Finally, a use for the ‘useless’ port on my MacBook Pro

Aug 09

PhilTechnology , , , , , , 4 Comments

I am fine with USB sockets, I hook up a 7 port hub and hang disk drives, a printer, scanner, iPod, iPhone and digital camera off of it. I even have a use for the Firewire port on my MacBook Pro (hereafter, mostly, referred to as MBP), that’s where my video camera goes. But there is a little trapdoor on the left side of my Mac that has puzzled me for a while. I knew it replaced the PCMCIA card slot that my old PowerBook had, and I actually used that all the time as a Compact Flash card reader.

But this new little trapdoor on the MBPs apparently opens into what is known as an ExpressCard slot. No, I hadn’t heard of it either! And, it would appear, Apple have given up on it fairly quickly, with the current iteration of the MBP now having a more obviously useful SD card slot.

Actually, the SD card slot is not that useful to me personally. My DSLR (the Canon EOS 400D) uses CompactFlash cards, requiring a separate card reader, which is another thing I hang off that USB hub I mentioned earlier.

However, today I finally got around to listening to Episode 211 of the always informative and really great fun MacGeekGab (MGG). If you like to get at all Geeky about the Mac, and you do not listen to this show, you are missing out big time. Subscribe to it in iTunes NOW! I really, really enjoy listening to this podcast and it has saved my Mac bacon many times, I love it, thanks Dave and John.

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