Category: Modern problems

Posted on

OH NO!!!! I’m going Primitive today

Images 3

The Power company is doing some work and they’re going to be turning off the power to the neighborhood for about 8 hours.

THE HORROR!!!

I’ll have no internet, no television, no twitter feed to keep my apprised of a government run amok.  My god… I’ll not even have my one cup at a time coffee machine. Ok now the panic is rising…

Deep Breaths, Nice deep breaths.

Images 1

I’ve already shut down the backup drives and will be shutting down the WiFi network about 5 minutes prior to their scheduled outage. Not because I’m worried about the WiFi but because its part of my Apple Time Capsule and I’d like make sure that the drive in the TC is shutdown properly.

Been wondering about the merits of having a separate WiFi router in my network and just letting the network drives be… well drives.  This kind of thing is another reason to go separate router.

Images 2

So I’m going to be writing and doing chores that don’t require power. (My computer battery is good for at least 6 hours). This is one of those times when I wish that I had rooftop solar and was able to run off the grid most of the time.

The one thing i can say about power outages up here is that it gets really quiet I can’t complain about that.

Till the flip side, have a great Friday.

Posted on

And now for something completely different.

MacBookAir

No Politics! 

My computer is back and It looks like the Apple people did a very nice job with the repair. No scratches, dirt, debris, and everything is working the way it’s supposed to be.

I need to get back to writing and searching for a job. 

But in the meantime I’m enjoying completely trouble free operation and I got a new display out of the deal to boot.

Now… what was I doing?

Backups… Check

Government bashing … Check

Windows update … Check

Jerking off …  ???

Where’s that Lube?

Posted on

Hoo boy! The Follies continue

I’ve been busy.

Sad Mac 400x400

Turns out my computer was dying a slow graceful death. I’ve seen this before with Apple Machines. I don’t know if it’s by design, or I’m just damn lucky, but I’ve had machines that developed serious problems continue to operate when by rights they should have folded.

My computer had been glitchy and getting glitchier but I figured it was something I’d done during one of my forays into writing code. I’m a terrible hack and it’s a wonder that my code doesn’t cause machines to burst into flame. 

(I’ve actually seen that; a machine bursting into flame, but it wasn’t due to my poor coding skills. Another story for another time.)

My computer told me it was having problems when the camera failed.  I probably wouldn’t have noticed for a long time except that I wanted to make a FaceTime call and couldn’t.  As I investigated I came to the conclusion that whatever the problem was, it was something that I couldn’t fix without help.

This led to the call to Apple. During that call, I discovered that the internal diagnostics were apparently corrupted and the Apple support person said I needed to return my baby to the Mother Ship.  The internal diagnostics are part of the firmware of the machine. If they’re not available, it suggests that something really bad has happened to the firmware which means it’s sort of amazing that the computer is still booting or running.

This unexpected turn of events led to a mad dash to backup everything, and finish then publish some things I’ve been working on riky-fuckin-tick.

Which explains my lack of posting. I’m writing this post on my iPad. My computer is expected back sometime next week.

Posted on

^&*%@&^% iTunes

NewImage

I have a love – hate relationship with iTunes, the application running on my computer, not the store.

Mostly I think it’s a hate relationship but I’m willing to give it the benefit of the doubt.

When iTunes works I’m happy with it although I’ll admit in the most recent iterations I’ve become very distrustful of the application and am more likely to listen to music from my iPad or iPhone.

Distrustful? Why you ask?

I fully expect iTunes to crash at least once, if not two or three times a day depending on what I’m doing. Three times if I’m downloading a video from the cloud.

If it were just the application crashing I’d probably be ok with it. But it has a very nasty habit of taking my entire system down.  First iTunes becomes unresponsive, but if you’re listening to music you might not notice because it’s continuing to play.

You’ll find out though when you try to save a file in another application, or try to open a webpage, or another application or file. Then and only then will you realize just how well and truly fucked you are.

NewImage

In my case, to regain control, I have to disconnect the USB, and External monitor. Then I have to pull the laptop from it’s cradle, then I have to press and hold the power button.

I shouldn’t have to do all this but by the time you notice symptoms, the OS is so corrupt and the CPUs are so busy that they’re no longer processing any user input.

Then the computer informs me that I shut it down because of a crash and asks do I want to reopen the applications that were running? UHHH NO! Since that’s how we came to be in this situation in the first place.

After the reboot things are usually pretty normal and it’s only very rarely that I have lingering issues.

NewImage

Sunday is a case in point.

iTunes was up, I’d been syncing my iPad and iPhone then I was chatting with a friend on the phone, and at some point asked my computer to do something.

Locked up! Zero response.

Aww shit! How much of what I was working on got saved? Doesn’t matter… The reboot is inevitable, might as well press the button.

When the system came back, it still wasn’t right, Four reboots, a permissions repair, and a trip through recovery disk, and safe boot later. My computer came back mostly normal.

But then again, maybe not.

Posted on

I was probably a little rough on that lady…

NewImage.pngJust got a call from someone claiming to be a billing company for my GP.

I haven’t seen my GP in 7 months, so when she asked me if I’d gotten the statement I was all “What?”

Then she reads off the wrong address. AGAIN! and I got a little pissed off. My MAILING address hasn’t changed in 20 years! Even after the house burned down the mailing address didn’t change.

NewImage.pngThis billing firm and I have been through this time and again and they STILL haven’t gotten it right.

Part of it is the arrogance of the data entry people.

After all the one in 10,000 forms that they process, which has a post office box on it can’t possibly be right. The patient filling out the form would take the time to put the post office box number on the form, especially since it is completely un-necessary.

NewImage.pngShe said “I don’t know why the information is incorrect.”

I replied, “I do! It’s because you people are horribly inefficient and your data is corrupt. I will be bringing this up with the doctor the next time I see him.  It’s funny, I get mail from the doctor’s office with no difficulty.”

I disconnected.

Of course this begs another question. Since I haven’t seen the doctor in 7 months or so, what the hell is this billing company trying to bill me for? I thought we’d settled up long ago.

I see a complete review of my medical bills in the near future. It’s not unheard of for medical billing companies to send out duplicate bills long after the fact, in hopes of pocketing the excess cash.

NewImage.pngThis is one of the reasons that I prefer to PAY for the services rendered at the time that the services are rendered. I hate having some bullshit insurance company negotiation going on for months behind the scenes that results in a bill that I can’t verify because I don’t know how much the services are costing me in the first place.

This isn’t about Obamacare, this is about the way the insurance companies and the medical providers services have evolved. This is the kind of thing that government regulation could have assisted the people with.

As I’ve said before, I’d prefer to deal upfront. I’d like to know what the cost for each service and materials for that service are. Then I, as an informed consumer could choose which services and procedures I’m willing to pay for, and which services are perhaps extraneous.

DSC_0442.jpgAfter all, you don’t buy new brakes for your car at every oil change, why should you have an expensive and un-necessary service done every time you go into the doctor?  You & your doctor should be working co-operatively and that requires informed choices. Pricing and purpose of a test or procedure isn’t unreasonable to ask for.

The way the system is now, you can have billing that shows up literally YEARS after the fact and that makes it very difficult to figure out if you should pay the bill, or if the bill is even yours.

I guess I’ll know in a few days. When I get the bill I’m going to drop by the doctors office and have a little chat.