Tag: Technology

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This can’t be good…

Service Battery

Saw this message this morning on my beloved Macbook Air. I’m hoping it’s a lie and that cycling the battery completely will make it go away.

This usually means the battery is getting to the end of it’s useful life and is due for replacement. Sometimes it means you’ve got a glitch in the power management system that can be corrected. 

Fingers crossed that it’s correctable.

macbookair

If it’s not, well it looks like batteries are about 100.00 so it won’t be too expensive to repair.  This got me thinking though, “How old is this computer?” I pulled up the receipt and DANG! this little puppy was purchased 6/2012. Not too shabby if the battery is just now saying it’s getting tired. 

So now comes the question. Do I replace the battery or the computer? A quick search tells me that another Macbook Air similarly equipped would cost $1749.00. The specs on the newest machines aren’t substantially different from what I’ve got. The new machine would give me Thunderbolt 2, 802.11ac, and a longer battery life, 12 hours instead of 7.

SSD

On the other hand for about $600.00 I could put a lower power, faster, bigger(1TB) SSD (Solid State Drive) in this machine and replace its battery with a larger capacity version and probably achieve some system wide improvements that would be on par with the brand new machine. This would extend the life of my current computer easily another three years.

It would be nice to have Thunderbolt 2 and it would be nice to have faster wifi. But those items don’t justify the additional cost. The display on the new Macbook Air isn’t substantially different and in all other respects the new machine would be a duplication of the old.

battery

So if I’m going to have to replace the battery in this machine, the question is do I spring for the new hard drive at the same time? Since I’m going to have the machine open in the first place maybe it makes more sense to do all the surgery at once.

We also have a new operating system release coming up. Humm…

In for a penny, in for a pound.  or more modern… Go big or Go home.

I’ll wait for the results of the battery drain and recharge and then decide but I think I’m going to have some interesting computer stuff going on in the near future.

Pray to the computer gods for me.

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Can’t take it anymore…

IBM PC XT

I’ve been pointedly ignoring all the bullshit about Trump, the billion or so goofball Republican candidates, Megan Kelly (Who the hell is she?) And Hillary freakin Clinton.

I can’t remain silent anymore.

Hillary Clinton should be in Leavenworth, in a deep dark hole of a cell, shackled and awaiting trial. The FBI should have picked her happy ass up wherever the hell she was on the campaign trail the moment it was discovered that she had sent classified material over her private little server.

Hillarys Email Server

I’m not talking about material that has since been classified, or material that has been declassified, because there is no distinction. The business of the State department of the United States of America, should by default be considered Confidential if not Classified from the get-go. That’s why the United States has a whole bunch of Operational Security specialists, and requires employees and contractors to be re-certified in Operational Security every six months to a year, (Depending on the materials employees are handling,) just to keep it straight. And the rule of thumb is ASSUME a document is Classified and you’ll never go wrong. 

Classified

Which means this private email server should never have been allowed to exist. Innumerable agencies within the government who are charged with maintaining the security of the United States had to know about this server, its location, and its security status. They were told to “ignore it” because… why?

If I’d done what Hillary did… I’d be lucky to be sitting in Leavenworth. I think it’s more likely I’d have been sent someplace really nasty, provided the government didn’t put me on trial for treason then shoot me.

Leavenworth Penitentiary

I don’t think treason can be proven but the government tends to “over charge” in this kind of litigation because they want to make sure you don’t get off on a technicality.

One only has to look at the case of Aaron Swartz as example.  

Aaron Swartz

Swartz was simply making academic articles available via a P2P network from JSTOR and the issue had been settled between JSTOR and Swartz when the Federal Government stepped in.  Once involved, the Feds slapped Swartz with 13 criminal charges carrying a potential 35 years in prison and 1 million in fines. The case was pending when Swartz killed himself. By the way, most if not all, of the information Swartz distributed, was free, and still is today. I think the majority of Swartz’s crime was that he used the P2P distribution system to bypass JSTOR’s requirement for you to be a registered subscriber. I’m not clear on if he was costing JSTOR money.

So here we have a guy who’s maybe costing someone a little cash.

Hillary Clinton

Then we have Hillary who, for her own convenience hired a company that appears to have been unvetted by the US government, whose employees were apparently not subject to background security checks, to set up a server outside the control of the US government, handling Classified material and emails from one of the highest levels of the US government.

As the onion got peeled Hillary denied that classified emails were on the server. (Turns out there were classified emails on the server.) Hillary then said SHE decided what was important to turn over to the government, and deleted the rest of the information. Uhh that’s not how this works ma’am.  Now we’re finding out that the security of the server is in question. (Was there encryption? Who had physical access to the machine?)

Hillary Clinton

Hummm. IS IT JUST ME?

I thought rules and the law were supposed to apply equally to everyone. Yet here we have a clear example of someone who is not only above the law and social constructs, but they are still running a campaign to become President!

For God’s sake people, we’ve burned other politicians down for far less.

It’s well past time to force Hillary out of the Presidential Race.

This is not the kind of elitism we need in our government. We don’t need another liar in the White House. We don’t need yet another person in office who doesn’t understand and obey the rules.

I admit, I look forward to Hillary’s arrest for Contempt of Congress. That will be a day to be watching CSPAN.

 

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Kudos to Microsoft

Office 365

I’m now the proud owner of an Office 356 subscription.

Generally speaking I”m not real thrilled about the subscription software model. Adobe’s Creative Suite for example, is obscenely priced.

Most of the virus software packages are likewise obscenely priced on a year by year basis. There are exceptions, but in general the well known vendors are overpriced for what you get. Not to mention that their updates and scans are ridiculously slow.

So imagine my surprise when I found out that for $100 a year I can buy Office 356 from Microsoft and have a five seat package that includes iPads and iPhones too.  Add to that the value that for as long as the subscription is current, you get the latest and greatest version of the Office suite, plus an online version that works very well. 

Needless to say, I was skeptical. You know the old saying,  “If it’s too good to be true it probably is.”

But after reading the fine print, I dropped the hammer and now have burned 3 seats of the five seat license. Don’t get any ideas, I’ve got plans for those last 2 seats…

I’d been using the “Preview” version of Office on my Mac for a while and was very impressed. The final version of Office for the Mac is a pleasure to work with. I’ve been impressed that the Windows version and the Mac version work so much alike that it’s easy to forget which machine you’re working on. 

What am I saying here? 

WELL DONE MICROSOFT!

You’ve done a good job bring the two platforms together and the price is absolutely right.

Thank you!

If you’re reading this and have been sitting on the fence about a subscription to Office, just pony up the money.

You’ll be glad you did. 

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The Case against “The Internet of Things”

SatelliteDishstylized

I’m a technowhore. I admit it, even though as time goes on, I’m becoming more resistant to things like FaceBook, Twitter, and all that stuff.  

When It comes to machines being smart I think it’s cool. At least I did…

Then I started adding up all the devices in the house that are updating all the time. You really don’t think about it until you’re trying to track down how 15GB of data can disappear in one day. Then you start counting up the devices and checking their auto-update settings.

I started, figuring that it would only take a minute or two, then had the sobering realization that I have a LOT of devices that connect to the internet.

Two Physical computers, one virtual machine. (3 Computers)

Two iPads, Two iPhones, Two Apple TVs, the Xbox (Which sits turned off most of the time), The DirectTV box, The Television, Two DVD players, A Nest Thermostat, Two Network Drives, and a Printer.

45 Minutes later I finished checking all the settings.

All these devices have the ability to grab software updates from the internet and it isn’t until you fire each one up to turn off the auto-update feature that you realize just how much data our technology can consume while we’re not looking.

donkey

Any of the devices that are multifunction computational devices (Computers, iPhones, iPads) will update the myriad applications we all load, in addition to their own Operating Systems. All of this happens even if you’re not using the applications.

How many of us have “forgotten” applications which are updating regularly on our computers, phones, or tablets? With services that have no real data-cap you don’t think about it. But when you’re trying to figure out where, how, or if, your’e hemorrhaging data, suddenly you tune into the minutiae.

Even though I’ve turned all the auto-updates off, I’m still at a loss as to what’s going on because all the logs say no update was greater than 500MB in the past 60 days. The grand total of data that I can account for is a little over 3GB.

Hughes has claimed that their premium plan is having problems because of a server migration. Well, that migration has been going on now for 4 weeks. I’ve come to believe there’s nothing wrong other than their service sucks diseased donkey balls. 

Since we’re now spending more time in the “Crippled” mode with Hughes than we are in the “working” mode I’ve decided that I’m not going to bother fighting a losing battle anymore. I told the other half that we were not going to keep playing the plug / unplug,  reconfigure your network game that Hughes keeps wanting to play each and every time we’re trying to get an answer to if they’ve fixed their premium plan.

devices

I’m done, we’re downgrading Hughes to the absolute minimum and we’re just not going to stream anything. No video, no music and if I need to actually do something like real work or retrieving email I’ll head to a library, or Starbucks, or just use my phone hotspot. We’ll simply get used to and accept the crippled mode as “normal” much the way we accepted the shitty Verizon service as normal. (At least with Hughes we can actually control the amount we choose to spend on internet, unlike Verizon.) As soon as something else comes along that’s better we’ll drop Hughes like the steaming pile of elephant shit they are and move on with life.

This whole debacle points to another issue.

The more connected our devices become the more ISP’s will have an opportunity to screw us all. Unfortunately, that opportunity will be handed to them on a silver fucking platter by the FCC and the morons in Congress.

If these ISP’s manage to institute data caps, and then get away with crippling the service, or charging premium rates for each megabyte of data above some arbitrary limit, The Internet of things is going to become very expensive.

I think in the future I’ll be looking very carefully at what the machines I buy actually need. If the device can’t be started without an internet connection I’m going to pass on it. Eventually, I wont be able to avoid these devices but I’ll hold out as long as I can.

I’ve got an old flip cellphone around here somewhere… I wonder if I can get that puppy unlocked and go back to “StupidPhone”

flipphone

I know I can put the IMEI number in a website somewhere and …

SHIT! I still need the damn internet even to “Go Stupid”

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OK I’ve had enough!

BangHead

Computer won’t connect to a web site. Looking for a job but the website is down. Okay… move on to the next job site. Nothing there. To the next site, no connection. sigh. Next site. Got connection but horrendously slow. I mean slower than old teletype. 

Connect to phone hotspot. 

Get email. Huh! That email came into phone over two hours ago only now showing up on computer. Weird!

Now I can get to the web site that was down, oh, and the super slow one too.

Disconnect from hotspot

Reconnect to home wifi

Now web sites work. WTF?

Go back to phone hotspot… Can’t connect. Connect but no internet. GRRRRR!

TargetPractice

Reconnect to home wifi, websites wont load.

Connect HARDLINE Turn off wifi completely.

Websites won’t load.

Okay Now I want to understand what the hell is going on. Shit should consistently work OR NOT! Intermittently working isn’t going to cut it with me.

Hours pass. Time lost. I’m not looking for work, I’m not learning anything new, I’m not studying anything. I’m troubleshooting.

Grrrrr

Other half comes in after talking to the damn satellite people AGAIN! 

“I need to disconnect their box from the router and connect it directly to my computer.”

“Okay I’ll take care of it”

“Thanks”

A few minutes later,

“Their modem is connected directly to your computer.”

“Thanks.”

Tests running, more tests, leave disconnected for hours. More wasted time. Time lost. I’m not looking for work, I’m not learning anything new, I’m not studying anything. I’m trying to make the connection to the phone hotspot work. I’m troubleshooting.

FittingEnd

Except now I can’t research hotspot problems using the home internet. Doing the research on the phone while trying to FIX the phone is a major pain in the ass.

More hours, more frustration. Now I’m pissed off that absolutely NO COMMUNICATIONS in my home are working right. Suddenly I can’t even make a phone call because my phone is saying ‘No Service”

Is that the cause of the original problem? Has the west coast internet service taken a dump? Is my phone broken, my computer, my hotspot, my home internet, my router…

Fittingend2

Without the ability to have at least one fixed point of reference I’m spinning my wheels.

Then the freakin neighbor starts spray painting something on their rear deck. It’s a LARGE something and the fumes are blowing into the room I’m in. My sinuses immediately wad up, then start bleeding. Hey Thanks!!!!

At this point trying to learn anything new is pointless because I’m frustrated and angry.

This is how I lose entire days.