Mac Hacks (34 page)
. Get that iMac out of the Way
Need
more space on your physical desktop, or want your iMac in a
different place when watching a movie on it? You can easily reposition
your iMac and get back some desk area with a VESA mount!
Ever since personal computers were first introduced, people have
been devising ways to get their computers (or monitors) out of the way
when they weren’t using them. It makes a lot of sense: you could save
space, have a little more control over your setup, and so forth. But,
unfortunately, it also wasn’t very practical. People had way too much
stuff plugged into their machines to hang them on a wall or put them on an
articulating arm. A typical iMac user, for example, might have a printer,
a keyboard a mouse, a Time Machine drive, and a network cable. But all
those things can be connected wirelessly now, so the only cord you have to
connect to your iMac is a power cable. Only one cable hooked to your iMac
makes adding a VESA mount to your machine a much more enticing idea. (VESA
is short for Video Electronics Standards Association; they’re the group
that came up with the standards for mounting flatscreen monitors and
TVs.)
Before you start, you’ll need to collect a few items. Most
importantly, you need a VESA mount (which you can get at a variety of
places; I bought mine from Amazon), the VESA mount adapter that Apple
makes (which works with 100 mm VESA mounts and is available from
Apple
for $39), and whatever you want to
mount your iMac
to
. This hack uses an articulated
arm, but if you prefer, you could mount your iMac flush to a wall. The
important thing when choosing what you’ll mount your iMac to is ensuring
that the mount has 100 mm mounting holes—you don’t want to have to drill
those holes yourself. You also want to make sure the VESA mount can handle
the weight of your iMac. The newest iMacs are very light at about 12
pounds, but mid-2010, 27-inch iMacs clocked in at a little over 30 pounds,
so keep an eye on the limits of the hardware you’re using.
In my case, I had a dual-monitor setup that was deemed to be
overkill (though not by me), so another computer was procured so the
“extra” monitor now sits next to a Mac Mini. The absence of a second
monitor opens up some desktop possibilities. More room for drawing, more
room for projects, and so forth—
if
we could get the
iMac out of the way. “Before” shots are essential for this kind of
project, so
Figure 11-11
shows the starting point.
monitor.
The first step toward articulated-arm nirvana is removing the
iMac’s stand. If you take a look at the back of an iMac, you’ll notice
that there doesn’t appear to be an intuitive way to pull the stand off
(and just grabbing it and yanking is not a good idea). Turns out the
secret to removing the iMac’s stand is in the VESA Mount Adapter box you
got from Apple (
Figure 11-12
). Open it to get
started.
(you won’t even have to head to the garage to grab a Phillips-head
screwdriver).
In the box, you’ll find some hex wrenches and a Torx driver, plus
a weird flimsy plastic card. You’ll need the card and the Torx driver to
remove the stand. Put something soft down on a table (such as a blanket)
and then gently set the iMac on it screen-side down (
Figure 11-13
). Make sure the
stand extends over the edge of the table you’re using, because the edge
of the stand will be in front of the iMac when it’s removed. Once your
iMac is face down, cram the flexible plastic card in the top of the slot
where the stand goes in the iMac at a 45-degree angle as shown in
Figure 11-13
.
on the screen). Note the RAM-installation instructions on the bottom
of the stand, which will come in handy if you ever need to change out
the RAM on your iMac. Once the iMac is comfortable, use the card
included in the VESA kit to expose the screws that hold the stand on.
(Don’t worry: you don’t need an overly hirsute arm to pull this part
off.)
When inserted properly, the card will trip a latch and the iMac
stand will move towards the ground, exposing the attaching screws (
Figure 11-14
, left). (It was
helpful to apply very gentle pressure downward on the iMac stand so that
the stand would move when the latch was engaged.) Once you see the
screws, remove them with the Apple-supplied Torx driver. You’ll reuse
these, so don’t let them roll off the work area and into the AC vent or
anything.
it to the iMac. Bottom: the stand removed from the iMac. Don’t
lose those screws!
With the stand removed, you can now install the VESA adapter. Grab
the installation kit and place the flange (the piece with eight screw
holes) on the piece sticking out that the stand was attached to. The
flange is machined so that, while the mount point sticks out at an
angle, the flange sits flat on the back of the iMac. Make sure the tiny
hole in the middle of the flange is pointing towards the top of your
iMac (
Figure 11-15
).
you’re ready for the next step.
The next step is to add the actual VESA adapter. Place it on your
iMac with the text towards the bottom of the iMac (in
Figure 11-16
, the top of the
iMac is the edge closest to the camera). You’ll only have one screw
small enough to fit in the middle hole on the VESA adapter; that’s the
center screw. You have to make it a lot tighter than you probably
expect, so torque that thing down until it’s flush with the VESA mount.
If you’re not comfortable applying that much force, tighten it down
until you feel comfortable.
until this one is in properly.
Once the center screw is in, you can add the side screws. The VESA
adapter is designed so that it will be perfectly square no matter how
bad a job you do installing it, so this part can get a bit tricky. If
you can’t simply spin the side screws into place, get a flashlight and
peer sideways into the screw holes to check that they’re properly
aligned with the adapter (the holes have to line up pretty precisely).
If the hole looks too high, you need to tighten the center screw some
more. Otherwise, turn the VESA adapter until everything is lined up,
spin the screws in with your fingers, and then tighten them with the
included hex wrench. Congrats—you’ve installed the VESA adapter!
The following steps will vary depending on the exact VESA mount
you’ve decided to use. I used an Ergotron (Motto: “Ergotron—the most
ergonomic Transformer of them all!”) MX Desk Mount LCD Arm (
Figure 11-17
). My hope was
that, since Ergotron obviously didn’t spend any money coming up with a
decent name, all their resources went into a quality product.
be behind the iMac few will see it.
With this arm, you have two installation options. One is to mount
it on the side of the surface you’re attaching the iMac to. The result
is nondestructive, but the hardware will stick out about a quarter of an
inch from the surface—a substantial distance if it’s a desk that sits
against a wall. The other option is to install the device through a hole
in the desk. The hand-built desk I use already has inexpertly cut slots
to thread cords though (
Figure 11-18
, top), so I went
with the second option.
Like the Apple VESA adapter, the arm comes with hardware for
installation.
Unlike
the Apple-supplied stuff, the
Ergotron hardware is kinda confusing (
Figure 11-18
, bottom). That is
to be expected with multiple mounting options.
one, it might be time to break out the power tools. Bottom: the
Ergotron kit. (The alcohol pads are supposedly included so you can
clean off oils and grease left over from the manufacturing process,
but I suspect their real purpose is first aid.)
Installing the arm was straightforward (
Figure 11-19
). After I did that,
I attached my chosen mounting option to the bottom of the arm with the
included screws.
down.
After you tighten the arm down (crawling under the desk is the
worst part of this experiment), you’re ready to attach the iMac. Before
you do that, test the screws that came with your VESA mount to make sure
they fit in the holes in the Apple VESA adapter. They should spin in
easily. (If they don’t, a trip to the hardware store may be in order. If
that fails, a call to the manufacturer may be in your future)
Once you’ve decided everything is in order, get someone to help
while you attach the iMac to the stand. Voilà—you’re done and your iMac
is now much more
movable (see
Figure 11-20
)!
all the way forward for up-close work.