Has ’1984’ come to Apple’s Macintosh?

The first Macintosh ad was for the 1984 SuperBowl.  You can find many copies on YouTube such as https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UZV7PDt8Lw.  The final line was “why 1984 won’t be like ’1984’.

The whole idea of the original Macintosh was that you didn’t need to type in complex instructions to get anything done.  You selected your choices from a menu and you got a window.  In the window you got pictures to look at and icons for any warnings.  Whether disparagingly by PC users or lovingly by Mac users, it was called WIMP.

Several years later, Apple produced the “I’m a Mac; I’m a PC” ads.  These stressed the multitude of fun things that could be done on a Mac right out of the box and implied it was difficult to do these things on a PC without add-ons.  You can see some of these at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCL5UgxtoLs.

To me, as an almost 30 year user of Macs (September 1984), the Mac was a delight to use and program for.  Then the new whiz kids decided that it should be programmed in C rather than Pascal.  To me, C stood for complex, and I had programmed mainframes with line-at-a-time assemblers.

It is mind-boggling how much more I can do now than thirty years ago, but with OS X things seem to have gone downhill.  Or rather it is an uphill job to figure out what is going wrong.  The response time seems to get worse with every new operating system.

I’m not alone with this judgment.  Apple’s “Community” seems filled with complaints about things that don’t work correctly.

Advice to correct the problem includes:

Enter the following command in the Terminal window in the same way as before (triple-click, copy, and paste):
{ sudo chflags -R nouchg,nouappnd ~ $TMPDIR..; sudo chown -R $UID:staff ~ $_; sudo chmod -R

In the 1980s it was said that Mac users didn’t read manuals.  I often found that the only reason I needed a manual was for how to type letters with diacritical marks, such as å, é, î, and ö.  Now I find I am going to the “Community” at least once a month for some problem.

These kind of problems may be happening to users with two or more year-old computers; Apple’s programmers are likely to be using computers that are less than a year old, and they probably don’t have the time to test the new software on older computers than those on their desks.

I may be on to something here.  My wife’s iMac is a year newer than my MacBook Pro.  Other than updates within a major level, she is still using the same operating system that came with her computer.  Meanwhile, I’ve updated two levels since I bought mine, skipped one level because of the problem I mentioned in the last paragraph, and then fell for the enticements to move to the latest OS, Mavericks.  This had many benefits, but I keep wondering if they do outweigh the problems.

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.

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.

A bad tech week

Besides the problem of my iPhone not turning on yesterday, I spilled coffee on my laptop keyboard this morning.  I tried holding too many things at the same time.  Now the shift key on one side doesn't work and both option keys don't work.

Besides that, I've been trying to sync my calendars among my laptop, my iPhone, and my iPad.  I've read post after post on this problem and have found no satisfactory answer.  People on one device never get transferred to another device.  I used Contact Cleaner on my laptop address book and wound up deleting a couple hundred people on my iPad.  Needless to say, I did not sync my address book to my iPhone.

Then 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, their 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.

Now I'm off to Best Buy to find out if the Geek Squad can repair my keyboard with little time and no charge.  I assume there will be a charge because it was my fault rather than Apple's.  I do hope that I move money the right way to pay any charges.

The MacBook Pro doesn't have a touch screen, yet!

Lately, I've been trying to touch the screen of my laptop to get it to do something.  Nothing happens!  I've even gone so far to touch it several times trying to get the exact spot and the right amount of pressure.  Nothing happens!  Not quite, the screen does move back a bit.

I used to know quite well that I had to move the cursor with the trackpad and then click with the nearest part of the trackpad.  But now I spend a lot of time using my iPhone and iPad.  With these it's poke and swipe.

Someday I'll get it all sorted out and do the right things in the right place.  It's sort of like speaking one language with one person then turning to another and speaking a different language.  It's all in practice, practice, practice.

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.