Category: Geeky Stuff

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What? Wait…

IowaCaucus.jpgI was reading about the Iowa Caucus.

The acting DHS secretary Mr. Wolf said that the application issue appeared to be a “Load” issue. By “Load” he means that the servers were unable to keep up with the number of requests.

Okay I’ll buy that is a possibility, if everyone in a state was voting at the same time. But as the number of voters decreased, the server would catch up and post each transaction in turn. If this was the problem then it’s pretty obvious whoever tested the software didn’t do any load testing and quite possibly didn’t do much testing at all.

Lets face it, we’re all familiar with online opinion polls, and I’d imagine the servers handling those are dealing with millions of votes a minute. Seems to me that Shadow (The company that apparently spent 3 years building the software,) would have looked to other examples of voting systems, during their development process.

For god’s sake, there are PORN sites that handle votes for performers without crashing. Given the prevalence of Porn Sites I’d guess they process something on the order of MILLIONS of votes per Second.

Then I read that the application was only for the 170 – 190 precinct captains. So the paper votes were cast, then counted, and the captains were to use an application to input those numbers?

You’re telling me that with 3 YEARS of development no-one ever tested with a measly 200 simultaneous users?

WTF?

As I sit reading more about this, I’m astounded.

I have Apple Time Capsules here in my home that can handle 50 simultaneous users on WiFi.

A low end Dell server purchased from Best Buy could probably handle 250 users from the moment it was plugged in, possibly more if all the server had to do was tally incoming data for ONE Single application.

I have to point out that I’m kinda talking out of my hat here because I don’t have all the facts. So take what I’m saying here with a salt lick.

My point is, that with something as important as votes, if I could put a system together with commercial of the shelf (COTS) equipment for less than 10K in hardware and a little web programming there is absolutely NO EXCUSE for the debacle we saw in Iowa.

Much less so when you factor 3 YEARS of development time.

Hell, with 3 years of development time, I could give you Web and Phone based access, Live updates, and auditing of figures entered by precinct, candidate, and user. Complete with state of the art security. I’d have also taken the DHS up on testing the system too. The DHS has an entire division dedicated to Cybersecurity. 

I’d probably have requested that the FBI and NSA take a look too, if they were willing.

WHY?

Because the product would have to be rock fucking solid and more eyes looking at a system are more likely to find flaws that can be corrected before its debut.

Especially given that over the last four years we’ve heard about nothing but Russian influence in our election process. I’d be wanting to make something that was so secure that there’d never be any question about the veracity of the product or its results.

Make no mistake, this is (or was) a product.

Shadow would have been in a prime position to resell the product to all 50 states and would have been reaping the benefits for decades with maintenance and upgrade contracts.

Now Shadow will fade into the morning light like a bad dream, having made millions (I’m guessing) for its principals and casting everyone below executive level to the unemployment line.

Oh, and they’ll have an added lovely parting gift of FAILED project on their resumes.

As I said, we don’t yet have all the facts and likely, we never will.

Online voting could be a reality. But only if we commit to doing it right. 

Don’t you find it interesting that we have more security in place online and over the phone to deal with our banking needs than we do when dealing with the direction of our country as a whole?

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For Apple users, today is like mini-christmas

That is if you’ve got the cash…

I’ll admit Apple products are expensive, no argument there at all. 

But then again how many of you have computers that last 7 years? How many of you have computers or phones that work pretty much as advertised and are compatible with each new operating system that’s released?

With each of those operating system releases, you always get some new functionality, or basic improvement in the way the device works. 

Mr Cook will no doubt say something like, These are the fastest and most powerful (Insert device name) that Apple has ever produced.  He’ll be stating an obvious truth because the nature of electronics is that each successive generation is the fastest of its kind.

What’s not as obvious is that whatever device you’ve got, as long as it’s still being supported, will also have its life extended for another year. Sure it may not have all the lights, whistles, and bells, but it will be functional and possibly faster, instead of choked into uselessness by an operating system that it was never designed to run.

There may be exceptions, but if you’re using a 5 year old smartphone isn’t it time you considered an upgrade???

The thing that I’ve always found a little amusing is how many of the folks who jump on a new phone or new computer every year, are also folks that are bordering on rabidly ECO-Nazi. (That may be redundant, rabid & Nazi, I’ll have to think on that one) 

These folks will castigate you for using a plastic straw, or bottle but they’ll toss last years devices for this years devices instantly. I think I’m bad about such things, and I’m an every 2 or 3 year guy. 

I’d love to see Apple make some kind of reward for the oldest device in use. I think it would be cool if Apple announced the oldest serial number in use, and just sent that owner a brand new device, and a recycling box for the old one.

Apple will always have units that are replaced in the retail chain due to accident, theft, or damage. But it would be cool for Mr. Cook to show a picture of the old device at this yearly event as a testament to Apple’s reliability and value. Talk about a way to get all the “Green” folks in your camp.

It might have an impact on Apple’s sales long term, but short term, the demonstration of Apple’s commitment to the environment would be huge. Come on Android users don’t you want to have a product that lasts?

Alas, that’s not the way things work. We’re a consumer society and there’s at least 2 generations that always rush to the newest and shiniest hotness on the store shelves.

IMG 1021Here’s an example: This is an iPhone 5S. It’s still in use, and working just fine. Every once in a while it gets a little twitchy about connecting in weak cell areas but other than that, it’s been a reliable machine.  This isn’t even the oldest phone in operation that I personally know of. (You know who you are…)

I’d bet there are still “Daily Driver” iPhone 4’s out there. 

For me personally, I really like my iPhone X. That’s what I took this picture with. I can’t see spending the money on a new iPhone this year and possibly not next year. 

With 5G transmission on the horizon I may just wait until the advantage of 5G coverage outweighs the cost disadvantage of upgrading. 

My iPhone X is a world phone. If I were to do an extensive amount of traveling I’d stick a local SIM card in it and go prepaid in the countries that I was traveling in.

The single advantage for me to having a new iPhone Xs or iPhone 11 would be the ability to have dual SIMs. I could see it, if I was running a business so that I could have a business number and a private number on the same phone. 

Since I’m not in that particular situation my current iPhone X is serving me just fine and will probably continue to do so for the immediate future.

The announcements from Apple today are still a mini-christmas for me though. I’ll find out when the new operating systems will be released and there will probably be features added via the OS that I’ll use. 

I know there will be a new IOS, and that there’s going to be a new iPad OS. Then there’s also the new functionality of the Mac OS and all of those things have my attention.

So, Merry Apple Christmas. 

I’m off to make sure I can stream it live! 

Have a great day.

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Annoying Software…

You know back in the day computers were supposed to make things better, more efficient, faster. They were supposed to make a better world…

Jump to 2019

I just spent an hour having to rename paycheck stubs from ADP. There’s a nifty little “Download” button that will allow you to download you paycheck stub. But there’s no provision for downloading a few or ALL your paycheck stubs where they have some kind of coherent name. By the time I’d downloaded all the paychecks I had 90 files named “Ajax-XXX”.

Completely useless, if you’re looking for information from a particular paycheck or wanting to group paychecks by year. The download routine could easily have said, “Pay Statement yyyymmdd”. Yeah that wouldn’t tell you which company but at least you’d know the time period of the statement without opening it. How about allowing a complete download of all pay statements at once instead of forcing the user to click download on each one? 

In point of fact the only filename that ADP sends is Ajax, my computer added the -XXX since it knew that I probably didn’t want to overwrite the original Ajax file with each subsequent Ajax file which would have left me with only 1 file containing the last statement I looked at.

Most bank statements, credit card statements, and any other statements you download do the same thing. Instead of writing a few more lines of code that make the filenames useful, the programmers leave you with crappy, meaningless filenames that you have to rename.

How about Chase Credit Statement YYYYMMDD, or Goldman Sachs 401K and a date, Edison YYYYMMDD. 

And while I know in America we write our dates Month/day/year. For the purposes of sorting filenames with a computer, using yearmonthday makes a lot more sense. If you do it the American way you’ll end up with all the April statements form multiple years clumped together.

It’s just lazy thoughtless programming.

Then there’re the companies that create overarching management software to control their suite of programs. (You know who you are) at first glance this seems like a good idea and could in fact be a good idea, EXCEPT that this management software allows you to modify or remove one application in the suite, then without warning goes off and deletes half a dozen other applications in the background. Then you go back to put the bit of the suite that you actually wanted to keep back on your computer and find that you can’t. Why? because said company downloads their “New improved lemon scented” application manager to your computer while you were deleting the application you no longer use. And NOW they want to to sign up for their subscription service.

Ahem. NO!

After careful evaluation, I used their new application manager to delete their entire suite of products in favor of cheaper, faster, and smaller products from another vendor that does the same thing, better!

I’ve had this little scenario play out three times over the past week. I’m not amused.

The reason that the paycheck stubs were so in my face is because of filing out the unemployment insurance forms online. EDD knew who I worked for and for how long, they displayed that information when I finally got logged into their system.

So why did EDD want me to manually calculate and disclose to them my quarterly income. Which I had to download the checkstubs to calculate. If EDD already had access to the payroll information why couldn’t their computers just calculate the quarterly information for the last 3 years? I thought that was what computers are supposed to do.  Was it some kind of test? Was it one of those stupid laws designed to catch criminals, that never work because the criminals know better than I what to disclose to make things look right and what information to withhold?  And therefore since I just answered the questions as they were asked did I just screw myself by answering honestly?

I personally think that unemployment should kick in and be started by the employer. It should be turned off automatically when you’ve used up your allotment or when you start a new job.  It should be simple, seamless, and efficient.  Why do we have people jumping through hoops answering questions that various entities already have the answers to?

But EDD goes above and beyond with their fabulous software. For reasons that I couldn’t figure out, I had to resubmit the same page, The one dealing with the quarterly earnings calculations 3 times. And with each resubmission request the system would blank all the data I’d plugged in. Thankfully, I had the presence of mind to screen capture that page before I pressed submit. 

That meant that all I had to do was re-enter the information repeatedly, instead of recalculate the information.

I’m sure that there are folks who’ve had to do it all over again and again because hey, the expectation is that the EDD web page would take the information properly the first time.

These are some of the things that Software Testers (at least the Manual Testers) normally catch. This is why manual and automated testing should work hand in hand. It’s also why you only release software after real users have had a crack at it. Real users do stuff that you never anticipate and uncover interesting bugs.

So all you automated testing folks keep at it and keep delivering software that does annoying things that you never anticipated. 

Live it up, But not on my dime, I’ll get rid of software that’s glitchy faster than superman.

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The Precious!

Apple march event invitation 800home thumb800

Apple is making new product announcements today!

Bright shiny more powerful machines. Whoo hooo!

I’ll be taking time off from the incessant job search to see what new covetable things Apple will release on the world.

Comey fbi

I was thinking, in one of my more insane moments, that Apple could offer two versions of IOS and let the public decide the outcome of Apple’s fight with the FBI. One version would be secured as the OS is today, and the GovIOS version would be one where the government held the encryption keys

If the majority of the people installed GovIOS then Apple could focus their security research on GovIOS and move on. Somehow, I think that people who installed GovIOS would be in the infinitesimal minority. 

I’d also love to see James Comey’s face when the press asked if he’d installed GovIOS on his personal iPhone.

IPhone lineup

Apple is supposed to be releasing a new iPhone and a new tablet today.

The new phone is rumored to be about the same size as the iPhone5s. But it’s supposed to have features of the iPhone 6s. I’m hoping that Apple manages to just put the iPhone 6s into the iPhone 5s size. 

Some of the rumors have suggested that Apple is going to cheapen the smaller phone by limiting options. I of course, ask why? I genuinely like the size of my iPhone5s. it fits in my hand and my pocket comfortably.  If I could have the memory, NFC (for Apple Pay), improved cellular radio, WiFi and camera of the iPhone 6s in the 5s size, I’d pay for it. I’m not sure I’d pay the $849 Apple is charging for the iPhone 6s (Because of the screen size differences) but I could see myself really weighing the options. Maybe $749 for 128GB in a phone the size of the iPhone5s?

Nonetheless, I’m curious about the new iPhone and depending on the price / features and the outcome of the pending legislation in California regarding encrypted phones and the outcome of the FBI v. Apple case, I may wait for the iPhone 7s or buy an iPhone SE or have to go with a 6s.

If the Idiots in Sacramento have their way, no encrypted cellphone will be sold in California after Jan 1, 2017.  I swear, if lawmakers keep on fooling around, Apple will relocate to Ireland.  At the same time, the idiots will manage to kill the retail cellular market in the state.

I’m sure that Nevada and Arizona will appreciate the boon to tourism and business. I can see weekend planning sounding like, “Oh, lets take a quick run up to Las Vegas for the weekend while we’re there we can buy new phones!”

IPad lineup

I’m interested in the new iPad as well. I’ve got an iPad Mini that I really like. But it’s getting tired, I’ve been intrigued by the iPad Air for its size and weight. So I’m curious about the update to the iPad line. I could get very excited about an iPad Mini that included features from the iPad Pro. The pencil for example? But depending on size and weight, the new iPad might tempt me long before Apple rolls a Mini with “Pro” features.

I don’t have the cash for any of this. But planning to update my machines is an expression of hope / faith that I will find a new job and I’ll have the cash in the future.

Misty Forest

The alternative is to hike into a forest with my tent, and go off-grid in a seriously old school way. I’m a very out of practice hunter, an OK angler, and tend to do ok without people.

Oddly enough, that has some appeal. 

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Well done Microsoft

Windows 10 Education ISO 32 64 Bit Latest Version Download

As you may have gathered, I’m not a super big fan of Windows. I dealt with XP and over time it became familiar and therefore somewhat comfortable.

I moved to Windows 7 Professional and admit that I liked it after a while but the transition was less than easy.

I skipped the Windows 8 debacle, and the 8.1 fixes.

Apparently Microsoft skipped Windows 9.

I dubiously approached Windows 10.  But because I’ve got images of my Windows 7 workhorse, I figured that I could afford to play. And I have…

I’ve also learned a couple of things that may or may not be useful in the future.

1) Have a FAST connection.

2) Make sure you have a LOT of free disk space.

3) Don’t let your computer sleep.

4) Be Patient!

My installation was a bit more difficult than it needed to be. I figured Windows 10 would tell me prior to beginning the download and installation, that I would need additional space. It doesn’t.  So what happened was I downloaded the files then windows said it didn’t have enough space. The installer gives you the option to connect a USB device BUT it expects that device to be ready to go. (In other words you can’t delete files to make space if the device doesn’t have enough free space)

That being said once you get things downloaded and the installer is running, you are pretty much home free,

Which leads me to this.

I like Windows 10!

I don’t like it $200 bucks worth if I was having to buy a copy, but I like it well enough that I wish I’d kept the bootcamp partition on my Mac.  Don’t get me wrong, I like what virtualization brings to the table but I’d like to run Windows 10 natively. I may re-install the bootcamp partition on my mac and then re-upgrade Windows 7

Even in virtualization, Windows 10 is smooth, and quick. Things are where I expect them to be and for the first time in a very long time, Windows is enjoyable to use.

The office integration is really quick. It’s obvious a lot of time and though was put into Win10 and that office applications were always supposed to be part of the picture.

So to Microsoft…

Great Job guys!