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.
Showing posts with label iPhone. Show all posts
Showing posts with label iPhone. Show all posts
Saturday, March 16, 2019
Wednesday, March 14, 2018
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.
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.
Friday, March 31, 2017
Whose responsibility is it to correct for computer inconsistencies?
It’s obviously the user, who may or may not have an understanding of the problem and its solution.
Once again, no matter what I did, I couldn’t make my iPhone a hotspot.
I would turn on Cellular Data. The slider may or may not work. I thought maybe it was the extra hard screen cover I have. But other sliders don’t seem to have the same problem. If the slider for Cellular Data came on, then the Personal Hotspot slider may or may not come on. Sometimes it would; sometimes it would not. If it didn’t, then the Cellular Data slider would turn off.
If I gave up and asked my MacBook Air to join a network, it might or might not. I think, but can’t be sure, if I make mistakes twice in entering the password, then I can’t get on at all.
Now, comes the kicker. How many users know about General>Reset>Reset Network Settings? You have to be a user who visits the Apple “Community” or can think of keywords to find other sites with the appropriate answers.
But once you reset your problems are not over. If you ask to join the network on your other device, it won’t work. Why? Because the name you thought your iPhone had has now become iPhone. Either you use iPhone from now on, or you go to General>About>Name and change iPhone to the name you had given your phone.
“The Computer for The Rest of Us” from 1984 slogan has long disappeared. We are almost back to the nightmare of “1984” in that we don’t really have a clue what Big Brother Apple wants us to do.
Once again, no matter what I did, I couldn’t make my iPhone a hotspot.
I would turn on Cellular Data. The slider may or may not work. I thought maybe it was the extra hard screen cover I have. But other sliders don’t seem to have the same problem. If the slider for Cellular Data came on, then the Personal Hotspot slider may or may not come on. Sometimes it would; sometimes it would not. If it didn’t, then the Cellular Data slider would turn off.
If I gave up and asked my MacBook Air to join a network, it might or might not. I think, but can’t be sure, if I make mistakes twice in entering the password, then I can’t get on at all.
Now, comes the kicker. How many users know about General>Reset>Reset Network Settings? You have to be a user who visits the Apple “Community” or can think of keywords to find other sites with the appropriate answers.
But once you reset your problems are not over. If you ask to join the network on your other device, it won’t work. Why? Because the name you thought your iPhone had has now become iPhone. Either you use iPhone from now on, or you go to General>About>Name and change iPhone to the name you had given your phone.
“The Computer for The Rest of Us” from 1984 slogan has long disappeared. We are almost back to the nightmare of “1984” in that we don’t really have a clue what Big Brother Apple wants us to do.
Saturday, March 18, 2017
Republicans are all for choice except…
“Americans have choices. And they’ve got to make a choice. And so maybe, rather than getting that new iPhone that they just love, and they want to go spend hundreds of dollars on that, maybe they should invest in their own health care.”
Jason Chaffetz, Republcian Rep., Utah
But Republicans don’t want to give people much choice when it comes to transportation. We should all rely on cars and planes. Forget trains, buses, and subways. They would rather build more and more freeways, taking away the tax bases of central cities.
The cost of a cell phone pales in comparison to cost of a car, even a decent used one. Then there is all the gas, service, and parking places for it.
And the car has destroyed many a downtown because people prefer going where there is “free parking”. But what is the cost of that free parking: rain runoff (filled with contaminants) and heat radiation.
And what is the cost of health care compared to a cell-phone. We each pay $238 for medical insurance deducted from our Social Security checks. We don’t pay anyway near that for our cell phone service. And the iPhone that is not fully paid for costs only $16.67 per month.
And what is the cost to the rest of us for an uninsured person? Companies should worry about people showing up sick because they can’t get afford medical care. All of us should be concerned about somebody who doesn’t get care for a communicable disease. Did you ever hear about Typhoid Mary who worked in food service? See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Mallon. Although she never became sick from typhoid, she was a carrier who infected many of the families she cooked for.
Health care for all of us means better health for all of us. True conservatives would want to keep as many people well as possible.
Jason Chaffetz, Republcian Rep., Utah
But Republicans don’t want to give people much choice when it comes to transportation. We should all rely on cars and planes. Forget trains, buses, and subways. They would rather build more and more freeways, taking away the tax bases of central cities.
The cost of a cell phone pales in comparison to cost of a car, even a decent used one. Then there is all the gas, service, and parking places for it.
And the car has destroyed many a downtown because people prefer going where there is “free parking”. But what is the cost of that free parking: rain runoff (filled with contaminants) and heat radiation.
And what is the cost of health care compared to a cell-phone. We each pay $238 for medical insurance deducted from our Social Security checks. We don’t pay anyway near that for our cell phone service. And the iPhone that is not fully paid for costs only $16.67 per month.
And what is the cost to the rest of us for an uninsured person? Companies should worry about people showing up sick because they can’t get afford medical care. All of us should be concerned about somebody who doesn’t get care for a communicable disease. Did you ever hear about Typhoid Mary who worked in food service? See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Mallon. Although she never became sick from typhoid, she was a carrier who infected many of the families she cooked for.
Health care for all of us means better health for all of us. True conservatives would want to keep as many people well as possible.
Saturday, February 25, 2017
Simple solution to a very annoying computer problem
My iPhone has been getting more and more difficult to set up as a hotspot. I ignored the advice on Apple to reset the network setting and went to ATT chat. Daniel walked me through several things, but I couldn’t do any of them without breaking the connection to my MacBook Air which was linked to AT&T via a hotspot.
I did follow his advice to reset network settings, and I am back to quick connection to the hotspot.
After I had things working my wife mentioned defragging, a term from our bad old days on mainframes. Periodically we would have to move pieces in memory around to have enough big pieces to do what needed to be done. We never thought of Powder Milk Biscuits to give us the strength to do what needs to be done.
With more and more storage on our devices, it is easy to forget about the problem of fragmentation of memory. As the pieces of memory get smaller, it takes longer to put together larger pieces. In "ancient" history, 64KB was a lot of memory. Now with 64GB we assume we will never run out of memory. Surprise!
I did follow his advice to reset network settings, and I am back to quick connection to the hotspot.
After I had things working my wife mentioned defragging, a term from our bad old days on mainframes. Periodically we would have to move pieces in memory around to have enough big pieces to do what needed to be done. We never thought of Powder Milk Biscuits to give us the strength to do what needs to be done.
With more and more storage on our devices, it is easy to forget about the problem of fragmentation of memory. As the pieces of memory get smaller, it takes longer to put together larger pieces. In "ancient" history, 64KB was a lot of memory. Now with 64GB we assume we will never run out of memory. Surprise!
Tuesday, January 03, 2017
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???
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???
Thursday, December 15, 2016
TrackR comment to Best Buy
My wife lost her key to our RAV4 and after many inquiries has not found it yet. Getting a new key is rather pricey.
To avoid a repeat I decided to buy some tracking devices. Based on some reviews, I chose TrackR over Tile.
The results so far have been mixed. My main question is why do so many manufacturers make their product hard to use. There is a large amount of literature about human interface design.
After having one round-about success with one TrackR and a bust with a second, I wrote the following review on the Best Buy website. I also left some comments on the TrackR website but have yet to hear back from them.
My comment is also posted at http://www.bestbuy.com/site/trackr-bravo-tracking-device-set-silver/5404500.p?skuId=5404500&cmp=RMX&reviewid=115333799&campaignid=rvwapp20161714#tabbed-customerreviews
I found the iPhone App somewhat unresponsive and confusing to use. For example, it was several minutes before the app would respond the first time I opened it. Then buttons didn't seem to work until I had maneuvered over the screens a bit.
The main screen is not intuitive. It is divided into three overlapping parts: A summary of four items, a display with a map for where the the device is located (or the iPhone), and a summary of devices. The selection of the overlapping parts is a stack fo three lines to go between the first and second part and three vertical dots to go between the second and third parts. Why not double arrows?
The second TrackR I installed worked OK, but it would not respond after it left the house and returned. Bluetooth settings don't recognize it inches away.
Also, the iPhone settings give tkr as the name of all TrackR devices installed.
Back to the workbench to get this straightened out, hopefully in a day or two,
To avoid a repeat I decided to buy some tracking devices. Based on some reviews, I chose TrackR over Tile.
The results so far have been mixed. My main question is why do so many manufacturers make their product hard to use. There is a large amount of literature about human interface design.
After having one round-about success with one TrackR and a bust with a second, I wrote the following review on the Best Buy website. I also left some comments on the TrackR website but have yet to hear back from them.
My comment is also posted at http://www.bestbuy.com/site/trackr-bravo-tracking-device-set-silver/5404500.p?skuId=5404500&cmp=RMX&reviewid=115333799&campaignid=rvwapp20161714#tabbed-customerreviews
I found the iPhone App somewhat unresponsive and confusing to use. For example, it was several minutes before the app would respond the first time I opened it. Then buttons didn't seem to work until I had maneuvered over the screens a bit.
The main screen is not intuitive. It is divided into three overlapping parts: A summary of four items, a display with a map for where the the device is located (or the iPhone), and a summary of devices. The selection of the overlapping parts is a stack fo three lines to go between the first and second part and three vertical dots to go between the second and third parts. Why not double arrows?
The second TrackR I installed worked OK, but it would not respond after it left the house and returned. Bluetooth settings don't recognize it inches away.
Also, the iPhone settings give tkr as the name of all TrackR devices installed.
Back to the workbench to get this straightened out, hopefully in a day or two,
Thursday, July 21, 2016
“Seamless" came apart at the seams
At about three last night, I was woken by constant thunder and lightning. It was continuous, more continuous than I have ever heard in my life. Then strong winds and heavy rain were added.
Fortunately, we only had one set of windows open and I was able to close them before much rain came in.
Then the lighted clock went dark.
I tried to sleep, but the light of every lightning bolt went right through my eyelids. I laid on my stomach and hid my face in the pillow.
I don’t know how long it took the storm to pass, but it did.
At about seven, I woke up and checked Duluth news on my iPhone. It was quite a wide ranging storm causing outages and deaths. Trees were toppled blocking roads and damaging houses. No travel was advised.
All day our cell phone service has been erratic. Sometimes our phones work, sometimes we can’t even get a signal.
I can see a cell phone pole from our house, but I can’t remember if it had visible equipment at the top or not.
My wife couldn’t even call on her phone. The call could not be completed.
The strength of signal was one bar most of the day; my phone is now up to four. But instead of 4G or LTE service, it only shows E, whatever that means.
I was able to get websites, now loading some of them gets stuck. I wonder how much local data there is. Just now I could not load Yahoo! Finance, but I could get most of the New York Times. But going to a different article is going very slow, but maybe that is because convention news is so popular. On the other hand, the online banking page of my bank is not making any progress loading on my iPhone. Meanwhile, I started and finished reading a convention article.
So much for the seamless, at-our-fingertips operation of our gadgets we rely so much on. We are retired and it is only a nuisance. But there are many people who depend on these gadgets to do their work.
Now, how long will this take to post? Essentially, quite a while. As soon as I typed the first sentence, I tried loading blogger.com. Firefox could not find the page!
Finally! At 4:30 pm the web seems back to normal. I have five dots and LTE on my cellphone and Yahoo! Finance came right up!
Can our electricity be far behind?
Fortunately, we only had one set of windows open and I was able to close them before much rain came in.
Then the lighted clock went dark.
I tried to sleep, but the light of every lightning bolt went right through my eyelids. I laid on my stomach and hid my face in the pillow.
I don’t know how long it took the storm to pass, but it did.
At about seven, I woke up and checked Duluth news on my iPhone. It was quite a wide ranging storm causing outages and deaths. Trees were toppled blocking roads and damaging houses. No travel was advised.
All day our cell phone service has been erratic. Sometimes our phones work, sometimes we can’t even get a signal.
I can see a cell phone pole from our house, but I can’t remember if it had visible equipment at the top or not.
My wife couldn’t even call on her phone. The call could not be completed.
The strength of signal was one bar most of the day; my phone is now up to four. But instead of 4G or LTE service, it only shows E, whatever that means.
I was able to get websites, now loading some of them gets stuck. I wonder how much local data there is. Just now I could not load Yahoo! Finance, but I could get most of the New York Times. But going to a different article is going very slow, but maybe that is because convention news is so popular. On the other hand, the online banking page of my bank is not making any progress loading on my iPhone. Meanwhile, I started and finished reading a convention article.
So much for the seamless, at-our-fingertips operation of our gadgets we rely so much on. We are retired and it is only a nuisance. But there are many people who depend on these gadgets to do their work.
Now, how long will this take to post? Essentially, quite a while. As soon as I typed the first sentence, I tried loading blogger.com. Firefox could not find the page!
Finally! At 4:30 pm the web seems back to normal. I have five dots and LTE on my cellphone and Yahoo! Finance came right up!
Can our electricity be far behind?
Saturday, July 09, 2016
Corporate inefficiency
“Conservative” politicians and billionaires keep touting corporate “efficiency”, but I keep finding case after case where they are efficient is inefficiently interacting with their customers. How many times have you received a satisfactory answer with your first call or email?
I dropped my Republic Bank accounts (including VISA) last year because they blamed Consumer Cellular for the errors I received trying to access my Republic account through my iPhone: both the app and the online account. Republic said the problem was with Consumer Cellular. Consumer Cellular said the problem was with the bank. Neither seemed really interested in pinpointing the problem.
My wife had no problem accessing Pioneer National Bank through her Consumer Cellular phone.
After I opened my Pioneer accounts, I transferred all my funds from Republic Bank to Pioneer. I wrote Republic to close all my accounts including my VISA account. I no longer receive monthly statements from Republic.
However, this week I received a notice of a statement from VISA for my Republic card. Oh, boy! Did I forget to notify somebody that automatic payments should no longer go to Republic VISA?
When I finally looked at the statement, it was to notify me of my renewal fee! $0.00!!
I did find a “Contact Us” button that allowed me to call this unneeded statement to somebody’s attention. I also stated that I had requested Republic Bank to close my VISA account.
Earlier in the week I received from AT&T “Exciting news - your wireless bill from AT&T is now on video.” Who is it exciting new? The producers of the video and the advertising department. It was just a bother to me. The email didn’t say whether the data for the video was to be charged to my account or was free. I didn’t bother to find out.
However, I did open up MyATT account, saw the current bill, and paid it, also asking that all future bills be automatically be billed to my credit card.
Imagine my surprise to receive an email today that my bill was ready! i double checked and the online balance was zero.
I tried to send a message to AT&T and found a page:
Contact Us
AT&T Support - quick & easy support is available 24/7.
I looked and looked for an email form, but I only found two choices: call an 800 number or Online Chat. I don’t want to wait for “the next available operator", and I don’t want to wait for the next chat person, type what I noticed, and “hang up”.
I wonder if AT&T uses one of the reputation services, and if so, will the service find this blog post and will AT&T act on it.
Don’t stay tuned! We may never know if AT&T even read this post.
I think it was the New York Times that had an article this past week that said most telecommunications companies really don’t want to solve your problems: just pass you from one person to another.
“Hello, Melvyn Magree. My name is ______ and I will be glad to assist you.” This is generally followed by some generalized gibberish that doesn’t even address the problem, like completely reset your device.
An exception that we’ve found is Apple if you have a device under an Apple Care warranty. My wife’s iPhone either wouldn’t come on at all or would only get up to 30% charge. A search of the Apple Support Community came up with over 23,000 topics on this problem. The only advice seems to be to hold the home and lock buttons together for quite a long time. For us and others, this did and did not work.
The 23,000 figure does not indicate an efficient corporation, especially when the number of users who have this problem could be ten or more times greater!!
Fortunately my wife’s IPhone was still under warranty. The Apple Care people walked us through a few steps, and it would work for a while. After a few calls, they sent us a new phone. Of course, we didn’t have a backup and had to manually enter phone addresses. I did manage to print a list from the old phone before we sent it back.
Oh! And we could never erase the old phone. It kept asking for a re-something passcode. It would never accept the phone passcode and we could find no workable answer in the Apple Support Community. We had to return the problem phone with only the assurance that Apple would erase the data.
How did we get into this mess? I remember when it was a big deal to have direct-dial long-distance.
I dropped my Republic Bank accounts (including VISA) last year because they blamed Consumer Cellular for the errors I received trying to access my Republic account through my iPhone: both the app and the online account. Republic said the problem was with Consumer Cellular. Consumer Cellular said the problem was with the bank. Neither seemed really interested in pinpointing the problem.
My wife had no problem accessing Pioneer National Bank through her Consumer Cellular phone.
After I opened my Pioneer accounts, I transferred all my funds from Republic Bank to Pioneer. I wrote Republic to close all my accounts including my VISA account. I no longer receive monthly statements from Republic.
However, this week I received a notice of a statement from VISA for my Republic card. Oh, boy! Did I forget to notify somebody that automatic payments should no longer go to Republic VISA?
When I finally looked at the statement, it was to notify me of my renewal fee! $0.00!!
I did find a “Contact Us” button that allowed me to call this unneeded statement to somebody’s attention. I also stated that I had requested Republic Bank to close my VISA account.
Earlier in the week I received from AT&T “Exciting news - your wireless bill from AT&T is now on video.” Who is it exciting new? The producers of the video and the advertising department. It was just a bother to me. The email didn’t say whether the data for the video was to be charged to my account or was free. I didn’t bother to find out.
However, I did open up MyATT account, saw the current bill, and paid it, also asking that all future bills be automatically be billed to my credit card.
Imagine my surprise to receive an email today that my bill was ready! i double checked and the online balance was zero.
I tried to send a message to AT&T and found a page:
Contact Us
AT&T Support - quick & easy support is available 24/7.
I looked and looked for an email form, but I only found two choices: call an 800 number or Online Chat. I don’t want to wait for “the next available operator", and I don’t want to wait for the next chat person, type what I noticed, and “hang up”.
I wonder if AT&T uses one of the reputation services, and if so, will the service find this blog post and will AT&T act on it.
Don’t stay tuned! We may never know if AT&T even read this post.
I think it was the New York Times that had an article this past week that said most telecommunications companies really don’t want to solve your problems: just pass you from one person to another.
“Hello, Melvyn Magree. My name is ______ and I will be glad to assist you.” This is generally followed by some generalized gibberish that doesn’t even address the problem, like completely reset your device.
An exception that we’ve found is Apple if you have a device under an Apple Care warranty. My wife’s iPhone either wouldn’t come on at all or would only get up to 30% charge. A search of the Apple Support Community came up with over 23,000 topics on this problem. The only advice seems to be to hold the home and lock buttons together for quite a long time. For us and others, this did and did not work.
The 23,000 figure does not indicate an efficient corporation, especially when the number of users who have this problem could be ten or more times greater!!
Fortunately my wife’s IPhone was still under warranty. The Apple Care people walked us through a few steps, and it would work for a while. After a few calls, they sent us a new phone. Of course, we didn’t have a backup and had to manually enter phone addresses. I did manage to print a list from the old phone before we sent it back.
Oh! And we could never erase the old phone. It kept asking for a re-something passcode. It would never accept the phone passcode and we could find no workable answer in the Apple Support Community. We had to return the problem phone with only the assurance that Apple would erase the data.
How did we get into this mess? I remember when it was a big deal to have direct-dial long-distance.
Tuesday, June 28, 2016
Corporations are inefficient too
Many so-called conservatives claim that governments are inefficient and corporations are efficient. There is overwhelming evidence that both forms can be efficient and both forms can be inefficient.
As a prime example of how corporations can be life-threatening see “When You Dial 911 and Wall Street Answers”, New York Times, 2016-06-25, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/26/business/dealbook/when-you-dial-911-and-wall-street-answers.html.
Some corporations are run for the long term; some are run for the short term. And both can make big mistakes.
Many of us love and rely on our Apple products. But Apple can screw up big time and take a long time to correct the problem. My wife’s iPhone 5C stopped charging and we still have six payments left. When I checked Apple Support for “iPhone not charging", there were 28,136 results!
Two solutions were offered. One was to hold the home button and the sleep button at the same time. This did not work for any of the posters. The other was to take the phone to an Apple Store. For us, that is a two-and-a-half hour drive away.
We could mail it back to Consumer Cellular. We do have AppleCare+ on the phone, but I don’t know how long that is good for. We don’t know if we will have a new phone in a couple of days or a couple of weeks.
Considering how much smart phones become of people’s live, it is not very efficient or customer-friendly that Apple has not found a permanent solution yet.
But a non-functioning phone is generally a nuisance, not life threatening. Think of the fatal failures of automobiles. Takata is constantly in the news because of faulty air bags. On a less life-threatening level, Volkswagen has been called to task because its emissions are far higher than they claimed.
Also think of all the food recalls there have been over the last few months. Some are caught by the company and consumers are warned. Others have to be warned by governments.
Ironically, those who use Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” as a justification for “free enterprise” ignore his “This order of men is not to be trusted…” This order of men is those who live by profit.
The “bottom line” is really what are the ethics and dedication of the people in government or corporations. Angels and devils are in both.
As a prime example of how corporations can be life-threatening see “When You Dial 911 and Wall Street Answers”, New York Times, 2016-06-25, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/26/business/dealbook/when-you-dial-911-and-wall-street-answers.html.
Some corporations are run for the long term; some are run for the short term. And both can make big mistakes.
Many of us love and rely on our Apple products. But Apple can screw up big time and take a long time to correct the problem. My wife’s iPhone 5C stopped charging and we still have six payments left. When I checked Apple Support for “iPhone not charging", there were 28,136 results!
Two solutions were offered. One was to hold the home button and the sleep button at the same time. This did not work for any of the posters. The other was to take the phone to an Apple Store. For us, that is a two-and-a-half hour drive away.
We could mail it back to Consumer Cellular. We do have AppleCare+ on the phone, but I don’t know how long that is good for. We don’t know if we will have a new phone in a couple of days or a couple of weeks.
Considering how much smart phones become of people’s live, it is not very efficient or customer-friendly that Apple has not found a permanent solution yet.
But a non-functioning phone is generally a nuisance, not life threatening. Think of the fatal failures of automobiles. Takata is constantly in the news because of faulty air bags. On a less life-threatening level, Volkswagen has been called to task because its emissions are far higher than they claimed.
Also think of all the food recalls there have been over the last few months. Some are caught by the company and consumers are warned. Others have to be warned by governments.
Ironically, those who use Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” as a justification for “free enterprise” ignore his “This order of men is not to be trusted…” This order of men is those who live by profit.
The “bottom line” is really what are the ethics and dedication of the people in government or corporations. Angels and devils are in both.
Thursday, April 07, 2016
The Blamer Games
Sometime last year I switched from Republic Bank to Pioneer National Bank. I could not access Republic Bank from my cell phone using cellular data. I could access my account if I went to a coffee shop and used wi-fi.
Republic Bank and Consumer Cellular (my cellular) provider each absolved themselves of any problem. Republic Bank said that Consumer Cellular was changing its IP address. Consumer Cellular said they were not.
I could access my wife’s accounts at Pioneer National Bank without a problem. So, I switched my account to Pioneer also.
Now this problem has raised its ugly head again. I tried making a estimated tax payment to the State of Minnesota. It would not open any page where I was to provide information, whether I wanted to pay online or just request a form to pay by mail. It said I had cookies turned off. This happened with both FireFox and Safari. With Safari it happened both with my MacBook Air and with my iPhone.
As far as I could see, in both FireFox and Safari I did not have cookies turned off. In fact, in one of these browsers I had a long list of cookies.
I went to Perk Place and bingo, everything worked. Same laptop. I have a receipt in my email.
Wanna bet that somebody will blame the problem on my Mac. As I gaze around the coffee shop, I see over a dozen Mac laptops and only on or two other laptops. I think these providers better get with the program.
I have heard this same thing from the Duluth News Tribune, a problem with Macs. I can’t even access the Olive edition of the DNT. Olive is the name of the software that provides a facsimile of the printed edition and allows expanding any article for easier reading. However, I access the Olive edition of the Star Tribune without problem. In fact, the Strib has even fixed the annoying problem of inconsistent expansion of the comics.
This whole mess would be comical if it weren’t so time-consuming and frustrating.
Republic Bank and Consumer Cellular (my cellular) provider each absolved themselves of any problem. Republic Bank said that Consumer Cellular was changing its IP address. Consumer Cellular said they were not.
I could access my wife’s accounts at Pioneer National Bank without a problem. So, I switched my account to Pioneer also.
Now this problem has raised its ugly head again. I tried making a estimated tax payment to the State of Minnesota. It would not open any page where I was to provide information, whether I wanted to pay online or just request a form to pay by mail. It said I had cookies turned off. This happened with both FireFox and Safari. With Safari it happened both with my MacBook Air and with my iPhone.
As far as I could see, in both FireFox and Safari I did not have cookies turned off. In fact, in one of these browsers I had a long list of cookies.
I went to Perk Place and bingo, everything worked. Same laptop. I have a receipt in my email.
Wanna bet that somebody will blame the problem on my Mac. As I gaze around the coffee shop, I see over a dozen Mac laptops and only on or two other laptops. I think these providers better get with the program.
I have heard this same thing from the Duluth News Tribune, a problem with Macs. I can’t even access the Olive edition of the DNT. Olive is the name of the software that provides a facsimile of the printed edition and allows expanding any article for easier reading. However, I access the Olive edition of the Star Tribune without problem. In fact, the Strib has even fixed the annoying problem of inconsistent expansion of the comics.
This whole mess would be comical if it weren’t so time-consuming and frustrating.
Monday, January 18, 2016
More on erratic iPhone cellular setting
Follow-up to http://magree.blogspot.com/2016/01/erratic-cellular-data-settings.html.
I spent an hour or more pouring over postings in the Apple User Community looking for some solution to my long wait for cellular toggles to be activated in my iPhone. I finally found a link a user made to T-Mobile.
Quite simply a soft reset works. For how long, I know not.
A soft reset is to hold the on-off button and the home button until the screen goes blank and the Apple logo is shown again.
Why didn’t Apple offer this advice?
I spent an hour or more pouring over postings in the Apple User Community looking for some solution to my long wait for cellular toggles to be activated in my iPhone. I finally found a link a user made to T-Mobile.
Quite simply a soft reset works. For how long, I know not.
A soft reset is to hold the on-off button and the home button until the screen goes blank and the Apple logo is shown again.
Why didn’t Apple offer this advice?
Tuesday, November 10, 2015
Misfeasance and malfeasance: corporate and government
It seems the fashion for one group of people to think that government can do nothing right and that corporations always do everything right, and for another group to think that corporations can do nothing right and that the government always does everything right. Interestingly, many in the first group think the government knows everything about invading other countries, and many in the second group are eager for the latest gadgets from large corporations. This second group also buys books from Amazon on how bad corporations are!
This second group should consider buying books from local booksellers. I know Duluth is down to one local bookseller, but it still has a few used booksellers. If you do want to buy books online, try ABE Books. It is a consortium of booksellers around the world. You can find a whole range of prices, sometimes with free shipping.
This column was inspired by a head-banging problem on Apple’s iPhone. About the middle of the month the weather app started giving the time for locales in the Central Daylight Time zone as five hours later. How about sunset at 11 o’clock in the evening?
In the Apple Community Support topics, other users suggested various resets, that might or might not be disruptive to proper functioning. I did a “soft reset” of my iPhone and it did nothing for this problem. I and many others thought the problem was really in Apple’s own computers because the problem started happening for many users at the same time. My post follows:
“Don’t touch that dial!
“I lay awake last night thinking about the weather app having the wrong time for the Central Time Zone.
“It occurred to me that the time given is Greenwich Mean Time. I even got up and looked up the time in London. It was one hour later than Greenwich Mean Time because Britain is on daylight savings time. The British time was one hour later than the time in weather app.
“This morning I checked my wife’s iPhone. It had the wrong weather time, and she is still on iOS 9.0.1. I asked several people in a fitness center and they reported that their iPhone weather apps had the wrong time. Some even reported that this started at the end of last week.
“I think what has happened is that whoever maintains the data for Apple’s weather app took off the -5 adjustment for Central Daylight Time. So, the problem is not in your phone and no kind of reset will fix the problem. We’ll just have to wait for somebody in Apple to put the correct adjustment on Central Daylight Time.
“Now I have to find Apple’s Feedback page and post the above to it.”
I did send feedback as did several other users. The problem was fixed in about three days. The squeaking wheel does get greased!
I have another iPhone problem in that my bank’s online access will not work when I use cellular data. It either gives a cryptic error message or states that the connection could not be made. It works fine if I use Wi-Fi. The bank says that my provider keeps changing the IP address. My provider states that they do not change the IP address.
How often have you been caught between corporate pointing fingers? “Not our problem.”
If corporations can do such marvelous stuff, how come there are so many recalls? The Volkswagen diesel exhaust problem is one of malfeasance: knowing the problem existed and not doing anything about it. The ignition problem with Chevrolets was a mix of misfeasance and malfeasance. It took GM awhile to realize they had a problem and quite awhile before they acknowledged it.
If corporations are so smart, why can’t they figure out that doing something right in the first place is cheaper in the long run than cutting corners now for short-term profits?
I think in too many cases, corporations have become the broom of the sorcerer's apprentice. They keep working away mechanically without considering the real needs of their customers.
Many who are pro-corporation relish bashing the federal government, especially the Post Office and the Internal Revenue Service. My experience is that many government agencies, including these two, strive to do the right thing for their customers. Unfortunately, they are undercut by those who should be supporting them as part of “Promoting the General Welfare”.
Interestingly, some of these same government bashers think that the military can do no wrong. Have they forgotten the terms SNAFU and FUBAR were created by draftees or enlisted personnel who were fed up with the bureaucracy and the mistakes of generals and other officers?
I think these military worshipers also forget their history. A bunch of ragtag farmers held off an imperial army for several years, mostly by avoiding combat until their general thought the situation was favorable. In another country and in another century, a bunch of civilians kept harassing an occupying army until other countries could mobilize for an invasion to push back the occupiers. Meanwhile, on the other side of the continent, an army of mostly peasants took horrific losses to repel that same occupying army from their country.
In the long run in case after case, it is the local people who, if they don’t prevail, will keep harassing the invaders as long as there are more to take their places.
The secret to the success of any organization is the management. Does management come up with ideas to make its employees effective? Does it listen to its employees and support them when they have good ideas? Or does it “know best” and keep muddling along until another company takes away its business. In the case of government, do the elected politicians act in a positive way to support government workers? Or do the elected politicians do their best to belittle the workers? We certainly are lucky to have so many thick-skinned government employees.
This was also published in the Reader Weekly, 2015-11-04 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2015/11/04/6189_misfeasance_and_malfeasance_corporate_and-1.
This second group should consider buying books from local booksellers. I know Duluth is down to one local bookseller, but it still has a few used booksellers. If you do want to buy books online, try ABE Books. It is a consortium of booksellers around the world. You can find a whole range of prices, sometimes with free shipping.
This column was inspired by a head-banging problem on Apple’s iPhone. About the middle of the month the weather app started giving the time for locales in the Central Daylight Time zone as five hours later. How about sunset at 11 o’clock in the evening?
In the Apple Community Support topics, other users suggested various resets, that might or might not be disruptive to proper functioning. I did a “soft reset” of my iPhone and it did nothing for this problem. I and many others thought the problem was really in Apple’s own computers because the problem started happening for many users at the same time. My post follows:
“Don’t touch that dial!
“I lay awake last night thinking about the weather app having the wrong time for the Central Time Zone.
“It occurred to me that the time given is Greenwich Mean Time. I even got up and looked up the time in London. It was one hour later than Greenwich Mean Time because Britain is on daylight savings time. The British time was one hour later than the time in weather app.
“This morning I checked my wife’s iPhone. It had the wrong weather time, and she is still on iOS 9.0.1. I asked several people in a fitness center and they reported that their iPhone weather apps had the wrong time. Some even reported that this started at the end of last week.
“I think what has happened is that whoever maintains the data for Apple’s weather app took off the -5 adjustment for Central Daylight Time. So, the problem is not in your phone and no kind of reset will fix the problem. We’ll just have to wait for somebody in Apple to put the correct adjustment on Central Daylight Time.
“Now I have to find Apple’s Feedback page and post the above to it.”
I did send feedback as did several other users. The problem was fixed in about three days. The squeaking wheel does get greased!
I have another iPhone problem in that my bank’s online access will not work when I use cellular data. It either gives a cryptic error message or states that the connection could not be made. It works fine if I use Wi-Fi. The bank says that my provider keeps changing the IP address. My provider states that they do not change the IP address.
How often have you been caught between corporate pointing fingers? “Not our problem.”
If corporations can do such marvelous stuff, how come there are so many recalls? The Volkswagen diesel exhaust problem is one of malfeasance: knowing the problem existed and not doing anything about it. The ignition problem with Chevrolets was a mix of misfeasance and malfeasance. It took GM awhile to realize they had a problem and quite awhile before they acknowledged it.
If corporations are so smart, why can’t they figure out that doing something right in the first place is cheaper in the long run than cutting corners now for short-term profits?
I think in too many cases, corporations have become the broom of the sorcerer's apprentice. They keep working away mechanically without considering the real needs of their customers.
Many who are pro-corporation relish bashing the federal government, especially the Post Office and the Internal Revenue Service. My experience is that many government agencies, including these two, strive to do the right thing for their customers. Unfortunately, they are undercut by those who should be supporting them as part of “Promoting the General Welfare”.
Interestingly, some of these same government bashers think that the military can do no wrong. Have they forgotten the terms SNAFU and FUBAR were created by draftees or enlisted personnel who were fed up with the bureaucracy and the mistakes of generals and other officers?
I think these military worshipers also forget their history. A bunch of ragtag farmers held off an imperial army for several years, mostly by avoiding combat until their general thought the situation was favorable. In another country and in another century, a bunch of civilians kept harassing an occupying army until other countries could mobilize for an invasion to push back the occupiers. Meanwhile, on the other side of the continent, an army of mostly peasants took horrific losses to repel that same occupying army from their country.
In the long run in case after case, it is the local people who, if they don’t prevail, will keep harassing the invaders as long as there are more to take their places.
The secret to the success of any organization is the management. Does management come up with ideas to make its employees effective? Does it listen to its employees and support them when they have good ideas? Or does it “know best” and keep muddling along until another company takes away its business. In the case of government, do the elected politicians act in a positive way to support government workers? Or do the elected politicians do their best to belittle the workers? We certainly are lucky to have so many thick-skinned government employees.
This was also published in the Reader Weekly, 2015-11-04 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2015/11/04/6189_misfeasance_and_malfeasance_corporate_and-1.
Wednesday, October 21, 2015
iPhone weather app puts midwest in England
See https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7294687 for full discussion.
Don’t touch that dial!
I lay awake last night thinking about the iPhone weather app having the wrong time for the Central Time Zone.
It occurred to me that the time given is Greenwich Mean Time. I even got up and looked up the time in London. It was one hour later than Greenwich Mean Time because Britain is daylight savings time. The British time was one hour later than the time in weather app.
This morning I checked my wife’s iPhone. It had the wrong weather time, and she is still on iOS 9.0.1. I asked several people in a fitness center and they reported that their iPhone weather apps had the wrong time. Some even reported that this started at the end of last week.
I think what has happened is that whoever maintains the data for Apple’s weather app took off the -5 adjustment for Central Daylight Time. So, the problem is not in your phone and no kind of reset will fix the problem. We’ll just have to wait for somebody in Apple to put the correct adjustment on Central Daylight Time.
Now I have to find Apple’s Feedback page and post the above to it.
Don’t touch that dial!
I lay awake last night thinking about the iPhone weather app having the wrong time for the Central Time Zone.
It occurred to me that the time given is Greenwich Mean Time. I even got up and looked up the time in London. It was one hour later than Greenwich Mean Time because Britain is daylight savings time. The British time was one hour later than the time in weather app.
This morning I checked my wife’s iPhone. It had the wrong weather time, and she is still on iOS 9.0.1. I asked several people in a fitness center and they reported that their iPhone weather apps had the wrong time. Some even reported that this started at the end of last week.
I think what has happened is that whoever maintains the data for Apple’s weather app took off the -5 adjustment for Central Daylight Time. So, the problem is not in your phone and no kind of reset will fix the problem. We’ll just have to wait for somebody in Apple to put the correct adjustment on Central Daylight Time.
Now I have to find Apple’s Feedback page and post the above to it.
Friday, August 28, 2015
Clawing out of the Abyss
As of this writing, we are into week two without cellular access on our iPhones (See “Cutting the cord and falling into the abyss” in last week’s Reader).
I think the biggest thing I miss is reading the Duluth News Tribune, Star Tribune, and the New York Times at breakfast and lunch. To check email, statements, and other important and unimportant information, we have to go to the library or coffee shops. I’m drinking a lot more coffee than I normally do.
The easiest is to walk to Chester Creek Café at the corner. But we don’t want to take up a table when there are many lunch or dinner customers.
Perk Place is a quiet place, but for some reason I could not log on to their server. Another Mac user had been successful. I wonder if he was using a newer operating system. A staff member did get me signed on using the coffee shop account.
Once upon a time I would walk to Bixby’s and other shops at Mt. Royal, but every year the hill up Woodland Avenue seems to get steeper, especially with a backpack with a computer. And so I wimp out and drive.
The Mount Royal Library may or may not be crowded. When I went on Thursday it wasn’t, but it did take a bit of effort to log in. I was successful with my iPhone and iPad, but I never managed to click all the right buttons for my laptop.
A diversion at the library was looking for a follow-on book after viewing “The Young Victoria”. The movie had a lot of follow-on summary information. I wanted to know more about her reign and her successors. I used my iPhone to sign on to the catalog and select some books. Having the call numbers of the desired titles on my iPhone sure beat copying those numbers onto paper from the library computers.
Caribou at Mount Royal Market is spacious and quiet. It’s biggest drawback is that there are no power outlets at the tables.
And at the cabin we are completely disconnected from the web. At least, we can still use our phones.
So, I have to carefully plan all my work before hand. I am writing this at home and will go to one of the coffee shops to email it to the Reader. I have to write most of my email beforehand. I have to plan ahead what web sites to visit.
One of those plan-ahead sites was the Apple Support Community. While at a coffee shop I downloaded thirteen threads about excessive data usage. It’s nice to know that I am not alone with this problem. Some useful advice, some blaming the user, but no really clear cut advice.
I do know first hand that solving computer problems can be a long, arduous project. Relevant information comes in dribbles from the customer and lots of digging by programmers. I was the lead investigator of frequent crashes of a Univac 1108 in Sweden. Many of the memory dumps showed a particular program was active. I badgered to customer into giving me a copy of the program. I took the copy to another site and the program crashed because it was putting data outside of its assigned space. To make the story short, the problem was they were using an outdated library and that their computer had a memory protection failure. I think it took three months from the first alarm to final resolution. And those computers were a lot simpler than what we carry in our pockets now!
Once upon a time it was said that Mac owners never used a manual. I did look up a few things now and then, mostly just what keys did I need to push to get å, ä, é, î, ö, and other western European characters. The Mac’s were described as WIMPs: Windows, Icons, Menus, and Pictures. Just about everything you needed to know was obvious from one of these.
Even then, many users came up with seemingly intractable problems. Apple’s answer was to encourage user groups. Unfortunately, often there was nobody at a meeting who had an answer. I remember somebody asking why they couldn’t make their “Whiz Bang” printer work on a Mac. The leader would ask if anybody had a solution and look around the room. Not a hand went up. This happened over and over again.
The human interface, the computing power, and the range of software has improved exponentially in the last 31 years (remember the 1984 Apple ad). We can do many tasks quickly and easily just by poking the screen or dragging a finger over it. But when things go wrong! Hoo boy!
I think I caused my problem with an inadvertent reset. My choices include going back to the last iCloud backup, but would that be done before the coffee shop closed? By reading the manual, I found that I can double-click the home button, swipe up on the screen, and then slide through all the open apps. I can close an app by sliding its image up. This doesn’t remove the app from my iPhone, it just stops it from doing any harm.
Once September rolls around, we’ll have the data part of our Consumer Cellular contract restored. I think the closing apps plan is my best alternative. I’ll start with only keeping the supposedly harmless apps open: Weather, Mail, Calendar, and a few other standards. Then I’ll have to wait until all the data is in for that six-hour period. If usage seems normal, I’ll keep a few more apps open. Either I’ll eventually find the run-away app or that the conditions are such that the app is now behaving.
Meanwhile, I’ll be drinking lots of coffee. I thought of having beer instead, but it will be just my luck to knock over the glass…
Also published in the Reader Weekly of Duluth at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2015/08/26/5837_clawing_out_of_the_abyss.
I think the biggest thing I miss is reading the Duluth News Tribune, Star Tribune, and the New York Times at breakfast and lunch. To check email, statements, and other important and unimportant information, we have to go to the library or coffee shops. I’m drinking a lot more coffee than I normally do.
The easiest is to walk to Chester Creek Café at the corner. But we don’t want to take up a table when there are many lunch or dinner customers.
Perk Place is a quiet place, but for some reason I could not log on to their server. Another Mac user had been successful. I wonder if he was using a newer operating system. A staff member did get me signed on using the coffee shop account.
Once upon a time I would walk to Bixby’s and other shops at Mt. Royal, but every year the hill up Woodland Avenue seems to get steeper, especially with a backpack with a computer. And so I wimp out and drive.
The Mount Royal Library may or may not be crowded. When I went on Thursday it wasn’t, but it did take a bit of effort to log in. I was successful with my iPhone and iPad, but I never managed to click all the right buttons for my laptop.
A diversion at the library was looking for a follow-on book after viewing “The Young Victoria”. The movie had a lot of follow-on summary information. I wanted to know more about her reign and her successors. I used my iPhone to sign on to the catalog and select some books. Having the call numbers of the desired titles on my iPhone sure beat copying those numbers onto paper from the library computers.
Caribou at Mount Royal Market is spacious and quiet. It’s biggest drawback is that there are no power outlets at the tables.
And at the cabin we are completely disconnected from the web. At least, we can still use our phones.
So, I have to carefully plan all my work before hand. I am writing this at home and will go to one of the coffee shops to email it to the Reader. I have to write most of my email beforehand. I have to plan ahead what web sites to visit.
One of those plan-ahead sites was the Apple Support Community. While at a coffee shop I downloaded thirteen threads about excessive data usage. It’s nice to know that I am not alone with this problem. Some useful advice, some blaming the user, but no really clear cut advice.
I do know first hand that solving computer problems can be a long, arduous project. Relevant information comes in dribbles from the customer and lots of digging by programmers. I was the lead investigator of frequent crashes of a Univac 1108 in Sweden. Many of the memory dumps showed a particular program was active. I badgered to customer into giving me a copy of the program. I took the copy to another site and the program crashed because it was putting data outside of its assigned space. To make the story short, the problem was they were using an outdated library and that their computer had a memory protection failure. I think it took three months from the first alarm to final resolution. And those computers were a lot simpler than what we carry in our pockets now!
Once upon a time it was said that Mac owners never used a manual. I did look up a few things now and then, mostly just what keys did I need to push to get å, ä, é, î, ö, and other western European characters. The Mac’s were described as WIMPs: Windows, Icons, Menus, and Pictures. Just about everything you needed to know was obvious from one of these.
Even then, many users came up with seemingly intractable problems. Apple’s answer was to encourage user groups. Unfortunately, often there was nobody at a meeting who had an answer. I remember somebody asking why they couldn’t make their “Whiz Bang” printer work on a Mac. The leader would ask if anybody had a solution and look around the room. Not a hand went up. This happened over and over again.
The human interface, the computing power, and the range of software has improved exponentially in the last 31 years (remember the 1984 Apple ad). We can do many tasks quickly and easily just by poking the screen or dragging a finger over it. But when things go wrong! Hoo boy!
I think I caused my problem with an inadvertent reset. My choices include going back to the last iCloud backup, but would that be done before the coffee shop closed? By reading the manual, I found that I can double-click the home button, swipe up on the screen, and then slide through all the open apps. I can close an app by sliding its image up. This doesn’t remove the app from my iPhone, it just stops it from doing any harm.
Once September rolls around, we’ll have the data part of our Consumer Cellular contract restored. I think the closing apps plan is my best alternative. I’ll start with only keeping the supposedly harmless apps open: Weather, Mail, Calendar, and a few other standards. Then I’ll have to wait until all the data is in for that six-hour period. If usage seems normal, I’ll keep a few more apps open. Either I’ll eventually find the run-away app or that the conditions are such that the app is now behaving.
Meanwhile, I’ll be drinking lots of coffee. I thought of having beer instead, but it will be just my luck to knock over the glass…
Also published in the Reader Weekly of Duluth at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2015/08/26/5837_clawing_out_of_the_abyss.
Thursday, August 20, 2015
Cutting the cord and falling into the abyss
We received so many unsolicited calls on our land line that we stopped picking up the phone until we knew who the caller was. Too often, no message was left.
I received almost only junk email on my cpinternet account through our CenturyLink account. Besides offers of garage door openers and of sex, I received messages in Japanese and Turkish. Very rarely did an old contact use this account.
Besides, our nominal 7Mbps speed was often under 4Mbps. We were eligible for an upgrade to 12Mbps, but we had to call an 800 number to find the details. Once upon a time, Qwest, the predecessor to CenturyLink would state on its website how much 256Kbps, 512Kbps, and 1Mbps would cost, exclusive of taxes and fees.
A digression on telecommunication taxes and fees: the telecommunication companies (telcos) can’t give these accurately because the vary widely from locale to locale and narrowly from month to month.
We also had an iPhone 4s through Virgin Mobile (VM) because we got a deal a few years ago from Best Buy.
Along the way, we started using cell phones through Consumer Cellular: you can’t miss their ads, especially if you are an AARP member. Consumer Cellular (CC) stated on its website the exact cost of each service and its level that you requested. You could change these at any time, either up or down. I eventually bought an iPhone 5s from CC. They piggy back on the AT&T network (at 3G rather than 4G). Not only could I use the iPhone in Brimson, but I could use the phone as a hotspot for my iPad or MacBook.
With all of these providers, our total monthly payments seemed to be getting out of hand. I did a small spreadsheet to compare using only CC instead of multiple providers. If we bought another CC iPhone, our costs would drop about a thousand dollars per year (not including monthly payments for new phone. Even then, we would still save hundreds of dollars a year.
One problem was our wireless printer. How would we access it without our DSL modem? I pulled the phone cord from the modem and found that the printer still worked. The DSL modem was our router, even if it was not connected to the phone system.
We ordered a new CC iPhone 5c, and when it arrived, we set it up for my wife’s use. We could also use it as a hotspot, and so she wouldn’t have to depend on my iPhone if I was elsewhere. Also, because it worked in Brimson, we could use our phones as walkie-talkies. We would have much better reception, and nobody else would be listening to our calls.
Except, we couldn’t get her phone to work because we couldn’t transfer the VM number without an account number. None of our VM bills had an account number, only the phone number. We had to call VM, and of course, the first person we talked to couldn’t do it. We were switched to someone who suggested we might get a better deal. Unmentioned was the cost. After I don’t know how many minutes, we were told our account number. Then we called CC with it and they activated my wife’s iPhone. We didn’t have this hassle when we dropped our land line at our cabin and put it on a Home Base wireless system.
Next step was to call CenturyLink to cancel our phone and DSL. Again, we were routed to someone who tried selling us faster service. We declined, and sometime in the next day or two the phone no longer worked, but the modem still accessed the network.
Ah yes, we had separate ISP, CPinternet, from the bad old days when we had only 56Kbps dial-up (56 Kilo bits per second for those too young to remember dial-up). When we started with QWest at 256Kbps we kept CPInternet as our provider. CPInternet really had great customer service, too. Then CPInternet was bought by Hickory Tech of Mankato. Then Hickory Tech bought Enventis and assumed its name. Still great customer service. Then Consolidated Communications of somewhere bought Enventis. I didn’t have much need to call customer service, until we wanted to cancel our ISP connection. My first attempt got the automatic wait message of something like “Enventis is now Consolidated Communications”. On the ninth reiteration of this, I hung up, and tried another time.
Then new problems started, some of them my own doing.
The printer works from my wife’s iMac, but not my MacBook, the one I tested printing from.
I attempted to reset my wife’s old iPhone to erase all our data before recycling it. It needed the password for her Apple ID. We thought we knew it, but all the variants we tried were rejected. I spent over a half-hour with Apple Support trying to resolve it. Terry cheerfully assured me that he had seen many problems like this. Unfortunately, he had to admit defeat and suggested we take it to a Genius Bar in an Apple Store.
In all my attempts to reset her phone, I picked up my iPhone and clicked reset. Ah! My Apple ID. My password worked. Dummy! You just reset your own iPhone!
I’m running out of space, but I’ll give the short story on the next problem. We used up our quota of CC data and were automatically cut off. I finally figured out that my iPhone was still trying to load the one program that was no longer available from iTunes, over and over and …!
Iiee-
ee-
ee-…
This also was printed in the Reader Weekly of Duluth, 2015-08-20 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2015/08/20/5807_cutting_the_cord_and_falling_into_the_abyss.
I received almost only junk email on my cpinternet account through our CenturyLink account. Besides offers of garage door openers and of sex, I received messages in Japanese and Turkish. Very rarely did an old contact use this account.
Besides, our nominal 7Mbps speed was often under 4Mbps. We were eligible for an upgrade to 12Mbps, but we had to call an 800 number to find the details. Once upon a time, Qwest, the predecessor to CenturyLink would state on its website how much 256Kbps, 512Kbps, and 1Mbps would cost, exclusive of taxes and fees.
A digression on telecommunication taxes and fees: the telecommunication companies (telcos) can’t give these accurately because the vary widely from locale to locale and narrowly from month to month.
We also had an iPhone 4s through Virgin Mobile (VM) because we got a deal a few years ago from Best Buy.
Along the way, we started using cell phones through Consumer Cellular: you can’t miss their ads, especially if you are an AARP member. Consumer Cellular (CC) stated on its website the exact cost of each service and its level that you requested. You could change these at any time, either up or down. I eventually bought an iPhone 5s from CC. They piggy back on the AT&T network (at 3G rather than 4G). Not only could I use the iPhone in Brimson, but I could use the phone as a hotspot for my iPad or MacBook.
With all of these providers, our total monthly payments seemed to be getting out of hand. I did a small spreadsheet to compare using only CC instead of multiple providers. If we bought another CC iPhone, our costs would drop about a thousand dollars per year (not including monthly payments for new phone. Even then, we would still save hundreds of dollars a year.
One problem was our wireless printer. How would we access it without our DSL modem? I pulled the phone cord from the modem and found that the printer still worked. The DSL modem was our router, even if it was not connected to the phone system.
We ordered a new CC iPhone 5c, and when it arrived, we set it up for my wife’s use. We could also use it as a hotspot, and so she wouldn’t have to depend on my iPhone if I was elsewhere. Also, because it worked in Brimson, we could use our phones as walkie-talkies. We would have much better reception, and nobody else would be listening to our calls.
Except, we couldn’t get her phone to work because we couldn’t transfer the VM number without an account number. None of our VM bills had an account number, only the phone number. We had to call VM, and of course, the first person we talked to couldn’t do it. We were switched to someone who suggested we might get a better deal. Unmentioned was the cost. After I don’t know how many minutes, we were told our account number. Then we called CC with it and they activated my wife’s iPhone. We didn’t have this hassle when we dropped our land line at our cabin and put it on a Home Base wireless system.
Next step was to call CenturyLink to cancel our phone and DSL. Again, we were routed to someone who tried selling us faster service. We declined, and sometime in the next day or two the phone no longer worked, but the modem still accessed the network.
Ah yes, we had separate ISP, CPinternet, from the bad old days when we had only 56Kbps dial-up (56 Kilo bits per second for those too young to remember dial-up). When we started with QWest at 256Kbps we kept CPInternet as our provider. CPInternet really had great customer service, too. Then CPInternet was bought by Hickory Tech of Mankato. Then Hickory Tech bought Enventis and assumed its name. Still great customer service. Then Consolidated Communications of somewhere bought Enventis. I didn’t have much need to call customer service, until we wanted to cancel our ISP connection. My first attempt got the automatic wait message of something like “Enventis is now Consolidated Communications”. On the ninth reiteration of this, I hung up, and tried another time.
Then new problems started, some of them my own doing.
The printer works from my wife’s iMac, but not my MacBook, the one I tested printing from.
I attempted to reset my wife’s old iPhone to erase all our data before recycling it. It needed the password for her Apple ID. We thought we knew it, but all the variants we tried were rejected. I spent over a half-hour with Apple Support trying to resolve it. Terry cheerfully assured me that he had seen many problems like this. Unfortunately, he had to admit defeat and suggested we take it to a Genius Bar in an Apple Store.
In all my attempts to reset her phone, I picked up my iPhone and clicked reset. Ah! My Apple ID. My password worked. Dummy! You just reset your own iPhone!
I’m running out of space, but I’ll give the short story on the next problem. We used up our quota of CC data and were automatically cut off. I finally figured out that my iPhone was still trying to load the one program that was no longer available from iTunes, over and over and …!
Iiee-
ee-
ee-…
This also was printed in the Reader Weekly of Duluth, 2015-08-20 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2015/08/20/5807_cutting_the_cord_and_falling_into_the_abyss.
Thursday, August 13, 2015
Why buy a ticket to the Bluesfest?
You can hear the Bluesfest and many other Bayfront programs over two miles away, even with all the windows closed. Why spend money on a ticket, find a parking place, be jostled by the crowds, and have your ears in pain, when you can listen in the comfort of your home?
Or you could find a spot on the Lakewalk or in Canal Park and hear the music just fine. I bet you could even hear all the words sitting in Amazing Grace.
On the other hand, you won’t see the performers and you won’t enjoy sharing the music with hundreds or thousands of other fans.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve listened to music of many genres willingly at a wide range of volume. I prefer to decide for myself when I will subject my ears to loud music.
I’ve listened to Mu Daiko at Hamline’s Sundin Hall. I described listening to the pounding of the Japanese drums as fun way to go deaf. I’ve enjoyed listening to Max Dakota and his group blast forth in Beaner’s. And I’ve gone to several concerts at Bayfront. But as I’ve grown older, much of the over-amped music is painful to my ears.
We used to go to the Chester Bowl concerts, enjoying Willowgreen, the Upbeats, and many other groups. We would sit in the middle rows without much discomfort to our ears. But over the years these concerts have gotten much louder. We can often hear some of the words about a half-mile away. A few years ago we decided to go to a Chester Bowl concert. When we got to the entrance to the park, the music was so loud that my ears hurt. We turned around to go home and never went to another concert there.
I actually wonder why small spaces need microphones other than to make conversation difficult. I’ve sung at Beaner’s and feel that I could project my voice without a mike all the way to the front alcove. But do any of the people sitting in the front alcove really want music? Maybe they are there to read a book or have conversation with a friend.
Even as a so-so singer I’ve been able to project my voice quite well. I remember once practicing in the farthest corner of the social hall at the UU Church on College Street and having somebody in the garage tell me they could hear my voice.
How did the Greek actors project their voices in the amphitheaters without mikes? How did the great orators of the 19th century project their voices without mikes? How many operas and plays have been performed in all kinds of spaces without mikes? At one of the school plays I remember, the teen-age actors projected their voices to back rows of an auditorium about the size of many theaters in Duluth.
Now actors have funny-looking gadgets by their cheeks. When the UMD Theatre first used mikes I remember my disorientation of hearing their voices from the center of the ceiling. Now it seems the speaker placement has improved so that it seems the voices are coming from where the actors are standing.
It seems that many people can’t have a moment of silence. There has to be music on all the time, even if nobody else is interested. Sometimes I don’t mind, especially those Essentia Health departments that play Vivaldi while you are on hold. I just wish the playback wasn’t so erratic. And I appreciate the sometimes piano playing in St. Mary’s Hospital lobby and the classical music that is played in the lobby of the Essentia Second Street building. But I do mind that music that is played in the Essentia Fitness Center. In certain places it can make conversation difficult.
Years ago I bought an iPod to drown out the Fitness Center music. Since then I’ve moved up to an iPhone and prefer listening to podcasts. Even then, if I stand in the “wrong” place, the ceiling speakers make it hard for me to hear the voices on the podcasts. Besides the audio distraction, the Fitness Center has added the visual distraction of flat screen TVs, generally tuned to Sports Central or whatever SC means. How many times do I have to watch the same touchdown?
But worse are the people that crank up their earbuds so loud that they drown out earbuds of people on neighboring machines. I haven’t done this to these “deaf” people, but I’ve pulled out my own earbuds and asked friends if they can hear them. The answer is always “No.” I’ve sort of learned not to call people on their loud music impinging on others; too often they get mad rather than apologetic.
My final gripe is about drivers who have their car radios so loud that one can hear them two blocks away. And of course, very heavy on the bass. Boom! Boom! Boom! I have cranked up MPR when waiting at a light next to one of these people, but I can’t match them and they don’t even seem to notice. I wonder what would happen if I cranked up the Queen of the Night’s aria from Mozart’s Magic Flute. It can be screechy. Listen to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2ODfuMMyss. Actually Diane Damrau’s voice is pleasant (if you can say an evil character has a pleasant voice) and she has none of the screeching that I’ve heard from other sopranos in this role. Another good performance is by Robin Schlotz, a 14-year-old boy soprano. Not a single screech! See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9ijwfRTv0o.
Enjoy whatever you like, but consider that those around you may have different tastes or just want quiet, say for sleeping.
This also appeared in the Reader Weekly of Duluth, 2015-08-13 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2015/08/13/5763_why_buy_a_ticket_to_the_bluesfest
Or you could find a spot on the Lakewalk or in Canal Park and hear the music just fine. I bet you could even hear all the words sitting in Amazing Grace.
On the other hand, you won’t see the performers and you won’t enjoy sharing the music with hundreds or thousands of other fans.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve listened to music of many genres willingly at a wide range of volume. I prefer to decide for myself when I will subject my ears to loud music.
I’ve listened to Mu Daiko at Hamline’s Sundin Hall. I described listening to the pounding of the Japanese drums as fun way to go deaf. I’ve enjoyed listening to Max Dakota and his group blast forth in Beaner’s. And I’ve gone to several concerts at Bayfront. But as I’ve grown older, much of the over-amped music is painful to my ears.
We used to go to the Chester Bowl concerts, enjoying Willowgreen, the Upbeats, and many other groups. We would sit in the middle rows without much discomfort to our ears. But over the years these concerts have gotten much louder. We can often hear some of the words about a half-mile away. A few years ago we decided to go to a Chester Bowl concert. When we got to the entrance to the park, the music was so loud that my ears hurt. We turned around to go home and never went to another concert there.
I actually wonder why small spaces need microphones other than to make conversation difficult. I’ve sung at Beaner’s and feel that I could project my voice without a mike all the way to the front alcove. But do any of the people sitting in the front alcove really want music? Maybe they are there to read a book or have conversation with a friend.
Even as a so-so singer I’ve been able to project my voice quite well. I remember once practicing in the farthest corner of the social hall at the UU Church on College Street and having somebody in the garage tell me they could hear my voice.
How did the Greek actors project their voices in the amphitheaters without mikes? How did the great orators of the 19th century project their voices without mikes? How many operas and plays have been performed in all kinds of spaces without mikes? At one of the school plays I remember, the teen-age actors projected their voices to back rows of an auditorium about the size of many theaters in Duluth.
Now actors have funny-looking gadgets by their cheeks. When the UMD Theatre first used mikes I remember my disorientation of hearing their voices from the center of the ceiling. Now it seems the speaker placement has improved so that it seems the voices are coming from where the actors are standing.
It seems that many people can’t have a moment of silence. There has to be music on all the time, even if nobody else is interested. Sometimes I don’t mind, especially those Essentia Health departments that play Vivaldi while you are on hold. I just wish the playback wasn’t so erratic. And I appreciate the sometimes piano playing in St. Mary’s Hospital lobby and the classical music that is played in the lobby of the Essentia Second Street building. But I do mind that music that is played in the Essentia Fitness Center. In certain places it can make conversation difficult.
Years ago I bought an iPod to drown out the Fitness Center music. Since then I’ve moved up to an iPhone and prefer listening to podcasts. Even then, if I stand in the “wrong” place, the ceiling speakers make it hard for me to hear the voices on the podcasts. Besides the audio distraction, the Fitness Center has added the visual distraction of flat screen TVs, generally tuned to Sports Central or whatever SC means. How many times do I have to watch the same touchdown?
But worse are the people that crank up their earbuds so loud that they drown out earbuds of people on neighboring machines. I haven’t done this to these “deaf” people, but I’ve pulled out my own earbuds and asked friends if they can hear them. The answer is always “No.” I’ve sort of learned not to call people on their loud music impinging on others; too often they get mad rather than apologetic.
My final gripe is about drivers who have their car radios so loud that one can hear them two blocks away. And of course, very heavy on the bass. Boom! Boom! Boom! I have cranked up MPR when waiting at a light next to one of these people, but I can’t match them and they don’t even seem to notice. I wonder what would happen if I cranked up the Queen of the Night’s aria from Mozart’s Magic Flute. It can be screechy. Listen to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2ODfuMMyss. Actually Diane Damrau’s voice is pleasant (if you can say an evil character has a pleasant voice) and she has none of the screeching that I’ve heard from other sopranos in this role. Another good performance is by Robin Schlotz, a 14-year-old boy soprano. Not a single screech! See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9ijwfRTv0o.
Enjoy whatever you like, but consider that those around you may have different tastes or just want quiet, say for sleeping.
This also appeared in the Reader Weekly of Duluth, 2015-08-13 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2015/08/13/5763_why_buy_a_ticket_to_the_bluesfest
Thursday, April 23, 2015
It is around here someplace!
Whenever one of us can’t find something, we say, “It is around here someplace!”
This has not always been effective in retrieving a lost object.
The earliest loss I remember is my wedding ring, the winter of our first year of marriage. When I noticed it missing after a trip to the super market, I was fairly certain we would never find it again. My guess was that it had slipped off when I took a glove off to get my car keys. The snow bank was at least three feet high.
The next memorable loss was in a watery hay stack: the Mississippi River. We were part of a flotilla of the Minnesota Canoe Association. Probably for the vanity of not having a white stripe on my wrist, I had set my high-school-graduation watch on the gunwale of the canoe. One of the kids asked for Kool-Aid and as I reached for the jug, he or she moved. Kerplash! No way would I be able to determine exactly where that watch was.
Books are something that seem to disappear easily. I remember leaving a copy of “Abbé de Tours” on an airplane. I lent “Dieu rit en Alsace” (“God laughs in Alsace”) and the borrower denies having it. I have a vivid memory of John McWhorter’s “Power of Babel” being on my wife’s night stand. Even buying another copy didn’t make it turn up.
A “good” place to lose something is the Essentia Fitness Center. I’ve left behind in the locker room an iPod, keys, earbuds, and other stuff. In almost every case, somebody had turned the item in at the reception desk. Sadly, others have not always been so fortunate.
This winter I lost my cabin keys in Brimson. We looked in every building and in the car, but could not find them. Fortunately we could make copies with my wife’s set. Then the snow started melting and there was a “golden” carabiner next to the sauna door. Although I am paranoid about making sure that the carabiner is securely hooked onto a belt loop, I wasn’t paranoid enough that one time.
A few days before my wife returned our granddaughter to Japan, she lost her cellphone. She and I asked several times at every place she had been if anybody had turned it in. I called her cell phone and all I got was my recorded voice. I went to the provider’s web site and checked for unauthorized usage. There was none but I suspended usage anyway. After awhile I removed the suspension, but I kept checking for unauthorized usage.
We kept looking over and over in some of the same places, especially the kitchen counter where she often left her phone. “It’s around here someplace.”
Halfway through my wife’s trip, I was about a day away from ordering a new phone from my provider or getting one on eBay.
As I do every few days, I was going to get some more groceries at the Whole Food Co-op. It is important to mention the place because I had to determine how many and which of our bags to take. Because we have so many floppy bags that are difficult to pack, I’m often tempted to use the Co-ops paper bags. However, we do have two bags with rigid sides. I selected on of these and then selected what smaller bags and jars I would need for the bulk items I intended to buy.
When I got to the co-op and was at the bin for my first purchase, I reached into the bag for a smaller bag. There were no smaller bags! Nothing! Nada! Ingenting! How did I miss putting them in? As if wishful thinking would put them in the bag, I peered into it intently. I then noticed a red piece of cloth sticking out from the flap that forms a double bottom.
What is this? A closer look and I was holding the embroidered zipper pouch that my wife keeps her phone in. Unzip! There was her phone! Mirabile! It didn’t even have enough power to show the low-power red line. But, you guessed it, it was around here someplace.
Several hours later I had it fully charged, functional, and with all her data.
I emailed her that either she would never take it out of the house with it off or I would buy a Tile to attach to it. If she has it on and we have our computers set properly, we can use Find My iPhone to locate it within a few feet.
I am also guilty of not remembering carefully where I have put something. We have a charger for AA batteries that I was sure had been on the kitchen counter. In fact, I remember clearly that it had been plugged into an outlet above the counter. As with the cell phone, I kept looking on the counter and in drawers, but I could never find it.
This past Saturday I looked in drawers at our cabin for kerchiefs to keep the sun off my neck. I found a couple in the next to the bottom drawer, but I was sure there were more. I opened the bottom drawer and there was… the battery charger.
OK, now where were the batteries that I brought from Duluth to be charged. Nowhere to be found.
When I got back to Duluth and put my laptop on my desk, there were the batteries: “around here someplace!”
Last time Mel looked, his head was still on his shoulders.
Also published in the Reader Weekly of Duluth, 2015-04-23 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2015/04/22/5161_it_is_around_here_someplace
This has not always been effective in retrieving a lost object.
The earliest loss I remember is my wedding ring, the winter of our first year of marriage. When I noticed it missing after a trip to the super market, I was fairly certain we would never find it again. My guess was that it had slipped off when I took a glove off to get my car keys. The snow bank was at least three feet high.
The next memorable loss was in a watery hay stack: the Mississippi River. We were part of a flotilla of the Minnesota Canoe Association. Probably for the vanity of not having a white stripe on my wrist, I had set my high-school-graduation watch on the gunwale of the canoe. One of the kids asked for Kool-Aid and as I reached for the jug, he or she moved. Kerplash! No way would I be able to determine exactly where that watch was.
Books are something that seem to disappear easily. I remember leaving a copy of “Abbé de Tours” on an airplane. I lent “Dieu rit en Alsace” (“God laughs in Alsace”) and the borrower denies having it. I have a vivid memory of John McWhorter’s “Power of Babel” being on my wife’s night stand. Even buying another copy didn’t make it turn up.
A “good” place to lose something is the Essentia Fitness Center. I’ve left behind in the locker room an iPod, keys, earbuds, and other stuff. In almost every case, somebody had turned the item in at the reception desk. Sadly, others have not always been so fortunate.
This winter I lost my cabin keys in Brimson. We looked in every building and in the car, but could not find them. Fortunately we could make copies with my wife’s set. Then the snow started melting and there was a “golden” carabiner next to the sauna door. Although I am paranoid about making sure that the carabiner is securely hooked onto a belt loop, I wasn’t paranoid enough that one time.
A few days before my wife returned our granddaughter to Japan, she lost her cellphone. She and I asked several times at every place she had been if anybody had turned it in. I called her cell phone and all I got was my recorded voice. I went to the provider’s web site and checked for unauthorized usage. There was none but I suspended usage anyway. After awhile I removed the suspension, but I kept checking for unauthorized usage.
We kept looking over and over in some of the same places, especially the kitchen counter where she often left her phone. “It’s around here someplace.”
Halfway through my wife’s trip, I was about a day away from ordering a new phone from my provider or getting one on eBay.
As I do every few days, I was going to get some more groceries at the Whole Food Co-op. It is important to mention the place because I had to determine how many and which of our bags to take. Because we have so many floppy bags that are difficult to pack, I’m often tempted to use the Co-ops paper bags. However, we do have two bags with rigid sides. I selected on of these and then selected what smaller bags and jars I would need for the bulk items I intended to buy.
When I got to the co-op and was at the bin for my first purchase, I reached into the bag for a smaller bag. There were no smaller bags! Nothing! Nada! Ingenting! How did I miss putting them in? As if wishful thinking would put them in the bag, I peered into it intently. I then noticed a red piece of cloth sticking out from the flap that forms a double bottom.
What is this? A closer look and I was holding the embroidered zipper pouch that my wife keeps her phone in. Unzip! There was her phone! Mirabile! It didn’t even have enough power to show the low-power red line. But, you guessed it, it was around here someplace.
Several hours later I had it fully charged, functional, and with all her data.
I emailed her that either she would never take it out of the house with it off or I would buy a Tile to attach to it. If she has it on and we have our computers set properly, we can use Find My iPhone to locate it within a few feet.
I am also guilty of not remembering carefully where I have put something. We have a charger for AA batteries that I was sure had been on the kitchen counter. In fact, I remember clearly that it had been plugged into an outlet above the counter. As with the cell phone, I kept looking on the counter and in drawers, but I could never find it.
This past Saturday I looked in drawers at our cabin for kerchiefs to keep the sun off my neck. I found a couple in the next to the bottom drawer, but I was sure there were more. I opened the bottom drawer and there was… the battery charger.
OK, now where were the batteries that I brought from Duluth to be charged. Nowhere to be found.
When I got back to Duluth and put my laptop on my desk, there were the batteries: “around here someplace!”
Last time Mel looked, his head was still on his shoulders.
Also published in the Reader Weekly of Duluth, 2015-04-23 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2015/04/22/5161_it_is_around_here_someplace
Monday, April 13, 2015
It’s around here someplace! Redux!
My wife’s iPhone “disappeared” before she went to Japan at the beginning of the month. She retraced her steps and checked with many places. No luck! I asked again at some of those same places. No luck!
I checked her account and there had been no usage we couldn’t account for.
I was just about ready to order a used iPhone from eBay, and transfer her number form Virgin Mobile to Consumer Cellular.
This morning I planned to go to the Essentia Fitness Center and then to Whole Foods Co-op for some groceries. I was being fussy about which bag I took; as an old grocery packer I don’t care for floppy bags. I want semi-rigid sides. I took the larger of the two of these we have, and I emptied it of all its jars and plastic bags.
When I got to the co-op I looked in the grocery bag for a produce bag. There were none. But I noticed a piece of red embroidered cloth underneath the bottom flap. It was the cover that our daughter had given my wife for her phone. The phone was in it, but its charge was depleted.
When I got home, I plugged her iPhone in and only got the little red bar. After about an hour it was 1/3 charged. Eventually it was fully charged and fully functional. In fact, I sent her email from her iPhone to her iPad.
I read up on Find My iPhone, but this feature would not have been of any use. My wife keeps her phone off unless she wants to make a call, check email, or do some other thing. So calling the phone didn’t help us find it in the hallway where we keep the grocery bags.
She wrote me that she had checked the bags several time, but I think she didn’t find it because there were so many other smaller bags in that particular one. Besides, how many of us would think to lift the flap at the bottom of the bag?
So, just in time I saved $100 to $400 on a replacement phone and the hassle of changing carriers.
Now if we could only find the AA/AAA battery charger that disappeared about the same time.
I checked her account and there had been no usage we couldn’t account for.
I was just about ready to order a used iPhone from eBay, and transfer her number form Virgin Mobile to Consumer Cellular.
This morning I planned to go to the Essentia Fitness Center and then to Whole Foods Co-op for some groceries. I was being fussy about which bag I took; as an old grocery packer I don’t care for floppy bags. I want semi-rigid sides. I took the larger of the two of these we have, and I emptied it of all its jars and plastic bags.
When I got to the co-op I looked in the grocery bag for a produce bag. There were none. But I noticed a piece of red embroidered cloth underneath the bottom flap. It was the cover that our daughter had given my wife for her phone. The phone was in it, but its charge was depleted.
When I got home, I plugged her iPhone in and only got the little red bar. After about an hour it was 1/3 charged. Eventually it was fully charged and fully functional. In fact, I sent her email from her iPhone to her iPad.
I read up on Find My iPhone, but this feature would not have been of any use. My wife keeps her phone off unless she wants to make a call, check email, or do some other thing. So calling the phone didn’t help us find it in the hallway where we keep the grocery bags.
She wrote me that she had checked the bags several time, but I think she didn’t find it because there were so many other smaller bags in that particular one. Besides, how many of us would think to lift the flap at the bottom of the bag?
So, just in time I saved $100 to $400 on a replacement phone and the hassle of changing carriers.
Now if we could only find the AA/AAA battery charger that disappeared about the same time.
Thursday, October 23, 2014
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.
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.
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