A newspaper’s takeover of subscribers’ computers

Given the increasing complexity of software and its decreasing user-friendliness, I think 1984 has arrived.  We are supposed to follow robotically through the latest commands of the software designer, aka Big Brother.  And like in 1984, we have no idea what we are doing or should be doing.

I have almost 59 years of computer experience.  I started with a summer job in which I used a textbook to learn to program an IBM 650.  That was a set of large refrigerator size boxes with punched cards in and punched cards out.

Over the next twenty-plus years I went on to program and debug larger and larger computers.  I was often an advocate of newer techniques, like using compilers instead of machine code or using email instead of typed memos.

Then personal computers appeared on the scene.  Some of them easy to use, some of them opaque to use.  In 1984, the Macintosh appeared.  It was a real break-through in ease of use.  Many laughed at WIMP (Windows, Icons, Menus, Pictures).  They preferred the complex set of coding that had to be done for the simplest tasks.

I was hooked and became a Certified Macintosh Developer.  I was eager to get the latest Mac with many great features: color, faster and smaller storage devices, and more.

Then OS-X (operating system 10) appeared.  It had many nifty features except ease of transferring older programs to it.  I never got around to rewriting my genealogy program and have lost all that data (except that which I had printed out).  On the other hand, there were many new features that were a delight to use.

But as one OS X after another followed, the Mac started being persnickety.  Printers that were easy to use became a nightmare.  Where is the setting to print an envelope.  Why does the scanner work well with an old OS but gives dark blobs on a newer OS?

Then sin of sins, without asking me, Apple decided I should install the latest operating system just because I was using wi-fi at a coffee shop.  Not only did Apple decide that I should upgrade, it decided that all my files in the Document folder should go to iCloud.  But that was more data than my free 5GB.  It asked me to upgrade my account to 50GB.  The extra $0.99 a month was no big deal, but I still haven’t completely reorganized my Document file so that I don’t need be hooked up to the web to use those files.

The same increasing difficulty has struck many web-sites.  I now subscribe to four newspapers.  Most of them generally work well with only a few quirks that take awhile to figure out.  Just like the print versions, the newspapers are filled with ads.  Generally you can just scroll past them.

But sometime last year, the Star Tribune began to have intrusive ads.  They would take over the computer with no obvious way out.  Not only would the ad page take over the tab slot on a browser, there was no way to get out of it except close the tab or follow it on to other pages in the ad chain.

A similar annoyance is a side-bar ad with a misleading message: “Log In”.  It is not a log in to the newspaper, but an ad for using a Google product for signing in to web sites.

A friendly guy at Star Tribune’s support department helped me try to clear things up.  But it was drastic, including resetting my iPad.  Guess what that did?  It wiped out all my cookies so that I had to enter saved passwords all over again.  Good thing I have the passwords stored in an obscure place.

Rather than making my life simple by easily accessing my bank accounts, reading the latest news, and sending email to friends, I seem to have gone into standby debug mode.

Unfortunately, one of those pop-ups appeared again this morning.  That’s it.  I asked the Star Tribune to cancel my subscription.  Bye to “The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee” and many other comics that are not in the Duluth News Tribune.  Good-bye to many in-depth state stories and editorials.

I do have relatives who spend a small fortune calling Geek Squad every time time they need to make some software change.  Do you think the Star Tribune would pay me for all my efforts?  Do you think your phone will run forever without re-charging?

P.S.  Well, maybe I'll keep the Star Tribune subscription for a few more days.  It worked fine this morning.

Has Apple left the “rest of us” behind?

I am sending the following paper letter to Tim Cook, CEO of Apple.

Tim Cook
Apple
1 Infinite Loop
Cupertino CA 95014

Dear Mr. Cook,

It is 1984 and Apple is Big Brother!

I have been debugging software, my own and others’, for fifty-nine years.  In 1983 I left corporate life to work on personal computers.  Some of them were more difficult to program than the main-frames I had worked on.

Then came Apple and the Macintosh in 1984.  By September I had my first Mac (and a Lisa).  Pascal was a joy of simplicity, even if I had to do it through the Lisa.  Every time a new Mac came out, I was eager to buy one as soon as possible.  More storage, more speed.  Hurray!

One of the standing jokes was that Mac owners didn’t need manuals because of WIMP.  About the only thing I needed a manual for was how to use diacritical marks in text (åäéñ).

Then OS X came.  I never did recover everything that I had on my on-the-floor box.  For awhile, I did upgrade to a new OS X.  But changes started making old stuff obsolete.  Or changes were rather gratuitous.  Did iPhoto really need new background colors?  Did iPhoto need to change how photos were annotated?  It seems that changes were made more to keep programmers busy than give the users truly better software.

I’ve been in that position before.  I didn’t want to maintain the old mainframe software; I wanted to work on the new hardware.

I have a long list of peeves of how Apple software changed gratuitously from simple one-step operations to operations with a hidden second step.  I got to the point that I would only change major levels of software when I bought a new computer.

Then, either deliberately or accidentally, I upgraded to Sierra on my lap top.  Fortunately I was at a coffee shop with unlimited internet access instead of at home with a limited monthly access.  One of the big surprises was that Sierra dumped all of my Document folder to iCloud!!  It was lots of “fun” moving it back to my MacBook Air.  I know lots of people who would have to go to Geek Squad or other help professionals to get through this.

My wife’s iMac is swiftly deteriorating.  Again, we have to do a lot of fussing to move data to my old MacBook Pro.  The disk drive no longer works.  Fortunately, we have some large capacity thumb drives so we were able to move her Document folder to the MacBook Pro.

And thumb drives get me to another of my Apple peeves.  If one pulls out a thumb drive without “deleting” it, all the data is lost.  This is really a 1984 nightmare.

How many of “the rest of us” has Apple left behind?

Computers under the control of magicians

How many of you are old enough to remember:
“The computer for the rest of us” and
“1984 will not be like 1984”

These were two of the slogans that Apple used in 1984 when it introduced the Mac.  I loved it with its WIMP interface (Windows, Icons, Menus, Pictures).  Almost everything you needed to know was on the screen.

Many Mac users of that time were eager for the newest operating system or newest Mac: hard drives, multi-tasking, color.

I can’t pinpoint when it all changed, but I stopped looking forward to the latest operating system.  Features that worked fine on OS P were a nightmare on OS Q.  It seemed that the gratuitous changes were made only to keep programmers employed.  Or that a new set of programmers had to do it their way no matter what most long-time customers wanted.

This has been one of those bad years for me.

Sometime in March or April, Apple made a minor update.  It did not seem like a big deal and I installed it.  I found out much to my chagrin that my Epson WF-3640 would no longer accept paper from anything but Tray 2.  I thought the machine didn’t work and exchanged it with Best Buy on a warranty.  The second one did the same thing.

After a couple of calls to Epson I learned that Apple had changed the print dialog to all the information the user needed from being on the screen to being buried under certain choices.  Once I had that info, I could print from whatever tray I chose.

Then Apple provided a gratuitous “EPSON Printer Software Update, Version 3.3”.  I downloaded and installed it.  Now my printer didn’t work at all!

A third person at Epson said it was my cable.  Well, as I talked to him, I did have my external hard drive connected, not the printer.  But when I was off the phone and had the proper connection, it still didn’t work.

I next tried the the friendly folks at Geek Squad.  I described the basic problem and they were ready to set me up with a Geek Squad account.  Each time I got near the bottom of the payment window it would disappear.  What were they ready to blame: my browser (Safari).  What?  There are dozens of payment windows that work just find with Safari.

I had to go elsewhere and excused myself.

Today, I despaired and went to Best Buy to buy another cable.  i also bought a couple of thumb drives to replace those that I “crashed” by taking them out of the USB slot before closing them.  Another story for another day maybe.

I plugged my new cable into my MacBook and into the printer.  Nothing happened.  I couldn’t print.

I didn’t keep track of the buttons I pushed on the printer and the computer, but the results varied widely as to what happened.  Eventually my Mac and my Epson printer connected properly with one another.  I really don’t want to be a scientist who keeps meticulous notes on every step and every observation.  After all, the Mac is the computer for the rest of us.  And after 58 years being involved with computers (from punched cards to rooms full of tape drives) I just want to be an ordinary user.

Then I exchanged the new cable for the old cable.  Everything worked as it should.

As a senior wailed in the computer lab when I was a graduate assistant, “That isn’t what I meant!


Helping the help desk

When my old Epson Workforce printer became erratic, I bought a new one from Best Buy (my four-year warranty on the old one paid for most of it).  The Workforce 3640 is similar i many ways, but quite different in others.

The old one would print business cards without a problem.  The new one often chewed them up and jammed.  Today each try jammed.

I looked at the Epson website to see if there was a recommended paper or other solution.  I found nothing.

I asked Best Buy’s Geek Squad (online chat) if there was any recommended paper.  I was told to check with a store.

I did another search and found that there is a rear feed.  This is meant for single feed of paper or envelopes.  See https://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/support/supDetail.jsp?UseCookie=yes&infoType=FAQ&oid=232592&prodoid=6309.

It took a bit of doing to have the job started and the feed the paper, but I got the hang of it.  When I did a second sheet just now it was a piece of cake.

I went back to the Geek Squad chat and left a heads up for them.  The agent replied “awesome”.

It sometimes amazes me how I find a solution that the “experts” didn’t think of.  Of course, I’ve been solving (and creating) computer problems for 57 years.  It doesn’t mean I could earn big bucks, but I think it gives me a bigger incentive to find a solution somehow.

Malaysia Airlines and problem solving

It is very hard to imagine the anguish of the relatives of those on the missing Malaysia Airlines flight, but we should give some slack to those involved in trying to determine what happened to the flight.

I’ve been involved in several computer situations in which crucial information was not available at the outset.  It was only when the right question was asked or the right information was volunteered did a solution become apparent.  All of these situations were much simpler than the tasks facing the Malaysian and other investigators.

My first memorable lacking-information problem was in Sweden.  One customer’s mainframe kept crashing.  We looked at memory dumps, we asked questions, we had meetings, nothing became obvious.  It was only when I had a copy of a program that often seemed to be present when the computer crashed that I was able to take some more deductive steps.  The customer had not upgraded their software from a version that had a memory violation.  That program crashed at other sites with the same software.  Thus, the memory protection of the crashing computer was faulty.  The technicians fixed the memory protection problem, the subject program crashed, and the customer upgraded the software.

My latest memorable lacking-information problem was in Duluth last fall.  The keyboard on my MacBook Pro locked up.  None of the proposed solutions in the user community seemed to last for long.  I took my computer to the Geek Squad.  They kept it for a few days and found nothing wrong.  I brought it home and the keyboard locked up again.  After a bit of head scratching, I realized that the tech shut down all my applications before testing it.  Then I figured out that MicroSoft’s Outlook was the problem.  I reorganized Outlook’s database and the problem went away.

I hope those investigating the Malaysian Airlines crash find that crucial missing clue soon, but the ocean in that area is bigger than one laptop or one 1970s mainframe.

Disorganized organizations

There are too many bloviators who claim that government stands in the way of corporations, corporations who can nothing wrong.

There are too many alarmists who think that corporations are taking over the world and the 99% will be the worse for it.

As with all human endeavors, the truth lies in the squishy middle.  Or is that the muddled middle?
My dozen regular readers are probably tired of these rants, but then there are all the drop-ins who stumble on this blog because I managed to put in keywords that gives an entry a high search ranking.  Try "duluth minnesota billionaire".

This blog entry is a result of some frustrations that I've had recently.

Because I've been doing so much snow shoveling and snow blowing, my Christmas planning keeps getting pushed back.

I keep getting emails from the Pretty Good Goods catalog because I contribute to Minnesota Public Radio.  OK, our family's tradition has been to give T-shirts or books.  What interesting T-shirts can I find for some on my list?

But when I try using the Pretty Good Goods catalog, I'm told I don't have an account.  What, my MPR ID and password aren't the same.  So, I create an account and place an order.  I received most of the items rather quickly, but one item has been "drop sent" whatever that means.  My credit card has already been charged for that item.  Pretty Good Goods has not responded to my query about this, but then I should give them slack because they are overwhelmed.

Meanwhile, I keep getting emails from Pretty Good Goods at the email address I want to drop.  If I try to use the unsubscribe, I'm told that I don't have an account.  How can I not have an account when I just ordered stuff?  Please excuse me if I'm inaccurate on the details.  Lots of this is becoming a blur.

Geek Squad, owned by Best Buy, sent me a notice that the warranty was running out on my wife's iPad.  The notice offered an extension.  Given all the hazards that were covered, I thought it was a good deal.  I went to the Geek Squad page and requested the extension.

While I was at it, I changed my email address to that which we plan to use over an older one.  That went through without problem.

And then I received one of the many-times-per-week emails from Best Buy at the old email address.  I went to the site and tried to login and change my email address.  I don't have an account at Best Buy!  What?  What about the Geek Squad account?  What about the rewards program account?

After searching some old messages, I found that I had to go, not to bestbuy.com but to my.bestbuy.com!?!?  The email address and password I had in my head worked.  Hey, folks, you work for the same company, and customers use all of your websites.  According to some, corporations are efficient, more efficient than government.  Sorry, I have had government communications that have gone far better than this.

My iPhone was getting low on power and I tried to sync it on my Mac.  "Sync could not complete" or some such.  What the heck!  This has never happened before.  Well, not to me, but certainly many others.  I found an answer in the Apple Community rather quickly.  The first answers were rather complicated and didn't seem to fit my OS level.  But then I found one about shutting off the iPhone, quitting iTunes, and then restarting both.  Voila!  It worked.

I have over fifty years of computer problem solving and can often find the right keywords to get a solution proposed by somebody else (or as in "Helpless help desks revisited" doing it myself).

And of course there are the dozens and dozens of problems that I just give up on.

It's sort of like my last straw of the day.  Some bolts on my snow blower gave way on the speed setting mechanism.  Rather than go to the equipment store to get the exact bolts, I went to a hardware store and got off-the-shelf bolts for 44 cents (and $20 for a ceramic knife for someone on my Christmas list).  When I returned home, I tried replacing the bolts.  Let's just say the positioning is awkward.  Using my bare hands and wrenches (not a good idea when it's well before freezing), I was able to get two bolts in and secured.  But the third was in a very awkward position such as I could not easily get the lock nut started on the bolt.

There is a time that discretion is the better part of valor.  I gave up and went back to the house with a bent back after being bent over so long.  Finishing the fix will have to wait until another day.  I just hope I can get it done before the next snow dump!

Computer glitches? What's new?

Many, especially Republicans, are complaining about the computer problems with the rollout of the Affordable Care Act.  What did they expect?  Version x.0.1 to be ready on day one?

They should look at the software on their iPhones.  Everyday I seem to receive an update to one of the apps that I downloaded.  What is the main reason for the update – bug fixes!

Many think of Germans as being superefficient.  Consider one of the reasons for the latest update for the Die Zeit newspaper app update: “Generelle Stabilitäts-Updates!”  In other words, the previous version of the Die Zeit app crashed.

We often do our own screwing up.  I received a letter from my bank that they had moved money from my savings account to my checking account.  On my first try to access my account, the bank’s system was unavailable.  When I finally got on, I found that there had been yet another transfer made.  As I reviewed the online statement, I found that I had transferred money from checking to savings instead of the other way around.  At least I have an account that makes sweeps rather than overdraft charges.

That grand and glorious new iOS 7 for the iPhone and iPad is now at version 7.0.4!  Apple’s customer help forums are filled with questions on how to fix this problem or that problem, many of the questions unanswered.

I have been using Microsoft’s Outlook and Apple’s Address Book and iCal for years.  Outlook for email and events, Address Book for other purposes such as envelopes, and iCal for events.  Supposedly they should sync with very little effort.

Some time ago I found that I was getting more and more duplicated events and two items for every person in my address book.  If I remember correctly, my daughter’s birthday was duplicated 800 times!  After I cleaned that mess up, I stopped using Outlook’s calendar.
         
I also had duplicate names in my address books.  As with the calendars there was a sync that went bad long ago with the Outlook and Apple address books.  I gave up on syncing them and kept updates to each manually.  This past week I cleaned up the Apple address book on my laptop with Contact Cleaner.  It eliminated all the duplicates.  The duplicates were eliminated on my iPhone but almost all the names disappeared from my iPad.  There was only one entry for each of a dozen or so letters of the alphabet!  Needless to say, I did not sync my address book to my iPhone.

Then my iPhone would not turn on!  Off to the Apple Community.  Rather quickly I found a customer comment that said to hold the power and home buttons at the same time.  This is now happening on my iPad!  Could it be iOS 7.0.4 for this and the disappearing contacts?

My bluetooth keyboard would not sync with my iPad.  It had been working fine and made life much easier than typing on the screen.  Off to the Apple Community.  I had to “forget” the keyboard and then look for it again.  Thank you, Apple Community.

On top of all these other problems, I spilled coffee on my laptop keyboard recently.  I tried holding too many things at the same time.  Now the shift key on one side wouldn’t work and neither option keys worked.

I took my laptop to Best Buy to find out if the Geek Squad could repair my keyboard with little time and no charge.  I found out that I still had a service warranty that covered all hazards.  The agent recommended that I take my laptop home and back up everything.  He wasn’t sure if my laptop would be repaired or scrapped.  I’m glad that I backed most of the stuff up because I could then use my wife’s iMac to do all the computer tasks I’m accustomed to, including writing this column.

On Friday the Geek Squad called me that my computer was back.  Now we’re seeing some corporate efficiency.  Instead of the “safe” promised one month, the Geek Squad did the repair within a week.

It often seems that if one has a problem, one hears of others with the same problem.  Pamela Jaskoviak, a Swedish writer, spilled coffee on her MacBook Pro late at night working on a past due deadline.  She did worse than I did; the computer quit and she had to have her hard drive copied to a new computer.  If you understand Swedish, you can find her “Godmorgon, världen” monologue at http://sverigesradio.se/sida/default.aspx?programid=438

So many companies cannot be satisfied with their websites.  They seem to regularly roll out “exciting” new sites, sometimes they provide some useful new features, sometimes they are no big deal, and sometimes they are major screw-ups.  Recently Yahoo Finance did a major makeover of its website.  To me, they removed some clutter and replaced it with other clutter.  It took me awhile to figure out how to get quotes for a list of stocks, but once I did Yahoo Finance provided the request data in the format I was accustomed to.

Then, poof!  It didn’t work at all.  Every time I clicked the return button, it added a string of nonsense to what I had copied or typed in the quote box, and it told me it couldn’t find what I requested.  Off to “the community” to seek answers.  Hoo boy!  The critics of ACA should see the long list of bitter complaints, and some of these complaints come from people who make their living with timely stock quotes!

All those complaining about the ACA rollout should remember two bits of folk wisdom:

Murphy’s law: If something can go wrong, it will.

To err is human; to really screw up it takes a computer.

Also posted on the Reader Weekly website at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2013/12/05/2582_party_of_one-7.

Good service news

Geek Squad sent me email the other day with a link to a status page for the repair of the laptop that I spilled coffee on.  I saw that it was shipped on Saturday.  Today I saw from the UPS tracking number that it had been delivered to a loading dock in Kentucky this morning at about 8:30.  Later the status page said it had been received at 10:57

I think there may be a discrepancy between the UPS time and the Geek Squad time.  The first is using local time and the latter is using customer's time.

Anyhow, as the afternoon progressed, the messages were needed a part at 1:42, part in stock at 1:43, and work completed at 3:16.  I supposed I'll get a status tomorrow that it was shipped, and I will probably be able to pick it up Friday, maybe Saturday.

This incident has sold me on comprehensive coverage for more expensive items.  I don't know what the repair would have cost me without the coverage.  And as I get older and more clumsy, this kind of coverage seems like a very good idea.

Efficiency is not dependent on organizational form

I emailed the following to the Reader Weekly 2013-10-10.  They published it on 2013-10-17 as "People make mistakes!  All the time.  Everyday."  It is also available at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2013/10/17/2270_party_of_one-1.

Some people are using the glitches in the Affordable Care Act exchanges as proof that government is inefficient.  Duh, how often have you updated software on your devices with version x.0 and then within a week or two received a notice of the release of version x.0.1?

Government is run by people.  Corporations are run by people.  People make mistakes!  All the time.  Everyday.  In every way.  Government screws up.  Corporations screw up.

For examples of corporate screw-ups and non-response to customer complaints, take a look at the customer “support” message boards.  All the support comes from other customers who spent hours trying to figure out how a product really worked.  If they are lucky, other users mark their responses as helpful and they get “points”, whatever those are worth.

I’ve seen some issues go on for two or more years.

Let me give you a short summary of some customer service issues I’ve had this year.

I think it was late spring when we had several days of windy, rainy weather.  Our DSL service was erratic.  It would be slow then normal then nothing at all.  The DSL light on our modem would go out.  I called CenturyLink and spoke with a tech in Idaho.  She said that our service had been throttled back from the nominal 7Mbps to 3Mbps.  She did some resetting and things were better.

The bad weather continued and our DSL service became erratic again.  I made a call and sent some emails, but this time I was told that it was my modem and that I should buy a new modem.  I checked online for the current CenturyLink modem, and guess what!  One customer had left a message that he bought that new modem and was having the exact same problems as we were!  Two months before my search!

I didn’t buy a modem and a few weeks later our modem was doing just fine.  Our service now runs about 6Mbps.  Could it be that CenturyLink had some line problems that customer support was not told about?

I bought a solar light for the outhouse at our cabin.  It worked fine and then it would not turn on until it had been off for about an hour.  I sent email to the customer support and received back a request for my address, phone number, date of purchase, and a scanned copy of the receipt.  I said “Phooey” and figured out that I had drained the batteries by leaving the light on.  Replacing the batteries improved the performance.  It looks like the first line of customer support is only screeners who have no access to problems and solutions.  Now this dumb customer left the light on again and it wouldn’t turn on again.

We replaced our cabin landline with a wireless home phone base.  The answering machine now gave a time an hour later than the time of call.  Consumer Cellular replied it was my answering machine.  With a bit of web searching, I found out that the wireless home phone base is passing the wrong information and that a firmware upgrade fixes the problem.  The upgrade is available only from the original manufacturer and only can be installed with Windows software.  When I relayed this information back to Consumer Cellular, they replied they could not help me and implied it wasn’t even their responsibility!  This from a company that is rated highly in customer service.

The keyboard and keypad on my laptop would not respond.  I tried the various reset tricks from Apple support boards but none worked for long.  I took my laptop back to Best Buy where I bought it, but everything worked fine for the Geek Squad.  It worked fine for a while at home and then… “Dead” again.  I figured out that it was Microsoft Outlook that I always have on that was the problem.  The techs had closed all my apps before their tests.  I reorganized Outlook's database and the keyboard has been working fine since.  If only I could make the fingers hitting the keys work as well!

But we should also look on the bright side.  Corporations have done a great job of making our cars more reliable and comfortable.  If we take some reasonable precautions they start every time and get us where we want to go safely.  We have all kinds of extras that weren’t on my first car, a 1940 Chevy.  Turn signals, windshield washers, side view mirrors, power steering, power brakes, anti-skid, ABS, air-conditioning, and accurate speedometers.

Ah! Accurate speedometers!  I had a 1969 Fiat that said I was going 70mph when I was actually going 63.  I had a Ford Escort that said I was going 55mph when I was actually going 47 mph!  The Ford dealer blamed it on the tires and wouldn’t do anything about it.  I found it was a wide-spread problem; when I compensated for the error I passed many Ford Escorts driving well under the speed limit.

If the dealer was right about the problem, the tires would have to be about 15 percent smaller than “standard” to have that speed disparity.  For a tire that was about two feet in diameter, that would work out to over an inch of tread wear.  The grooves on a auto tire are not even that deep!  What was it that Adam Smith said?  “Those who live by profit deceive and oppress the public.”

In the favor of those who live by profit, our latest cars do much better on speedometer accuracy – 30 mph on the speedometer at 30 mph and 71 mph at 70 mph! Oh, and we have one domestic car and one foreign car.

Helpless help desks revisited

Well, for the fourth time this year I've asked for help from a major corporation and for the fourth time I've given them a solution.

The first time was when our DSL from CenturyLink was squirrelly.  It would go on and off.  The first person I spoke with diddled with some settings from her computer and our speed was up again.  The problem returned.  On the next few calls, the help desk insisted that I should get a new modem.  I did not because I was sure the problem was storm related and in CenturyLink's lines.  We still have the old modem and we are getting around 6Mbps on our nominal 7Mbps service.  See "Efficiency (or inefficiency) - generalizations do not apply".  CenturyLink apparently repaired the lines that I insisted were the problem.  Or we haven't had many really windy storms since then.

The second time was when the keyboard locked up on my MacBook Pro.  It was still on warranty from Best Buy and so I took it to the Geek Squad.  They kept if for a day or two and could find nothing wrong.  It wasn't until I had it at home for a day or two that I discovered that it was Microsoft Outlook, which Geek Squad had closed, causing the problem.  My database probably had gotten too big and Outlook had an error that was writing outside its area.  I compacted the database and the problem went away.  See "Computer withdrawal symptoms".

The third time was when the Westinghouse solar shed light would not turn on again after I turned it off.  See "Simple questions don't get simple answers from corporate bureaucracies".  The light is working fine after I put in newer batteries.

The fourth time was when I found out that our improper time on our cabin answering machine was because I needed a firmware update.  None of the friendly folks at Consumer Cellular seemed to understand that the AT&T network was resetting the time.  I found this out when I read the answering machine instructions and learned that telephone networks send the time with caller-ID information.  When we used a land-line we didn't have caller-ID.  Caller-ID is standard with cell phone service.  I found that I needed a firmware update from a search of AT&Ts support forums.  One user responded to another last month with the solution.  I sent email back to Consumer Cellular about this.  I wrote that I was tempted to send them an invoice for two hours of Level 2 support work.

I don't expect to have a response from Consumer Cellular until Monday.  Meanwhile, I searched the AT&T website for instructions on getting the firmware update.  Nada!  First, it gave me over 3,000 hits where the first two pages didn't have anything relevant.  I searched on the web for the model number and found that the original manufacturer has instructions for upgrading the firmware to the latest level, for those with a Windows computer!  I did another peek at the AT&T site and found a page for the "Wireless Home Phone".  It had no information at all on updating the firmware!

There are some economists (and many non-economists) who say that the only objective of a corporation should be to provide shareholder value.  But to provide shareholder value doesn't a corporation need to provide customer value?  At some point a captive customer base may burst their shackles and go elsewhere.

Computer withdrawal resolution continued

I sent the following as part of the Geek Squad customer survey:

Malcolm was very courteous and cheerful throughout his explanation of the tests made.

However, I think the Geek Squad didn't have an odd bit of information to explain the problem of my keyboard/trackpad being unresponsive.  These worked fine yesterday evening after I brought my Mac Book Pro home.  But this morning, it started going dead again.  I wondered if Outlook, which was acting slow and squirrelly might be the problem.  I quit Outlook, and maybe rebooted, and I haven't had a problem since.  I also duplicated the Main Identity and reorganized it.  Outlook now runs much faster and I'm still using the keyboard and trackpad without problem.

There always seems to be one crucial piece of information a customer doesn't supply.  See http://www.cpinternet.com/~mdmagree/tech_shortage_1999-10-14.htm.  Outlook was the missing program that none of us thought of.  At least this problem didn't take months to solve, if indeed it is solved (crossed-fingers).  Also, if I hadn't brought my laptop in to the Geek Squad, would I have thought of this solution???

Thanks, folks, for your help!

See also
Computer withdrawal symptoms
Good news about a large corporation
Computer withdrawal resolution

Computer withdrawal resolution

This is a follow-up to "Computer withdrawal symptoms" and "Good news about a large corporation".

I picked up my Mac Book Pro at Best Buy this morning.  The repair comments from the Geek Squad were:

"Unit passed all hardware testing, including trackpad diagnostic.  Unit did not display any issues with the trackpad or keyboard.  Mission complete!"

So, wha' happened?  Did I inadvertently make some preference reset?  Did my Bluetooth keyboard for my iPad get too close to my laptop?  That shouldn't be a problem because Bluetooth is turned off.  Did I accidentally turn it on and somehow turn it off again?

Maybe the problem was cured by the laptop being off for an hour or so.  Maybe it was cured when we ran it on battery at Best Buy.  Maybe the twists and turns of carrying it jiggled something just right.  Maybe my computer withdrawal anguish made the computer feel sorry for me.

As I wrote a few days ago "Magic really works!"  Taking your computer to a technician makes the problem go away.

Who is worth more, the CEO with rigid rules or the employee giving excellent service?

For background, see "What Customers Want, Companies That Bend the Rules", Elaine Pofeldt, Forbes, 2012-06-30

How often have you gone around and around with a "help" person following a script?  How often have you gotten above and beyond help that solved your problem in minutes?  I bet in both cases the CEOs got huge salaries that make us wish we had their pay for one year in a bank.  I bet in the first case the person got a meager salary to keep "expenses" down.  I bet in the second case the person was give some free rein in making sure the customer was satisfied.

A friend often wasn't getting my emails.  Sometimes he did, sometimes he didn't.  I went to his house to see what his setting were.  I could find nothing unusual.

I had taken my laptop and tried sending him email.  His provider, CenturyLink, wouldn't let me.  I tried the usual tricks of changing the settings in my mail program, Microsoft Outlook.  Nothing worked.

I called my ISP, Hickory Tech (also CPInternet), and spoke with a knowledgeable person in Minnesota.  He said that CenturyLink blocked access through other ISPs (or something like that).  Almost every time I've called my ISP, I have received helpful service.

I called CenturyLink.  The support person, probably half-way around the world, never understood the problem.  She put me on hold several times to consult with "higher support".  We just went around and around with me repeating the same thing over and over again.  I finally told her that we were getting nowhere and I hung up.

Ironically, my friend is getting all my emails now.  Did "higher support" diddle with something?  We'll never know.

From something I read recently, CenturyLink's call center might be in the Phillipines, now competing on price with India.  I'm rather certain that Hickory Tech's support is in Mankato, Minnesota.  The latter are probably making more in a day than the former in a week or even a month.

Interestingly, if I want to use DSL, my only choice is CenturyLink.  Back from the dialup days, I've been using a local ISP that was bought out by a Minnesota telecommunications company.  I had a choice in selecting the ISP.  I've heard that CenturyLink wants take that choice away.

The size of a company is not always a measure of customer service.  Small companies might ignore customers and big companies might give excellent advice.

When my previous laptop went belly-up, three weeks after the AppleCare contract expired, I went to Best Buy to get a new one.  The Geek Squad took out my old hard drive and sold me a USB case to put it in for use as an external hard drive.

Things went fine until I upgraded to a new OS level.  Suddenly my computer wouldn't recognize the external hard drive, my wife's with an older OS would.  I sent email to the manufacturer of the hard drive case and never received a reply.  I went to Best Buy for another reason and asked about the hard drive.  The Geek Squad employee, the same woman that did the diagnosis on my older computer, told me to check the preferences.  I didn't find it in System Preferences, but I did find it in Finder Preferences – showing external drives in the sidebar was not checked.

Say what you will about Best Buy, but it made a smart move buying The Geek Squad and giving them some latitude in helping customers.

Back on the air

I took my MacBook Pro to Geek Squad in Best Buy this morning.  The good news?  I got to talk to someone within five minutes.  The bad news?  Within ten minutes the technician determined it was the mother board.  She said it would cost $500 - $1000 and they would have to send it out.

Now comes dither time.  Pay that and have something else go wrong in a few months.  Buy a new one and have a warranty for another three years.  Also, could my data be moved to a new computer?  Yes, for $100.  Would they recycle the computer?  Yes.  What about the security of my data on the hard-drive.  They could take it out and I could get a case to make it a stand-alone hard-drive.

OK, I sprang for a new computer and put it into the Geek Squad's tender hands.  The tech thought I could have it by Friday afternoon.  I whipped out my credit card, paid up, and left.

More dithering on planning the weekend.  We wanted to be at the cabin tomorrow.  Did I want to wait to Sunday to pick up my computer?  Dither, dither!

Mid-afternoon I got a call that my computer was ready.  Jump in car and pick it up.

Now I am a happy camper.  I just noticed that this one is a lot quieter and a lot cooler.  I wonder if the heat of the other one destroyed the mother board over time.  Could be.

I have also gotten back some data or features that stopped working for some reason on the other.  Like Spotlight couldn't find anything anymore on my hard drive.  The index just disappeared and the OS made no attempt to rebuild it, and I could find no magic button to do so.  This afternoon this computer rebuilt the index in an hour or so.

But the worst thing of all were the withdrawal symptoms.  All the writing and reading I do online was not available to me.  I just couldn't get to deep into the newspapers.  But I did read a couple more chapters of a book I've been reading.  See "A word to the wise on compromise".

I still have to figure out which piggy bank to break to pay for all this.

All will be quiet on the Minnesota front

After working fine in the morning yesterday, my laptop wouldn't start in the evening at our cabin.  We cut short our stay so that I could check on what to do.  I looked at several similar problems among user entries on the Apple forums, tried them, and had no luck.  I called Apple Care, and even though my care expired about five weeks ago, because I had bought the latest OS last month, the tech walked me through some other steps.  Nada!

Tomorrow I'm off to see if the Geek Squad can help at Best Buy.  I probably should have had them come to the house to work in the computer's environment.

Meanwhile, I'll use my wife's computer when she doesn't shoo me away.