My inattentiveness or corporate inefficiency?

A message to Park State Bank in Duluth MN

Park State asks for resetting passwords too frequently.  I don’t remember ever having to do it with Pioneer National Bank (which was bought by Park State).

I messed up on making one of these required updates this week and was locked out of my account.  I went to the Mt. Royal branch and Therese helped me get my iPhone and iPad accessing  my account.

When I returned home, I successfully accessed my account.  However, I could not access my account with a Mac Book Pro (10.9.5) or a MacBook Air (10.14), both of which I have been using for some time to access my account.

I called the Lincoln Park office and was reminded that my password was the last four digits of my Social Security number.

I made the update on all four devices, but I still cannot access my accounts with the laptops.  I obviously can access my account my iPad.

Has Jack Henry made some errors in its latest update to Park State Bank?  If so, it is  ironic!  I  moved my account several years ago from Republic Bank to Pioneer National Bank because Jack Henry did not work properly with my Consumer Cellular phone.  In fact, Jack Henry did not even list Consumer Cellular in its list of providers.  Consumer Cellular has full page ads in the AARP magazine!  That phone worked fine with Pioneer’s provider.

P.S. the characters on this page are very tiny and I found no way to enlarge them.   4pt is very hard on senior eyes!

End of edited message to Park Bank.  I corrected all my typos that I didn’t spot because of the tiny print.  I also found that Park Bank doesn’t want recognize my iPad as it did yesterday.

So, we’ll have to go to the main office sometime in the coming week to walk through this will all of our devices.

Intrusive online ads

Some months ago, I believe it was the online Duluth News Tribune that had intrusive ads for Amazon that took over the screen and the browser tab.  the only way I made the ads disappear was to close the tab and open a new tap.  I complained about it several times and they haven’t appeared since.

Today, the online Washington Post had two of these same intrusive ads for Amazon.  The only way I got rid of them was to close the tabs.

It is one thing to have ads in a sidebar or interspersed in stories.  We have the same in print media.  The ads help cover some of the costs of putting out the publications so that we pay less.  We can skip the ads or we can read them; it is our choice.  But these ads are not our choice.

No matter what online publication you are reading, if this happens to you be sure to let the publishers know.

In the case of the Washington Post, send email to readers@washpost.com.

More on erratic behavior of online newspapers

I’m sitting in a coffee shop, using a MacBook Air, early 2015, macOS Sierra, version 10.12.6.
I was able to access and sign in to startribune.com.  I then clicked on e Access or whatever and asked to log in.  I didn’t keep track of the details but was told my account didn’t have access to that version.  I went back to the web version and clicked on eEdition.  Voila! and no intrusive overlay ads.  And I have access to the “Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee”.

Now the question is would I get the same result using my iPhone as a hot spot to my AT&T account.

I don’t feel like checking right now.  I would rather read the funnies.

And I read the Star Tribune and after that I accessed the Duluth News Tribune.  I forget the details on what I did, but I am almost done reading the opinion page.  Strange that I couldn’t access the DNT at all from home but I can from a coffee shop.

Erratic behavior of online newspapers

I sent the following email to the publishers and editors of the Star Tribune and the Duluth News Tribune.

Good afternoon,

If this email is upsetting the end of your day, I’m sorry.  But the erratic behavior of the online versions of your newspapers has been upsetting my month and many months before.

In the case of the Star Tribune, it has unwanted pop-up ads that are difficult, if not impossible to delete. Several days earlier in the week it occurred almost every day and I was ready to cancel my subscription.  The telephone chain to do so was ridiculous.  Yesterday, the eEdition worked fine, and I relented on cancelling my subscription.  Today the pop-up ads were back.

Jon of Feedback was very patient and supportive, but one piece of advice I should never have followed: resetting my iPad.  That wound up clearing all my saved passwords.  Now I have to look these up for my next visit to any of a number of password-protected sites.  And the problem of unwanted pop-ups is back.

In the case of the Duluth News Tribune, it may or may not come up with the eEdition.  On my iPad it was going in a circle of getting halfway to the eEdition and then wanting me to put in my password again.

At the moment, the eEditions are working on my MacBook Air, but I would rather eat breakfast with an iPad by my side: it takes up much less space on the table.

See my blog entry: "A newspaper’s takeover of subscribers’ computers"

http://magree.blogspot.com/2018/03/a-newspapers-takeover-of-subscribers.html

I am not alone in enduring these, but I wonder how many of your users have the knowledge and patience to work through this annoyance.  I know my wife who has over twenty years of computer experience wouldn’t and she is growing very impatient with my repeated complaints.  I know that I no longer wish to be an unpaid debugger of your software.

So, please cancel my subscriptions to the Star Tribune and the Duluth News Tribune.  I’ll renew them when you have fixed this problem.

Oh, yes!  I will post this email to my blog.

More computer woes

After I installed Norton Anti-Virus, I decided to upgrade to put it on some other devices.  I have yet to successfully do so.  I sent the following letter to Symantec:

I thought adding new devices to my Norton Anti-Virus subscription would be a piece of cake.  It has been a nightmare of changing circumstances.  Somewhere along the line, even the email address on my subscription was changed to I know not what.

I really prefer using email to ask questions, but your only choices are Chat Room or telephone call.  Both of these put the customer and employee under pressure to keep doing something.  Haste makes waste.

I have been going around and around trying to follow the directions for installing Norton on additional devices.  It has devolved into just giving me the choice to buy it from the App Store.

Please email me detailed instructions on how to get my email account recognized again and to install Norton Anti-Virus on an iPad mini, and iPad, and an iPhone.

- End of letter

I tried again today at a coffee shop to put Norton Antivirus on my wife’s iPad Mini.  Everything worked fine until I was taken to the App Store.  I forget the details, but the App Store hung up after I put in my wife’s credit card info.  Why a credit card was needed for a free download, I don’t know  I finally turned her iPad off.

Later I tried to make a donation to a local charity.  I made a mistake typing in the credit card number, and it turned to box to a rose background.  It was really hard to see what corrections I was making.  I eventually got all the correct information in and pressed the “Donate” button.  Nothing happened.   The only way I got out of that as to close the window.  This is the first time that such a glitch has occurred on the site.

After reading many of the comments to https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/many-apples-design-innovations-make-products-worse-195651509.html, I don’t feel so badly.  But Apple doesn’t see to be listening to “The Rest of Us”.

Simple solution for a vexing problem

The Logitech Solar Keyboard for my iPad stopped working.  No matter how long I pushed either of the two switches on the right, the keyboard did not work.

My only choice was to type with one finger on the screen.

I looked on the web for a solution, but none seemed to work.

I looked at the situation again a few minutes ago and one suggestion had about having Bluetooth connected.  I checked the Bluetooth settings on my iPad and they were all off!!!  I had turned them off to avoid a Bluetooth connection from my iPhone.

i reset the Bluetooth setting on my iPad, and voila, the keyboard works.

I figure that I saved myself $600-800 dollars.  I was getting closer to replacing the iPad with a new one including several add-ons.

Corporate accuracy?

I've been fiddling around with synchronization problems.  Notes on one device are not being updated on other devices.  While working on this problem, I've had to give a password.  Of course, I used the wrong password.

As part of resetting the password, I've been told by Apple that someone has been using another device to reset my password from such and such location.  On one device, I was told that the location was near St. Cloud MN.  I'm in Duluth MN.  Later, on a different device, the location was near Chicago IL.

Gosh!  What if I lose my iPhone?  Will Find My Phone tell me its in Chicago?

This is corporate accuracy or efficiency???

Technology is great! Technology grates!

Technology is great!  Using my computer and the Internet, I can write and submit this column.  I can pay bills online rather than write and mail a check.  I can order a large assortment of goods online and sometimes even track their shipping.

Technology helps me research without buying lots of books and magazines or making many visits to the library.  But unless you make to-do lists on paper or on a computer, it doesn’t help you remember all you plan.  One web-site I forgot to include in last week’s column, “Hunter, know your ground”, was the 2014 Minnesota DNR Hunting regulations: http://dnr.state.mn.us/regulations/hunting/index.html.

Technology lets me carry in my shirt pocket symphonies, the Bible, the Constitution and commentaries, Adam Smith’s “Wealth of Nations”, manuals for all kinds of tools and gadgets, hundreds of notes to myself, and many of my Party of One columns.

Technology grates!  It seems the more things I can do on my computer and gadgets, the more things go wrong.

Rather than paying bills, reading books, or listening to music, I am spending an inordinate time trying to resolve computer and other gadget problems.  In this month I have had a keyboard whose return key might not work, Bluetooth earbuds that wouldn’t charge, lots of software that doesn’t work (properly or at all) and a smoke alarm that went off when there was no smoke.

I wrote about some of these problems in “Programmer, heal thyself”; let me tell you about the resolution (or non-resolution) of some of these.

Whenever a smoke detector ceases to work properly, I try to buy the same model again.  Because there is no standardization for mounting that I know of, I buy the same model again so I don’t have to drill more holes in the ceiling.  The model of detector that we use in the cabin has a seven-year warranty.

Being frustrated with the smoke detector that gave false alarms, I contacted the online store that I bought it from.  I thought it was the manufacturer because of the name similarity.  Nope, I have to contact the manufacturer for the warranty.  The manufacturer, First Alert, had no email address for U.S. residents.  OK, forget the warranty because I’ll never get a replacement in time for our next stay in the cabin.  I ordered another one from the online store with three-day delivery.  Yay!  It came the afternoon before we planned to go to our cabin.

I should take some of the blame as the directions do have a warranty procedure.  The address isn’t even the same name as the manufacturer label.  I still have the malfunctioning alarm on my desk.  But why bother making a warranty claim?  If the new one I had already bought works for its warrantied life, then the warranty on the replacement would have also expired.

I have a Logitech Solar Keyboard Folio for my iPad.  It functions as a keyboard, stand, and cover.  I finally set aside some time to research the non-functioning return key.

The Logitech web site would not take email address and password, and I never received email to reset password.  I sent email to the address I used for same problem in February/March, and I received a form that I should go to the website.  I eventually called the non-800 number, and reached a non-native speaker of English.  It was more corporate bureaucracy; she was a level one filter. We just went around in circles with no technical help

I went back to the friendlier email I had earlier in the year for the same problem that had a set of steps that would supposedly resolve the problem.  I followed them, but the return key didn’t work!  But as I had done before, I repeatedly pressed the return key and it eventually worked.  Was that all I needed to do in the first place?  The return key didn’t work again a few days later!  I pressed it less than a dozen times and it worked again.  To be a computer user, you really have to believe in magic:)

I had a much friendlier set of email exchange with Jaybird.  I bought a set of their wireless earbuds the same time as I bought the iPad keyboard.  Just after the warranty period expired my earbuds couldn’t be recharged.  Jaybird offered me 50% credit for a new set.  I did need to send the device back before getting credit.  Once they had the tracking number for my package, they told me I could place my order.

I worked on balancing my wife’s checkbook this week.  To help me, I printed out a bank statement.  I couldn’t find a transaction that she had in her register.  I finally found it lost between pages on the bank statement copy I printed.  The bank statement saved as a PDF was OK.  Adobe or Apple lost the item in printing!

I printed out a website form for a mail order, and the result had two pictures that were not on my screen.  Both pictures on the printout covered text!  At least it wasn’t on the part with my information.

I still believe we ain’t seen nothin’ yet on the benefits of technology, but whatever happened to WYSIWYG?  What you see is what you get!

Even with over fifty years of computer experience, Mel feels he is falling farther and farther behind.

Tech support gives complex solution; wife gives simple solution

In my article “Technology is great, technology grates” which will be published in the Weekly Reader of Duluth this week, I mention the difficulties that I had with my Logitech Solar Keyboard Folio for my iPad.  The return key didn’t always work.  From Logitech I either got a bureaucratic response from level I support or the advice to reset my iPad.  From my wife I got a much simpler solution.

My email today to Logitech follows:

Earlier this year and again a few weeks ago, I asked what could be done about a return key that didn't work on my Solar Keyboard Folio.  The most concrete advice that I received was to reset my iPad.

I did so both times.  When I did so the last time, I lost a lot of data and settings.  After this last reset, the return key often worked only after I pounded it a few times.  It also seemed to get worse.

My wife suggested that maybe there was debris under it.

Today I took her advice and gave the return key several blasts with a gas duster.

The return key has been working fine every time I used it in this email.

Programmer, heal thyself

The New York Times recently had a link to the Wired story, “Why the New Obamacare Website is Going to Work This Time” by Steven Levy, originally published in the June issue of Wired.  Levy almost gushes how the Ad Hoc team, a small group of young programmers from Silicon Valley and President Obama’s election campaign, greatly simplified the Website.  “[T]hey worked 80-hour weeks to salvage the botched creation of thousands of technocrats employed by 55 different contractors,”

Duh!  A small team can make breakthroughs that a large group cannot.  Think of the original Macintosh team, much smaller and squirreled away in a small building away from all those working on Apple II software.

IBM trumpeted it had a thousand programmers in seven cities on OS 360.  We in Univac smirked that we had less than 40 programmers working in one city on EXEC I.  Even then a contractor built a leaner OS (EXEC II) to build and test the FORTRAN and COBOL compilers they had contracted to build.  EXEC II was much more popular among customers than EXEC I and even its successor EXEC 8.

Making deadlines?  Hah!  We were always shifting ship dates later.

What I wonder is if these same programmers from private industry are so great, why are software “user community” boards so filled with questions, often unanswered?  If these programmers are so great, why are reviews often mixed, some love the program, others hate it.

Way back in the 80s when the Macintosh was the latest “hot thing”, I was eager to get the latest version of the software and found the enhancements great.  Thirty years later, I am reluctant to move up to a major new release.  To often things that worked fine are changed to something that is more difficult to use or doesn’t even work anymore.

With each generation it seems that programs run slower and slower.  Maybe it’s because I’m using a three-year-old Mac with one-year-old software.  I have found suggestions for “cleaning up the system”, but they involve a whole day of backing up data and then another day of creating a “clean install” disc and actually running it.

Consistency of design often seems to be lacking.  If my iPhone is asleep and I get a call, the screen only gives me the option of swiping to accept the call.  However, if my iPhone is active, the screen gives me the choice of accepting or rejecting the call.  Buried in the instruction manual, or was it in the “user community”, in the first case I can reject the call by holding the sleep button and the home button at the same time.  Only a bureaucracy would allow different actions for the same result.

In one of the recent releases, certain buttons may or may not appear for starting and stopping a podcast.  The intent is to have a right-pointing triangle to start or resume a podcast and a double bar to momentarily stop it.  When these symbols suddenly started disappearing, I was glad that I knew where they were supposed to be.  And I have no idea why these buttons sometime appear and sometime don’t.

I have a new problem to research: why does the return button no longer work on my Logitech Solar Keyboard folio for my iPad?  I’ll have to set aside some time to check out the Logitech community about this.

I love all this technology because of all it does for me.  I can write this column on my laptop and email it to the Reader.  I can keep notes and to-do lists on my laptop, phone, and iPad and keep them synched.  I can call my wife from the grocery store to remind me what it was she wanted.  I can use my iPhone as a hot spot at our cabin to write and email this column.

BTW, I’m not writing this at our cabin as planned because another simple technology became an irritation.  Our smoke alarm started going off randomly.  Sometimes it would beep and beep, sometimes it would only give off one set of beeps.  I had a lousy night Saturday night!  Could it be too much moisture in the small tight cabin?  Well, I brought the alarm home, closed the battery compartment, and put it on the bed.  Within twenty minutes it gave off a single set of beeps.  We bought the seven-year warranty alarm in March!

Much is made about about government bureaucracy and corporate efficiency, but corporate bureaucracy in GM led to many deaths because of faulty ignition switches.

To err is human, but to really screw up it takes a computer.  Humans and computers are both in corporations and governments.

Mel considers himself perfect; he never makes mistakes.  Oops, the computer won’t let him misspell mistakes as “misteaks!

Also published in the Reader Weekly, 2014-10-09 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2014/10/09/4191_programmer_heal_thyself

I am an Olive grinch

How readable do you think the following is?

Yet some parameters endure. Phi losopher George Santayana famously said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Not precisely, perhaps, but human history, both personally and collec tively, is definitely thematic. And you didn’t record it, you either won’ recall it, or your memory of it will faulty. Historian Barbara Tuchman wrote, “The unrecorded past is none other than our old friend, the tree the primeval forest which fell with out being heard.” Perhaps that’s why launched the log — it made me seem more real. Or maybe the record is akin to scratches on the wall of a prisoner’ cell, tallying the days until release.

What kind of editor would let this text see print, what with dropped letters/punctuation and split words?  Other examples have bold subtitles moved into the text and many other distracting errors.

This is an example of “To err is human; to really screw up it takes a computer”.  The above is from “The snares and lairs of memory” by Peter M. Leschack in the Star Tribune, 4 May 2014, as displayed when expanding an article from the facsimile page of the Olive edition.

The actual printed text is:

Yet some parameters endure. Philosopher George Santayana famously said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Not precisely, perhaps, but human history, both personally and collectively, is definitely thematic. And if you didn’t record it, you either won’t recall it, or your memory of it will be faulty. Historian Barbara Tuchman wrote, “The unrecorded past is none other than our old friend, the tree in the primeval forest which fell without being heard.” Perhaps that’s why I launched the log — it made me seem more real. Or maybe the record is akin to scratches on the wall of a prisoner’s cell, tallying the days until release.

The human editor didn’t make any mistakes, but the computer editor really screwed up.  This happens all the time in the Olive edition of both the Duluth News Tribune and the Star Tribune.  The Olive edition displays a facsimile of the printed newspaper.  You can easily “flip” the pages or jump to a section.  You can click on an article to expand it.

The expanded view has the advantage of bringing together segments printed on different pages and of having larger text.  But all the “translation” errors are distracting.  Did the author really write that?  Why is that unrelated bold text doing in this section?  And on and on.

This computer-induced garble is present in both the iPad and the laptop/desktop versions of the software.

Isn’t this a wonderful example of “business efficiency”?

Oh, well!  It still beats going to the corner with the right change in all kinds of weather or calling up to cancel when we’re out of town.  And I can easily make clippings of things on which I want to base another one of these whining entries.

The spinning beach ball and private enterprise

If private enterprise is so efficient, why does it waste so much of my time?

As computers have gotten faster they seem to have longer response time.  I wrote somewhere Magree’s Law:

As computers become more powerful, the software expands to meet or even exceed the capacity of the fastest computers available to run it.

So many times I watch the spinning beach ball or the non-moving progress bar.  It seems Excel takes over a minute to open, even Apple’s Numbers takes time to open.  To start my iPad I have to watch the white apple for more than a minute.

Too often I try to load a page and all I get to see is the spinning gear in Firefox.  Too often nothing happens until I click the x in the URL bar and then click the circular arrow again.  Many, many times, the desired page comes up immediately.  What was the page waiting for before?

Too often, the software designers change the rules without warning.  In February or March I downloaded several IRS PDF forms.  I wanted some of the directions on my iPad so that I effectively had two screens as I updated my income tax spreadsheet.  In iTunes I clicked on “Add to Library” under the File menu, a finder window opened, I navigated to the folder I wanted,  selected the file I wanted, and clicked “Open”.  Poof! The file was in my book list.

Yesterday I tried that with the PDF of a magazine article.  Nothing happened after I clicked “Open”.  The file list was not in my library!!!  I was finally able to load the file via iBooks instead.

Was this the doing of the latest OS, Mavericks, or the latest iTunes, 11.1.5?  I don’t know.

The directions I was following are in the iPad…  Oops! I was using the iPad iOS 6 manual.  I checked the iPhone iOS 7 manual and it says to download the manual from iBooks.  I downloaded the iPad User Guide for iOS 7.1 and it states:

“Read PDFs
Sync a PDF. In iTunes on your computer, choose File > Add to Library and select the PDF. Then sync.”

That ain’t the way it works!

The manual writers aren’t keeping up with the programmers or the programmers aren’t telling the manual writers what they have changed.  Sounds like bureaucracy is not limited to government.

Enough wasting of your time with my gripes (and mine writing this).

Too much time spent solving computer glitches? Invoice the CEO!

When I installed Apple’s iOS 7.0.4 on my iPad suddenly the return key on my Logitech Solar Keyboard Folio didn’t work.  I looked and looked for a solution with little success.  I went back and forth with Logitech until they sent me a set of steps to reset the iPad.  The steps worked.

In the past few days I installed iOS 7.0.6.  I don’t know what happened to iOS 7.0.5.  After the installation of iOS 7.0.6, the return key on my Logitech KB didn’t work again.  Sunday or whenever I went through all of Logitech’s reset steps again.  After a bit of hit and miss banging the keys on the keyboard, the return key worked again.  A minor downside was that my wallpaper settings were reset to the default settings.

Then this morning the return key didn’t work again!!!  Was it because I had turned my iPad off and on.  I only needed to do the reset on iOS 7.0.4 once.  After a couple of tries I got the return key working again.  Again, it took awhile before pressing the return key had any effect.

Maybe tonight I’ll leave my iPad on and hope the return key works in the morning.

I am so tired of being an unpaid beta tester for software.  I think I’ll start sending invoices to CEOs for my time.  I wonder who has more problems – people signing up for health care exchanges or people who use a lot of computer software?  I do know that the support sites of many computer-related companies are filled with problems that never seem to get an answer.

Enough for the day!  I am going to spend the rest of the evening reading a paper book!

To get good service, be persistent

Last week the return key on my Logitech Solar Keyboard Folio stopped working.  Other characters showed up on my iPad screen, but clicking the return key did nothing.  I did a Google search and a search of the Logitech site, both general and community.  I found nothing.

Yesterday I emailed Logitech customer support and quickly received a reply.  Dan suggested that I connect my keyboard to another iPad.

I replied that it would be some time before I saw another iPad user who let me borrow his or her iPad.  I also suggested that the problem might have started when I upgraded my iPad to iOS 7.0.4.

Then he replied with the suggestion of following these steps:

Okay Melvyn, try the following below:

1. Turn off all other devices besides the Bluetooth keyboard
2. Make sure the keyboard is charged
3. Turn the keyboard off and then back on
4. On your iPad/iPad mini, turn Bluetooth off and on
5. Turn your iPad/iPad mini off and then back on
6. Un-pair and then re-pair the keyboard with the iPad/iPad mini’s Bluetooth function
7. Reset Network settings (go to Settings > General > Reset , Tap Reset Network Settings)
8. Reset All setting: (go to Settings > General > Reset and tap Reset all settings)

It was late and I wanted to go to bed.  But I didn’t want to try to sleep with this suggestion rattling around in my brain.  I gave it a go with “fear and trepidation”; what would I lose?

After step 8, the iPad rebooted itself and everything seemed to work OK.

Thanks, Dan!

The only difference that I noticed was that I lost my “wallpaper”.  To tell the truth, I don’t remember what I had before.  Nothing in the wallpaper list seemed familiar.

The bad part is that this fix is not on Logitech’s website, at least it is not linked to “Logitech Solar Keyboard Folio isn’t working”.

I hope this post finds its way to others who have had a similar problem.

Today's round: corporations beat government on inefficiency

This morning I went to my medicare.gov to ask that I receive "Medicare & You" online rather than the big fat paper tome we never read.  I supplied all the information asked and was told I couldn't be found!  There was a help number I could have called, but I don't care to call for help because I never know how long I'll have to wait.

I downloaded the paid version of Evernote sometime ago, but iTunes never told me a download was in progress or completed.  It appears that the paid version is only a switch setting to enable more features.  I have the paid version working.  I sent questions about this to both Evernote and iTunes.  I was charged and then uncharged for it by Apple.  The iTunes representative keeps coming back with the same "I don't understand message", even after I answer that the question is settled.

I tried to set my iPhone up as a hotspot with Consumer Cellular.  My iPhone gives me the choice of calling Consumer Cellular via 611 or going to Consumer Cellular's website.  When I get there I can find nothing about setting up a hotspot.  I sent email and received a reply today.  Essentially it said I should call.

I was notified of a new iTunes version today.  After I downloaded it, many things no longer worked as before.  Apps are marked as having updates even when I have already updated them on my iPhone or iPad.  Podcasts are duplicated on my iPhone.  No longer can I sync a device just by having it on anywhere in the house.  I have to hook it up to my Mac with a USB cable.  I'm going to have to spend an hour or so in the Apple Support Community to find out what's going on.

Good news on the government side.  Several weeks ago I received a notice that my commercial driver's license would no longer be valid unless I had a physical exam before January 31.  Since I haven't driven any commercial vehicle in over 13 years, I decided to give it up.  I went to the County Service Office to have it replaced.  The latest number being served was 16 and I drew 19.  A guy who drew 18 groused about the wait!  I filled out a renewal application, watched as the clerks explained to their current customers various details, took pictures, and gave eye tests.  When my turn came, the friendly intern and her mentor explained the I did not need to reapply.  All I needed to do was sign an affidavit that I would not be driving a commercial vehicle.  No charge.  Smiles all around.

Does the Apple of my eye have a black eye?

I've been using Macintoshes and other Apple products since September 1984.  Maybe for the first 20 years I was eager to update to the latest releases.  Especially when I was a Certified Apple Developer so that I could make sure my software ran on the new release.

Then I started getting "burned" by new releases.  One time the migration from one computer to another crashed.  Many times software that should have worked on the new release had new problems.  Often it seemed like I was an unpaid debugger of software (not just Apple but Microsoft and other software publishers).

One of the latest was the introduction of iOS 6 followed by iOS 7.  Many were the problems that I had with each, and Apple's "Community" web site was filled with similar complaints or others that often were never answered.

The latest was the new release of Pages, Apple's supposed challenger to Microsoft Word.  As I would like to move away from Microsoft Word, I was interested in Pages.  Especially so since the rumors are that Apple will be providing Microsoft "competitors" free, even for new versions, in the next year or so.

I looked up Pages in Apple's App store.  Hoo boy!  Many users were angry! Over half of those rating Pages gave it only one star.  A representative comment is:

"But the fact remains that Apple removed so much functionality from what was once a decent, viable and affordable option for desk-top publishing for the Mac platform."

Oh, yes, on top of all those problems, Apple, which pioneered cut and paste, does not allow copy from its App Store!  I had to retype the above comment.

This is another case of the "Corp giveth and the Corp taketh away".

Watch also for "Computer glitches? What's new?" that will appear in the Reader Weekly of Duluth later this week.  It's about how computer problems are not limited to the software for the Affordable Care Act.

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.

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.

Good news about a large corporation

Yesterday I wrote about my problems with the keyboard on my Mac Book Pro.  See "Computer withdrawal symptoms",  I didn't expect to see my computer again until tomorrow.

A few minutes ago I got around to checking my email.  Best Buy had sent me an email that my computer was ready for pickup.  The message was sent at 6:15.  I looked at the message after store closing!  I guess I'll hightail up there tomorrow after we run all our morning errands.

I have this strange feeling that the Geek Squad found nothing wrong.  That my moving it from home to the store jiggled something into place.  We shall see.

I have always had respect for The Geek Squad, ever since they started at Washington and Plymouth in Minneapolis a couple of decades ago.  After they fixed one problem with my Apple whatever that handheld was called, I should have taken it back to retrieve data when it bit the dust sometime later.  All those wonderful notes of wisdom that were lost:)