Tag: Geeky Stuff

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Huh, When the Universe Speaks…

Who the hell am I, to not listen up?

So here’s the saga thus far…

I ordered an M1 MacBook Pro. I wasn’t really ready to buy a new computer. But I ordered a new machine, because I was going to have to rebuild my current Intel machine from the ground up.

I thought to myself, “If I’m going to go through all this trouble, let me look at a new machine.”

It’s not that rebuilding is that much of a pain in the butt, I was worried however that if I didn’t order a MacBook Pro with the new M1 chip and the Touch Bar (Which I like) that I wouldn’t be able to get another machine with the Touch Bar. I was thinking this because Apple has phased out Touch Bars in the 14” and the 16” Mac Book Pros.

So I ordered a new machine. The new machine was delivered on Friday, and was defective right out of the box. That’s the only time in 20 years I’ve had an Apple product not work as expected.

Saturday, I contacted Apple to arrange for the new machine to be replaced. The replacement wouldn’t be available until late June or Early July.

Today, Monday, I took the new machine to FedEx to return it.

I came home and all was right with my world. I’d just have to wait on the replacement like a kid waiting for Christmas.

After doing a few chores it was lunch time.

I pulled up Apple News while I was eating my lunch. As I was scanning the articles, I noticed that the Apple WWDC opening address had been going on while I was delivering the defective M1 machine to FedEx.

I opened the article describing the WWDC and began reading. About 2/3 through the article there was mention of the new MacBook Pro 13”. Guess what? The new MacBook Pro has an M2 processor, can be configured with 24GB of RAM, and a 2 TB solid state drive.

Impressive, and not unexpected. I knew going in that my M1 would be last years model.

What was significantly surprising was that the new M2 machine also comes with a Touch Bar.

Well now, that blows a big hole in my reason for buying a new machine in the first place, doesn’t it?

Don’t get me wrong, while the M1 was doing it’s thing, It was amazing! But! I no longer have a driving reason to purchase a new machine at this moment in time!

I was bummed out that my new M1 wasn’t right. Now I’m not as bummed out.

I just cancelled the M1 order completely. I don’t need to spend the money quite yet.

If I wait a few months, I can get an M2, increase my computer memory by 1/3, have a 2 TB drive, the Touch Bar, and spend essentially the same amount of money.

I’m preparing to rebuild my Intel machine as I type this.

I can wait 6 months. Perhaps I’ll be able to walk into an Apple store where I can open and test the new machine before I leave.

Maybe, the universe doesn’t hate me as much as I thought it did…

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Bummer! That didn’t last long

The new machine is going back to Apple.

Bummer!

On the plus side I was able to basically build out an M1 system and I’ve got a complete backup of that system.

Because the decision to return and replace the machine was made in less than a day, I still have my original MacBook to fall back on. So it’s an inconvenience and a delay but not the freaking end of the world. I’ve got a computer.

So here’s the deal.

As I mentioned yesterday, the new machine smelled funny. It was an acrid smell, (which is how I described it to the Apple Folks,) unfortunately “acrid” is one of those words that’s become buried in dictionaries but is rarely used these days.

I had to use the sentence, “The smell is reminiscent of a smell commonly associated with burnt out IC chips in old computers or printers.”

That registered with the Tech Support people….

Sigh.

English is such a rich, complex language. It’s a pity so many people, myself included, have poor command of it.

I digress.

The first symptom I noticed was that the Start Up chime had no bass. I wrote that off to the machine having a down level version of the OS, and I’d seen some articles suggesting that there was some kind of sound issue on M1 systems which had been corrected via software.

The second symptom was the acrid smell that increased the longer the machine was running and decreased if the machine was sleeping or turned off. This smell was not the usual smell of a wave soldered circuit board warming up for the first time. That smell is the smell of rosin which is almost sweet smelling. This smell was bitter, and irritating to sinuses, and mucus membranes.

The third symptom was that any and all audio played through the internal speakers had about half of the bass missing.

I don’t listen to music through the internal speakers of my computer very often. One thing that can be said about Apple machines is that their onboard sound systems are quite good.

This particular computer sounded like a Dell from 1990.

These combined issues caused me to seek guidance from AppleCare.

They, as always were nice, polite, and helpful. Tech support made the suggestion that the machine should be swapped out. I was fine with that except that the machine’s configuration is somewhat unusual and the unit has to be built special in China.

The Tech support people went Oh, that could be a problem.

They transferred me to a super nice man named Josh who walked me through all the necessary steps to wipe the machine, remove it from my Find My, and iCloud account.

Then he carefully explained the exchange process. When he quoted me the lead time, I’m sure that he had his earpiece well away from his ear.

In this case he needn’t have worried. The lead time, is late June or early July. He asked if this was alright.

I told him it had to be alright because the machine would have to be built in China, then shipped, and production schedules are what they are. Yeah it’s an inconvenience, but there’s nothing either of us can do about that.

He said, “Thank you for being so understanding about it, most of the time this is the point in the conversation when people start yelling and cursing me out.”

I told him that I had a long career in the industry. I got it. I mentioned that Apple could perhaps mitigate this kind of thing by maintaining a small supply of “Esoteric” builds of products in Cupertino.

Then I followed on explaining that might not work too well because there was no way for Apple to anticipate failures and it would represent dead stock racking up inventory tax just sitting in a warehouse.

The problem with this machine may just be infant mortality. It happens sometimes with complex circuits. Or it could be a manufacturing process issue.

If the problem is a manufacturing issue, Apple better move fast to nip it in the bud. This is the kind of thing that gives companies big shiners when it comes to public opinion.

Reliability gets you customers DOA equipment does not.

We know from experience that China gets sloppy with their manufacturing process from time to time.

Anyone remember tainted dog food? How about tainted Heparin (The blood thinner). Or blood pressure meds tainted with carcinogenic chemicals and in some cases metal filings? Oh, remember the tainted drywall, that was a good one, carcinogenic chemicals vaporizing in enclosed spaces like people’s homes? Then there was the defective lithium ion batteries in Samsung phones (How about a fire in your pants scarecrow?)

Good Job China! Great freaking quality controls you’ve got.

In fairness, given the number of products produced in China that work just fine perhaps I’m being a touch unfair. The problem is that with so much being produced in China, when they screw up, they really screw up on a massive scale.

This is why I’ve always questioned our reliance on goods manufactured in China. This isn’t to say that there aren’t manufacturing problems elsewhere in the world, but It seems to be China where executives are routinely murdered, only when their carelessness embarrasses the CCP. Otherwise everything is, “A-OK top notch…” even when it’s not.

You’ll note I didn’t mention anything about sloppy laboratory practices. We’re not supposed to say anything about a disease causing a panic that crippled the global economy are we? Sloppy laboratory processes, particularly in research labs, can have dire consequences. Just Sayin…

Honestly, I’d be much happier if all Apple products were manufactured here. For that matter I’d be happy if all our products were manufactured locally.

It’s a lot easier to fly a process engineer to Texas, or Oklahoma on a Sunday than to fly that same engineer to freakin China, to figure out whatever step, or steps, a Chinese executive decided to omit to speed up production.

Perhaps an executive forgot to whip the Uyghurs enough on a particular day???

I know, I know, I’m being hypocritical. I have no high ground to bash China when I’m feeding the beast like everyone else, purchasing goods produced for mass consumption under ethically or morally challenged circumstances.

Again, I digress.

Apple has indicated they’re going to be very good about the exchange. I’ve already packed the New Machine up in all of it’s original packing materials. I’ve printed the return label, and I’ll drop it off at a FedEx facility on Monday.

Then I’ll wait for a new, new machine to arrive sometime between June 25th and July 6th.

Although, if it’s a manufacturing issue… It could be longer.

On the one hand I’d like the notoriety of being “The Guy” that caught a problem with Apple’s production lines.

On the other hand, I’m not sure that would be a good thing if thousands of Apple customers have to wait another month for their machines, and know my name.

What would be nice is if Apple responded to my job applications, or better yet sent me the machine for free.

HA! I’m not holding my breath…

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I must be getting old

I’ve been going through my computer and deleting stuff, for a variety of reasons.

I’ve come to the conclusion that I need to probably do a complete rebuild of the system. In preparation for this I’ve been evaluating several factors. One of those is how much software on my machine is actually useful to me today.

There was a time when all the applications on my computer had a function and were used often. Those days are past. So I’ve been purging applications and their associated data from my system.

So far so good.

Then I got to thinking about the fact that Apple’s new silicon runs much more efficiently than their previous Intel based computers. It’s likely that Apple will discontinue OS support for Intel systems within the next few years. That’s not Apple being bad guys, it’s just a matter of consolidating their programming & hardware resources.

Apple did this once before, when they transitioned from PowerPC chips to Intel. I’ve been to this rodeo before.

The question this raised is since I’m going to have to do a complete rebuild anyway should I take the opportunity to move to Apple silicon at the same time?

By complete rebuild, I mean a fresh start of the Operating System. The plan calls for reloading only those applications that actually serve my needs today. I’m going to clean out all the saved passwords from the various password keychains. (Those stored in the cloud and those stored locally on my devices.) It means the deletion of all the weird assed websites and caches, and deletion of all the bullshit accounts that every fucking website wants you to create these days. Then starting over.

The goal is to get as close to being a user that’s never had a computer as possible.

It’s a hell of a task. There’s lots of planning and preserving user ids that I still need, while shedding all the crap that’s built up over time. The worst offenders in this regard are the job search sites. They never have a login site that says plainly who the hell they are. This complicates immensely figuring out what to delete and what to save.

Since I’m going to all this trouble in the first place, does it make sense to make the leap to Apple silicon now and then plan to have a computer that is “Future Proof” for at least the next 7 – 10 years?

I like my current computer. I’m one of the few people who liked the much maligned TouchBar. This preference adds a time element to my decision. It just so happens that the last MacBook Pro that has the TouchBar and has the new M1 chip is also available in the size and configuration that I like. That being said, it probably won’t be available next year.

The advantages to a newer machine are better battery life, (almost double my current machine’s). The processing power in Apple Silicon is approximately double. The newer machine supports WiFi 6, which my current machine does not. The newer machine can give me 2 TB of Solid State hard drive space. The current machine didn’t have that option.

The disadvantages are that I lose 2 Thunderbolt ports. I’ll also lose (at least temporarily) the ability to run VMWare Fusion and therefore Windows on my Mac. Yes, I could use Parallels, but I started thinking about how often I actually use Windows these days. (Not once in the past 3 months.)

The loss of ports concerned me. Then I really thought about it, and realized that I rarely have need of 4 Thunderbolt ports. I think the maximum I’ve ever used is 3 of the four ports and that was maybe once.

I’ve got a Thunderbolt dock from CalDigit. It provides all the ports I need if I really need a bunch of accessories connected to the computer. There’s a CD/DVD drive connected to that dock right now that hasn’t been used in almost a year. My monitor uses Thunderbolt directly so even if the dock were to stop working, I’d just plug the computer into the monitor. The monitor even charges my computer when connected directly.

I’ve got several dongles that plug into my current computer but even then, it’s a very rare occasion that I’ve needed more than 2 at any one time. The dongle that gets the most use is an Ethernet port that lets me connect to a network if for some reason WiFi isn’t available.

What Microsoft applications I use, run natively on Apple Silicon. So there wouldn’t be any of the messy Rosetta application conversion that imposes a performance hit. There are a few applications that would use Rosetta but those are used infrequently enough that they represent a negligible impact.

Basically, moving to a new Apple system at this point would have little negative impact on me. All my accessories for the current machine will work the same on a new machine. All the work I’ve done to prepare for a system rebuild will work just as well if I transition, or keep my current machine.

Apple will credit me $400 if I trade in my current machine for a new one. Apple Credit will give me zero interest for a year and 3% cash back to boot. It’s not a huge savings but it’s better than a kick in the pants.

I’ve convinced myself… I ordered the new machine. It should be here in a couple of weeks…

All of above is what went into the decision.

What makes me feel old is that I’m looking at this new machine as possibly a computer that I’ll use until I’m dead. I feel old too because I’m not that interested in the hassle of maintaining or updating a bunch of applications anymore.

I first noticed this phenomena on my phone, I’ve gotten my phone’s application count down to one and a half pages. There are more applications on the phone that will probably be deleted because the benefit they provide isn’t worth the annoyance of finding them, or dealing with making sure the latest version is on the device.

That philosophy spread to my computer, and iPad too. I’m down to 81 applications on my computer. That includes those that Apple provides for free. The number is about the same on my iPad and iPhone. When the new computer arrives, I’m betting that the number will drop to 70 or so, maybe 10 of which I’ll use daily.

My Apple Watch is nearing the end of its usable battery life and rather than drooling over the rumors of the new Apple Watches, I’m thinking about a plain simple (not flashy) watch. My Rolex is still my favorite but I think I’m going to have to lock it in a safe so that I’m not mugged at gunpoint over it.

I’ve been looking at automatic watches in the 300 to 500 dollar range. Oddly, that’s the same price range as a new Apple Watch. If I go the plain watch route, I won’t have to worry about recharging or the $10 per month cellular fee added to my bill every month.

Don’t get me wrong, I like a lot of the Apple Watch features. But if I’m out camping or hiking for more than a day, power becomes an issue. I can turn my phone off to conserve power and have some privacy, but I kinda like to have a watch when I’m out in the wild. I don’t want to have to carry all the paraphernalia required to charge the darn thing. An automatic winding watch will die 2 days after I do. Rather than die after me wearing it for a day.

Sure, I can carry a solar panel, I’ve got one. I can carry a battery pack, I’ve got one of those too. They both fit in my backpack and work really well. But suppose I don’t want the added weight? Traveling by air with them is a pain in the butt. TSA always seems to have a problem with them. “What’s that? Why do you have it? Why do you need it?” You’d think the TSA agents would have seen stuff like this before, alas, apparently not. I keep waiting for TSA to ask me where my papers are.

I suppose that’s making me feel like I’m old too. I’m eschewing the “Trendy, Modern,” stuff for the old tried and true. As I’m getting older, I have less patience or indeed concern about making sure all the little bits of high technology in my life are working.

If something isn’t working, it might not be that important. The importance seems to be directly related to how long it took me to notice something was amiss.

The funny thing is that I don’t stress over a lot of these things when I notice them like I used to. Now it’s kind of, “huh that’s dead. Do I need it right now? Nope, okay I’ll look at it later when I have nothing better to do,” and move on with my day.

That’s the way my Grandfathers looked at their world. If something wasn’t immediately useful, they’d move on. When I was younger I couldn’t figure them out. They’d chide me about my leap to technology. They both thought I was nuts for using ATMs. I kept wondering, how could they not be annoyed that the TV wasn’t working? How come they’d be so calm if a power drill broke and just pick up a hand cranked one?

I thought they were just old and dumb. But now I’m seeing their wisdom, perhaps because I’m acting just like they did.

They’d realized that you only need one coffeecup, one plate, one glass, one spoon, fork, or knife. Especially if you washed ’em when you were finished using them. They’d managed to see what was convenience, and what was necessity. In that realization, they became particular about what they wanted. That led them to frugality, not because they didn’t have money, but because they wanted to un-complicate and un-clutter their lives.

At the time they died, the world was becoming more connected, more complicated, and busier. I’d enjoy taking with either of them about the world today. I’m sure they’d be simultaneously appalled and amused.

They’d both be holding their sides laughing at me tossing useless crap out of my life. They wouldn’t get the computer purging, but they’d be smiling as they watched me picking up bits of dead or broken technology and tossing it into the bin.

They’d probably get a big laugh out of saying, “Welcome to being old and dumb.”