Category: Modern problems

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I’m thinking it’s a spell …

Airpods pro PDP US 1 grandeI think that all of us can agree that Apple Stores are dangerous. 

No, not in the sense of personal safety but to the safety of our wallets.

I went to the Apple store to pick up my order of nifty new AirPod Pros.

They are very nice, comfortable, and have some really good sound along with the #1 thing I wanted, Noise Cancelling.

While I was there, I asked for the Apple folks to take a look at my series 3 Apple watch.

Nothing major, just a couple of issues that cropped up after the latest upgrade. I’d tried everything I could think of to resolve the issues and figured I’d see if they could point me in the right direction.

After the Apple folks poked around in my watch and my phone a bit, they came to the same conclusion that I’d come to. I was going to have to unpair and repair my watch & phone.

No big deal. We initiated the backup procedure so that the watch would be backed up to the cloud and I wouldn’t lose any data.

Backup completed normally, then unpaired and well, things were suddenly different on my phone. I hadn’t lost any data on the phone (all the health data that had been recorded was still there) but what had been two watches paired to my phone (I only have had one Apple watch) was suddenly no watches paired. The backup data was now gone after saying that the backup was corrupt.

My old watch was not wanting to pair with my phone and the Apple folks and I were confused. While I’d been waiting for the backup to complete I’d been playing with the new Series 5 watch and I’d been jonesing for one since they were released. 

Apple-Watch-Series-5-2019.jpgIt occurred to me that if I was going to have to download a new operating system to a watch and pair it… It might as well be to a New Watch.

They traded in my Series 3 got me a Series 5 and we started the setup process. Easy! Too damn easy!

That ladies and gentlemen is how I walked into an Apple Store for a new set of headphones, and walked out with new headphones, a watch, and a couple of cables I’d forgotten I needed.

Sometimes all I need is the slightest excuse to do something crazy. Thank god I didn’t look at iPhone 11 pro!

On the plus side, while I was waiting for the watch to do it’s thing I sat in on an iPhone training session and learned some nifty things that I didn’t know my phone could do. So that’s a win. 

I like the Series 5 a lot. I’m still getting used to the “Always On” feature and thus far my battery life has been good. Not yet the two days of my Series 3, but the battery is still young and does seem to be lasting longer each day. I suspect this is, in part because I’ve finished tweaking the watch and now It’s presenting information as I prefer it and I’m not in configuration all the time.

The only thing I wish the Watch would do is when my phone goes into “Night – Do not disturb” that the watch would turn off it’s display as well. Maybe I’ll send that as a suggestion to Apple.

The Apple Store magic is strong.  Make sure you’ve got the ability to counter it before you walk inside.

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What are you doing Sirius?

I get into the car, turn the engine on and…

I’m suddenly listening to George Michael crooning.

I do not own any George Michael music. None, Nada, Zilch!

There were a couple of songs that I’d hear back in the day but they were never interesting enough for me to buy an entire album and as I transitioned to pretty much all digital music I’ve never felt the need to include any of George’s work in my library.

So this is not coming from my phone…

I jab the number 1 preset on the dash console, there’s a pause and then George Michael resumes playing. 

The Number 1 preset is Sirius “Spa”, it’s what I prefer to listen to while driving because it’s calming and keeps my foot out of the gas tank in Southern California traffic.

Oh, I think Sirius has once again updated all their stations so I spend some time trying to locate Spa’s new station number. It’s not there, Spa is gone.  Grrrr!!!!!!

I flip around to try to find something else that I want to listen to. No Joy! I don’t feel like listening to anything currently on my iPhone. I turn the music system off and drive in silence.

While I’m driving, I realize that Spa is the only station I really listen to on Sirius. Then I think, “Why don’t I listen to NPR or one of the Canadian channels?” It occurs to me that I don’t listen to any of the news channels, or any of the talk radio channels, and I’m not listening to any of the local news channels either.

I can tell you why. Two Words. Donald Trump.

If you listen to NPR or virtually any of the talk radio stations, You get Trump Bad, Trump Evil, Trump did this or that and it’s this constant wailing and gnashing of teeth about how absolutely awful everything is because of Trump. On the other side of the coin you can listen to conservative talk radio. There, all you hear is how rotten, corrupt, shitty, or screwed up the Democrats, ANTIFI, other countries, or whatever. There’s little if anything that I’ve found that is moderate for those of us who are not yet ready to burn the country down.

Neither of these options is going to enhance my calm while driving. In fact listening to stuff like that can put me in a foul mood all day long. 

As it turns out, George Michael will go away tomorrow which is just fine with me. 

However, before I found out that this wasn’t a permanent change I’d investigated the options that my iPhone provides. I’ve found that with almost no trouble at all, I can switch entirely to music from the iPhone and not miss Sirius Satellite at all.

So as previously noted…

When it comes time for me to re-up on Sirius Satellite, I won’t.

Apple Music (which I’m paying for anyway) is more than sufficient.

Welcome to the new age.

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A little PSA

I know, You’re thinking to yourself, “what the hell could this guy have to say?”

I get it, you’re inundated with PSA type crap all day long.

What pronoun to use, don’t appropriate another culture for your halloween costume (No matter how funny it might be), don’t speak ill of any culture (unless it’s white folks), don’t speak ill of any gender (unless it’s cis male), you know…

The usual.

Well this post is not about any of that. So read on my intrepid friends.

Here’s something to think about.

Digital 1S 0S ON or OFF1If your personal devices are connected to a computer network at your place of business, any data sent from those devices is subject to monitoring. Now here’s the kicker…

Even if you aren’t looking at porn on your devices, but you’ve got your email running receiving that hot porn email list, or one of those nifty dating applications like Tender that might have naked photos, updating in the background, technically you’re downloading or attempting to download inappropriate material on the corporate network.

Yep! I know, shitty isn’t it? Guess what? The IT folks can see that data as it’s flowing over their systems. They can even localize it to your device or area of the corporate campus.

So if you’re on naked photo mailing lists, or Nudists international, or Filthy Gangbangs R Us, or whatever, even if you’re not looking at the site, your phone, or your tablet is. It’s guilt by association. Technically text messages could fall into the same category.

In other words, you could be fired because your device, sitting in your pocket, backpack, briefcase, or purse, was accessing naughty material. Your only defense is to say, “No I wasn’t” and the IT folks may have records, time and date stamped to the contrary. In other words, you’re screwed.

“Oh Guru of technology how might we prevent this?”, you ask.

Simplest way;

Don’t have those apps on your phone or tablet.

Another simple way;

NEVER connect to your corporate network with personal devices. This will force your devices to use their cellular connection. Make sure you have an unlimited plan though.

A more complex method;

Gf logo horzAlways use a VPN when you’re away from home. There are some who suggest using a VPN at all times. I don’t. My VPN comes on automatically when I’m out of the house and using an external WiFi or hardline network connection.

VPNs are cheap and effective. They’re relatively easy to use and work pretty well. If you’re involved in illegal activities they’re not going to protect you from prosecution, so keep it legal okay?

I use Vypr from Golden Frog. Before you ask, I pay a yearly subscription and don’t really notice a delay (or the expense) as long as the connection I’m using is reasonably fast.

The down side to VPNs is that sometimes corporations, and public WiFi access locations will stop VPN traffic. The say it’s for the protection of their employees or clients, that’s bullshit.

They’re blocking the VPN traffic because they’re protecting themselves. Seems that there are some laws or the illusion of laws that suggest a corporation allowing “Illegal” traffic over their networks can be held accountable.

The question is, “what is illegal?” and since they can’t monitor an encrypted connection, companies often block VPNs. This is especially true on employee accessible networks.

Unless you’re familiar with what’s going on you could end up wasting a lot of time troubleshooting a non-existent problem. (I say that from experience). Since the VPN comes up automatically it’s easy to forget it’s there when you hit a Starbucks or whatever.

So it’s possible that with a VPN you’re not going to get connected to the internet while you’re at work. In which case if you’ve just gotta see that filthy picture, turn off WiFi and download it over the cell connection. I’d recommend waiting until your lunch hour or you’re off work but hey, I’m not living your life and you get to choose how your day or career goes.

The point is, keep all your personal shit… Personal!

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And we move step by step toward the Orwellian Nightmare…

IMG 0882As I’ve mentioned again and again Job searches are difficult especially if you’re an older worker.

Now as if to increase the difficulty, it’s become commonplace for recruiters to use your social media profile to determine your fitness for a particular position. 

If the recruiter finds something questionable in your social media, you’re not going to get the job. This apparently includes something as simple as a picture.

A news piece out of Texas where a job applicant was shamed over a photo in her instagram and didn’t get the job she was applying for demonstrates just how bad it’s gotten.

Those of us that don’t do a lot on social media or those of us who have no social media accounts are damned if we do and damned if we don’t. 

I found one line in the article particularly telling. 

“Go on with your bad self and do whatever in private. But this is not doing you any favors in finding a professional job.”

Uhh, you social media account is your social media account and it’s not the business of any employer to shame you especially for something as innocuous as a bikini photo.

This isn’t the first instance of social media being used to cause harm. This is simply the latest in a long line of egregious actions on the part of employers, or media.

I personally don’t want to live my life under a microscope. Yet it appears according to Linkedin that I must. 

I ask again where does it stop?

Will we end up with corporate “Social Purity Standards”, How about a GATTACA type society where genetic purity is required to work at all.

These articles about social media accounts all say you must be careful what you post, that makes sense, after all as my grandmother used to say, “You don’t air your dirty laundry in public.” 

But social media is something that you share between you and your friends. It should be something that allows you to keep in touch with a select group of people. That is, if you engage in it at all. My few friends and I typically communicate via text messages, or phone calls not because we have anything to hide but because that’s the way that is most comfortable.

We’re guys, sometimes we say off color things and honestly some comments if taken out of context could be blown way out of proportion.

Back in the stone age when I was in school we used to have object lessons taught to us by our teachers. One of those object lessons was on the nature of gossip. The lesson started by whispering something into the ear of the person sitting next to you. They whispered the same thing to the person next to them, and so on.

By the time the message got to the 15th person it was completely different and 100% wrong.

For example if a buddy of mine were to say, “I’m living in a tent in the back yard for the duration of October,” because he couldn’t stand his wife and daughter’s love of Pumkin Spice EVERYTHING as a joke. He may even have said it in front of his wife on a phone call which all involved would have laughed about.

If that was in a social media post and taken out of context, that same friend would be inundated with questions about how his separation was going and was he okay and what a bitch his wife was. Likewise on his wife’s social media her friends would be rallying around her and talking about what a son of a bitch he was and that she was better off without him.

It could easily be taken out of context.

3nd friend asks 2nd friend about him and short reply is “Well he’s out in the tent in the back yard with the dog”

3rd friend knows based on time of year that it’s a joke about pumpkin spice.

But an acquaintance of #1 and friend of number 3 sees the post and reads into it, “trouble in the marriage with divorce imminent,” before long the whole thing spins out of control and a lot more energy is spent correcting the misunderstanding than was spent creating the original post.

This is why so many older folks just aren’t that interested in social media. It’s not that they don’t know how to use it, they know how wrong things can go, and how quickly. It’s a lesson we all learned back in the early days of telephones when we all had “Party Lines”.

Party Lines were the single greatest source of neighborhood gossip in the ‘50s, ‘60s, and early ‘70s.

If you were filing for divorce, you went to the attorney’s office, you sure didn’t talk about it on the phone. Rumors often got started just because you made an appointment with a doctor, lawyer, or accountant on a party line.

Social media is the “Party Line” of this age. The irony is, back in the day, we all paid handsomely to have private lines as they became available in our neighborhoods.

Now, people flock to social media to post details about their lives that should be private and yet they’re sharing it all with whole world.

This makes me wonder if facebook still lists me as a user, or for that matter myspace. Those accounts have been closed for years, (According to facebook or myspace,) but I have no proof that another facebook or myspace user isn’t able to see what I posted before I decided social media wasn’t for me.

I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s time for legislation to prevent corporate entities using social media to spy on their employees. God knows the last thing we need is more legislation, but perhaps it’s time to have a very clear division between corporate social media and personal social media and a “Never the twain shall meet” set of laws.

In the case of the young lady who was shamed by a potential employer, because there was a picture of her in a bikini on her instagram…

I hope she sues the shit out of them.

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New OS… New features and challenges

macos catalina large.jpgMaybe I am a fanboi.

Apple released Catalina yesterday and I upgraded my computer immediately.

Still having some issues that I’m ironing out, but generally speaking the upgrade went perfectly.  I’ve continued the job search without missing a beat and have been taking breaks from the job search to tweak little settings here and there.

Stability and speed are good and some of the newer features I’m liking, while others just seem to be (at this point) a little more complicated than they need to be.

Part of that may be a learning curve in that I’m reaching for things where they were and not where they are.

I thought I’d eliminated all the 32 bit applications from my system a while ago, but I was wrong. Catalina found several apps that were still 32 bit. Thankfully I don’t use them very much so it’s not “Mission Critical” For me to jump right on replacing them.

There is one that may be a stumbling block but i’m probably going to be able to Create a VMware environment for that one. Although when I went to see if there was an update, I found that the company is only just now working on a 64 bit version and then I realized that my copy of the application was 3 years old with no updates since I purchased it.  Really???? Come on guys, it’s not like you didn’t have time to prepare.

The last of the backups is nearing completion. There are advantages to having multiple backups, But the disadvantage is that you have to update multiple backups and that can be time consuming. This is especially true if one of your backups is a little on the large size and the system decides that it needs to thin it out. Grrrrr.

In any case things are progressing as they should.

On to the next challenge.