Upgrading Mid-2012 Macbook Pro with SSD and 16 GB RAM

I am not very knowledgeable about installing computer parts, but I made this blog post to highlight the more useful instructions I found for installing an SSD on my mid-2012 MacBook Pro (non-retina). I bought this model significantly with the thought that I would someday install more RAM and an SSD. Fast forward to 2016: it seems like my Macbook has  been very sluggish for a year now despite measures taken like clearing hard drive space and reducing startup apps mentioned in this cnet article. I decided that now's the time to install an SSD and upgrade to 16 GB ram. 

Selecting the SSD

I searched for lists of best SSDs, and tried to find a consensus. I went with the Samsung 850 EVO 500 GB. For the RAM, I went with this Crucial 16 GB kit for Mac.

Migrating OS X and Data

I followed the macsales instructions almost exactly with a few modifications to the order following the order in these instructions by Michael A. Prospero. I like both of these instructions because they use Mac software and not any third party software for the migration. Macsales strongly suggests installing a new copy of OS X as opposed to cloning the drive (as you can do with Carbon Copy Cloner and SuperDuper). From my limited experience with software, their points about having a fresh install and setting up a recovery partition seem sensible to me.

I made a slight adjustment to the instructions. Instead of installing the new drive right away, I am connecting it externally while my old drive is still in the computer, following the order in the "Cloning Your Hard Drive" section of Prospero's instructions.  This has made it so I have to install OSX over the USB-SATA connector I got. So, I would guess it might take longer, but it seems a little safer to me. It took a little less than 2 hours.

After install (which went through the ~2 hour screen, a ~15 minute screen, and a quick final screen), it came to the welcome screen, with the first options being the usual language and keyboard selections. I chose to transfer info from mac, time machine, or start up disk. On next step, I chose transferring data from my hard drive as opposed to the time machine backup. I'll note that I didn't have a chance to run software update as mentioned in step 9. Transferring ~200 GB over USB took ~ 2 hours, I think.

Installing the SSD and RAM

I followed this macsales instruction video and also referred to these ifixit instructions for installing the SSD. I followed this macsales RAM installation video. Mac also has instructions for installing RAM here. I had no trouble following these instructions. I think the only thing I'd recommend is looking closely at the RAM slot to make sure you are putting it in correctly. I wasn't confident of this at first. The installation was successful. I put my old hard drive in an enclosure.

Resulting Computer Performance

My computer seems to start up much faster, and apps are starting up faster. Seems good so far.

 

anaconda- scipy, numpy, sympy + package (link)

http://continuum.io/downloads

my HP is zombified

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1507558

link to Agol 2002 lightcurve funcs

http://www.mpia-hd.mpg.de/homes/ianc/python/transit.html

PyMC Python Monte Carlo Methods

http://pymc-devs.github.io/pymc/README.html

compilations of python astronomy websites

http://www.astropython.org/resources
http://www.astro.washington.edu/users/rowen/AstroPy.html

matplotlib guides

THE official guide

geared towards astronomers

data analysis with python (links)

 plotting

https://wiki.python.org/moin/NumericAndScientific/Plotting 

statistics

statpy - many links to python statistics things



least-squares fitting

lmfit is built upon scipy.optimize, and can perform least squares fitting in python.

uncertainty


uncertainties

download of numerical recipes in f77 and c

http://www.aip.de/groups/soe/local/numres/

python links

Scipy

Scipy cookbook

scipy lectures

do I know this person?

Charles Steinhardt- http://db.ipmu.jp/member/personal/1268en.html

Some HEASARC proposoal tools (link)

http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/Tools/multimissiontools.html

where to find latest emulateapj and apj.bst

http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~alexey/emulateapj/

http://ads.harvard.edu/pubs/bibtex/astronat/

python astronomy and science links

 basic packages

-numpy and scipy

for OS X, install the  scipy superpack-  contains "Recent builds of fundamental Python scientific computing packages for OS X" including numpy and scipy

-matplotlib

-visual python- for making 3d graphics

astronomy packages

-astropy

-ureka- space telescope science institute package that includes iraf and pyraf

astronomy guides

- Python switchers guide - has IDL commands with similar python commands


interesting looking, untried

 -Glue, "explore relationships within and among related datasets"

how to organize python project

http://docs.python-guide.org/en/latest/writing/structure/

Iraf notes

Recommend resources

http://iraf.noao.edu/docs/recommend.html

Some astronomy programming tips

http://womeninastronomy.blogspot.com/2013/01/datascience.html
http://www-xray.ast.cam.ac.uk/~jss/lecture/computing/notes/out/programming/

Feynmann lectures online

http://research.microsoft.com/apps/tools/tuva/index.html#data=3|6b89dded-3eb8-4fa4-bbcd-7c69fe78ed0c||
http://vega.org.uk/video/subseries/8

My (incomplete) notes on Preparing an Astronomy paper

 My notes on preparing an ApJ paper (someone who has never done it before).


Setup latex:

-astrobetter latex wiki: http://www.astrobetter.com/wiki/tiki-index.php?page=LaTex
-latexbibtex tools worth knowing

Then, look here for setting up Bibtex entries.

Then, to get started , here's a good overview from Astrobites.  For ApJ, consult AAS author instructions. 


Some more useful links:

-example paper in style of MNRAS
-UofHawaii Research Techniques Class, with many good links
-How to write a research paper

Computational Physics Courses/Resources online

Here are some resources for computational physics, most with code for use

Numerical recipes

boston u. tutorials, with lectures slides and example code.
http://www.bu.edu/tech/about/research/training/live-tutorials/

Python

http://physics.oregonstate.edu/~rubin/CPUG/index.html -eTextbook, lots of codes
 http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/computational-physics/
looks introductory, has num. int.

C++

 http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/computational-physics/also has python
 https://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~ntg/780/

Fortran/C

http://www.astro.umd.edu/~ricotti/NEWWEB/teaching/ASTR415.html
 http://physics.bu.edu/~py502/
http://www.physics.unlv.edu/~pang/cp.html





 http://www.physics.purdue.edu/~hisao/book/