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I have a Mac Book Pro and I am about to start a sequencing run on the MinION. MinKNOW is going to be running for 2 days. Can I use my computer during sequencing? Can I browse the web and use Excel, etc? I am not speaking about running a parallelised genome assembly on all my cores using my entire RAM but more mundane activities, like checking my emails or taking notes. Furthermore, can I lock my screen using Control + Shift + OFF without negatively affecting the sequencing?

Biomagician
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Yes, that should be fine, especially if basecalling is disabled. Locking a screen should be fine as well.

I prefer to do basecalling after a run anyway, because there's a chance that it could chew up too much processor time and result in lots of skipped reads.

gringer
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Since biological samples and reagents cost time and money, I wouldn't push it too much. Checking your email would be fine, but I wouldn't be browsing the web (besides gmail/calendar) in case a plug-in (e.g. flash), bad javascript, etc. causes any trouble.

I'd disable any auto-updates too.

Locking the screen would be fine.

Personally, I'd buy a cheap chromebook and let the Mac work.

Edward Kirton
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