Fast Fast Fast

I just uploaded a couple of new images. There were a lot of duds on my last card. Pictures I thought were pictures but weren't.

Want to hear a funny one? Everybody is making a big deal about the power button on the new M4 Mac Mini I bought (already 7% off at Amazon, but I've already committed). It's on the underside, meaning you have to lift up the unit slightly to use it. People online are clucking and scolding, but most reviewers are saying: it doesn't matter, because who powers their computer down any more? You just put it to sleep when your day is done and then restart occasionally, none of which brings the power button into play.

But. Attached to the new computer, my aging NEC display won't wake up from sleep by any of the methods I've been using for years. And guess what does work? A short single press of, yes, you guessed it, the power button. Starts it up instantly. Meaning, I will be using the oddly-placed power button every day of my life from now on.

The Universe is a Trickster!

[UPDATE: robert e wrote to say, "I've learned that sleep and wake behavior is a weird area in M[x] Macs. It may look irrelevant, but (if you haven't tried it already) toggling the 'Prevent automatic sleeping when display is off' setting in the Power Saving section of the Settings app, and restarting. Seems to help some (not all) Macs having issues with sleep and wake. Won't hurt to try." This fixed the problem...I think. Time will tell. Thanks, Robert!

For those suggesting workarounds to the power button issue, nothing is really needed. The computer is roughly the size of a softball and quite light. You just tilt it up a little, reach under the edge, and you can feel the power button because it's raised a little. Nothing to it. Even if you did have to do it every day, it would be a very minor annoyance—if it annoyed you at all.

And for those suggesting turning the unit on its side, from what I've read that isn't a good idea...the M4 Mac Minis do have a fan, but the cooling is mostly passive, and the unit needs to be in normal orientation for the passive airflow to work properly. I haven't checked this with Apple, but it's possible it's true so n.b.]

Different for me, no? Car Wash.

Ziiiiing
I spent the weekend slowly getting the new computer up to speed. Tonight I got around to re-licensing my editing software and getting Photoshop going and...then I had to pick my jaw up off the floor. Some of you are used to this, but the M4 Mac Mini is my first Apple Silicon computer, and oh, my word. This thing is fast. As in fast fast. I downloaded a card of maybe 50 or 60 30–40MB B&W images, using my ingester program, Monochrome2DNG. Admittedly, my fancy new card reader is partially responsible. This one. It was markedly faster than my other one even with my old computer. It was not something I really needed, but, the more I use it, the more I like it. One of those things. Am I digressing? I can't even tell if I'm digressing any more. Anyway, I didn't time the upload, but it took under a minute. Maybe well under a minute. Whereas with my old computer I had to find something else to go do. And it just zips through commands, scrolling, opening images, applying edits—everything is fast.

Fast fast fast.

Meanwhile, I'm the same speed. I didn't actually need my computer to be faster. What's it to me if I sit here waiting three seconds for one thing and five seconds for another? But when three seconds turns into a third of a second and five turns into one, it's awfully nice. Everything feels faster with this thing, even web browsing. Is it possible I don't hate computers any more?

Mike 

Original contents copyright 2024 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

robert e: "I've learned that sleep and wake behavior is a weird area in Mx Macs. It may look irrelevant, but (if you haven't tried it already) toggling the 'Prevent automatic sleeping when display is off' setting in the Power Saving section of the Settings app, and restarting, seems to help some (not all) Macs having issues with sleep and wake. Won't hurt to try. You've dug into the monitor settings, I'm sure.

"The bottom seems like a bizarre place to put a power button, but it makes sense on something that small that's going to have an unpredictable assortment of cables and gizmos being plugged in and out of it, possibly on a frequent basis, possibly by multiple users. Really nowhere else to put it that's reasonably safe from accidental presses while that's going on. Top? Maybe. Bottom? Better.

"Re 'Ziiiiing': Right? When I moved from a PC with a Core 2 CPU (remember those?) to an M2 Mini, I felt like Rip Van Winkle, or that guy in the old Maxell ad. Congrats on the shiny new box!"

Tom Burke (partial comment): "Glad you're enjoying the Apple Silicon experience, Mike. They really are impressive performers. And with your permanently powered Mac Mini you're only seeing half of it—the battery life on Apple Silicon laptops is extraordinary. There was a comment by Marques Brownlee a couple of years or so ago (just before the first Apple Silicon computers were available) that everyone was expecting that they'd either be more powerful, or more efficient—no one was expecting both."

Kye Wood: "Fast fast fast nurtures creative experimentation. You'll try options that would have been annoyingly slow to render that now are but a trifle."

Ralf: "Re 'What's it to me if I sit here waiting three seconds for one thing and five seconds for another? But when three seconds turns into a third of a second and five turns into one, it's awfully nice.' This is one of those papers everyone should read, computer scientist or not (and be sure to look up the first author)."

Comments

[Yann Pouiol]

Don't you have a power button on the display ?

[Tom Burke]

Glad you're enjoying the Apple Silicon experience, Mike. They really are impressive performers. And with your permanently powered Mac Mini you're only seeing half of it - the battery life on Apple Silicon laptops is extraordinary. There was a comment by Marques Brownlee a couple of years or so ago (just before the first Apple Silicon computers were available) that everyone was expecting that they'd either be more powerful, or more efficient - no-one was expecting both.

The 'power button on the bottom' thing: would it be possible to put the Mini on its side? That would make access to the power button easier.

In the last few years I've watched a lot of YouTube videos on many subjects, and one thing I've realised is that the best such videos come from great communicators. Marques Brownlee is especially good, I think. I particularly remember one he did a few years ago about Apple's computer wheels (!). It's a perfect example of a well-made and entertaining YouTube video.

[MikeK]

Might it make sense to turn the monitor off when putting the computer to sleep and then turn it on once you've woken it?

[Bernard Scharp]

Since there is nothing on the top-side of the Mini (no fan grilles, buttons or connectors), you could just place the computer upside-down on your desk.

The electronics won't really care, and the cooling is probably mostly forced air, not convection anyway.

[Dave Levingston]

That Car Wash shot is a definite "keeper."

[Keith]

I've commented before about the idea of buying a new computer. Almost every day of the year, the 2015 era 27" iMac does the job just fine. Like you say, waiting a few seconds is no big deal, and I love the screen. (Buying it doesn't seem like that long ago!)

It's only when I do an event or a big trip and have to ingest several hundred to several thousand photos, and have to wait while Lightroom oh so slowly builds previews, coming back to manually page down the grid because it won't do all of them it by itself, and I have to be careful about memory. In all of 2023 there was only 12 times I ingested more than 500 photos at a time. (And yes, I know about Photo Mechanic.)

I'd read somewhere the new M chips weren't all that much quicker at the ingesting because it's Lightroom that's slow.

And yet, I'm drooling over the new Mini.

[Robert Roaldi]

I used to write software for a living. At one company we had just upgraded our 386 machines to 486 boxes. Our boss asked if we had noticed a difference. One guy said, "No, but my computer at home suddenly got slower."

[robert e]

I've learned that sleep and wake behavior is a weird area in Mx Macs. It may look irrelevant, but (if you haven't tried it already) toggling the "Prevent automatic sleeping when display is off" setting in the Power Saving section of the Settings app, and restarting, seems to help some (not all) Macs having issues with sleep and wake. Won't hurt to try. You've dug into the monitor settings, I'm sure.

The bottom seems like a bizarre place to put a power button, but it makes sense on something that small that's going to have an unpredictable assortment of cables and gizmos being plugged in and out of it, possibly on a frequent basis, possibly by multiple users. Really nowhere else to put it that's reasonably safe from accidental presses while that's going on. Top? Maybe. Bottom? Better.

"Ziiiiing"

Right? When I moved from a PC with a Core 2 CPU (remember those?) to an M2 Mini, I felt like Rip Van Winkle, or that guy in the old Maxell ad.

Congrats on the shiny new box!

[Chris Kern]

Mike: “Fast fast fast.”

Enjoy it while it lasts. If your experience is like mine after I acquired my (first generation) Mac Studio, you’ll bask in how quickly the new computer performs even the most complex post-processing operations for a couple of months, then you’ll take the performance for granted for maybe a year if you’re lucky, after that you’ll become impatient while the processor cranks away at something artificially intelligent—creating focus stacks of 50-100 frames is an excellent way to accelerate this evolution—and finally you’ll begin to wonder if the time hasn’t come to upgrade.

As a computer programmer of my long-ago acquaintance liked to say: “What the hardware giveth, the software taketh away.” You can never have too many compute cycles. And you can never even have enough for very long.

[Chris H]

Maybe someone should make a stand for those things that provides a 'remote' power button that when pressed, jabs the actual power button.

[Stephen S.]

There are already many companies making stands to hold the computer up on its side and provide easy access to the power button. Time for some more accessory shopping!

[Moose]

"The Universe is a Trickster!"

You are only now figuring this out??

"Different for me, no? Car Wash."

Yes, and Vive le différence! Keep broadening your photographic horizons, for your benefit — and ours!

"Words are only words; pictures tell things broader, deeper, with more layers, more nuanced."

["...Only now figuring this out" would be an illogical conclusion, if you think about it. Obviously one wouldn't conclude that the Universe is a Trickster based on one incident. It could easily be an outlier or an anomaly. No, you would have to reach such a conclusion based on the perception of a longstanding pattern over time. In other words, it gets you again, and again, and again, and AGAIN.... --Mike]

[John Shriver]

I got an Apple Silicon (M1) 13" MacBook Air in 2020, and was immediately stunned by the speed. What was especially fast is the display updates, scrolling through a document in Preview is nigh-instantaneous. The full integration of the graphics memory into the main memory means that you're not waiting for pixels to move from one place to another in the system.

I don't use it for Photoshop, only has 8GB RAM, and the small display would be cramped. The photography computer is the last of the Intel 27" iMacs. (I need to be able to run Windows in a VM there.)

[Grant]

Your card reader is a Wise choice.
Sorry

[Dave]

Maybe the NEC website has updated drivers for your new Mac and the old NEC monitor which will preclude using the power button to wake up the monitor.

There's no such thing as a computer that's too fast. Eventually, even the fastest ones seem to noticeably slow down.

[Patrick Dodds]

what happens if you use it upside down?

I've read that the ventilation system, which is partly passive though aided by a fan when need be, does not work correctly with the unit on its side or upside down. But I'm no expert. --Mike]

[Matt O'Brien]

There appears to be a trick where the switch can be moved to the outside...

Alternatively ... use the fork (from a previous post) so it works like a see/saw under the unit to press the switch. I am sure there will be lots of 3d printed gizmos to solve this 'pressing' issue.

[Mark Richards]

The image looks like it contains eyes and distorted faces. Very different for you. Like it.

[Hernan Zenteno]

Hey, I am interested in this thing Monochrome2 DNG. Do you have a review or something with examples about this? I never heard about it. Thanks. And congratulations you have a fast computer, is a good thing for editing photos and videos.

[DavidB]

...Meanwhile, I'm the same speed...

Yeah, that's me. My computer is not the bottleneck in my work flow.

[Trevor Johnson]

My MacBookPro M4 Pro/48Gb/1Tb arrived yesterday and very good it is, so far. Not so good is getting MS to recognise my university Office 365 subscription.

It's a replacement for an Intel MacBook and yes, I do need the extra speed. For portable devices, iPhone/iMac/MacBook, I use Mac but for my workstations I use Windows, currently one Amd and one Intel PC.

[Ilkka]

I’m not the same speed. I am getting slower. My computer is probably getting slower as well, as pointed by some comments above. So it works out quite well for me. I am on my third Mac now, and the first I bought 22 years ago. I am tempted to upgrade soon. Have been looking for couple of years now. Maybe next year.

[Jim Arthur]

There has got to be some little tweak you can make to address your wake from sleep issue. If you normally have apps running when you put the Mini to sleep maybe try closing them first. Make sure your wired keyboard and mouse are plugged into USB ports that are active when the Mini is sleeping. If you are using the ports on the old monitor or some ancient hub that may not be the case. If you are using a USB-C to HDMI cable maybe try using a USB-C to Display Port cable. You can also try to force a display detection by going to System Settings, Displays and then holding down the Option key to display the Detect Displays button. I also wonder if a mismatch in refresh rates between the Mini and your old monitor might cause an issue. Try anything and everything and you may find a solution. If all else fails, you can always splurge on a new 4K monitor.

[Kenneth Tanaka]

I admit to being the worst choke point in my imaging chain. My equipment has long since surpassed me in every respect.

I very much like your rather abstract image. I admire such work — it’s certainly among my favorite genre — and am currently working on a book of such imagery right now. A book of Ernst Haas’ abstract Kodachromes was recently published by Prestel after a multi-year delay. It’s a bit too darkly printed but I’m still enthralled by it.