Category Archives: Call Me a Geek

The things I do and think about computers.

A New Computer

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The end of a rough month brings a nice reward.

I’d been thinking about replacing my aging 24-inch iMac computer with a newer, faster model for some time. I almost did it in April, but some Twitter friends wisely advised me to wait for the new models, which were due out in May. By that time, I was hard at work on My Mac OS X Lion book, racing against a deadline set not only by the software’s pending release but by my annual trip to Washington State for cherry drying work. I didn’t get the book done before I had to leave, so I packed up my iMac and other office equipment and headed north. I decided to wait until I was finished with the book. If I had a computer sitting there, waiting for me to set it up, I’d be too distracted to get any work done.

Death of a[nother] Hard Disk

Not buying the new computer turned out to be a bad decision. On Friday, June 17, the iMac gave me a weird error message about ejecting a disk — when I hadn’t ejected a disk. I was running out the door to take care of other business and when my computer wouldn’t shut down the usual way, I just powered it off. Later that day, it wouldn’t start from its internal hard disk.

That’s when I started to realize I might have a problem.

I knew I had a problem the next day when Disk Utility — the Mac software that can usually fix disk and directory related problems — couldn’t fix the disk.

My last full backup had been in May. I use Time Machine for effortless backup, but I’d disconnected the backup drive when I left home. Although I didn’t bring the drive with me last year, I did bring it this year. I’d been thinking about hooking it back up, but laziness got the best of me. So my most recent backup was about three weeks old.

Since then, I’d written at least a dozen chapters of my book.

I was lucky. Really lucky. I was able to mount the disk and suck important documents off it — including those all-important manuscript files. I also sucked off the applications, which had not been backed up. With my most important files on an external hard disk and the big Time Machine backup handy, I tried to format the hard disk, figuring I’d reinstall the software I needed to finish up the book.

My luck didn’t hold. The hard disk just wouldn’t consistently mount. I couldn’t successfully reinstall the operating system on it. It looked as if it needed a new hard disk. Again.

A Temporary Solution

So now I had a book project due very soon that required a working computer with a big monitor to complete. After all, I do layout for my Visual QuickStart Guide books and I shudder to think of laying out a book in InDesign on a 13-in MacBook Pro.

I stayed amazingly calm. First, I hopped into the truck and went to Wenatchee. At Costco, I bought yet another portable WD 1TB USB hard disk.

Yes, I know FireWire would be faster, but it isn’t as if Wenatchee, WA has a lot of choices when it comes to computer hardware. Besides, rain was moving in and there was a good chance I’d need to fly. I didn’t have time to look for a better option.

A new internal hard disk was out of the question. Special tools and expertise is required to disassemble an iMac and install a hard disk. I lacked both.

So I set up a USB hard disk with Snow Leopard, Photoshop, and InDesign. I had the original discs with me, since I planned to do a clean install on my new computer when I got it. I didn’t even bother updating any of them. I just got back to work.

And I was surprised. I expected the computer to be painfully slow. After all, it was booting from an external USB 2 hard disk. It was running some pretty intense software from the same disk. Although I saw a spinning beach ball a lot more often than I like to, it was tolerable.

The New Computer

Of course, while all that software was installing, I was on my laptop, configuring the computer’s replacement. I ordered a very sweet system:

    27" iMac

  • Computer Model: 27-inch iMac – the monitor size is 3 inches larger than my old computer, but it’s widescreen instead of standard so it really doesn’t seem that much bigger.
  • Processor: 3.4GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7 – this is the best and fastest processor offered for this computer. The Apple sales guy told me that it was faster than current Mac Pro models. (Of course, those are due to be updated shortly.)
  • RAM: 8GB 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM (2x4GB) – this is twice as much RAM as I had. And the configuration will allow me to double it in the future because there are 4 RAM slots and I’m only using two.
  • Hard Drives: 1TB Serial ATA Drive + 256GB SSD – yes, that’s two hard disks to destroy.
  • Graphics: AMD Radeon HD 6970M 2GB GDDR5 – this is the best offered. I figured it would come in handy for my video editing work.
  • Mouse: Apple Mouse – call me old-fashioned, but I don’t like to depend on battery power for a mouse. Besides, already I have all kinds of Bluetooth pointing devices I had to buy to write about.
  • Keyboard: Apple Num Keyboard – I don’t like to depend on batteries for a keyboard, either. I do have a Bluetooth keyboard if I decide I want to use it.

The computer cost a small fortune. I get a minuscule discount from Apple as a Peachpit author; it was almost enough to cover sales tax. But I can justify the expense. I use my desktop computer for so many things in all of my business endeavors, from writing and laying out books to processing video to invoicing and accounting to creating marketing materials. Why settle for less than the best (if you can afford it) when the best can make you more productive?

It took nine days for the computer to arrive. It was shipped via FedEx directly from China. (I sure do wish Apple and other companies would build things here.) It was delivered to my RV in Quincy, WA, where I’m living for the summer, the day I finished writing the book. It sat in its box overnight as I finished up a bunch of editing.

There was no unboxing ceremony. I deactivated Photoshop and InDesign on my old iMac and shut it down. I moved it from desk to countertop, wiped down the desk, and set up the new computer.

I know this is going to make me sound like an Apple fan-girl, but as I took the crystal clear cellophane off the monitor, I couldn’t help but think how beautiful the computer was. And, as I thought about it, I realized how incredibly weird that was. Hell, it’s just a computer.

Setting Up

My Hard DisksBecause the computer had two internal hard disks, I decided to get a bit fancy with the setup. I left the operating system and applications on the smaller SSD drive and moved my Home folder to the larger ATA drive. I didn’t just put my home folder on that drive. I made my home folder the drive itself. Not only does the disk icon look like a Home folder icon, but when you open it, you find the contents of my Home folder. One less level of folders to dig through.

As for hard disk names, I always try to give my disks meaningful names. Now I had two disks to name. It was quite a dilemma for me. I put it to my Twitter friends and @BrianDunning came up with an interesting suggestion: Cyclic and Collective. At first, I didn’t think they were quite right. But the names grew on me and I wound up using them.

I spent most of yesterday installing software from original program disks and downloads from the Internet. My Internet connection here is via MyFi with a 3 GB monthly bandwidth cap. (I’ve already hit 6 GB this month; that’ll cost me an extra $30.) So I did most of my downloading from a coffee shop yesterday morning and from a wine bar yesterday afternoon. Microsoft Office 2011 was contained in a 1 GB file; other updaters were nearly as large. Had a hiccup with my Final Cut Pro installation and had to restart it; sure hope it works this time because it seems to take forever.

As for Time Machine, I also bought a Seagate 2TB desktop hard drive at Costco. I set that up to back up both drives. I plan on getting some mirroring software to mirror each disk on portable drives. That’ll be a total of two full backups. Lesson learned.

I have some final editing to do on my book and I expect to get to that this afternoon. I’m sure it’ll take quite a while to get the new computer set up the way I need it to. But I’m looking forward to the process and having a clean installation of software and files on a much faster computer.

Juggling Internet Bandwidth

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Working with bandwidth limitations.

This summer, I’m on the road again, working out of my RV, the “mobile mansion.” And, after dealing with crappy, overpriced Internet service at my first stop for the past three years, I decided to go it alone this year with a My-Fi.

Why My-Fi?

My-FiThe reason I picked the My-Fi (instead of setting up a mobile hotspot from my smartphone) was twofold:

  • The My-Fi unit came with better plans. There was a 3GB plan for $35 which would only cost $10/GB if I went over. I knew I’d likely go over at least a few times a year — last summer, I had an 8GB month. The other plans would have been far more costly for that overage.
  • I’m a Verizon customer and I wanted to be able to talk on the phone while using the Internet. I admit this was not a primary concern. Last year I used mobile broadband tethering from my BlackBerry and did occasionally get interrupted by a phone call while doing my Internet thing. It didn’t kill me to wait until I was done talking. After all, I spend very little time actually talking on my phone.

I should note here that I do know that the Virgin Mobile My-Fi has a plan with unlimited bandwidth. But what good is a device that doesn’t work where you are? The Virgin Mobile device doesn’t have coverage in the areas I travel to. Verizon does. That’s the same reason — or one of them, anyway — why I don’t have AT&T.

My Plans

Last summer, I was spoiled. Although I paid for Internet at my first stop, I also had free unlimited Internet access through my BlackBerry. I’d had tethering for years and was grandfathered in on a plan that offered unlimited bandwidth for only $15/month. That plan was not available for either iPhones or Android phones and I needed a step up from my BlackBerry. Turning off that plan was one of the hardest things I ever did as a techie.

Of course, my iPhone and iPad also have 3G coverage, giving me access to the Internet from either device without a Wi-Fi (or My-Fi) connection. The iPhone’s plan has unlimited 3G, which is nice. But I’ll be the first to admit that the last device I want to surf the Web with is a smartphone. For the iPad, I went with a limited plan offering only 1GB per month. The idea was that I’d do my heavy Internet lifting with my desktop or laptop computer and limit the iPad’s use to reading RSS feeds, doing a little Web surfing, and sending the odd e-mail.

My goal, of course, is to not go over any bandwidth limitations for the entire summer. And that seriously changes the way I access the Internet.

For example, right now my My-Fi is turned on and ready to access. But the AirPort (or Wi-Fi) connectivity on my computer is turned off. Why? Because my computer seems to access the Internet any time it can, sucking down my bandwidth for no apparent reason. No, I don’t have a virus or worm. But my computer does like to check in with the various services I use — MobileMe, DropBox, etc. — to see whether it should download any updates or get any files. It does anytime it’s connected. While I could disable a lot of these automatic checks, it’s a lot easier to just turn off Wi-Fi until I actually need it.

SurplusMeter

SurplusMeterYou might be wondering how I know what my computer is doing. Last summer, I picked up a Mac app called SurplusMeter. It’s kind of neat. You set it up, tell it how much monthly bandwidth you have, and what day the month starts on. You also tell it how you’re connected to the Internet. It calculates a daily allowance; the idea being that if you use less than your daily allowance, you have a surplus to use during the rest of the month. Then it runs in the background, monitoring your network access. You can launch the app at any time to see what your totals are. Here’s mine for this month, which started just a few days ago. Last night, I was in the red, so even though it’s early, today’s allocation has been partially consumed.

Now, of course, I can use as much Internet as I want per day. The idea is for the monthly total to be less than — or, ideally, exactly — 3GB. SurplusMeter helps me rein in my Internet usage so I can minimize it.

Two things to note about SurplusMeter:

  • I’m only running it on one computer. That means it’s only logging bandwidth usage on one of the four computers I have with me. (Don’t ask.) Laptop access is not being logged. This results in an understatement of total usage.
  • It logs all AirPort activity, including local network activity. That means that every time one computer talks to another — for example, to share files — that usage is also logged. This results in an overstatement of total usage.

I’m hoping these two discrepancies net each other out.

And no, it isn’t worth it to set up multiple copies and use some other file transfer method to get more precise information. All I’m interested in is ballpark numbers.

But if you do know of a better app for the task that doesn’t cost a fortune, please do let us know about it in comments.

Getting the Big Fat Files

Of course, I still have to access the Internet for things that would make a serious dent in my allowance. For example, right now I’m working on a Mac OS X 10.7 Lion book. The Developer Previews I’m using as I write are about 4GB in size. There are two problems with this, and both are pretty obvious:

  • Downloading a 4GB file over a My-Fi with a max download speed of about 1Mbps would take more than 10 hours.
  • If my monthly allowance was only 3GB, I’d exceed that with just one download.

Fortunately, I’m running Lion on a laptop. Over the years, I’ve identified some Wi-Fi hotspots with pretty fast download speeds. One is in Wenatchee, at a coffee shop, where I was able to download a 900MB file last summer in less than 12 minutes. There’s a gas station in Quincy that used to have pretty quick Wi-Fi, although I admit I haven’t tried it yet this year. And there’s a coffee shop in Quincy that might have decent speed; the only time I used it, speed was not a concern. I do know that the local library’s Internet absolutely sucks, so it’s not likely that I’ll be using it for Internet access anytime in the future.

Yesterday, while in Wenatchee, I used the coffee shop Internet to download podcasts, check for updates, get maps for ForeFlight on my iPad, and do whatever I could. If I’d stayed in Wenatchee a few more hours, I would have gotten the big file I need today. I figure I’ll try the Quincy coffee shop first and if that isn’t fast enough, I’ll try the gas station. If that’s not fast enough, it’s another trip into Wenatchee for coffee and a high-speed Internet fix.

Doing Chores with iPhone

In the meantime, I’ve been trying to use my iPhone as much as possible for small tasks such as checking e-mail and sending/receiving Twitter tweets. After all, there’s no bandwidth cap, so it just makes sense to maximize usage. For some reason, I’ve been getting a ton of spam lately — 10-20 messages a day about dieting or “male enhancement” — and it’s quick and easy to just delete these from my phone so neither my iPad nor my computers need to retrieve them.

I know this is a drop in the bucket as far as Internet usage goes, but the way I see it, every little bit helps.

Rising to the Challenge

This summer is an experiment to see how well I can limit my usage and stay within budget. I’m prepared to pay for the extra bandwidth, but I like the challenge of working within limitations. It’s a lot like trying to conserve energy by turning off lights and turning down the heat/air conditioning.

It’ll be interesting to see how I do.

Just Say NO to Flash

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Are you as frustrated as I am about Web sites relying on Flash?

I need to share a little rant here.

Flash LogoUntil recently, I never realized how many Web sites are built around Flash. I’m not talking about sites that include Flash animations here and there. I’m talking about sites completely contained in a Flash animation.

Like this monstrosity: http://www.stingraysushi.com/

Stingray Sushi is a restaurant. Its site includes a menu, which can only be viewed in that Flash animation.

Now I don’t know about you, but sometimes I look for a restaurant when I’m on the go. I’ll whip out my iPhone or iPad, open the Maps app, and search for restaurant. Or I’ll use the Safari browser to Google a specific restaurant. Either way, my goal is to see the Home page for the restaurant so I can learn more about it and the food it serves before I drive/walk over. To do that, I need to be able to see the Home page or, at least, a menu.

Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), I’ll never be able to see the Home page for Stingray Sushi on my iPhone or iPad.

Now you might want to blame Apple for this. After all, it’s Apple that decided that it won’t support Flash.

But I blame the Web developer. Apple mobile devices, including the iPhone and iPad, have been available for nearly four years. Apple is currently the fourth largest seller of mobile phones, with millions of iPhones out in the wild. Apple is also the top seller of tablet computers, with millions of iPads out in the wild. Developers who continue to base entire sites on Flash are basically thumbing their noses at iPhone/iPad users, telling them that they simply aren’t important enough to view the oh-so-valuable Flash content on their Web sites.

I have two words for these developers, and they’re not “thank you.”

So when I reach a site I can’t view on my device — whatever that device is — do you think I’ll visit that business?

Do you think that I’m interested in rewarding a business for the frustration their Flash-based site has generated by actually buying something there?

There are alternatives to Flash. Many alternatives. HTML 5 is one of them. But apparently, Web developers would rather lean on a crutch like Flash than move forward with new, more compatible technology.

Why does this continue to be an issue?

Just say no to Flash.

When Computers Reduce Your Productivity

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How many times has something like this happened to you?

By now, most of us who participate in social networking — Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, etc. — know firsthand how social networking can absolutely destroy productivity. The rest of us with Internet connections can see how having an email client or Web browser open at our desks can seriously reduce productivity. But have you ever stopped to consider how the computer applications we actually use to get our work done hurt our productivity?

For an example of this, I can draw upon something that happened to me last week.

WordPress LogoI manage a number of WordPress-based Web sites, including one for N&W Associates, which sells helicopter ground handling solutions. N&W is owned and operated by Walter, who is an older gentleman who builds wheels and tow bars from scratch in his workshop. He’s a very nice man but not exactly computer literate, so I manage every aspect of the site for him. Every once in a while, he sends me some new material for the site and I put it online.

About a month ago, I completed my move of all sites I manage from GoDaddy hosting (good riddance!) to Bluehost. N&W was one of the last sites I moved. After moving it, I tested it and it worked fine.

Last week, Walter sent me an email message asking if I’d add mention of R66 helicopters, since their skid configuration is the same as R44 helicopters, thus making his equipment compatible. No problem, I said. It was an easy fix. His site only has about 6 pages so adding references to the R66 should take about 10 minutes tops. I told him I’d do it right away.

And I did. Or at least I tried to.

Trouble is, when I went to log into WordPress on his site, I couldn’t log in. No error message — instead, the login screen kept reappearing, as if I hadn’t even tried to log in.

For about 10 minutes, I tried multiple password combinations. No luck.

For about 5 minutes, I used FTP software to examine the settings files for a password and tried that password. No luck.

For about 20 minutes, I researched the password problem on WordPress’s Support site.

For another 20 minutes, I tried three different techniques to reset the password. No luck.

For about 20 minutes, I researched the login problem on forums on WordPress’s Support site.

For another 15 minutes, I tried both of the solutions people in the forums claimed would work for them. No luck.

For 10 minutes, I went back to the WordPress support forums using a variety of different search phrases. In one forum post, someone mentioned, in passing, the .htaccess file. A lightbulb went off in my head.

For 5 minutes, I used a text editor to open the .htaccess file I’d created for N&W. There was some code I’d included that would automatically rewrite the site’s URL to www.helicopterwheels.com (in the address bar and site logs) no matter how the domain was reached. I pulled out those four lines of code, saved the file, and tried logging in.

It worked.

For those of you who care about the problem, here are the details. The N&W site can be reached through two domain names: helicopterwheels.com and r22bigwheels.com. When I moved the site, to ensure continuity during the move, I moved it using the r22bigwheels.com domain. That’s the domain that was set up in WordPress’s General settings for the moved site. I used DNS on Bluehost to point both domains to the same folder containing the site files and it worked fine. Trouble is, when I tried to log in as an administrator, WordPress wanted to give me administrative access on R22bigwheels.com but the .htaccess file kept directing it to helicopterwheels.com. I’d created a loop. Once I logged in, I changed General settings to www.helicopterwheels.com, saved them, and restored the lines of code I’d temporarily removed from .htaccess. It worked the way it was supposed to do.

That little fix took another 5 minutes.

So if you add up all the time I spent on this “10-minute” edit, you’ll see that I lost an hour and 40 minutes of my day.

I can’t blame the computer, of course. And I can’t blame WordPress. It was my configuration error that had caused the problem. But placing blame isn’t the point of this post. The point is, we rely on computers to make us more productive and get tasks done quickly and efficiently. But all too often, it’s computer problems that slow us down.

The problem could be something technical like this. Or it could be a computer malfunction, such as a bad hard disk or software bug. Or it could be the simple fact that we don’t know exactly how to perform a task and have to learn how to do it before we can get it done.

I’m not suggesting here that we work without computers. But I am suggesting that we keep in mind that the more we rely on computers, the more we’re setting ourselves up for the possibility of getting less work done.

And I’m also suggesting that we try hard to keep things simple. If I didn’t put that fancy code in N&W’s .htaccess file, I wouldn’t have lost an hour and 40 minutes of my day to troubleshooting.

Got examples of how your computer cost you time? Share them in the comments!

Banking by Phone [App]

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Almost full-service banking by smart phone.

I’ve been doing 95% my banking online for the past five to eight years. I seldom write any checks and never visit the bank and wait on line for a teller. Instead, I have direct deposit from some of my publishers and use online bill pay (through my bank’s Web site) and online bill paying features in Quicken to make payments. When I receive money by check, I deposit at an ATM. When I need to pay someone with a check — which is more and more seldom these days — I pull out one of the ones leftover from my original check stock, blow the dust off, and write one.

Some Words about Bank of America

I do all of my banking with Bank of America. Before you start bashing them, let me explain why. Our local branch in Wickenburg was, until recently, extraordinarily helpful. We had no trouble opening accounts, getting loans, refinancing our home, getting a home equity line of credit, etc. The staff knew us by name and always helped us immediately with any problems. It just made sense to put everything in one bank.

Since then, Bank of America has done its part to seriously piss me off — as they piss off everyone else they come in contact with. The local branch service completely failed to help us with a very serious problem, actually bringing me to tears in the branch location. I was forced to work with the monster that is Bank of America’s loan department and, although I resolved the situation satisfactorily, I have not been back to the branch since. I also have serious fears that the same problem will arise again and it has forced me to take a completely different approach on my personal finances. But that’s another story.

In general, my banking with Bank of America works pretty well. Between my husband and I, we have many accounts: 3 personal checking, 2 business checking, 2 credit cards, 2 mortgages, 1 home equity line of credit, and a 1 “recreational vehicle” (helicopter) loan. To start moving these accounts to another bank just because Bank of America isn’t what it used to be would be a time-consuming exercise in frustration. I have better ways to spend time frustrating myself.

What I do like about Bank of America’s Web access is that I can access all of my accounts from one login screen. This makes it really easy to manage my accounts. And it works with Quicken for free (although they do charge for QuickBooks access, which is why I don’t use QuickBooks). Even bill pay is free. And checking, as long as I use my debit card at least once a month. So my banking costs are quite low and access is quite convenient. How can I complain?

Point is: please don’t fill up the comments with suggestions on a better bank. I’m not interested in switching.

The Bank of America App

Recently, I downloaded the Bank of America iPhone App. It sat on my phone for at least a few weeks before I decided to give it a try. It has limited functionality, but it does make it relatively easy to check account balances, pay bills (to known payees), and transfer money using the app.

BofA AppThe app is pretty straightforward. You open it and then log in using the same kind of Site Key protection that’s on the Web version of online banking. You then choose from three options:

  • Accounts displays all your accounts and their balances. Clicking an account shows transactions in that account. Clicking a transaction shows transaction details.
  • Bill Pay & E-Bills gives you access to the bill pay feature. You can make a single payment, view (an cancel, but not change) outgoing payments, and view unpaid e-bills (if you have any).
  • Transfer Funds lets you transfer money between your accounts now, schedule a transfer between your accounts for later, or transfer to another person (if you have this feature set up).

Although the app’s limited functionality makes it impossible to use without occasional Web access — for example, you can’t set up a payee in the app; you must do that on the Web site or from within Quicken — it is, in general, quicker to use than the Web site — especially if you suffer from painfully slow Internet connections, as I do at home in Wickenburg. The phone has fewer options, so it takes fewer clicks (or taps) to get to the feature you need. Unfortunately, that feature doesn’t appear immediately. Worse yet, when you go back, there’s no indication that the app is doing anything — some kind of wait cursor or Internet access indicator would really help. But I still think it’s quicker and easier to use than the Web site for the few features it does support.

Point in case: today I paid my mechanic for some work he did on my helicopter. I was able to do this while eating breakfast, without firing up a computer. Launch the app, log in, and get right to the payment page. Enter an amount, send it, confirm it, and I’m done. It took about a minute.

And I can do this from anywhere I have a 3G phone signal. (I have Verizon, so that’s nearly everywhere I go.)

Conclusion

While I’m certain this isn’t the best banking app out there, it is the one that my bank offers, so it’s the only one I’ve experienced. If this is an indication of what’s to come, I’m very glad. The quicker and easier banking tasks are, the less time I have to spend doing them — or dealing with the bank’s staff.

Now that I’ve tried it, I’ll likely be using it more often.

What do you think? Do you use an app for your banking needs? If so, share your experiences in the comments.