MKBHD: Best back to school tech 2022

 

[VIDEO] These are the tools Marques Brownlee recommends when you hit the campus in the coming school year. Particularly if you're in college, I would wonder what he would recommend for high school students.

And something from the comments I want to share with you which is important:

Guys, a quick note that you do NOT need all the high-end tech in order to do well at college. If you can (and you should), save as much money as you can while at college, pay your tuition in full and student loans as soon as possible instead of spending on liabilities like gadgets. Get the bare minimum you need and only spend money on products you know you are going to be using for 4-6 years (such as laptop). Don't overspend on phone, headphones, lamps, tablets, etc.

Follow this advice, all of these wonderful items are great. And not to be the negative type, if you live in a college dorm you risk the possibility of being robbed. When I was still on a college campus I've heard a handful of stories on this. Regardless if you want to give Bro. Brownless a small commission for buying these devices give some of these devices go right ahead. Hopefully they will be useful to you in your studies. :)  

Oh yeah! I got sidetracked for a second

I hope you didn't forget that I spoke with my former principal at Bennett-Shedd School, Mr. John McCormick back in late February. I wrote one quick post about the possibility that back during the 1980s Shedd School itself would've been closed long before it happened by 2013.

It was a great chat about the start of his career with the Chicago Public School starting off as a substitute in 1971 and then eventually spending 10 years as a special education teacher until he was ready to advance his career as a school principal. He started at Bennett-Shedd in 1984 and left that role in 1995 to become an elementary school principal for a suburban school district.

What I enjoyed about the conversation was he definitely put together a vision of what he hoped to accomplish at Bennett-Shedd. He noted that both schools had been under a series of interim principals until he took on the role. He makes sure to note that when he left in 1995 he was confident in the team he put in place would continue the successes he had as principal. In 1995 he was succeeded by the late Mrs. Barbara Ellis.

Finally I wrote a few times earlier this year about the computer lab at Bennett School on the third floor. It was a place where my class from maybe about 4th or 5th grade and up spent at least an hour of time to do class based work on IBM computers. Mr. McCormick noted that they received a grant from IBM to put computers in our school and presumably they weren't IBM/PC clones they were IBM PCs. It's amazing to note that IBM is no longer in the PC business, though they were certainly one of the dominant players in the computer game for its time.

Regarding that computer lab, I opined that it could've been where I could have written and even preserved a copy of my autobiography that was necessary to graduate from the 8th grade. Even in the early to mid 1990s many people didn't have a computer at home. And for assignments like the autobiography many of my fellow students had to complete them by hand.

Either way I'm getting to work on the actual post starting as soon as I post this. This project I wanted got held up by current events in the world. Here's hoping Mr. McCormick is making out OK with the current pandemic. Hopefully all of you are as well.

Stay safe! Be well! 

The first IBM clones

[VIDEO] During these shelter-in-place orders I've been watching a lot of YouTube as of late. And found this video from the 8-bit Guy. His channel concerns itself with retro technology such as the Compaq and Hyperion portable computers. Part of me wants to consider the portable computer an ancestor to the laptop.

The Compaq Portable you see in this video was lovingly cleaned and restored in some of his earlier so that he can feature it in this video. It is considered the first 100% IBM PC compatible computer. Well it's still funny to talk about IBM clones when IBM has long since left the PC market.

Anyway while those types of computers were years ahead of me, I think it's cool to see how portable computers have evolved. On Wikipedia, portable computers have gone from laptops to smartphones to tablets. It would be amazing to have something like an iPad Pro become the latest trend in portable computing as many claim it could replace a traditional computer.

As far as those 1980s portables the world has really evolved beyond the floppy disk drives, the CRT, and other pieces that I would find antiquated when it comes to using a PC today. These portable computers would make a great collectors item and I see that they're used to play old games available on ancient floppy disks. It's hard to imagine using one of these machines in the 21st century.

Brownlee: 2020 iPad Pro review

[VIDEO] This is Marquez Brownlee's latest video about the update iPad Pro. One question you could ask about this could this replace your typical laptop computer? It's funny although Brownlee himself is quite young some kid asked him "What's a computer?" and Brownlee is forced to play an old man who is incredulous that a young kid doesn't know what a computer is.

Well the iPad Pro could probably be used as a laptop replacement now that you can attach via bluetooth a mouse - in this video Brownlee utilizes an Apple touchpad as a mouse for his iPad. Since I've never used an iPad as akin to a laptop computer I'm a long way to evaluate whether or not it could.

As a consumer, I'm still trying to figure out a use for even a basic iPad. It's a great device to carry around with you for your own purposes. Perhaps you like to surf the web, listen to music, watch YouTube videos such as this one, perhaps you have some work to so, you like to check emails, etc. As far as a laptop you would typically do some work on it, especially for a job that requires you to carry a laptop.

Either way I'm looking into an iPad Pro even if I choose to get an earlier generation. I like the boxy design that it's adopted since last year. The quad speakers seem cool although chances are I'm either using headphones or an external speaker. I figure it's perfect for streaming, however, it is worth the price. Is the new iPad Pro worth it to place with the new dual lense camera.

What do you think?

Why are Apple products expensive?

[VIDEO] Yeah right now I'm into Apple. Well have you ever wondered why Apple products from their Macs to iPads to iPhones are often so expensive? Perhaps an answer to why there are those who will say "hell naw" to ever owning an iPhone?

Well this video should answer that question. We may have strong brand loyalty as consumers, however, Apple is first and foremost a business. The prices they charge for their products probably helps explain why the company itself is a trillion-dollar corporation.

What do you think? Are you pro-Apple? Are you dead set against Apple? Do you think the prices are too high for their products?

An 8th grade autobiography project

Literary terms

Before graduating from the 8th grade at Bennett Elementary one of our graduation requirements was to write our autobiographies. This was in addition to the constitution exam and the basic skills exam. To be honest I'm not sure if this was something required by Mr. Z - my 8th grade teacher - or if this was something required by Bennett School itself.

I do remember that I just had little clue as far as what should go into an autobiography. There wasn't much guidance as far as what to do with this assignment. As was common practice back in those days I never really sought out any guidance or direction for this assignment. As a matter of fact after having turned in a rough draft under threat of flunking, I definitely did get the editors treatment from Mr. Z as he threw the first few pages he didn't like into the trash can. OUCH.😠

Either way my autobiography back in the 1990s was written by pen on a thick stack of notebook paper. It never occurred to me to type this on a computer and then print it off. Bennett School at the time had a wonderful computer lab on the third floor with either IBM or IBM clone PCs. As a matter of fact it wasn't common for any of us to have used a word processor on a computer to complete this assignment. It's interesting how times have changed where computers have become a common appliance not just at school or work at home also. And we carry a computer with us now whether a laptop, tablet or even a smartphone (Android or iPhone).

I just had to include this video of a dot-matrix printer that was very common over 20 years ago in computer labs. [VIDEO]

What this means is that as cringeworthy as my autobiography was written as an 8th grader many years ago, I never saved this to a floppy disk or any hard drive at all. For all I know my handwritten copy had been filed away in a cabinet for years only to be forgotten about. Or it's probably been discarded long ago and admittedly I haven't thought about that rather groundbreaking piece of  literature in years.

To be honest the focus of my autobiography at the time was school. I don't think there was much talk about what happened during the summers other than those three occasions I had to attend summer school or the holidays . I'm sure there was some mention of issues with fellow students or some authority figure at school. I do think that whatever was written by me back then was just plain cringeworthy. Perhaps this would be a very difficult read for me now.

I wonder if Bennett students before they graduate are still required to write their autobiographies. As much as I hated that assignment back then, perhaps one piece of guidance for today's students is to take stock in their lives as it is at that point and be as creative as possible. Perhaps they can still use that computer lab on the third floor.

RetroTech: Macintosh

[VIDEO] Marquez Brownlee takes a look at the original 1984 Macintosh computer and how it was game changer in personal computers at that time. These days Macintosh computers are called Macs and we have iMac, Mac mini, Mac pro, MacBook Pro, or MacBook air. Mac is basically an important brand for Apple in addition to their iPhones, iPads or even Apple Watches.

This causes me to remember the computer lab at Bennett School. Most of the computers we used at school were basically IBMs or IBM clones (don't remember but to say that I have to remind myself that IBM is no longer in the PC business). It was cool that often we played games on them and these were computer games based on popular gameshows such as Jeopardy or Wheel of Fortune in addition to Prince of Persia for example. The games we had probably aren't what today's students are used to.

I forget to add that when we attended Shedd School to go to Bennett's computer lab we had to take a bus usually every Wednesday and often what we did in the lab was related to our school work. Often we had to work out math problems, do science or spelling. Rarely did we do any serious word processing.

At Shedd we didn't have computer classes our library teacher a man named Mr. Hackenbrock would pull out PCs on carts for us to use. Often to play games, however, we also did some word processing on those machines also.

Either way, while I may never have really connected why we needed to get acclimated to using a computer it's definitely something I take for granted now. At least for us it was fun and games, however, as we continue our education we will be using computers more and more. And I could also add Macs where no where near us back during the 1990s. In fact I can't say where the Mac line was back during that period.

What I share here somewhat connects with what I want to share with you hopefully later today. I hope you enjoy this edition of RetroTech. What I've learned is that the operating system still isn't much different from 1984 as it is in 2020. It's a whole new setup now at least to me and thus I have to forget about the Windows setup.

BTW, I find myself wondering what these kids are learning on computers these days or even what devices are they using. Are they still using IBM clones? Are they also using iPads or tablets? Are what they doing on these devices used according to what they're learning in the classrooms? Are they learning wordprocessing and typing their assignments on a computer?

"Star Trek"

I've been a fan since the 6th grade. I liked the future and the tech and at one point in time even wanted to make it reality. It even inspired me to consider making the military my career path although that didn't happen.

To be sure I wanted to be a Starfleet captain "boldy going where no one has gone before". Although the next best thing was to become a captain in the US Navy commanding a navy vessel. Or aspiring to be a space shuttle commander in NASA!

Anyway I've been a fan for a long time having even seen the last Star Trek movie in cinemas almost two years ago. Even have two posters here at home from that movie Star Trek Into Darkness.

Nothing however will beat the first 6 Trek movies that got this sci-fi film franchise started. My all time favorite at one point became Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home....yes the one with the whales. Thankfully on the big screen we saw the entire original cast of Star Trek engage in even grander adventures.

Recently I found this list online of trivia regarding those original 6 Trek movies. This is one piece of trivia that I could laugh about.

31. Hello computer?!? The Apple Mac wasn't supposed to be in the factory, and the original Commodore Amiga model was originally supposed to be in its place. Commodore Business Machines refused to send a sample machine for filming and simply told the film crew that they had to buy one. Apple just sent a machine and a member of staff to help out.

Commodore also stated it didn't want to be associated with Star Trek. Facepalm...

Now we wonder what a Commodire Amiga is? In fact what is a Commodore? Here's the scene in question Scotty was attempting to speak through a mouse and yet typed very fast on the keyboard. He seemed to have started off with two fingers! [VIDEO]

Now I can hardly wait for the soon to come 50th anniversary Star Trek movie. Yep between 1966 to 2016 Star Trek has been in the public memory for 50 years!