Light Bulbs
Whatever happened to spiral (CFL) light bulbs? How I became aware of this is because my new apartment came without overhead lights for the living room and the bedroom. (I'm used to the former, not the latter; my last few apartments had a mounted ceiling fan/light fixture. So I had one floor lamp in my household goods but needed one for the bedroom. I went to Walmart yesterday and bought an inexpensive floor lamp, which of course did not come with any light bulbs; the package stated 33 W florescent spirals or 150 W 3-ways. It never occurred to me that Walmart wouldn't carry the light bulbs used by the floor lamps it was selling; in fact, I still have several spirals (different watts) in my home inventory, almost all of which I had purchased from Walmart or Sam's Club. (Now of course I know you can buy 33 W's online or perhaps from home improvement stores.) In my local Walmart, one side of an aisle is devoted almost exclusively to light bulbs, but incredibly I couldn't find a single spiral in the aisle. I tried looking in other aisles and finally flagged down a sales associate. He managed to fish out one spiral, a black shade light, in the aisle; another associate said some time back they had rotated out their spirals in favor of more conventional bulbs. I did find a small supply of compatible 3-way (standard bulb) GE bulbs and purchased 2 twin packs. (I was going to return the floor lamp until I noticed the second alternative bulbs.)
My Lazarus Laptops
I have had some bad luck with laptops over the years, with an estimated lifetime of 2-3 years. Sometimes I had freakish water/coffee spill incidents. While in WV I had to buy a replacement HP after a splash wave from a spill (away from the laptop) messed up my electronics (it was still running, but after I powered it off, it wouldn't power back on). I needed to do some remote training/HR stuff via the Internet, so I went to Sam's Club. I had bought my ASUS laptop as a backup when I found my desktop, buried in self-storage from my move to WV, wouldn't start after my move to SC. I tried several times over to start up my desktop and was about to junk it when I noticed a sign of life from the desktop; I had some additional problems (including an issue with my copy of Rollback RX), but since then I deinstalled the software package, no issue. But I had the movers take the desktop on my recent move to Arizona.
On my first travel night (in Alabama), I noticed I could not start up my HP laptop. It had been in the laptop bag, but a spilled drink had seeped through the bag. Then to make matters worse, my ASUS, in my luggage, went dead in my Texas hotel room the next night. It booted up, but as I prepared to attach an external drive to work on converting the laptop to my primary, it went dead. (I mentioned in a post a few weeks back that I contacted ASUS support, but I was told my warranty had expired, and they would require at least $330 for a repair, while vendors priced a new machine for about $100 less.) I noticed in a Google search several people mentioned power issues with ASUS, which basically required extracting and reinserting the battery, easier said than done because the battery is not externally accessible.
So over the weekend, I once again took the HP out of its bag and tried again to power up. I was startled to see it power up; long story short, it is now operational although the battery won't charge up. I'm okay with that. The biggest pain was the Windows updates, including the big anniversary one. I've run into occasional stuck overnight issues with patches (what eventually works is deleting the software distribution folder contents after turning off 3 Windows services (update, background intelligent transfer, cryptographic) and then turning them back on). So that one failed a few times but finally worked yesterday.
Maybe pressing my luck, I looked at the ASUS again. I was startled to see a splash of light flicker over the screen; a couple of additional presses and another flash of light. Almost like lighting a campfire, I managed to stoke the notebook back to life. Just like the HP, I had to reinstall security software and do some catch up patching. I'm a little wary of shutting down the ASUS, like a reawakened coma patient falling asleep again: will he wake up this time?
Playing More With Portable Apps
I recently purchased a 256 GB thumb drive and looked at some new launchers including Appetizer. I've written a prior post on Quick Cliq. One of the attractive things about Appetizer is you can import binaries comprehensively (you can then group the software icons into folders); QC provides a good way to configure system utilities (e.g., force shutdown) and it's easy to drag and drop executable files (e.g., via Search Everywhere) to new menu item command lines. In terms of portable apps, I've looked at services like Liberkey and PortableApps. (There is some overlap.) The nice thing is both services make comprehensive updates of downloaded applications a breeze.
Sunday, September 25, 2016
Wednesday, July 13, 2016
Google Voice and the OBi200: Some Notes
There is an unwritten rule about dealing with Chrome and/or other Google technologies: when in doubt, deinstall/reinstall. For example, for at least the second time in recent weeks, I found my Remember the Milk gadget missing from Google Calendar over the weekend, and I had to log into my RTM account and click the link to reinstall the relevant gadget.
I've discussed Google Voice in a recent post. To provide a little context, basically a Google Hangouts plug-in is installed/integrated with Chrome (you can also use Firefox) and appears as a green icon in your tray:
Without going into gmail (assuming Internet connectivity), you can double-click on the Hangouts icon and it launches into a Hangouts conversation search screen. I find if I click on "new conversation", the result reveals a phone icon to the immediate right in the search bar. At that point, I can search on partial/full names or phone numbers in Google Contacts (or enter a new number); Mousing over the selection reveals phone and message links.Click on the relevant phone icon, and it will launch a relevant phone keypad popup.
I've occasionally run into issues with Hangouts dialing. In some cases, calling the number seems to hang; in other cases, I've accepted an incoming call, but we couldn't hear each other. I've found removing and reinstalling the Google Hangouts extension seemed to resolve my issue. (I've sometimes run into issues pulling information on certain contacts and found that I had to tweak missing Google Contact details, like missing name fields, so they can be searched.)
The functionality is, for most purposes, excellent; I occasionally run into annoying glitches like browser corruption issues or a disappearing Hangouts popup. But at other points I've missed the equivalent functionality of digital calling I had in my prior 2 residences: it's always on (assuming your Internet connection is live), and it's often easier just to dial a number than to go through a GV call setup. I just didn't think the Triple Play (cable, Internet, calling) cost was worth it in my latest move, since I don't do a lot of calls and the ones I do can usually be managed by my "unlimited" mobile package. As I described in an earlier post, this became an issue with some callers who disliked the quality of my mobile connection and frequent dropped calls. So Google Voice became my choice for a second, backup number. GV also has a nice feature of automatically messaging one's mobile phone with GV voicemail transcripts (and typically I can launch a return call from a voice number hyperlink).
CNET recently promoted a newegg featured buy on the OBi200; OBi200 is integrated with GV in a default setup. Recall that when you start up Google Voice service, you select a number in an eligible pool from a chosen area code. Three basic lines connect the device: cable to a network port on the back of your Internet router, phone line connection with your phone (I have a $20 corded speakerphone I bought at WalMart), and the unit power supply. You then set up an account at obihai.com and go through the documented process of configuring the device and integrating with Google Voice. (Note that GV does not provide 911 service, but there are workarounds.) You can also integrate other (non-Google) voice services.
The outgoing call feature worked like a charm: I click on my speakerphone button, and I got a welcome dial tone. However, the incoming calls didn't seem to ring my speakerphone (I tested with my cellphone). I did get one external caller on the speakerphone, but most I fielded through Google Hangouts. Other people seemed to have a similar problem, but I didn't see a resolution. I emailed obihai support.
In the phone configuration for Google Voice, there is a setup for Google Chat. It turns out you can delete this (there are buttons to edit and delete just below Google Chat), and GV will automatically regenerate the Chat setup. This seemed to clear up my issue with incoming calls.
I've discussed Google Voice in a recent post. To provide a little context, basically a Google Hangouts plug-in is installed/integrated with Chrome (you can also use Firefox) and appears as a green icon in your tray:
Without going into gmail (assuming Internet connectivity), you can double-click on the Hangouts icon and it launches into a Hangouts conversation search screen. I find if I click on "new conversation", the result reveals a phone icon to the immediate right in the search bar. At that point, I can search on partial/full names or phone numbers in Google Contacts (or enter a new number); Mousing over the selection reveals phone and message links.Click on the relevant phone icon, and it will launch a relevant phone keypad popup.
I've occasionally run into issues with Hangouts dialing. In some cases, calling the number seems to hang; in other cases, I've accepted an incoming call, but we couldn't hear each other. I've found removing and reinstalling the Google Hangouts extension seemed to resolve my issue. (I've sometimes run into issues pulling information on certain contacts and found that I had to tweak missing Google Contact details, like missing name fields, so they can be searched.)
The functionality is, for most purposes, excellent; I occasionally run into annoying glitches like browser corruption issues or a disappearing Hangouts popup. But at other points I've missed the equivalent functionality of digital calling I had in my prior 2 residences: it's always on (assuming your Internet connection is live), and it's often easier just to dial a number than to go through a GV call setup. I just didn't think the Triple Play (cable, Internet, calling) cost was worth it in my latest move, since I don't do a lot of calls and the ones I do can usually be managed by my "unlimited" mobile package. As I described in an earlier post, this became an issue with some callers who disliked the quality of my mobile connection and frequent dropped calls. So Google Voice became my choice for a second, backup number. GV also has a nice feature of automatically messaging one's mobile phone with GV voicemail transcripts (and typically I can launch a return call from a voice number hyperlink).
CNET recently promoted a newegg featured buy on the OBi200; OBi200 is integrated with GV in a default setup. Recall that when you start up Google Voice service, you select a number in an eligible pool from a chosen area code. Three basic lines connect the device: cable to a network port on the back of your Internet router, phone line connection with your phone (I have a $20 corded speakerphone I bought at WalMart), and the unit power supply. You then set up an account at obihai.com and go through the documented process of configuring the device and integrating with Google Voice. (Note that GV does not provide 911 service, but there are workarounds.) You can also integrate other (non-Google) voice services.
The outgoing call feature worked like a charm: I click on my speakerphone button, and I got a welcome dial tone. However, the incoming calls didn't seem to ring my speakerphone (I tested with my cellphone). I did get one external caller on the speakerphone, but most I fielded through Google Hangouts. Other people seemed to have a similar problem, but I didn't see a resolution. I emailed obihai support.
In the phone configuration for Google Voice, there is a setup for Google Chat. It turns out you can delete this (there are buttons to edit and delete just below Google Chat), and GV will automatically regenerate the Chat setup. This seemed to clear up my issue with incoming calls.
Monday, July 11, 2016
Problem Solving: An Example of Using Tools To Enhance Software Usability
The context for this post is dealing with duplicate files. One of the add-ons I use for the Thunderbird email client is "remove duplicate messages". I've occasionally had hiccups, e.g., in downloading my core gmail account messages, to Thunderbird where the same messages apparently weren't purged on the server and get downloaded again. What the add-on does is checking for duplicate sets of messages and then provides a default filter which retains 1 email from each set and deletes the duplicates. (I've also discovered vendors may resend the same emails over time, so I also occasionally run the add-on in my other email folders.)
Now over the past several years I had retained over 200 CD's and later DVD's of various files I have saved over the years: family photos, pdf files, licensed software (e.g., my discontinued AskSam software), various audio files ripped from my CD collection, emails, etc, In many cases, I did not rename files, say 1.jpg downloaded from the Internet. Trying to manage my collections of files was difficult: I often had to use a tool like search everything to hunt for files. For example, after I had to migrate from a failed PC, I needed to search for my license information to reinstall AskSam plus my backup copies of the software itself. (I maintain a couple of external backup drives which held individual media image contents.) (Yes, I'm aware I could maintain license information in a spreadsheet. In this case, the license number is maintained in an asksam ini file, which is what I actually stored.)
It took time and effort to consolidate the contents of the media images into two primary folders with subfolders. In the process, I ran into thousands of file name conflicts, which I resolved by a filefrogger rename utility on source files (e.g., on disk 200, I renamed 1.jpg to 1_200.jpg). I knew that I had perhaps hundreds, if not thousands of duplicate files (not just names, but content).
The tool I chose to use in dedupping these massive folders is duplicate finder free. Now keep in mind that it's very possible there is functionality I may not know about in the free or paid versions, but I'm looking at what the design seems to suggest. I basically point to a file folder to do a search and initiate the scan/search. Eventually what pops up is a list of sets of duplicate sets, alternately color coded. There are boxes to mark files for deletion. There didn't seem to be what I considered obvious default functionality, say, to retain the first record in each set, and if you are dealing with thousands of file sets, this is very tedious busy work. (After you mark files for deletion, you then trigger the delete functionality.)
In the interim, I was interested in how I could save in-process duplicate lists, e.g., if the generated duplicate list did not appear after a system bounce. I then discovered that in the File options there is export/import function for *.csv files. This was my aha moment, because I knew I could use spreadsheet functionality to manipulate the first (delete file mark) column.
The basic solution starts with the observation that the CSV file was in sequence by the set id column (I). This means that the problem is a variation of a control break program. For the purposes of this example, I'm using Open Office Calc, but similar steps can be adapted for your preferred spreadsheet product:
Now over the past several years I had retained over 200 CD's and later DVD's of various files I have saved over the years: family photos, pdf files, licensed software (e.g., my discontinued AskSam software), various audio files ripped from my CD collection, emails, etc, In many cases, I did not rename files, say 1.jpg downloaded from the Internet. Trying to manage my collections of files was difficult: I often had to use a tool like search everything to hunt for files. For example, after I had to migrate from a failed PC, I needed to search for my license information to reinstall AskSam plus my backup copies of the software itself. (I maintain a couple of external backup drives which held individual media image contents.) (Yes, I'm aware I could maintain license information in a spreadsheet. In this case, the license number is maintained in an asksam ini file, which is what I actually stored.)
It took time and effort to consolidate the contents of the media images into two primary folders with subfolders. In the process, I ran into thousands of file name conflicts, which I resolved by a filefrogger rename utility on source files (e.g., on disk 200, I renamed 1.jpg to 1_200.jpg). I knew that I had perhaps hundreds, if not thousands of duplicate files (not just names, but content).
The tool I chose to use in dedupping these massive folders is duplicate finder free. Now keep in mind that it's very possible there is functionality I may not know about in the free or paid versions, but I'm looking at what the design seems to suggest. I basically point to a file folder to do a search and initiate the scan/search. Eventually what pops up is a list of sets of duplicate sets, alternately color coded. There are boxes to mark files for deletion. There didn't seem to be what I considered obvious default functionality, say, to retain the first record in each set, and if you are dealing with thousands of file sets, this is very tedious busy work. (After you mark files for deletion, you then trigger the delete functionality.)
In the interim, I was interested in how I could save in-process duplicate lists, e.g., if the generated duplicate list did not appear after a system bounce. I then discovered that in the File options there is export/import function for *.csv files. This was my aha moment, because I knew I could use spreadsheet functionality to manipulate the first (delete file mark) column.
The basic solution starts with the observation that the CSV file was in sequence by the set id column (I). This means that the problem is a variation of a control break program. For the purposes of this example, I'm using Open Office Calc, but similar steps can be adapted for your preferred spreadsheet product:
- Open the exported CSV file in Calc by choosing the comma delimiter (which oddly enough is not default)
- In cell A2 (the first data mark cell), enter a formula, e.g., =if (i2=i3; 1;0) . Let me explain the logic: I'm intending to retain the last file of each set. So suppose record 4 (record 3 if you don't count the header record) is the last of the first set (ID 1). Record 5 would be the first of the second set (say, ID 2). So I4 != I5, which means A4 has value 0, while A2,A3=1.
- Copy A2 and then paste it in A3:An where n is the number of duplicate file records (including the header record). Suppose n=2000. Enter A3:A2000 in the selection box, right-click on highlighted cells and select paste.
- Convert A2:An into values: using the same example, select A2:A2000, right-click Copy; right-click Paste Special (ensure the NUMBER and only NUMBER column format option is selected).
- Save the revised spreadsheet in the original CSV format. Exit Calc.
- Open up Duplicate Finder Free, import the revised spreadsheet. Now invoke the delete files option.
Thursday, July 7, 2016
When It Rains, It Pours
Literally. Like I had a 4-5 hour power outage earlier this evening. I did get a chance to use my Gooloo power bank described in an earlier post. I was initially confused when it didn't seem to charge my cellphone, but it had to do with a certain unwritten fact of life with my cellphone: if the phone is running too hot, it won't charge. When I run into a hot phone/charging issue, I'll power off the cellphone; if and when the phone sufficiently cools, it'll start charging.
It's amazing how the little details slip by until you're facing a problem. I had never put my electric utility's outage number in my contacts, and I couldn't get Internet services on my cellphone during the outage. (Obviously my cable Internet wasn't working.) I could find my utility's invoices in my email, but the invoices didn't include contact numbers.
But over the past day or so, I had been hit by a cluster of technical issues. One of them involved Google Voice which for some reason didn't seem to work: I was connecting to the call, but neither party could hear the other. I did a lot of checks on audio and tweaking of call properties, but for whatever reason, the problem wen away with a reboot.
I also ran into into a series of issues with my security software, including the same PC holding multiple licenses and certain functionality not working. Long story short, these problems reflected some trace files not purged by a simple deinstall. Now the vendor has a removal tool often referenced by security customer support agents in past chat sessions, but the Indian agents repeatedly ignored my complaints they were giving me invalid URL's. I eventually stumbled across a correct download link in some other user's post. These agents simply want to take over your PC and can't deal with deviations from their scripts.
In another case, I have licensed encryption software which works with USB sticks, like my 128GB one. The software has an option to install executables both on the PC and the stick. Somehow after an upgrade I ran into an issue trying to run the executable on the stick. Repairing, uninstalling and/or reinstalling didn't work; in fact, I would get cryptic error messages simply trying to start up the executable. Long story short, I used everything (desktop search) to look for encryption software files not purged by the uninstall. After manually deleting all remaining trace files (post-deinstall), I was able to reinstall (including an option for the USB stick).
I had contacted tech support. They really don't reference uninstalls on their webpages other than a cryptic message about contacting them over upgrades. The support staffer finally emailed me a deinstall cleanup procedure AFTER I messaged him how I had resolved the problem.
Incompletely described uninstall/reinstall procedures are simply inexcusably bad usability problems. I managed to resolve both issues DESPITE tech support vs. BECAUSE of them. I have another freeware encryption software (Safehouse Explorer). I had seen references to using SE with USB sticks but was puzzled on how to install on the stick until I saw a brief reference on copying the executable from your PC install to the stick.
It's amazing how the little details slip by until you're facing a problem. I had never put my electric utility's outage number in my contacts, and I couldn't get Internet services on my cellphone during the outage. (Obviously my cable Internet wasn't working.) I could find my utility's invoices in my email, but the invoices didn't include contact numbers.
But over the past day or so, I had been hit by a cluster of technical issues. One of them involved Google Voice which for some reason didn't seem to work: I was connecting to the call, but neither party could hear the other. I did a lot of checks on audio and tweaking of call properties, but for whatever reason, the problem wen away with a reboot.
I also ran into into a series of issues with my security software, including the same PC holding multiple licenses and certain functionality not working. Long story short, these problems reflected some trace files not purged by a simple deinstall. Now the vendor has a removal tool often referenced by security customer support agents in past chat sessions, but the Indian agents repeatedly ignored my complaints they were giving me invalid URL's. I eventually stumbled across a correct download link in some other user's post. These agents simply want to take over your PC and can't deal with deviations from their scripts.
In another case, I have licensed encryption software which works with USB sticks, like my 128GB one. The software has an option to install executables both on the PC and the stick. Somehow after an upgrade I ran into an issue trying to run the executable on the stick. Repairing, uninstalling and/or reinstalling didn't work; in fact, I would get cryptic error messages simply trying to start up the executable. Long story short, I used everything (desktop search) to look for encryption software files not purged by the uninstall. After manually deleting all remaining trace files (post-deinstall), I was able to reinstall (including an option for the USB stick).
I had contacted tech support. They really don't reference uninstalls on their webpages other than a cryptic message about contacting them over upgrades. The support staffer finally emailed me a deinstall cleanup procedure AFTER I messaged him how I had resolved the problem.
Incompletely described uninstall/reinstall procedures are simply inexcusably bad usability problems. I managed to resolve both issues DESPITE tech support vs. BECAUSE of them. I have another freeware encryption software (Safehouse Explorer). I had seen references to using SE with USB sticks but was puzzled on how to install on the stick until I saw a brief reference on copying the executable from your PC install to the stick.
Sunday, June 26, 2016
Device Light Indicators
This is one of my favorite usability stories which I may have initially told in a different post, but it applies here. When I started word processing graduate school papers in the early 80's, I used a Commodore 64; I had to buy the word processing program separately and had a Commodore floppy drive, which was used to load the program and then to save workfiles on a separate floppy disk.
Without thinking or reading the floppy disk manual (which I still have in some moving box), I had inserted my word processing software disk and was about to insert my data disk, when I read this warning: "DO NOT EJECT THE DISK WITH THE GREEN LIGHT SHOWING". The green light was a power indicator. The tech writer must have intended to say was not to eject the data disk while it was still being written to (probably a flicking amber light). There was also a warning against shutting down the drive with the disk in it. So did that mean my software disk was toast, caught between the devil and the deep blue sea? I quickly decided that the documentation was misleading; otherwise, the floppy drive was utterly unusable. Still, I held my breath the first time I ejected my software disk.
This is a big lesson in usability: the initial response to the human interface, including documentation, frames one's experience. And for me, that includes indicator lights. I once remember being the DBA/system administrator behind the National Archives' milrecs application. There had been no transition with my predecessor but I soon saw an amber light on the server hosting the data warehouse. I was confident that this was problematic; researching the issue, I learned that one of the disks was dead on the RAID-5 device. In essence, this is like driving your car with your spare tire; you need to replace the tire ASAP or your vehicle becomes inoperable. If another disk pops, your RAID storage becomes unusable.
One of the things that first-time users need to know is how to process the indicator statuses; what do different colors mean, what about flickering indicators, etc.? To what extent are they consistent from other experiences? For example, my cellphone displays red while in the process of charging; I also see a red indicator when the cellphone is running low on battery. What happens when a battery is fully charged? Does the indicator go out? Do I need to guard against overcharging?
To a certain extent, we may have other experience contexts, e.g., traffic lights: green go, red stop, yellow warning. To the extent we may infer from other contexts, the light choices may be more natural.
When I got my Gooloo power bank, the instructions really didn't address my initial learning experience. I do know that often with battery-operating devices using rechargeable batteries, including laptops or cellphones, one often must initially charge the unit before using it (unplugged). What I initially experienced was a blinking blue light, vs. say a steady red light in charging my cellphone. Blinking might be an indicator meaning an error condition or charging in process. There is a discussion buried in the documentation of multiple indicator lights on the top of the devices which indicate 4 stages of charging (when the stage is complete, its color turns steady) and when fully charged, the lights go off. Charging is done by USB, which you can interface with household current with the use of an adapter (which you can buy with $5 at Walmart), which I use all the time for charging my cellphone. In this case, I didn't know the context of using a blue light; maybe it was signifying a problem with a charging process. It does explain elsewhere it might take 15 minutes to charge in a car or up to 2-3 hours via USB connection to household electricity. My issue is that this information should occur at the start of the document vs. the reader having to comb through the document.
Without thinking or reading the floppy disk manual (which I still have in some moving box), I had inserted my word processing software disk and was about to insert my data disk, when I read this warning: "DO NOT EJECT THE DISK WITH THE GREEN LIGHT SHOWING". The green light was a power indicator. The tech writer must have intended to say was not to eject the data disk while it was still being written to (probably a flicking amber light). There was also a warning against shutting down the drive with the disk in it. So did that mean my software disk was toast, caught between the devil and the deep blue sea? I quickly decided that the documentation was misleading; otherwise, the floppy drive was utterly unusable. Still, I held my breath the first time I ejected my software disk.
This is a big lesson in usability: the initial response to the human interface, including documentation, frames one's experience. And for me, that includes indicator lights. I once remember being the DBA/system administrator behind the National Archives' milrecs application. There had been no transition with my predecessor but I soon saw an amber light on the server hosting the data warehouse. I was confident that this was problematic; researching the issue, I learned that one of the disks was dead on the RAID-5 device. In essence, this is like driving your car with your spare tire; you need to replace the tire ASAP or your vehicle becomes inoperable. If another disk pops, your RAID storage becomes unusable.
One of the things that first-time users need to know is how to process the indicator statuses; what do different colors mean, what about flickering indicators, etc.? To what extent are they consistent from other experiences? For example, my cellphone displays red while in the process of charging; I also see a red indicator when the cellphone is running low on battery. What happens when a battery is fully charged? Does the indicator go out? Do I need to guard against overcharging?
To a certain extent, we may have other experience contexts, e.g., traffic lights: green go, red stop, yellow warning. To the extent we may infer from other contexts, the light choices may be more natural.
When I got my Gooloo power bank, the instructions really didn't address my initial learning experience. I do know that often with battery-operating devices using rechargeable batteries, including laptops or cellphones, one often must initially charge the unit before using it (unplugged). What I initially experienced was a blinking blue light, vs. say a steady red light in charging my cellphone. Blinking might be an indicator meaning an error condition or charging in process. There is a discussion buried in the documentation of multiple indicator lights on the top of the devices which indicate 4 stages of charging (when the stage is complete, its color turns steady) and when fully charged, the lights go off. Charging is done by USB, which you can interface with household current with the use of an adapter (which you can buy with $5 at Walmart), which I use all the time for charging my cellphone. In this case, I didn't know the context of using a blue light; maybe it was signifying a problem with a charging process. It does explain elsewhere it might take 15 minutes to charge in a car or up to 2-3 hours via USB connection to household electricity. My issue is that this information should occur at the start of the document vs. the reader having to comb through the document.
Monday, June 20, 2016
My 3 PCs and Maintenance Issues
I bought my first PC/compatible while I was a professor in the late 80's. Most of my graduate school papers were actually typed via a Commodore 64, but I wrote my dissertation using Samna in a 2-PC department faculty lab available to department student employees if faculty weren't using them (I was a teaching fellow and didn't have the budget to buy my own). Each faculty member now had a PC in his office. I had backups of my dissertation document, which is a good thing because once Samna went crazy and corrupted my workfile floppy disk. I ended up losing a week's worth of work since the last usable backup. I did have use of an office PC for my three faculty appointments, but I bought my first PC clone in Milwaukee (roughly $2800 for a desktop). I later bought a bulky portable with a handle on the end because I remember needing to do work during a Boston academic conference. I don't recall what happened to them (repair issues?), but quite frankly after Windows 3, I needed more RAM to do stuff and bought a second desktop. Then in the late 90's, I did a lot of road warrior work and bought my first modern notebook computer. I've probably bought a new replacement every 2 or 3 years.
In maybe 2-3 cases, I've had the worst experience with coffee spills. I never kept a coffee cup near the PC, but even a minor splatter on the keyboard could render the notebook all but useless. [In another case, with my one and only Sony, the power button no longer worked after 8 months. I tried to send it to a laptap repair shop, but they refused to accept it.]
At some point I wanted to have a backup PC just in case I had to cope with an outage (email, work, etc.) I had one HP notebook with a dying hard drive, and I bought a new notebook (making more sense to get more RAM, hard drive, newer Windows vs. sinking more money into repairing an obsoleted PC). As the backup PC eventually failed I replaced it with a cheap desktop.
When I moved to WV, my new place was furnished, so I put my desktop in storage with most of my stuff. I had hired some helpers, but the unload was done without me (work schedule). Long story short, my laptop shorted out (a splatter victim which ultimately shorted out). Now actually years back I had started using laptop stands and external keyboards and mice to minimize the risk of coffee incidents, but I had misplaced my stand during the move and had a freakish splatter accident.
I went to my storage unit, and the movers had buried it somewhere in the filled unit, and I didn't want to spent hours in freezing weather (outside unit) pulling everything out. There was a Sam's Club about 3 miles from my new work location, which is where I bought my current workhorse notebook maybe 18 months back. I wasn't going to buy a second backup PC. When I moved into my current SC unfurnished apartment, I had my helpers bring the desktop in (other stuff went back into storage).
But try as I might, I could not get the desktop to start up. Had it died while in storage (not climate-controlled)? For months, I debated hauling the dead desktop to the dumpster. In the meanwhile I bought an inexpensive notebook as a backup to replace the desktop.
This may seem unrelated but years earlier I had licensed copies of Rollback RX for my PCs. Rollback RX basically allowed you to go back to a prior manual or automated daily snapshot (e.g., something happens and your PC won't start up). I ran into chronic issues with Rollback RX on my new workhorse notebook. I think I had to go back to do a factory-level reset (meaning all of my data and applications were lost and had to be reinstalled from backups) something like 4 times in the first 2 months. I began to suspect Rollback RX was causing my instability issues and did not reinstall the last time--and haven't had a similar problem since then.
Going back to the dead disktop: I don't know if it was an artifact of wiring, but in a final check putting plugs in different sockets and I noticed a flicker of life in the desktop. I managed to get to boot but I had major stability issues, and Rollback RX wasn't helping. I deinstalled Rollback RX and/or went through a factory-level reset, and the desktop has been stable since.
So that's how I ended up with two existing backup PCs. I also have several layers of redundancy including external drives, Google Drive, and Dropbox. I mostly go on the backup PC's to update securities, applications, and Microsoft patches. And that provides a context for the following issues I experienced over the weekend.
What's truly odd is that I run into different technical problems on the 3 PC's. I noticed that Windows had delivered updates to my workhorse notebook over the weekend. So I decided to do maintenance on the two backup PC's.
The backup notebook experienced an issue I've had to resolve multiple times over the years. Somehow the Windows Software Distribution folder has been corrupted. The standard remedy is to stop the Windows update and BITS services, drop the software distribution folder, and restart services. In this case, the Windows update seemed to be stuck at about 8% for hours. Granted, a number of times you need to give patches some time to download, but even after hours and reboots, no progress. For some reason the software distribution folder was sticky to delete, even after checking services down. I eventually succeeded after a series of reboots, started up the services and probably within 90 minutes the patches in question were downloaded and installed.
The desktop issue didn't deal with the patching so much as something I had noticed but had not resolved: the Start Menu was not working. There were workarounds for the most part. For example, in Windows 10, I was used to going to the Start Menu to access Settings for checking on Updates. I subsequently discovered Win-I could bring up Settings. At some point I was getting a message to the effect that there was a critical issue with the Start Menu and I needed to sign out then sign back in so the problem could be resolved. It didn't happen. I did some digging and found a Microsoft reference to downloading and running a start menu troubleshooter. Long story short; I got some unusable cryptic error message on problems with Windows shell experience host and cortana. I searched a number of posts and forums with suggestions on running certain Powershell scripts, even creating a new Windows user.
What turned out to be the problem was the installation of Dropbox. (I believe that I ran across this solution, which suggested Dropbox and/or Avast were often at fault.) Once I uninstalled Dropbox and rebooted, I was able to use the start menu as expected. It's not immediately obvious why Dropbox is an issue because it hasn't been for my notebook PC's.
In maybe 2-3 cases, I've had the worst experience with coffee spills. I never kept a coffee cup near the PC, but even a minor splatter on the keyboard could render the notebook all but useless. [In another case, with my one and only Sony, the power button no longer worked after 8 months. I tried to send it to a laptap repair shop, but they refused to accept it.]
At some point I wanted to have a backup PC just in case I had to cope with an outage (email, work, etc.) I had one HP notebook with a dying hard drive, and I bought a new notebook (making more sense to get more RAM, hard drive, newer Windows vs. sinking more money into repairing an obsoleted PC). As the backup PC eventually failed I replaced it with a cheap desktop.
When I moved to WV, my new place was furnished, so I put my desktop in storage with most of my stuff. I had hired some helpers, but the unload was done without me (work schedule). Long story short, my laptop shorted out (a splatter victim which ultimately shorted out). Now actually years back I had started using laptop stands and external keyboards and mice to minimize the risk of coffee incidents, but I had misplaced my stand during the move and had a freakish splatter accident.
I went to my storage unit, and the movers had buried it somewhere in the filled unit, and I didn't want to spent hours in freezing weather (outside unit) pulling everything out. There was a Sam's Club about 3 miles from my new work location, which is where I bought my current workhorse notebook maybe 18 months back. I wasn't going to buy a second backup PC. When I moved into my current SC unfurnished apartment, I had my helpers bring the desktop in (other stuff went back into storage).
But try as I might, I could not get the desktop to start up. Had it died while in storage (not climate-controlled)? For months, I debated hauling the dead desktop to the dumpster. In the meanwhile I bought an inexpensive notebook as a backup to replace the desktop.
This may seem unrelated but years earlier I had licensed copies of Rollback RX for my PCs. Rollback RX basically allowed you to go back to a prior manual or automated daily snapshot (e.g., something happens and your PC won't start up). I ran into chronic issues with Rollback RX on my new workhorse notebook. I think I had to go back to do a factory-level reset (meaning all of my data and applications were lost and had to be reinstalled from backups) something like 4 times in the first 2 months. I began to suspect Rollback RX was causing my instability issues and did not reinstall the last time--and haven't had a similar problem since then.
Going back to the dead disktop: I don't know if it was an artifact of wiring, but in a final check putting plugs in different sockets and I noticed a flicker of life in the desktop. I managed to get to boot but I had major stability issues, and Rollback RX wasn't helping. I deinstalled Rollback RX and/or went through a factory-level reset, and the desktop has been stable since.
So that's how I ended up with two existing backup PCs. I also have several layers of redundancy including external drives, Google Drive, and Dropbox. I mostly go on the backup PC's to update securities, applications, and Microsoft patches. And that provides a context for the following issues I experienced over the weekend.
What's truly odd is that I run into different technical problems on the 3 PC's. I noticed that Windows had delivered updates to my workhorse notebook over the weekend. So I decided to do maintenance on the two backup PC's.
The backup notebook experienced an issue I've had to resolve multiple times over the years. Somehow the Windows Software Distribution folder has been corrupted. The standard remedy is to stop the Windows update and BITS services, drop the software distribution folder, and restart services. In this case, the Windows update seemed to be stuck at about 8% for hours. Granted, a number of times you need to give patches some time to download, but even after hours and reboots, no progress. For some reason the software distribution folder was sticky to delete, even after checking services down. I eventually succeeded after a series of reboots, started up the services and probably within 90 minutes the patches in question were downloaded and installed.
The desktop issue didn't deal with the patching so much as something I had noticed but had not resolved: the Start Menu was not working. There were workarounds for the most part. For example, in Windows 10, I was used to going to the Start Menu to access Settings for checking on Updates. I subsequently discovered Win-I could bring up Settings. At some point I was getting a message to the effect that there was a critical issue with the Start Menu and I needed to sign out then sign back in so the problem could be resolved. It didn't happen. I did some digging and found a Microsoft reference to downloading and running a start menu troubleshooter. Long story short; I got some unusable cryptic error message on problems with Windows shell experience host and cortana. I searched a number of posts and forums with suggestions on running certain Powershell scripts, even creating a new Windows user.
What turned out to be the problem was the installation of Dropbox. (I believe that I ran across this solution, which suggested Dropbox and/or Avast were often at fault.) Once I uninstalled Dropbox and rebooted, I was able to use the start menu as expected. It's not immediately obvious why Dropbox is an issue because it hasn't been for my notebook PC's.
Saturday, June 4, 2016
Reminders and Google Calendar
[* update 6/26/16]
I've used Remember the Milk over the last few years (note for this discussion I'm referring to PC vs. smartphone applications). I've used this service to track various recurring tasks, like paying monthly bills and taking certain meds, and it has a module which integrates with Google Calendar. For some reason, and I submitted a problem ticket on this with RTM, my recurring tasks stopped at the beginning of the month. In the meanwhile, I looked for a workaround.
Google of course has a Tasks product integrated with Calendar. But it really doesn't have recurring tasks functionality. I could use it for something like maintaining a honey do list of jobs around my home. Of course, you could create a recurring event like for birthdays and anniversaries in Google Calendar, but events are not generally tracked. For example, if my appliance bill is due on the 20th of the month, I can set up an event, even have Google send me a scheduled notification. But what I really want is a reminder which explicitly is checked off if and when I pay the bill, like in RTM. I can easily scan to see if there are open/overdue tasks/reminders.
I tried experimenting with a recurring tasks app which integrates with Google Tasks. It was not clear from app documentation about the update window, but I only saw a 3-week fill.
On further Googling, I saw references to integrated reminder functionality across different products like Google Keep, Indox, and Calender, replicating functionality on the smartphone side. But I didn't see a selection button for reminders vs. recurring events.
It turns out there's a conceptual piece of the puzzle which may not all that obvious; I came across a discussion in Google product forums where the Google analyst found herself saying the same thing multiple times. To provide context, I have 3 calendars under my account, presumably by default, a personal event calendar I normally interact with, birthdays and tasks. It turns out that task and reminder calendars must be toggled (I believe the default is tasks)., So, for example, if the task calendar is showing, you would switch to the reminder calendar by a pull-down menu to the right of the task calendar icon. (Personally I would have implemented a radio/checkmark option with both task and reminder calendar names showing.)
Once you toggle on the reminder calendar, entering/modifying reminders is straightfoward. For example, I might set up all-day reminders for taking my meds/vitamins. I left-click inside the day bubble to define the task and edit to set the recurring schedule.
[* update 6/26/16] I had several unproductive encounters with RTM tech support: basically, how can we replicate the problem? I mean, how do you get any simpler than say I have 4 daily tasks, and when I check today's tasks, I see none listed? No follow-up.
What I have noticed in my Google Calendar RTM plug-in is when I complete the first overdue task, the next day's task of the same type pops up in my window. When I check the overdue tasks, it doesn't list the tasks separately for outstanding dates but the task with a date displaying the earliest overdue date. I still think this is counterintuitive. So, for example, if I lapsed for 2 days, today's date tasks will surface 2 days from now but will never appear in today's tasks.
I've used Remember the Milk over the last few years (note for this discussion I'm referring to PC vs. smartphone applications). I've used this service to track various recurring tasks, like paying monthly bills and taking certain meds, and it has a module which integrates with Google Calendar. For some reason, and I submitted a problem ticket on this with RTM, my recurring tasks stopped at the beginning of the month. In the meanwhile, I looked for a workaround.
Google of course has a Tasks product integrated with Calendar. But it really doesn't have recurring tasks functionality. I could use it for something like maintaining a honey do list of jobs around my home. Of course, you could create a recurring event like for birthdays and anniversaries in Google Calendar, but events are not generally tracked. For example, if my appliance bill is due on the 20th of the month, I can set up an event, even have Google send me a scheduled notification. But what I really want is a reminder which explicitly is checked off if and when I pay the bill, like in RTM. I can easily scan to see if there are open/overdue tasks/reminders.
I tried experimenting with a recurring tasks app which integrates with Google Tasks. It was not clear from app documentation about the update window, but I only saw a 3-week fill.
On further Googling, I saw references to integrated reminder functionality across different products like Google Keep, Indox, and Calender, replicating functionality on the smartphone side. But I didn't see a selection button for reminders vs. recurring events.
It turns out there's a conceptual piece of the puzzle which may not all that obvious; I came across a discussion in Google product forums where the Google analyst found herself saying the same thing multiple times. To provide context, I have 3 calendars under my account, presumably by default, a personal event calendar I normally interact with, birthdays and tasks. It turns out that task and reminder calendars must be toggled (I believe the default is tasks)., So, for example, if the task calendar is showing, you would switch to the reminder calendar by a pull-down menu to the right of the task calendar icon. (Personally I would have implemented a radio/checkmark option with both task and reminder calendar names showing.)
Once you toggle on the reminder calendar, entering/modifying reminders is straightfoward. For example, I might set up all-day reminders for taking my meds/vitamins. I left-click inside the day bubble to define the task and edit to set the recurring schedule.
[* update 6/26/16] I had several unproductive encounters with RTM tech support: basically, how can we replicate the problem? I mean, how do you get any simpler than say I have 4 daily tasks, and when I check today's tasks, I see none listed? No follow-up.
What I have noticed in my Google Calendar RTM plug-in is when I complete the first overdue task, the next day's task of the same type pops up in my window. When I check the overdue tasks, it doesn't list the tasks separately for outstanding dates but the task with a date displaying the earliest overdue date. I still think this is counterintuitive. So, for example, if I lapsed for 2 days, today's date tasks will surface 2 days from now but will never appear in today's tasks.
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