Tag: Technology

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Well, the other half is running Yosemite…

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The other half decided to update their computer yesterday. I was a bit surprised, but it was a full moon and all.

Thankfully the upgrade went well and I wasn’t needed except for one or two minor bumps in the road.

I did babysit the installation of the patches and updates to various Apple applications after the primary upgrade was completed.

Today, I’m getting notices about shared calendar changes pretty continuously but I take that as a sign that the system is working and the other half is transitioning as much as possible off Google.  The other half will never be free of Google because the corporate calendar is hosted on Google, but it’s nice to see ‘em giving it a good ‘ol collage try.

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Technically the other half could have made this transition a while ago when we dumped the Android phones. Better late than never I suppose. I think the Yosemite feature that is going to get the biggest workout is texting.  Yosemite handles the normal iMessage stuff of course. Additionally, Yosemite when combined with an iPhone handles routing of SMS messages, so right from your computer keyboard you can continue texting all those folks who are sending  you SMS messages using their Androids. Instead of fondling your phone for half your messages and using your full sized keyboard for the other half of your instant messages.

My texting volume has quadrupled since I upgraded to Yosemite.

I really like that unless something is wrong (like my phone is on the guest network and my computer is on my internal network) I can make and receive phone calls via my computer even while the phone is in another room. The down side is that I find myself wondering where the hell I left my phone.

I suspect that particular problem will be duplicated now. 

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No, we’ve not upgraded our phones to iPhone 6. I’m thinking that we’re going to wait a while longer and that we’ll do the phones and the iPads at the same time. My guess is that our need to upgrade will be driven by the adoption rate of ApplePay. When that becomes ubiquitous at all the stores, and gas stations where we shop then we’ll make the move. A big driving factor will be Costco, the phone upgrade process will, no doubt,  be initiated on the fateful day the other half comes home and says, “Costco is taking Apple Pay now.” 

As I think about it, Costco would be well served if they could use the NFC to communicate member numbers AND payment information at the cash registers. It might speed up the whole checkout process and Members could handle renewal on the fly if their membership was due.

Ooops, another block of calendar changes just blasted in…

Google Stake

I just realized, I’m going to be able to disconnect from Google completely! Since the other half is moving to Apple Calendar for our shared information, I no longer need to maintain a gmail address to subscribe to the Google calendar. Yipeee!

I remember when Google’s motto was “Don’t Be Evil”.

Don’t get me wrong, as a search engine, they’re awesome! I’m just not too sure I like that they’re seemingly everywhere these days. It’s starting to seem a lot like big corporation evil on the scale of “Big Oil”

No, I’m not deluding myself. Apple has exactly the same potential It’s just come down to choosing which poison I’m willing to take.

From my perspective, everything Apple pretty much works seamlessly together.

The difficulty for me was in the management of the exceptions. My contacts list for my Android phone was on Google’s servers, that sometimes properly, and often improperly transferred to my computer, but wouldn’t transfer to Outlook without glitching all to hell and gone. So whatever integration I might have enjoyed between Microsoft Office components was a pipedream.

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Contrasting that experience with my current situation. My contacts, calendar, email, word processing etc are all present and accounted for on my iPhone, iPad, and computer. What really makes it amazing for me is that using Yosemite and the latest IOS I can start something on any device and complete it on any other device.

That’s cool, and I use it all the time without thinking about it.

It has been said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

That being said, I like the Apple Magic.

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Apparently no one wants me as a software tester… But they sure as hell NEED me!

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Here’s the scoop.

I’ve spent a large portion of my career as a software tester. I’ve tested control panels, military stuff, printers, drivers, portions of operating systems, old terminal communication devices, cell phones, network systems, you name it.

Then as I got more mid career AKA Older, my experience and knowledge became less valuable versus my salary and the cost of my group insurance plan. I’m pretty dang healthy, but because I’m over 50, corporate group health policies are pricy.  

Don’t anyone bet on retirement. In America today, you can be laid off and never work again while you’re not quite old enough to actually retire but still too old to work in your field.

Even part time retail positions are few and far between for middle aged white men. I was turned down for a minimum wage gas station attendant position. Yeah, I was going to sit in a glass booth at 4 am selling smokes and making change. I’m either “Over qualified” or too dumb to do that job. 

In any case I was laid off as were my co-workers, and haven’t been able to secure employment in my former career since. 

Believe me I’m needed.

I have a canon printer. It’s a cute little thing and it works really well. It’s frugal on ink and I like it. I also have the Microsoft office suite. Without getting too technical, here’s the problem. If I print to the Canon printer using File—>Print and then click OK. 

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My little Canon printer takes off and prints pulling paper from the bottom try as I’ve asked it to do because I’ve set the bottom tray as the default tray. And I’m a happy camper, all is right with the world.

If, however I click on the little printer icon on the menu bar in Word,Excel, or Powerpoint which should just print the same document with default parameters, my little Canon fires up and tries to pull paper from the rear tray which, is alway empty and oh by the way, is not the default tray for paper. 

In my opinion this is a BUG in either Word or the Canon printer driver. It’s a simple bug, and it’s an annoying one that should have been caught in the initial round of testing.

Grumble Grumble

I move on to my next task of the morning.

I need to Fax something to a business.

Part of that requires that I make a copy of a small card. Since the card is small and both sides will fit easily on one side of one sheet of paper I think, “I can use the memory of the copier to put both sides of the card onto one sheet of paper without having to waste two sheets of paper.”

Sure enough, there is a function called 2 sided original —> One page the icon shows something that looks like a business card and the icon for the One page shows the business card icon front and back printed on a single page. 

That’s what I wanted, what I got was two pages 1 each with one side of my original insurance card. So I ended up wasting 3 sheets of paper instead of only 1 to get what I was shooting for.

Back in the day, for Xerox I tested a function that would take two sided originals and convert them to single sided originals and this function was smart. If the original was from an Auto Document Feeder (ADF) it behaved one way, if the user was lifting the cover and placing an original on the glass the function behaved in a different way.

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The assumption was that the user has something special in mind, if they’re lifting the cover. Probably copying insurance cards, or library cards, or Drivers Licenses for inclusion in a file somewhere. Even from the ADF, the function could take 8.5×11 double sided originals and reduce them to fit side by side on a single 8.5×11 page.

Silly me! I thought my copier was using that function… it wasn’t! 

Basically, the result I got was no different than if I’d placed the copy on the glass, pressed copy, THEN flipped the original on the glass and pressed copy again. 

In other words, the super special little button was completely useless and should never have appeared on the screen at all.

This one looks like the kind of screw up you get when you have Indian developers and testers who misunderstand the specification and don’t bother to ask any questions.

Americans would have caught this, or at least questioned it. Provided they were literate enough to actually read the specification and understand it.

And here’s another bug. This one is in this very application.

See that line up there? It’s called a Horizontal Rule in HTML.

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I just discovered if I end a line of text, then hit return and then add a horizontal rule, then hit <Return>

My typing insertion point loops back to the top of this blog entry instead of moving to the expected location… directly under the horizontal rule.

I’d have to check the HTML specification to see if that is correct behavior on a web page but this is a blog creation utility.

This is a minor thing, The Application MarsEdit works a lot more like a word processing program than an HTML creation tool. In addition, this application generally produces very nice HTML code. MarsEdit is one of the most reliable applications I use. I guess I should send them a bug report.

In the past they’ve been very receptive and they’ve also been really nice when what I thought was a defect in the software, was actually a defect in my reasoning.

In point of fact, I did send a bug report. Red-Sweater contacted me today asked for some detail and was able to reproduce what I’m seeing. They actually said, “Thank You”. They totally made my day.

They produce great products, are easy to deal with, and genuinely nice.

Red-Sweater deserves continued success and if you can swing business their way please do.

Then there’s this…

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I used to be able to print a FAX job to my multifunction printer, (Fax, Copier, Scanner, Printer) directly from my computer. I could enter the phone number in the print dialog box and then say “FAX” instead of “PRINT”. The file went to the printer, it dialed the phone number, sent the FAX and told the computer “I’m done”. It was simple and efficient, Heck, I’d queue FAX jobs on my computer all day long then when I got home or back to the office my computer would find the FAX printer and start sending stuff from the day.

To the computer it doesn’t matter. It’s sending data and the receiving machine has the responsibility to deal with it.

I’ve always found the print as a fax function very useful, and it saves paper.

Sometime in the past year, that functionality has been removed from my computer. The Printer hasn’t changed, in fact the only thing that HAS changed is an update to the printer driver. 

They didn’t even mention it in the driver release notes. And they didn’t remove the feature from my list of pull down options. It just stopped working.

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As I went through the trouble shooting procedure on the manufacturers web site, they suggested that I remove and re-install the driver. Of course, the only driver available on their web site is the current one. 

When I did that, the feature completely disappeared from the list of dropdown options!

Well, that’s one way to fix it, I’d have preferred to continue to be able to Fax without having to print something out with it’s cover sheet, manually dial the phone number on the FAX control panel in the printer, and then shred the document after I’ve faxed it.

If you attempt to download the previous drivers you’re directed to a page that politely tells you to download the current driver as the older version are no longer available.

This solution sure as heck will stop the phone calls to support.

It will also mean that I won’t be purchasing this manufacturer’s devices in the future.

Then there’s this little gem.

Typed an email to my attorney. He’s changed his email address. I’ve changed his email address in contacts, and deleted the old address.

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SO why did Apple Mail present the OLD address instead of the NEW address that’s in the contact card?

Worse yet because I wasn’t paying attention I SENT my email to that old address and it never bounced back. So I’ve got some private information potentially floating around that I can’t call back and that didn’t bounce.

I checked the contact card again, and yep, it’s right but the address that Apple Mail displays is still wrong. And there’s another software bug.

For all you folks who were sniggering about my concerns over the FAX problems, NOW perhaps you see my logic.

FAX is still generally point to point communications and while yes, it can be intercepted, a one or two character error in the phone number means the data doesn’t get sent or leave your office.

The same cannot necessarily be said for information contained in an email. It can be intercepted, and it’s possible for your email to go to an unknown person within the same domain name.

Jsmith@gmail.com or Jsmoth@gmail.com Both could be valid, one could be a criminal. The typo is only one character different.

Just saying…

So this is my day, every day.

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I’m just doing my thing, trying to use software and products as intended and I spend the day stumbling across defects, or odd behaviors that interrupt my ability to continue working and draw my attention to the system I’m working on.

This makes a major case for “Black Box Testing” because some of the things I stumble across would only be really noticed if someone was actually working with the products. Automated testing systems are only as good as the scripting (programming) that’s written to test the software being tested. 

It’s the difference between asking the question “Did the engine start” and was the car drivable? 

This ability to stumble across defects is at once my talent and my curse. Honestly some smart company should hire me to test their software, I’d feel useful and they’d have better software.

Apple? Microsoft? HP? Canon? … Hello? Anybody? 

Echo Echo Echo Echo

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Ahh End of year stuff begins

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I’ve got backup of my computer that dates back to 2008. It’s gotten to the point that the usual backup drives are getting full.  I’m moving files onto other “Offline” drives. then I’ll run maintenance on the usual network drives and start new backups.

In short, I’m in the end of year digital doldrums. Every year I run a cleanup of my drives and delete tons of useless crap that accumulates during the year. This year is special because of the backup drives.

Thankfully backup maintenance is something that I only do every 5 years or so. However when added to the usual year end stuff for taxes, and of course the holiday insanity which means that my days will be busy and my computer will be SLOW.

On the bright side, I can work on some other stuff while waiting for a trillion files to be indexed and moved.

Digital Rabbit Hole

I’ve been trying to catch up on blogs, and work on getting a couple of websites done for clients.

The problem is that I’m kinda being sucked down the digital rabbit hole too. I’m not as mobile as I normally am. I have to keep the computer connected to the network and I’m using a hard connection instead of the WiFi because the hard line runs a whole lot faster. Not fast enough, just a lot faster. Instant probably wouldn’t be fast enough for me.

Here I sit, chained to the desk by an ethernet cable.

When I’m not actively writing and just queuing files for transfer I’m really bored. This archiving has to get done for the good of my network and systems, but it’s tedious as hell.

I wonder. Can I watch Christmas porn on my iPad?

I can, I can! 

Oh, Santa’s got something special for those folks!

Maybe this won’t be quite as tedious as I thought it would be

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Situational Awareness

Wheee

I was doing a little shopping in the OC yesterday.  It was a little rainy so… well, people were more than a little nuts.

Water! FROM THE SKY??? It’s the END of the world!

Growing up on the East coast I think nothing of rain. Hail on the other hand just pisses me off if I’m driving in it, it’s hell on the paint.

I digress!

Glad I didn't buy lunch

As I’m walking around in the mall, I’m noticing people walking around and texting. I can only think that I’d like to position myself in front of the nearest fountain, have a nice cup of coffee and wait for some dumbass to try to walk on water.

Then I notice that the majority of the people in the mall are women. That makes sense, these are soccer moms and they’re trying to get ahead on the shopping while the kids are at school.

Text Fountain

As I walk past the Sony store (yes really) there’s a CNN report blaring about the “War on Women” and that idiot publicity seeker Lena Dunham. Suddenly it hits me like a ton of bricks…

Every single one of these women I’ve been having to avoid because they aren’t watching what they’re doing, is a potential target.

I’m probably going to take some flack about this. But really ladies get a freaking clue, if you’re so focused on texting or looking something up on your phone in a mall that you don’t notice a guy walking toward you, then you turn directly into his path and stand still, you’re a target.

It’s equally possible for someone to be walking behind you waiting to pass in front of one of the service hallways or a construction barrier, then grab you, cover your mouth, and drag you out of the sight of anyone who could help. 

Texting Lady

If it’s a rapist they’re going to have their way with you and no-one would be the wiser. If it’s just someone who wants your purse, phone, or the bags you’re carrying they too are going to take your shit and be gone before you’ve even figured out what’s happening.

In addition to you being completely checked out of life, you’re rude as hell.

Ladies, if you need to text someone, move out of the walkway. Find a spot on a bench or with your back against a wall then text away!

This serves two functions.

1) You’re out of the way of the rest of the mall’s patrons.

2) At least you’ve narrowed the directions that attack could come from. Who knows, you might even see someone coming at you out of the corner of your eye.

The message I’m trying to convey ladies is; don’t be so clueless that you become a victim.

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Tis the season…

NOSPAM

For my SPAM filters to get a hell of a workout!

Starting November 1 a wall of SPAM has been flooding into my system daily.

A lot of it seems to be associated with scams designed to look like insurance offers dealing with the ACA. But if you look at the links, these offers are originating in China (cn) and Russia (ru).

So Ask yourself why would ACA insurance offers be originating form either of those two countries when the US Government spent a fortune for a web site to sell you insurance?

In addition to these weird offers I’ve been seeing the offers for weight-loss, the usual male enhancement stuff, shitty bits of software, fax services, and even toilet paper. Toilet paper? Yep, some kind of coupon scam…

Clearly not targeted marketing, I have a Costco membership! I buy toilet paper on a pallet! 

I woke up this morning to 40 SPAMS and those are the ones that slipped past my SPAM filters. Checking the filters on the server showed over 100 rejected junk mails. A couple of them were in languages that I’m not even sure I can properly identify.

All of which is to say, be vigilant! There are a lot of scummy people trying to get their hands in your pockets.

No, not yet enough of a justification to run out and buy an iPhone 6 give me a couple of years.