The thing I have always loved is being a lifelong learner and there are a few things that rarely fail to interest me, Highest on the lists are anything Mac, space (so very over my head… pun intended) and writing (mostly kids stuff but it could be anything having had prayed fervently for essay tests).
I did make a list in things 3 and in reminders (LOL!) of things that inevitably get me interested. And I add to them. Maybe one might reflect on things they were good at as kids. The talents and interests are often still there but get bogged down by grown-up stuff (jobs). No reason why one or two of those interests cannot be reignited. Interests can lead to jobs, the rewarding kind. Reflecting just means thinking about, right? I got an idea. I just pulled up Word Book (great app, btw) on my iPad . There are some terrific synonyms that will help if you are still stuck. I started coming up with ideas myself (that’s why I think it might help).
I installed it on the MBA not-M1 last night, in about 90 mins. I usually do a fresh install, but upgraded this time, so that may have made the process slightly longer.
One reason for the upgrade route was that I wanted to try the the new feature to erase user data from within Monterey, which should be easier than faffing around with USB / internet installs.
I was going to play with that this morning, but over breakfast I seem inadvertently to have ordered an M1 Pro to pick up this afternoon, so I won’t bother with the fresh install till the refund box arrives.
Upgraded the M1 MBA to Monterey. Downloads took about 40 minutes and the upgrade itself is another 40 minutes. I don’t know if it feels faster than Big Sur but I am looking forward to having more battery life.
Aside from that, I am not sure what else is new (the features in Apple website does not impress me). Maybe this is a performance upgrade, which I am totally fine with that. It’s about time someone take one year to optimize macOS.
I upgraded 3 Mac today. The M1 MacBook Pro was on beta already, so it only took 30 minutes and a small download. The two other M1 Mac mini and Intel Mac mini had to be upgraded from Big Sur with the 2.6 ? GB download but the upgrade took less than 50 minutes.
Overall, there is no surprise from my beta experience. However, I was surprised / upset that Bitdefender did not work properly. It blocked the time machine back up. Contacted their tech support only to be told that Bitdefender is not ready for Monterey and sounds look it would not be ready in a hurry
I like the tab in Monterey’s Safari. But, I miss how the toolbar follows the color of the website, which is not possible unless I choose the Compact mode. Sigh!
Just upgraded my iMac 27 2017 in just under an hour, download included.
Again hit the snag on the final pass where the updater asks for the password, and it doesn’t recognize my Logitech keyboard. Had to pull out my 15 year old IBM keyboard and plug it into the USB-A port. Not a great experience, but at least I got it working.
Naturally very anecdotal at this time, but the systems kinda seems faster than on Big Sur.
I am eager to upgrade but use a couple of less usual applications that I am concerned about: HyperResearch, SPSS, Finale, to name a few. Any issues with software compatibility?
I ran GeekBench before and after, and there was no a small change.
macOS
ID
Platform
Architecture
Single-core Score
Multi-core Score
12
10633873
macOS 64
x86 64
1063
7027
12
10633828
macOS 64
x86 64
1072
8020
12
10633235
macOS 64
×86 64
980
7505
12
10633177
macOS 64
×86 64
1041
7511
11
10631082
macOS 64
x86 64
979
6910
11
10629653
macOS 64
×86 64
982
6614
11
10629484
macOS 64
x86 64
984
6485
DiskMark scores did improve. I only ran one test before upgrading, so it may have been a fluke. For the two after, there was an appreciable speedup in both sequential and random read times.
(2017 iMac Pro, internal 1T SSD)
I wonder if the disk results are a difference between OS versions or if they’re the result of work done to clean things up as part of the upgrade process.
The reflection is thinking about it but with the added benefit of what to do next time. Could be a big step but I often coach clients to take just the next step as that can help with momentum.
Being a lifelong learner is a lot of fun. In my current role I get to do a lot of reading and research (YouTube), some business development and then the roles of facilitation and coaching. Best of all worlds for me as I’m a bit of an introvert so the coaching and facilitation are fun but I can find my own space once they’re done.
Where can I find your kid’s books? I have a 4yo granddaughter who we all want to grow to be a keen reader. Happy to dig in if you let me know.
Happy to share the link. I’m just tidying up my blog as I started it prior to this chapter in my life so I didn’t really write seriously for others. I look at the posts now think: "what was I thinking?"
Just upgraded my 2015 MBA to Monterey. Didn’t really time it as I was doing other stuff around the house. So far there are no issues. This is my travel machine and I’m not going anywhere anytime soon so figured if it work well on the Air then it will,be fine on my M1 iMac.
