Welcome to AlexTech! 🚀
If you are reading these lines, you probably share our insatiable curiosity for everything related to technology, silicon, code, and artificial intelligence. This is the very first post of the AlexTech blog—a project born as a natural extension of our YouTube channel @AlexTechLabs and as a space for unfiltered, in-depth technical discussions.
But who is behind AlexTech, and why did we decide to embark on this journey?
The Founders: Who We Are
We are two computer scientists who have spent our entire lives surrounded by terminals, motherboards, and soldering irons.
- Alessandro Del Rosso: A tech enthusiast since the days of the Commodore 128, he has lived through every stage of PC evolution (from the 8086 to the latest AMD/Intel CPUs). For over twelve years, he was a writer, columnist, and partner of Punto Informatico, Italy's historic and pioneering online technology news outlet founded in 1995. Today, he focuses on developing solutions based on Generative Artificial Intelligence, with hundreds of projects under his belt.
- Alessandro Vignoli: He took his first tech steps with the legendary Amiga 500, later turning his passion for hardware into a career as an IT consultant, photographer, and video producer. His studio is a true technological laboratory where he constantly tests new gear, automation systems, and local AI integrations.
From Apple Haters to Daily Users
For decades, we were hardcore Windows and Android users. Let's be completely honest: we were actual Apple "haters," highly skeptical of Cupertino's "walled garden" and its arbitrary limitations.
About two years ago, however, we made the big leap. Why?
The turning point has a name: Apple Silicon. The introduction of Apple's proprietary ARM-based architecture (starting with the M1 chips) redefined the rules of the game for personal computing. The performance-to-power efficiency ratio became completely unmatched by X86 architectures. Working on a silent MacBook (and even fanless, like the MacBook Air) with a battery that easily lasts through full days of heavy workloads completely transformed our mobile productivity.
On top of that, we discovered an ecosystem that, when it works, feels almost like magic:
- Time Machine: Backup and recovery system that allows you to clone and migrate an entire system to different hardware in about half an hour—passwords and licenses included—without a single hitch.
- Universal Control & AirDrop: The ability to seamlessly move the mouse cursor and transfer files instantly between a Mac Studio and an adjacent MacBook, as if they were a single machine.
Our Setup: Local AI on Mac Studio M2 Ultra
Today, our main desktop workstations are built around two Mac Studio M2 Ultra units, each with 64 GB of unified memory.
This isn't just about smooth video editing or fast compilation times. This hardware setup has proven to be an extraordinary resource for running Artificial Intelligence locally. The unified memory in Apple Silicon acts as a massive shared VRAM: while Windows PCs are bottlenecked by consumer graphics cards (which rarely exceed 16 or 24 GB of VRAM unless you spend massive sums on professional enterprise GPUs), our Mac Studios allow us to run large language models (LLMs) utilizing almost the entire 64 GB of memory.
Running AI locally brings two massive strategic benefits:
- Absolute Privacy: We can feed sensitive data, passwords, or license keys to the models, knowing that no data will ever leave our office to external servers.
- Zero Token Costs: No API costs or recurring cloud subscription fees for running scripts and automation pipelines for weeks at a time.
Objectivity First: Unfiltered Tech
Those who follow us on YouTube know that we have no intention of becoming Apple "fanboys." On our channel and this blog, we will also speak openly about everything in macOS that frustrates us.
Coming from Windows, we still battle daily with macOS design choices:
- The drag-and-drop behavior between windows, which is often less fluid and consistent than on Windows.
- The lack of a native "cut and paste" in Finder, along with quirks in the file manager and spacebar file preview scrolling.
- Network stability issues (such as macOS's legacy Samba implementation, which caused crashes and forced Alessandro Vignoli to switch to NFS on his Synology NAS).
- Kernel panics triggered when the main hard drive runs completely out of space.
- Gaming, where Windows PCs with dedicated Nvidia/AMD GPUs remain the only viable option due to the game catalog and standard graphics API support (Vulkan/DirectX vs. Apple's closed Metal API).
What to Expect on AlexTech
This blog will serve as the perfect companion to our YouTube channel. Here, you'll find:
- Written Deep-Dives: Technical details, setups, and source code for the projects featured in our videos.
- Hardware Reviews and Comparisons: Honest opinions, real-world tests, and buying guides (including used hardware, which offers great value in the Apple world).
- Practical Guides & Tutorials: From OS optimization to deploying local LLMs and AI agents.
The journey is just beginning. Welcome aboard! 🚀