Category: Technology

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Totally a first world problem…

As most readers know, long ago I switched over to Apple for most everything in my personal computing environment. Wherever you look in my home office, you’ll see an Apple logo. 

Exceptions are of course in monitors, printers, and these days my router. Apple no longer makes their Airports or Time Capsules. So I ended up changing components as the Apple devices wore out.

Apple Monitors are spectacular but far too expensive for my needs. There was a time I even had an Apple LaserWriter.

This is not to say Apple makes the best products. I do find however that Apple products tend to remain useful far beyond their non Apple competitors. It’s nice having a unified ecosystem too. Being able to update everything from a central source is on the one hand a little spooky but on the other hand it’s super convenient. I like knowing that my devices have updated themselves and typically don’t require a lot of intervention on my part. (HomePods, I’m looking at you when I say “Typically”)

All that being said, I’ve been noticing that lately the configurations of Apple equipment that I’d be most likely to purchase haven’t been available off the shelf.

The latest example has been the Apple Watch Ultra. The 13” MacBook Pro with the M2 processor 24GB of RAM and 2 TB of disk storage. One can argue that the Apple Watch is brand new, okay I’ll give you that one. The MacBook Pro 13” on the other hand has been out for a long while. Why then is the maximum configuration still not readily available? Oh right… COVID. 

Another item just showed up on this list. The Mac Studio. It’s been out for almost a year. You’d think I could pull up at an Apple Store, and plunk down 3K then walk out with one containing the M1 Ultra Chip, max memory, and 2 TB of disk. Well you’d be wrong. 

Macstudio

This configuration is apparently order only and has a mid October delivery date. Why? Surely I can’t be the only person to realize that with Apple Products these days you have to buy what you’re willing to live with from the get go. Modern Macs don’t allow for upgrades, they don’t allow you to buy a mid grade unit then max it out later. You have to buy it knowing that if you outstrip it’s capabilities you’re going to have to buy a new machine.

So what the hell? After the recent debacle with me purchasing a maxed out M1 MacBook Pro and then having it stolen when I needed to ship it back to Apple because it was defective. I don’t want to buy anything new unless I can exchange it in a store.

(I’m still having to pay for the computer even though it was stolen. Fed Ex denies responsibility and so does their agent Dollar General. Word to the wise, if you have to return something to Apple, drive 100 miles to the nearest Apple store to return it. Make sure Apple gives you a receipt on paper. For that matter if you’re shipping something back to a manufacturer for refund or exchange don’t accept “We’ll send you a text message or an email,” demand a paper receipt because that’s your only proof that you handed the product to FedEx or UPS or whoever. Text messages are complete bullshit as receipts.)

In my case, I don’t want to order anything from anyone online. Sure there’s convenience in having something delivered to your door, but if whatever it is, is broken, or dies, the hassle of returning it and waiting for a replacement greatly destroys the convenience. 

I prefer to be able to take something back to the store and get an exchange on the spot. 

In the case of Apple, I prefer to unbox the machine in the damn store and power it up. I want to Know it works before I leave. Setting something up in the store allows me to know that and do a trade in, if desired, at the same damn time.

Apple products are generally reliable right from the get go but given the sloppy Chinese manufacturing I’ve seen lately, and the fact that most all of Apple’s products are made in China… Well, I really want to verify things are working while it’s still easy to exchange.

Therein lies the problem. Since the Apple stores don’t have representative examples of the top of the line configurations in stock and I’m gun-shy about ordering something custom for which there is no backup I’m not likely to buy the item in the first place.

That’s how I came to be screwed with my M1 MacBook. I had to return it and have another one built, it’s not like I could get another one off the shelf at an Apple Store.

Yes this is a first world problem. 

Nonetheless, it begs the question why isn’t Apple stocking the high end configurations at their stores? I mean at least ONE in stock at each store?

When I bought my Intel MacBook (Max configuration) it was literally as simple as walking in to the Apple Store and stating what I wanted. They had 4 in stock. I powered the machine up, checked it for functionality, and walked out with my purchase.

Granted that was in 2019. I’m sick and tired of hearing about COVID. I’m sick of hearing about supply chain issues. I’m sick of excuses! 

If Apple knows it’s got a problem, they should fix it. If we know we’ve got supply chain issues then the people in charge of supply chains should get off their asses and fix the problem.

If Apple can’t get products from China, then they should move the damn factories to places where they can get products built and reliably delivered.

That goes for every stinking manufacturer of anything.

I, like many Americans, never really paid much attention to government, or governments, or the supply chain. Stuff just freaking worked.  

But now… Oh this shit has my full and undivided attention.

Perhaps in November we’ll see just how many other Americans are suddenly paying attention. If the Democrats in America get beaten into the ground and Tech companies suffer major losses in sales because a) they can’t get products into consumers hands in a reasonable time, or b) people can’t afford those products, then I’m pretty darn sure they’ll get the message. When their stock prices take a dump and the economy sinks further because products aren’t available and people won’t or can’t pay the prices, the message should be very clear.

It’ll be signed, “The American People”

Really? Mid November for an new iPhone or Apple Watch? 

There’s no point in companies spending on marketing. By the time the product is actually available, people will be anticipating next years’ model and will hold off on their purchases. That by the way is called “Marketing Window”

That’s probably where I’m going to come down on this.

See ya next year Apple, maybe…

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Hey Apple, here’s a thought…

I saw that you were having some trouble getting people to come into the office.

It’s in The Wall Street Journal today.

You know what? I’d come into the office. I’d work for a reasonable salary, and not demand much of anything.

Give me some reasonable medical coverage, and enough cash after taxes to pay my bills and I’d be a happy camper. Put me in a cubicle and give me software to test. I’d keep my head down, do my job, and leave at the end of the day.

I’ve got 40 years of experience in technology. I’m not particularly political, (at least not at work,) I don’t give two shits about catching COVID, been there, done that.

I’m not interested in social justice, or trans rights, all I want is a job. In my view none of the politically charged stuff has a place in the workplace. That’s stuff that each employee can pursue in their personal time.

Oh I’ll be polite, I’ll be Politically Correct, I’ll listen to people decrying the injustices they’ve endured but I’m not going to comment or engage with it.

I’d come into work, do my job, and that’s it. I’m not interested in office politics or becoming management. I’ve done both, and am old enough now to recognize that neither is my cup of tea.

I’d like to just work in the trenches.

You’d know that if you’d ever bothered to respond to the multiple applications I’ve filled out seeking employment in my field with your company.

Honestly, my offer seems like a reasonable one. A trouble free employee who shows up on time, does their job, and collects their paycheck.

I have zero social media profiles except for this blog and LinkedIn. I’d not be Twittering, Facebooking, Instagramming, or posting on Tic Toc, during working hours.

Seems like that would be an employer’s dream.

Given that you’ve ignored my applications for years, I can only assume you’ve become far more interested in Social Justice Work than making reliable products and software.

Nonetheless, if you change your mind, fire off a comment to this post. I’m sure we could talk.

I’m even willing to relocate. Bear in mind, if you’d want me to move to Cupertino or Northern California it would affect my base pay requirement calculation. The rents up there are wicked high. One thing though, I’m white. Hiring me could negatively affect your diversity quota.

Just a thought Apple…

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No Apple, It’s not you. It’s me

See, I have this personality flaw. I expect shit to work consistently and reliably.

I’ve got 3 pairs of HomePod speakers in this house. 4 HomePod Mini’s and 2 of the standard HomePods. I’ve got an iPad, and iPhone, a watch, 2 Apple TVs, AirPod Pros, Oh and my MacBook Pro.

On the matter of the MacBook Pro, this is my old computer because my new one was stolen while I was trying to return it to you because it was defective right out of the box.

Of Course, YOU Apple, can’t be bothered to help me out. And because your guy in sales had me flush everything and reset the computer to factory conditions, I can’t even track the machine to whoever stole it. I could have, had you not told me the procedure was to make sure the computer was wiped and disconnected from my account… So Thanks a TON!

FedEx screwed me, and Dollar General (The FedEx drop-off point) screwed me so now I’m paying for a computer that I don’t have and I’m sure the fucker that stole it is just happy as hell to have a dumb white fuck paying for their fly computer. Given that they’re probably listening to nothing but RAP I doubt they’ll notice that the sound quality is shit until the audio shuts down completely or the computer shorts out completely and burns their home down. (Hopefully with them trapped inside.)

The police say they have no evidence that the computer was stolen they’re just listing it as a missing package so I can’t even file a proper police report.

Okay, I get it nobody is at fault. Except of course the fucker that stole the damn package. Oh and by the way I’m pretty sure I know exactly who the person is. It was the person who “Scanned” the package but somehow that scan didn’t actually get recorded by FedEx. But without proof I can’t make allegations.

So I’ll suck it up, pay for the damn computer, and continue to use my old machine. You know, the one that almost immediately went from 6 hours of battery life down to 3 hours of battery life after your wonderful OS upgrade called Monterey… Yeah, Thanks for that.

Before you go into the bullshit about batteries having a limited lifespan. Yeah, I know that. So why does the battery still say it’s got 94% of its charge capacity, and is in good health? Why did the battery drain begin literally the day after the Monterey upgrade?

The thing is, I’d probably be able to let it go except you Apple keep getting in my face. HomePods randomly report they’re not available. Then after considerable screwing around with them they magically come back. The Big HomePods reported yesterday that they weren’t on the same network as my iPhone. Wrong! The Router said the iPhone and HomePods had ip addresses and were pingable on the network.

Turns out… only one of the HomePods had a problem but since they’re a paired set well, the only way to sort it out was to ungroup them, then reset the one that was complaining and then regroup them.

This after the same set of HomePods asking me 3 days running for the passwords to my apple accounts and both of them working just fine as the sound system for the AppleTV while I was watching movies. Oh and just as a point, these HomePods had been set up from the phone they said wasn’t on the same network. Oddly, the other HomePod minis on the same network where fully functional.

Today, I thought I’d put a TV show on my computer while I was doing some other stuff. You’d think this wouldn’t be a problem except that the Apple library doesn’t show the second season of the TV show but Apple TV+ does.

My Archer collection is horribly screwed up, apparently because I had the temerity to purchase a multi season bundle. Not ONE of the episodes in that bundle has ever indicated that it’s been played, so if I wanted to watch I had to search through and remember what I’d already seen.

It gets better! I’m watching the show that I wanted to watch after finding it in AppleTV+ “up next”. I’m using my office HomePod Mini’s for sound and for no apparent reason, the right speaker simply shuts off.

The speaker is on the network, the router shows it talking to someone. But all the audio is coming through the left speaker. It was working just fine, nothing changed in the configuration other than time passing.

Restart the computer, power down the HomePods power up again, and things worked for 5 minutes, then boom, the right speaker is off again. What’s really cool is that if I touch the right speaker’s interface it starts playing music. While the left speaker is still playing the audio from the TV show. So much for them being a stereo pair!

Just FYI Apple this kind of shit is exactly why I dumped Windows and PCs.

Either be broken, don’t work at all, or work as advertised. I swear to God I unplug or reset at least one HomePod once a week because it suddenly says it can’t connect to the internet, or it’s taking too long to contact a device on the network, or it’s forgotten a password, or, or, or, or.

The point is, all of this crap just happens randomly. I’m not changing network settings. I’m not changing passwords. I’m just walking into the house or the room and shit mysteriously isn’t working.

The Homekit application on the phone is next to useless. The HomeKit on the computer is worse and that’s frankly inexcusable. You’ve got all the competing power of the MacBook at your disposal for diagnostic capabilities and you send the user to their iPhone or iPad for help that is nothing more than mental masturbation that literally has never solved a HomeKit or HomePod problem.

Instead you leave the user guessing about what could possibly be the trouble. Additionally, your support pages are next to useless because they provide no answers, and often not even decent steps to troubleshoot.

So Apple it’s not you. It’s the phase of the moon, sunspots, the router, the internet connection, or anything that doesn’t point to you having put out shitty software.

Just once it would be fucking nice to hear you admit you have a problem.

Here’s a thought… Stop dicking around with gender confused narcissists, and filling diversity quotas, and do us all a favor.

Hire people that can do the job. You know, good software engineers, and testing people.

By the way I’m probably not going to be buying another Apple Watch. I’ve discovered that I prefer a watch that works without recharging and at $1000 for one of your ruggedized watches. I’d rather wait a few years and spend $6000 on a nice Omega.

I’m probably not going to upgrade my iPad and I’m not likely to be buying a new iPhone in the near future.

As to buying a new Apple MacBook Pro… Well, I’ve already purchased one of those, even though apparently I donated it to some thieving motherfucker at your direction. I’ve reported that serial number to you Apple as stolen and had some expectation that when that SN popped up on the network you’d maybe report it to the Police.

That hope is fading fast.

So if Apple won’t report stolen equipment to the Police and is no longer interested in producing equipment “That Just Works” I am really having a hard time seeing why I should pay a premium price for Apple products.

In this world, perhaps it make more sense to just buy the same shit that everyone else has and replace it when it’s a year old, stolen, broken, or comes in a new color.

(Like Apple did with the HomePod minis last year… Nothing new except a color change, really Apple? Is that all you’ve got left?)

How’s that going to work for your Green Agenda? Apple can recycle their stuff all day long but if fewer folks are buying their products it’s not going to matter much is it?

I can buy a new android phone for $99 at Walmart and throw it away next year. I could do that for 10 years and just start to come up on the price of an iPhone.

$300 for a Windows Laptop and it’s the same equation.

$69 for an Alexa, or whatever and I still have the same shitty performance, connectivity to my smart house, and a speaker.

That’s going to do a lot of landfills good across the country isn’t it?

So no Apple it’s not you. I’m just tired of paying a premium price for mediocrity.

Believe me Apple you’ve become mediocre.

Now where did I put those speakers that I can plug directly into my USB Hub?

Maybe I’ll put one of these HomePod minis in the kitchen and another one in the garage. No point in expecting them to work as stereo speakers is there?

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Delays, Delays!

I feel you Marvin!

I’ve been trying to arrange a trip to go see my parents on the other side of the country.

After a solid year of things breaking, the house, and me. Followed by hitches in seemingly straight forward home improvement tasks. Some of which are still to be resolved…

I thought I was going to have some free and clear time to head out. The plan was to take time, travel with a new computer that had 5x the battery life of my current one, see some sights, and generally relax. Gas prices be damned!

The computer was defective, then went missing after I handed it off to FedEx to be returned to the manufacturer. They take no responsibility, their agent takes no responsibility, the police can’t do anything because it’s not a clear case of theft, so I’m stuck paying the bill for a machine that I don’t have. Yea!

The FedEx agent, said they couldn’t print me a receipt after they scanned it into the system. Now unsurprisingly, there is no record of the package being scanned. (Even though, I watched them scan it.) I was told that the receipt would be texted to me… uh huh.

Why do I believe that people are inherently honest, or that they’ll do their freaking job?

The home improvement project was to install solar on the house. The panels are up on the roof, the controller is installed, but the connection hasn’t been made to the house wiring because there was some kind of glitch.

When the solar provider was contacted, they seemed to think that everything was installed and working. Uhhh NO! This it particularly interesting because they have remote monitoring of the system and one would think that they’d be able to call up the controller and see that it wasn’t passing power to the house.

Yet another situation where people failed to do their damn job!

So now I’m drawn back into waiting around for someone to figure out what needs to be done and get it done.

In the mean time, the other half has finally gone to the doctor. This is leading to a bunch of tests and hopefully some answers about why their health seems to have been getting markedly worse over the past 2 months.

All of this is concurrent with a time element closing. Because when the school year starts up again, I will be tied to the house looking after the pup. What was supposed to be a 3 week trip of exploration and relaxation has effectively been reduced to less than a week and may simply not be worth the effort.

With the latest FED interest rate hike. I may not be able to make the trip because the credit card issuers are already raising their rates too.

Great!

I’m not even going to get into a discussion about inflation.

Maybe Marvin was right…

He should have used that Illudeium P-38 space modulator to blow up the Earth … After all, it obstructed his view of Venus.

I can certainly relate to Marvin’s frustration!

Full disclosure, Marvin is one of my favorite Warner Brothers cartoon characters.

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Interesting, if you’re a Geek

I’ve been using Bitdefender antivirus for about the past 6 years. Generally speaking, I don’t have too many problems with viruses. Most of the people I know have enough sense to stay away from sites containing viruses, and they don’t as a rule forward email wily nilly.

There have been some emails over the past few years that were infected but generally speaking I maintain antivirus only as a safety precaution.

I started using Bitdefender because a couple of companies I worked at used it and it seemed pretty robust while not sucking up tons of system resources. Many of you may know of the product because it’s marketed mostly as a Windows solution. However they also have a Mac version of the software.

You have to buy their Total Premium package to get it, but that didn’t bother me because I also had Windows and that package gave me 5 licenses.

I just got the renewal notice telling me that another 3 years was going to cost $200. “Whoa!” That’s a lot of money. Not really a lot over the course of 3 years but I got to thinking about what I was really using.

I’ve not been doing a whole lot with Windows, so I didn’t need the Windows license anymore. I don’t use Bitdefender’s VPN, Parental Controls, or in fact any of their products except the Mac Antivirus.

I’d become disenchanted with even that product because it seemed to be really busy all the dang time. There wasn’t enough file activity, downloads, and email attachments, to justify the application constantly checking (something… I don’t know what). Don’t even get me started on what a royal pain in the ass Bitdefender was every single time Apple updated the OS. Uninstalling and reinstalling the application became a really common event.

That was an annoyance. But the bigger question was that the Bitdefender dashboard only showed that one license was in use, when I knew for a fact that there were 3 of the 5 available in use. This raised the question, did they really have as much of a handle on things as they said they did.

This led me to investigating alternatives.

To The Internet Boy Wonder!

There were tons of reviews of various antivirus products. Bitdefender was always in the top 3, even on the Mac side of things. Norton was another and well, to be honest, I didn’t even read the Norton reviews. Norton and I have a really bad history. So admittedly I’m biased. One other product popped up on the Mac side of things frequently.

It’s a Mac only product from a company called Intego. I’d used their product in the past until they got too expensive and honestly bloated beyond all reason. If I recall correctly I stopped using them about 8-10 years ago. In great part because they were sucking up all kinds of system resources on my Mac OS 9 system. Then they got super expensive and I was done.

I think they learned their lesson. Their current product reviews stated that the product had a light footprint and did what it was asked to do. Their suite of applications was nicely integrated and during installation the user had the option to install only those apps from the suite that were wanted.

Very unlike Bitdefender which installs everything and then forces the user to execute uninstallation utilities for applications that aren’t desired.

Intego is a Mac only solution. They’ve been Mac only right from the start. That means that their solution isn’t a reworked hack job converting a primarily Windows application to a Mac compatible version. It’s Mac to its foundations.

I read a ton of reviews, the only “Dings” I found were that some years Intego didn’t submit the product for “Professional Evaluation & Review” to various publications.

Also noted was that the installation process was a bit iterative. Meaning that if you install their entire suite of applications, you have to authorize each application for access when you bring it online.

I understand why some reviewers might be annoyed with this, but I see it as a plus. It forces a conscious choice on the part of the user to allow a product access to their system or not. I like having a touch more control over what applications have access to my entire disk, or my network traffic. Many other suites issue a blanket pass for such things and that has always made me uncomfortable.

Really, does a network utility need access to my contacts? I think not.

Goodbye Bitdefender

I also found a coupon that got me a substantial discount. So I purchased 3 licenses for 2 years. Uninstalling Bitdefender took forever, installing the Intego suite took a little while, but it went very smoothly.

An interesting side note is that Bitdefender offered me half off the subscription price when I turned off “Auto Renew” I guess they thought if after 6 years this guy is turning off Auto Renewal we’re going to lose him.

They weren’t wrong… Trouble is, it was too little too late.

I’m going to be running Intego for about 30 days on my system, then I’ll put it on the other half’s.

Thus far, I’m liking what I see.

The various interfaces in the applications are clean and well laid out. I like the net barrier application’s visual firewall. I could see where net barrier could be annoying if you have a lot of applications that want to phone home. That being said, once authorized the application doesn’t ask again.

The Washing Machine application is a bit slow, but it wiped 4 GB of crap from my system. I haven’t even run its duplicate scan yet. I’m hoping that it’s as intelligent and informative about what it plans to do as the cleaning cycle.

The antivirus portion of the application is clean and simple. Some reviews said that it was a a bit slow, but my experience was on par with doing a full scan in Bitdefender. Yeah… it’s going to take a while.

If I find any weirdnesses or annoyances, I’m planning on updating this post. I’d recommend that everyone take a look at your subscriptions when they come up for renewal. Rather than just clicking on the Pay Now button, give it some thought. Do. You really like the application or service, or can you do better?

Have a great weekend.