heat pumps are sold in Massachusetts! Our neighbors did a renovation and put in two but they are installed on platforms to keep them above the snow in the winter. We had one when we lived in St. Louis, but opted for traditional furnaces/AC units when we moved to Mass. Now

by FormerlySaleenl - Tips and Deals

Re: How to check and report data integrity? - 5 years ago

I'm touting my own product, but Carbon Copy Cloner has a "find and replace corrupted files" that we call a Backup Health Check. It's just a checkbox in advanced settings and you can set it to run automatically daily, weekly or monthly. It runs a checksum check between your source and destination files to find corrupted files. Here's more info: That said, CCC will never replace a val

by FormerlySaleenl - Tips and Deals

Re: HVAC Question—Baseboard Hot Water, or Ducted Hot Air? - 5 years ago

I have had a mix of all of the above and prefer baseboard heating, hands down. In my experience, it is less dusty, more even, less dry in the winter, and quieter than forced air. Even if it cost a bit more, I would opt for it in a heartbeat. My favorite combo was a house with baseboard heat and forced air ducts for AC. Mini-splits are nice but a bit of an eyesore, kinda loud, and likely very u

by FormerlySaleenl - Tips and Deals

Re: new thermostat - 5 years ago

I also took advantage of the $49 Ecobee - it arrived yesterday (!) and we already installed it. We had a first generation Nest previously but we've been unhappy with Nest reliability lately, plus we wanted a sensor in a different room because our thermostat is in a poor location. When we went to hook it up, we realized that when they installed the furnace five years ago, they ran the wiring fo

by FormerlySaleenl - Tips and Deals

Re: Daisy chain external hard drives for backup? - 5 years ago

I actually highly recommend partitioning a disk if you want to have a backup + data on it; it's cleaner, makes it harder to accidentally delete data, plus it restricts the amount of space that your SafetyNet backup consumes. Sure, you can do that by tweaking CCC's in-app settings but a partition is easy. USB hubs often lead to I/O errors and I would avoid one if at all possible. With the price

by FormerlySaleenl - Tips and Deals

Re: High Sierra - 5 years ago

My husband, Mike, has been doing a ton of High Sierra testing and has written several articles about it that reference CCC, but there is a ton of info in there for non-CCC users, too. This article gives a lot of great basic info about filesystems and High Sierra: Everything you need to know about Carbon Copy Cloner and APFS - We've run a number of tests of HFS+ vs APFS and published the

by FormerlySaleenl - Tips and Deals

Re: Might be useful to those of us who want to avoid the new Apple file system for now - 5 years ago

oops, posted to wrong thread.

by FormerlySaleenl - Tips and Deals

Re: Can anybody recommend a shower head/hose thing? - 5 years ago

We've had great luck with Delta In2ition hand showers. They have a "pause" button on the handheld part - you have to hold it down - but it might meet your needs. There are a couple of different models but we've liked this one: We have this one in one of our bathrooms because it was cheaper at the time:

by FormerlySaleenl - Tips and Deals

Re: My First Dishwasher - 5 years ago

Some dishwashers have a heating element in the tub. I don't like them because it means that you can't put plastic on the bottom rack, plus any plastic that falls can melt on the heating element. I like that the two Boschs (Bosches) we've had don't have a heating element in the tub. Sure, stuff doesn't get quite as dry in the end, but I haven't regretted the tradeoff. Also, some dishwashers hav

by FormerlySaleenl - Tips and Deals

Re: Looks like Apple is changing the rules about rolling back OS - 5 years ago

You can roll back, but perhaps not using built-in tools. What is the drive format? Not that it was an option for you since High Sierra was already installed, but you can downgrade using a CCC backup. I think the APFS switch may be making things much more difficult, but hopefully not impossible. and

by FormerlySaleenl - Tips and Deals

Re: Gah! Stuck in Hartford airport - 5 years ago

I actually really like BDL, because it's so easy to get in and out of, unlike Boston or the NYC-area airports. And I'm really excited that there are direct international flights again! It's gotten better in the past couple of years, but there isn't a *ton* to do there or eat there, I'll give you that.

by FormerlySaleenl - Tips and Deals

Re: Backup/Sync software suggestions, please - 6 years ago

First, I am 100% biased as CCC is our family's business - Mike and I put everything into CCC. We redesigned and modernized CCC from the ground up, both visually and under the hood, in 2012-2014, which cost us a lot of money and time. Yes, CCC has always been able to back up your files, back up folders, create a bootable backup, back up the Recovery HD, and so much more. So far, we have everyt

by FormerlySaleenl - Tips and Deals

Re: question about credit freeze: does it impact the free annual credit report? - 6 years ago

You can still get your credit reports, but you may not be able to get them online. Sometimes I can only get 1 of 3, sometimes 2 of 3, but I always have to mail in my request to at least one because I am automatically blocked from getting it online. Of course, I also often fail the questions they ask you to prove it's really you. I used to live in University City, MO, just outside of St. Louis.

by FormerlySaleenl - Tips and Deals

Re: Bombich Software Upgrade CCC 5 - 6 years ago

Thanks for mentioning us. It's been a wild day and a half! We had so many people checking out our website and buying CCC that our server could hardly handle it. We increased capacity and everything was great - for like 20 minutes. (We work with an outside reseller partner to actually sell our software and process all our payments, but in the end that sales and license info has to reach ou

by FormerlySaleenl - Tips and Deals

Re: anyone make a significant amount of their income via online sales? - 6 years ago

We do. What kinds of questions do you have? Feel free to PM me.

by FormerlySaleenl - Tips and Deals

Re: Email attachements arrive as winmail.dat that I can't open - 6 years ago

I have this issue with some senders, too. I've found it easiest to use this tool to open the winmail.dat file:

by FormerlySaleenl - Tips and Deals

Re: off key?!....iTunes continues to lose market share..... - 6 years ago

With Amazon I can rent a movie on my computer in advance and then watch it on any device while it is rented. With iTunes it is curiously device specific, in the worst possible way. It's one thing to be restricted to watching a rental on a single device, but if I rent a movie my computer and don't start watching it, at the very least I should be able to watch it on a different device tied to m

by FormerlySaleenl - Tips and Deals

Re: health insurance snafu - advice? - 6 years ago

I would be surprised if your insurance covered it. When I moved, my allergist recommended that I hand-carry my serum to my new doctor to save on the cost of shipping. And I had really good insurance through a university.

by FormerlySaleenl - Tips and Deals

Re: ALL Powdered Detergent "Free and Clear"... Looking for another brand that is as good... - 6 years ago

I have used this powdered detergent for a while, as well as its scented variants, and it works well: All scents are so mild, I just buy whatever variety is cheapest at the time. Note that while it appears expensive, it comes in 10 pound boxes instead of the 3.25 pound All ones. Also, the amount you need to use is very small if you read carefully, it's no more than two tablespoons. The includ

by FormerlySaleenl - Tips and Deals

Re: Massachusetts considering daylight savings time year-round - 6 years ago

I have to respectfully disagree. While the school argument probably holds true for the western portion of a time zone, it doesn't translate to the eastern part. And I will be upfront, the time change really bothers me and I have put *way* too much thought into it!!! Take Kalamazoo, MI, where I used to live. On November 4, right before the time change, sunrise was 8:19. In fact, for the month p

by FormerlySaleenl - Tips and Deals

Re: Amazon gifts sent anonymously - 6 years ago

Just realized that I totally misread your question. We get many totally anonymous gifts that have not even a first name. Yeah, if you need a last name you're pretty much SOL.

by FormerlySaleenl - Tips and Deals

Re: Amazon gifts sent anonymously - 6 years ago

I have managed to get just the first name of the person that sent it by asking nicely in the online chat.

by FormerlySaleenl - Tips and Deals