Technical issues. Hardware, software upgrades, misleading technical information, etc. For example, A USB smartcard reader stops working. After some trial and error, I get it working in another USB port. Was it an issue with the original port, with other connected USB devices, say, an external disk drive, affecting it, a problem with the reader itself, some recent updates, e.g., to device drivers?
As I write, my primary PC is making a second attempt at the latest Windows 10 feature update. It had successfully completed on my newer PC, although it seemed to take forever. I knew something had happened when I took a short nap and woke up to find my PC ready for logon and it did not launch into some sort of "preparing your desktop" step. I quickly confirmed the update had failed by looking at the Update history. No clue as to what happened, but at least the system had reverted to a usable state. [It has since failed again while I composed this post, at about the 58% completion point. I tried running the Updates troubleshooter to no result. This is not the first time I've run into multiple Update failures.] My older devices are "not yet ready" for the update. I know in the past they eventually get usable updates, but I find it annoying to having different versions across my devices. But even launching Setup/Windows Update can be an issue at times.
Then there's Adobe Flash Player. There are a number of issues here, including its use with certain mandating training software I use. A big upcoming issue is the product's end of life at the end of the year, with all major browsers announcing related end of support. There have been some chronic security lag patching, never mind browsers handle Flash Player support differently, e.g., Chrome vs. Firefox. One of the things I found that using the software through Chrome required manually changing the browser window to enable Flash Player; apparently there's no way to whitelist URLs to allow Flash Player. I discovered the Player issue when I got to a simulation exercise in the courseware and it just wouldn't advance--it was just spinning. I had contacted technical support; he didn't seem to run into the issue using my account--and then at some point he mentioned using Firefox. I recall in the past when using cable TV scheduling with Chrome. I would get some "right-click to enable Adobe" thing but at some point it changed to clicking at the start of the address prompt. However, in the case of the training software, I never got a warning to the effect there was a Flash Player issue.
And then I got to this one course where Flash Player was allowed, but I got a warning the courseware required Flash Player to display the screen. Now what? I remember the support guy had initially tested on Firefox. So I launched my copy of Firefox, only to discover Flash Player wasn't installed, and I eventually realized I had to download the player from Adobe. I remember wondering how to verify the software was installed in Firefox. I eventually launched the courseware and saw something to the effect of right-click to use Flash Player.
I know when I wrote my recent posts on issues with government smartcard CAC's I saw an emphasis in other sources on running the 32-bit version of Internet Explorer in order to use ActiveX functionality in order to use PKI for secure email (digital signature and encryption). If you're running a 64-bit OS, like many of my own PC's have, you should have both 64- and 32-bit versions. Long story short, I started launching the 32-bit iexplore. For other reasons, I started looking at Process Explorer from Sysinternals to look at the iexplore process(es) (right-click/Properties to see the executable path name). That's when I discovered 64-bit IE was still being launched concurrently; more to the point, even if I launched 64-bit IE, I could still use secure email functionality; I think I read somewhere that IE-64 will open a frame to support 32-bit requirements when needed.
On a side note, I have discovered that using a VPN can have some unpleasant side effects. For example, I found sending an email using Gmail was failing but if I momentarily disconnected the VPN, I could connect to the SMTP server. I've also found at least a dozen secure websites balking they don't recognize my IP. From a security standpoint, I appreciate the checks, but it is a usability tradeoff and somewhat defeats the purpose of using a VPN.
Monday, June 22, 2020
Saturday, June 6, 2020
Troubleshooting Secure Email Issues With a CAC
I was tempted to simply add a second addendum to my recent CAC post, but I wanted to expand on relevant comments.
To summarize, a (government) CAC smartcard chip contains PKI infrastructure, including private certificates and associated private keys. If I use third-party software, like ActivClient, I can see 3 certificates (identity, signature, and encryption). The identity certificate is used to authenticate, say, to a government website. The email signature is used to provide non-repudiation of the message source and encryption ensures confidentiality. In practice, the private infrastructure is protected by the CAC PIN. So, for example, in accessing a secure government website, including email, I'll usually get a pop-up to select the (identity) certificate; there's a second step (on my home system) where it's testing the card reader and reading the CAC; on an intermittent basis I'll sometimes get a garbage popup saying something like it can't use the certificates on the CAC. What this really means in practice is I need to reseat the CAC--remove the card from the CAC reader and reinsert it. (IMPORTANT practical note: if I'm using Internet Explorer 32-bits, I need to go to Internet Options, Content Panel and clear the SSL state before I can reread the CAC.) Once I get confirmation that the device is ready and click OK, I should be prompted for my CAC PIN. If successful, I'll usually land at a USG warning banner page (in IE, I'll sometimes have to refresh the webpage). Similar PIN entries occur if I sign and/or encrypt outgoing emails for security.
Now I ran into some weird issues soon after installing/testing S/MIME for use in IE-32 as described in the last message (needed for secure email functionality) I recall being able to pull up a digitally signed and/or encrypted email from another person and sending my own signed/encrypted email. A few days later, I tried pulling up another email from the same person, and the entire message body was blank. What the devil? Was he encrypting from an obsolete public certificate? A separate, weird issue: all of a sudden I couldn't send even regular emails from Outlook Web Access; clicking on the send button didn't do anything.
I really didn't want to contact the government helpdesk on the issues; I did have a contact with the local group servicing the laptop, and he mentioned he had also run into a blank email issue with OWA but not when using the Outlook client on his laptop (not available to me).
I did a Google search on my issues and found this Microsoft webpage where the user's experience exactly matched mine. When I got to Jeremy Nickels' detailed response and saw 231 readers had endorsed it, I was convinced I had stumbled across a solution for apparently a common problem. The key steps are up to step 10 and involve a number of tweaks to IE settings, and yes, they resolved my functionality issues. I didn't check militarycac.com; I think when I tested that first signed/encrypted email after installing S/MIME via a related note, I assumed no other tweaks were necessary.
To summarize, a (government) CAC smartcard chip contains PKI infrastructure, including private certificates and associated private keys. If I use third-party software, like ActivClient, I can see 3 certificates (identity, signature, and encryption). The identity certificate is used to authenticate, say, to a government website. The email signature is used to provide non-repudiation of the message source and encryption ensures confidentiality. In practice, the private infrastructure is protected by the CAC PIN. So, for example, in accessing a secure government website, including email, I'll usually get a pop-up to select the (identity) certificate; there's a second step (on my home system) where it's testing the card reader and reading the CAC; on an intermittent basis I'll sometimes get a garbage popup saying something like it can't use the certificates on the CAC. What this really means in practice is I need to reseat the CAC--remove the card from the CAC reader and reinsert it. (IMPORTANT practical note: if I'm using Internet Explorer 32-bits, I need to go to Internet Options, Content Panel and clear the SSL state before I can reread the CAC.) Once I get confirmation that the device is ready and click OK, I should be prompted for my CAC PIN. If successful, I'll usually land at a USG warning banner page (in IE, I'll sometimes have to refresh the webpage). Similar PIN entries occur if I sign and/or encrypt outgoing emails for security.
Now I ran into some weird issues soon after installing/testing S/MIME for use in IE-32 as described in the last message (needed for secure email functionality) I recall being able to pull up a digitally signed and/or encrypted email from another person and sending my own signed/encrypted email. A few days later, I tried pulling up another email from the same person, and the entire message body was blank. What the devil? Was he encrypting from an obsolete public certificate? A separate, weird issue: all of a sudden I couldn't send even regular emails from Outlook Web Access; clicking on the send button didn't do anything.
I really didn't want to contact the government helpdesk on the issues; I did have a contact with the local group servicing the laptop, and he mentioned he had also run into a blank email issue with OWA but not when using the Outlook client on his laptop (not available to me).
I did a Google search on my issues and found this Microsoft webpage where the user's experience exactly matched mine. When I got to Jeremy Nickels' detailed response and saw 231 readers had endorsed it, I was convinced I had stumbled across a solution for apparently a common problem. The key steps are up to step 10 and involve a number of tweaks to IE settings, and yes, they resolved my functionality issues. I didn't check militarycac.com; I think when I tested that first signed/encrypted email after installing S/MIME via a related note, I assumed no other tweaks were necessary.
Tuesday, June 2, 2020
Some Notes About Using CAC's on a Home PC
Common Access Cards (CAC's) are government ID smartcards. Basically they come with a chip on which you have some PKI certificates installed (used for network authentication, digital signing and email encryption/decryption in conjunction with a PIN) and is often used as a way to access certain government sites/ or buildings and certain government websites; government employees and contractors may also need additional proximity cards and/or smartcards for access to certain restricted buildings or areas at a government site. (This is not privileged information; in fact, you'll find a Wikipedia page on CAC's, and an Internet search will reveal a number of websites which discuss practical aspects of using CAC's, resolving issues, etc., not requiring access to government networks, including militarycac.com, which I'll briefly describe as a key resource below.)
I've needed CAC's for multiple gigs over the past decade. I say plural because I'm not a civilian (federal employee) and typically they are tied to contract expiration's and also must be surrendered if you quit or otherwise leave your position (need to have basis). It can be painful; for example, in a gig I had from 2017 to 2019, contract option years were figured into CAC expiration, and I had to get mine renewed; there were technical issues because the new CAC certificates were incompatible with old secure emails.
The COVID-19 crisis has backlogged local CAC processing, and so I had to go to a government facility in downtown Baltimore to get my CAC. I had been issued a government laptop off-site; basically the way the process works, my CAC is used to access the notebook and it first needs to be authenticated by connecting securely to the government network, and then authentication is cached to the PC, enabling logon (including without network authentication). Long story short, there's a known technical issue with certain newer CAC certificates from one of a couple of certificate authorities, and the network balked at my CAC because of that problem.
The government laptop comes with a card reader, but it's not usable because I can't logon without the cached CAC authentication (you don't get usable feedback; it simply states it's unable to validate my credentials, not that I entered an invalid PIN). I made an appointment at a desktop support group at the local facility, and the local technician identified the CA issue mentioned earlier.
This puts me in a bind because I needed to access my government email to respond to related service issues, also to do certain required training/certificates to get my own (vs. a visitor) network account, and whereas I didn't have to connect to the government network to access at least some alternatives, the websites typically require CAC authentication. So I had to acquire a USB smartcard reader; you can buy one for about $15 from a variety of vendors at Amazon.com. In addition, in my experience, I also had to buy a licensed copy of ActivClient for about $35 (see militarycac.com for the vendor). (Some sources or experts will tell you that you don't need the software with Windows 10, but in my experience, while Windows 10 could see the smartcard reader, it looked like an empty/inaccessible disk drive.) I also downloaded and installed/ran two executables from militarycac.com: InstallRoot...msi and HomeUserCertTool..zip.
The device "documentation" sucked. Let me quote:
"Red Light = Functional" (will change to blue when inserting CAC card)
Actually, the device comes with two lights, a power light, which is blue, and a second red light which blinks/doesn't change color with CAC insertion.
It also states "For 3rd party software, certificate, see militarycac.com". Presumably they are referring to ActivClient (see above). Once you have ActivClient installed, you should be able to see/open the CAC and see the certificate.
They also provide a URL to download the device driver. No such driver available, but apparently the Microsoft device driver is functional. As I said, the documentation sucks.
Finally, many government websites certify on Internet Explorer for support purposes. I found one training website worked well with Chrome. Some browsers, including Chrome, don't like certificates of other websites and won't let you to the URL. Ironically, I found webmail seems to work well with a Chrome cousin, Brave. [See addendum below.] Be careful with URL's; for example. one site required 'www.' at the beginning of the domain name, and another seemed to require '/owa' at the end. In Internet Explorer you may need to clear (content) state to reread your CAC and/or clear certificates via another security tab in Internet options. Sometimes you will get a failed validation, which can be resolved by removing and reinserting your card and trying to logon by CAC again. In a few cases you may need to refresh your browser to see your USG banner warning page.
Your mileage may vary; I don't know/think all or most will have two lights, one blue or one red. (I still can't forget my Commodore 64 floppy drive documentation back in grad school warned something like "Never insert/remove a floppy with the green light on!" Well, the green light was a power light! It also warned, "Don't power down the drive with a floppy in it!" Okay, how the hell are you supposed to use a program disk? I decided they really meant to say when you were writing to a data disk (say, an amber light blinking), but I really didn't want to lose my $35 program floppy.) Hopefully this guidance helps others; militarycac.com is very good but lacks the context I've provided here.
[Important addendum: 6/2/20.] In using Brave I was referring to regular emails, i.e., not using secured email functionality like signed/encrypted emails. In Windows, this is enabled by S/MIME functionality accessible through and/or installed with 32-bit Internet Explorer (\Program Files (x86)\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe) in conjunction with ActiveX controls. In my system, S/MIME was not installed by default, but a link to the install was available by drilling through the Options menu in Outlook Web App. Note I sometimes have to refresh IE after signing into OWA with my CAC ID/PIN to get the USG banner warning, a prerequisite to opening the mail app.
I've needed CAC's for multiple gigs over the past decade. I say plural because I'm not a civilian (federal employee) and typically they are tied to contract expiration's and also must be surrendered if you quit or otherwise leave your position (need to have basis). It can be painful; for example, in a gig I had from 2017 to 2019, contract option years were figured into CAC expiration, and I had to get mine renewed; there were technical issues because the new CAC certificates were incompatible with old secure emails.
The COVID-19 crisis has backlogged local CAC processing, and so I had to go to a government facility in downtown Baltimore to get my CAC. I had been issued a government laptop off-site; basically the way the process works, my CAC is used to access the notebook and it first needs to be authenticated by connecting securely to the government network, and then authentication is cached to the PC, enabling logon (including without network authentication). Long story short, there's a known technical issue with certain newer CAC certificates from one of a couple of certificate authorities, and the network balked at my CAC because of that problem.
The government laptop comes with a card reader, but it's not usable because I can't logon without the cached CAC authentication (you don't get usable feedback; it simply states it's unable to validate my credentials, not that I entered an invalid PIN). I made an appointment at a desktop support group at the local facility, and the local technician identified the CA issue mentioned earlier.
This puts me in a bind because I needed to access my government email to respond to related service issues, also to do certain required training/certificates to get my own (vs. a visitor) network account, and whereas I didn't have to connect to the government network to access at least some alternatives, the websites typically require CAC authentication. So I had to acquire a USB smartcard reader; you can buy one for about $15 from a variety of vendors at Amazon.com. In addition, in my experience, I also had to buy a licensed copy of ActivClient for about $35 (see militarycac.com for the vendor). (Some sources or experts will tell you that you don't need the software with Windows 10, but in my experience, while Windows 10 could see the smartcard reader, it looked like an empty/inaccessible disk drive.) I also downloaded and installed/ran two executables from militarycac.com: InstallRoot...msi and HomeUserCertTool..zip.
The device "documentation" sucked. Let me quote:
"Red Light = Functional" (will change to blue when inserting CAC card)
Actually, the device comes with two lights, a power light, which is blue, and a second red light which blinks/doesn't change color with CAC insertion.
It also states "For 3rd party software, certificate, see militarycac.com". Presumably they are referring to ActivClient (see above). Once you have ActivClient installed, you should be able to see/open the CAC and see the certificate.
They also provide a URL to download the device driver. No such driver available, but apparently the Microsoft device driver is functional. As I said, the documentation sucks.
Finally, many government websites certify on Internet Explorer for support purposes. I found one training website worked well with Chrome. Some browsers, including Chrome, don't like certificates of other websites and won't let you to the URL. Ironically, I found webmail seems to work well with a Chrome cousin, Brave. [See addendum below.] Be careful with URL's; for example. one site required 'www.' at the beginning of the domain name, and another seemed to require '/owa' at the end. In Internet Explorer you may need to clear (content) state to reread your CAC and/or clear certificates via another security tab in Internet options. Sometimes you will get a failed validation, which can be resolved by removing and reinserting your card and trying to logon by CAC again. In a few cases you may need to refresh your browser to see your USG banner warning page.
Your mileage may vary; I don't know/think all or most will have two lights, one blue or one red. (I still can't forget my Commodore 64 floppy drive documentation back in grad school warned something like "Never insert/remove a floppy with the green light on!" Well, the green light was a power light! It also warned, "Don't power down the drive with a floppy in it!" Okay, how the hell are you supposed to use a program disk? I decided they really meant to say when you were writing to a data disk (say, an amber light blinking), but I really didn't want to lose my $35 program floppy.) Hopefully this guidance helps others; militarycac.com is very good but lacks the context I've provided here.
[Important addendum: 6/2/20.] In using Brave I was referring to regular emails, i.e., not using secured email functionality like signed/encrypted emails. In Windows, this is enabled by S/MIME functionality accessible through and/or installed with 32-bit Internet Explorer (\Program Files (x86)\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe) in conjunction with ActiveX controls. In my system, S/MIME was not installed by default, but a link to the install was available by drilling through the Options menu in Outlook Web App. Note I sometimes have to refresh IE after signing into OWA with my CAC ID/PIN to get the USG banner warning, a prerequisite to opening the mail app.
Friday, May 29, 2020
In Troubleshooting, Question Your Assumptions
I will often use a large number of Internet browsers for a variety of reasons. For example, in my work as an Oracle DBA, I've generally found that Firefox worked better with Oracle web servers. Some browsers will block URLs they consider unsafe, even in a trusted intranet. My current client promotes Internet Explorer as their supported browser. Sometimes add-on's/extensions are exclusive to a particular browser. Others provide better privacy guards, have integrated support for video downloads, etc.
I've generally liked and use Google products; I was one of the earliest gmail users, I've got a Chromecast and Google Hub, I often embed multiple Youtube videos in my daily political posts, and I use Blogger for all my blogs. I was also an early adopter of Google Chrome. As familiar readers know, I have five PC's (long story: 3 of them were brought back from the dead) plus a Chromebook. I use them for different purposes. But one of the nice features (also implemented by other browsers) is Chrome's Google Sync feature, which includes, but is not limited to bookmarks. I've gathered and organized literally thousands of bookmarks over the years. I like being able to use any of my devices and having and being able to tweak the same bookmarks everywhere. I routinely maintain backups on multiple external hard drives, I've got cloud backups, and I could quickly switch to a backup PC in the event my workhorse PC becomes disabled. Oh, don't get me wrong; I would still need to reinstall certain apps, like my licensed Microsoft Office suite, but I also have flash drives with portable apps (including free open-source office suites, not to mention there's Google Documents and other apps via my Internet browser).
So I had started a new position and quickly gathered a number of links, e.g., to a timesheet system, web-based work email and other applications, an HR URL for paperwork, etc., quickly organized in a company folder. The other day I had switched to one of my backup computers and was working on a blog post when I noticed incidentally I didn't see my new company folder in its expected place. I double-checked: Google Sync was on in Chrome on both PC's. I double-checked setups on my backup PC, thinking maybe it wasn't syncing with the cloud. Nope.
What was wrong? The reader may guess the obvious correct answer, i.e., my workhorse PC wasn't syncing my local bookmarks to the cloud, that the bookmarks sync option had been toggled off. I had initially rejected that notion because I didn't remember going into sync options to toggle off any default option, never mind knowingly turning off a desired option. Well, not only was the bookmarks option toggled off, but all the others as well! So I had the paradox of Google Sync was on but not syncing anything to the cloud since all the options were turned off!
Obviously when I turned everything back on, my bookmarks migrated to my backup desktop, still leaving the mystery of how my sync options were in an interim off status. I did have a Chrome update issue a few weeks back and did a deinstall/reinstall of the browser as per guidance. I'm not sure if my enigmatic situation is an artifact of the reinstall process, but I'm making a mental check to reexamine Google Sync options routinely in the future, including any browser updates or reinstalls.
On a separate Google-related note, I remembered the Blogger Dashboard for a list of one's blogs and had a stored bookmark to it (see here for a mockup of what I'm describing). So a few weeks back I clicked on the URL--and no dashboard. Now I had noticed on my individual blog all-posts page there was a drop-down menu of my blogs (from the current/working blob ID), including an option to create a new blog. So it's fairly easy to switch among blogs; effectively the dashboard has been integrated into individual blog pages.
I think maybe this 11/22/2016 post explains it:
I've generally liked and use Google products; I was one of the earliest gmail users, I've got a Chromecast and Google Hub, I often embed multiple Youtube videos in my daily political posts, and I use Blogger for all my blogs. I was also an early adopter of Google Chrome. As familiar readers know, I have five PC's (long story: 3 of them were brought back from the dead) plus a Chromebook. I use them for different purposes. But one of the nice features (also implemented by other browsers) is Chrome's Google Sync feature, which includes, but is not limited to bookmarks. I've gathered and organized literally thousands of bookmarks over the years. I like being able to use any of my devices and having and being able to tweak the same bookmarks everywhere. I routinely maintain backups on multiple external hard drives, I've got cloud backups, and I could quickly switch to a backup PC in the event my workhorse PC becomes disabled. Oh, don't get me wrong; I would still need to reinstall certain apps, like my licensed Microsoft Office suite, but I also have flash drives with portable apps (including free open-source office suites, not to mention there's Google Documents and other apps via my Internet browser).
So I had started a new position and quickly gathered a number of links, e.g., to a timesheet system, web-based work email and other applications, an HR URL for paperwork, etc., quickly organized in a company folder. The other day I had switched to one of my backup computers and was working on a blog post when I noticed incidentally I didn't see my new company folder in its expected place. I double-checked: Google Sync was on in Chrome on both PC's. I double-checked setups on my backup PC, thinking maybe it wasn't syncing with the cloud. Nope.
What was wrong? The reader may guess the obvious correct answer, i.e., my workhorse PC wasn't syncing my local bookmarks to the cloud, that the bookmarks sync option had been toggled off. I had initially rejected that notion because I didn't remember going into sync options to toggle off any default option, never mind knowingly turning off a desired option. Well, not only was the bookmarks option toggled off, but all the others as well! So I had the paradox of Google Sync was on but not syncing anything to the cloud since all the options were turned off!
Obviously when I turned everything back on, my bookmarks migrated to my backup desktop, still leaving the mystery of how my sync options were in an interim off status. I did have a Chrome update issue a few weeks back and did a deinstall/reinstall of the browser as per guidance. I'm not sure if my enigmatic situation is an artifact of the reinstall process, but I'm making a mental check to reexamine Google Sync options routinely in the future, including any browser updates or reinstalls.
On a separate Google-related note, I remembered the Blogger Dashboard for a list of one's blogs and had a stored bookmark to it (see here for a mockup of what I'm describing). So a few weeks back I clicked on the URL--and no dashboard. Now I had noticed on my individual blog all-posts page there was a drop-down menu of my blogs (from the current/working blob ID), including an option to create a new blog. So it's fairly easy to switch among blogs; effectively the dashboard has been integrated into individual blog pages.
I think maybe this 11/22/2016 post explains it:
To kick things off, we’ve taken a crack at simplifying Blogger’s dashboard so that it’s easier for you to get right to the tools you need. Now, whenever you open Blogger, you’ll be taken right to your blog with the most recent post, putting you one click or tap closer to drafting something newUm, yeah, except I had already bookmarked the posts page for my signature political blog. So I wasn't going to the dashboard to start a new post. I was using the dashboard for a more consolidated view of my blogs. Now I could easily set up an html page to mimic functionality.of the old dashboard; I just wish that Blogger had given us an option to retain the old dashboard.
Wednesday, May 13, 2020
Tiles and Integration with Google Hub
I love Google products and services. But there are some usability issues that drive me crazy. One recent issue which comes to mind is the Google Nest Thermostat which I described in a recent post. I've unsuccessfully tried to get apartment management to replace what I think is a defective unit (the actual temperature deviates, which I verified from a cheap handheld thermostat I bought from Walmart). Reseeding the device occasionally corrects the temperature but it'll climb (above the real temperature). So I have to do offsets. For example, if I set the heat for 68, and I wake up to 64, and Nest shows 72, I'll reset the heat target to (say) 76. I'll make similar adjustments periodically while I'm in the apartment. It gets particularly annoying because it'll reset your heat target in "energy saving" mode. (I routinely get utility reports showing my apartment as the most efficient among neighbors, obviously unrelated to Nest.)
Sometime back I bought some Tiles. These are great for relocating items. Now at the risk of oversimplification, there are two types of Tiles, a flat kind (Slim) that you can insert into a wallet and a thicker, small plastic device with a keychain hole (Mate), which sort of reminds me of an iPod Shuffle. I originally bought 2 four-packs of the latter, one for my Mom (who didn't want it, found it insulting). These come with replaceable batteries (which you can buy in multi-unit packs for about $1 each). These need to be set up/registered with a cellphone app and an account with thetileapp.com.
So the Tiles have basically have two-way functionality. (Note the devices have ranges, depending on model from 150-400 feet.) Through the cellphone app, you can click to activate a noise from the target, say, my keys or wallet. And assuming your cellphone has battery power, the Tile app loaded and bluetooth on, you should be able to locate your cellphone from the tile by double-pressing the tile.
I didn't even realize it but my batteries had expired when I tried to use the tiles for the first time in months. I finally shipped my Mom's set and was going to brief my brothers on setup. For the most part, functionality works as expected in testing (e.g., for my wallet or keys). Occasionally it fails for unspecified reasons.
At some point I became aware I should be able to locate my Tiles through my Google Hub after setup, e.g., "Hey Google: ring my keys." I used documentation from the Tile App and Google, but I couldn't get functionality to work properly, and tech support from Google and the Tile App were ineffective (the latter was particularly obnoxious pasting the same setup 3 times, which had been done before my chat session). Somehow the Google Hub didn't think I had turned on the private results option through Google Home. Long story short, I found the Google Hub was linked to two of my gmail accounts. I delinked the less frequently used account, and that seemed to resolve my functionality issues.
Sometime back I bought some Tiles. These are great for relocating items. Now at the risk of oversimplification, there are two types of Tiles, a flat kind (Slim) that you can insert into a wallet and a thicker, small plastic device with a keychain hole (Mate), which sort of reminds me of an iPod Shuffle. I originally bought 2 four-packs of the latter, one for my Mom (who didn't want it, found it insulting). These come with replaceable batteries (which you can buy in multi-unit packs for about $1 each). These need to be set up/registered with a cellphone app and an account with thetileapp.com.
So the Tiles have basically have two-way functionality. (Note the devices have ranges, depending on model from 150-400 feet.) Through the cellphone app, you can click to activate a noise from the target, say, my keys or wallet. And assuming your cellphone has battery power, the Tile app loaded and bluetooth on, you should be able to locate your cellphone from the tile by double-pressing the tile.
I didn't even realize it but my batteries had expired when I tried to use the tiles for the first time in months. I finally shipped my Mom's set and was going to brief my brothers on setup. For the most part, functionality works as expected in testing (e.g., for my wallet or keys). Occasionally it fails for unspecified reasons.
At some point I became aware I should be able to locate my Tiles through my Google Hub after setup, e.g., "Hey Google: ring my keys." I used documentation from the Tile App and Google, but I couldn't get functionality to work properly, and tech support from Google and the Tile App were ineffective (the latter was particularly obnoxious pasting the same setup 3 times, which had been done before my chat session). Somehow the Google Hub didn't think I had turned on the private results option through Google Home. Long story short, I found the Google Hub was linked to two of my gmail accounts. I delinked the less frequently used account, and that seemed to resolve my functionality issues.
Thursday, January 30, 2020
Thunderbird; Zombie Windows Application Installs; iTunes
Thunderbird
I've written a lot of post segments about Mozilla Thunderbird, in large part because it's been my primary desktop email client for more than a decade. I do have a licensed copy of Outlook but am wary of the effort in migrating things like folders and related filters.
There are a number of usability issues I've experienced over the years. One is the problem of pop-ups, e.g., noting a long-running process and providing an option to stop the program. I've generally found the application is in an unusable state when that happens (in fact, the popup itself is often hard to use and can crash the application), so I'll often just restart Thunderbird.
Another usability issue involves defaults, especially in the context of add-ons. I'll give examples of 2 add-ons I have implemented over the past year or so: Enigmail and Send Later. Enigmail enables a user to digital sign and/or encrypt emails using PGP (pretty good privacy). The configuration isn't difficult but beyond the scope of this post (see here for more information). Functionally, you'll generate a key/certificate for a given email address with a passphrase/code. In practice, you'll supply the passphrase in signing an outgoing email. (A digitally signed email can be verified by the recipient as coming from you, using your related public key.) I've so far configured 3 of my external email accounts registered in my Thunderbird client to use with Enigmail, mostly using them to test PGP functionality among accounts.
The problem I have in using Enigmail is almost no one I correspond with (including my family/siblings) is set up with their own public/private key pairs for email encryption. Basically I don't really want to enable emails for default digital signing or encryption. There are ways of setting up the email compose (send-attach) toolbar with encryption and digital sign icons/toggle switches (right click/customize) if necessary in conjunction with Account Settings/Open PGP Security settings for relevant email accounts. (Note: there is also a "protect subject line" toggle-switch icon you can drag/drop into the toolbar.) So if I want to encrypt and/or sign individual emails, I can click default(s) off (red x), which should then show green checks.
This is just to set up the anomaly I experienced. I'm not sure when it started happening, maybe after Thunderbird and/or add-on updates, but all of a sudden I started getting queries for passcodes in trying to open up existing email drafts, e.g., to my mother. It wasn't clear why this was happening; I hadn't set up the emails for encryption or signing, and I wasn't getting prompted for passcodes on quick emails to Mom. Long story short, there was a (default?) checked parameter to encrypt email drafts on saving in Account Settings/Open PGP Security.
The second nonintuitive setting on the Send Later add-on. (I misunderstood the purpose of the add-on; I thought it might be a scheduling function (e.g., send this birthday email to my relative at the scheduled time).) Actually this works similar in nature to drafts, except the message is stored in my local outbox (and if I want to edit before sending, I have to right-click, edit (as a new message)). The add-on, however, does not set up the compose email with a "send later" button. As described above for the PGP icons, you have to right-click on the (send-attach) toolbar, and select the customize option, then drag/drop the send later icon to the toolbar
Zombie Windows Installs
To provide context, every once in a while I'll scan Control Panel/Programs on my workhorse PC to scan for unused programs or odd quirks like multiple versions. This recently was motivated by a software update scan, which suggested that I had an old version of Thunderbird. Familiar readers may recall I ran into Thunderbird 68 version update issues, and one thing that I became aware of is a 64-bit version alternative to my legacy 32-bit version. In the process of installing the former, I forgot to check if the legacy version was still installed. But my 64-bit install is patch-current.So at any rate, my software update software said my x-86 Thunderbird 68.3.1 needed updating. So I went to Control Panel/Programs to right-click/uninstall the relevant client when it became clear it wanted to uninstall from the path of my 64-bit install. HELL NO! I went to Program Files X-86 and noticed, sure enough, the old client was still installed. I manually located and executed the uninstall binary, later clearing away residual traces. But whatever the uninstall binary did, did not affect the relevant listing in Programs. What the hell? As I wrote this segment, I did a regedit and located/deleted any residual references to Thunderbird 68.3.1; I subsequently refreshed Control Panel/Programs and this time the old listing is gone, and my software updater no longer flags it. Generally speaking, though, I don't like having to regedit to maintain programs.
iTunes
Familiar readers may recall a couple of quirks I've referenced in terms of iTunes. One is during the update process where it can't find a target MSI file in the user AppData hierarchy; the other is somewhere after October, I suddenly found my backlogs for most podcasts suddenly disappeared after the most recent 3 episodes and continued to roll-off the oldest episode when downloading the most recent. This didn't happen for 2 or 3 of my feeds, like Cato Institute, but most of them. I couldn't see a podcast setting where this was being set.So I just updated to iTunes 12.10.4. Easier said than done: it seemed to hang looking for the MSI file again. I clicked the cancel button and assumed it would rollback its changes, like in the past. But at some point I got a message the update completed and I needed to reboot. Say what? Sure enough, when I later relaunch iTunes and check for updates, it tells me I have the latest release installed. I'm not sure what that stutter step was all about, but I shouldn't have to manually cancel that MSI step.
But now when I right-click on my podcast feeds, I notice a podcast settings option. And sure enough, there's a limit episodes parameter, set to a default of 3 episodes. I quickly turned off that parameter for my podcasts and noted that I should now be able to redownload unheard episodes that rotated out.
Monday, January 20, 2020
Minor Annoyances
There are various issues that I routinely encounter with usability considerations; a small sample follows:
I've gone through innumerable Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird updates through the years. Normally the upgrades have maintained existing configurations although I did notice a few weeks back I had to reconfigure my browser settings (menu and bookmark bars, reset my bookmarks, download my prior add-ons, etc.)
But every once in while I run into issues (often with the iTunes Win update) where an update fails and I'm advised to download the full product. So this happened with Thunderbird over the past day, and I downloaded the full product--only to find out when I restarted, it was totally unconfigured and blank, wanting me to configure a first email account. DAMN! I know instantly what happened--it created and linked to a new profile. There are some nuances to my configuration, include locating mail storage under a cloud backup directory. So a short-term fix was to archive the new profile and replace its contents with those of my old profile.
I then discovered an unexpected new problem: the newly-installed software wasn't updated--and deja vu I ran into another update issue. This time I noticed there was a 64-bit version at the website and downloaded it. Interestingly, it seemed to want to install in Program Files X86 vs Program Files by default. That seemed odd, but I allowed the default to continue, including any necessary 'cleaning up the bird cage'. It seemed to complete as expected but within a day or two, I saw a notice that an update was needed again--and to be astonishment I was not only running the same version--but the 32-bit version. What the devil happened--did the 64-bit installation fail and/or restore the old 32-bit version?
So this time I went to the custom installation option and pointed the application to a Program Files folder and made sure a desktop link was generated. This time I could confirm the 64-bit version and software version (via About Thunderbird). However, two recent add-ons I had recently installed (Provider for Google Calendar and Quick Folders (tabbed)) were missing and I installed/configured again without issue.
This is a new update to this segment. I have software version checkers, and one came back and told me Thunderbird needed to be updated. Say what? Usually the Thunderbird interface lets me know of a new version and/or automatically updates it (e.g., I get a notice on startup that Thunderbird is first applying the latest update). So I connect to the update channel via About Thunderbird, and sure enough it identifies an update, downloads and installs it. A subsequent reboot of Thunderbird and version check--what the devil? No change in version; once again, it's downloaded and applied. This time on restart I get the pop-up bar saying it's applying the update; I get into Thunderbird, check the version (yup, as expected) and the update channel says I have the latest version.
I'm not going to report all the usability issues here, but the initial failed update, having to do updates and add-on installs multiple times, the 64-bit installation path issue, and having to copy over my old profile files to the new profile were all unexpected.
The Latest Thunderbird Update
[Reader note: I started to draft this segment and others several days back. Parts of this first segment may have been similarly posted elsewhere in one of my blogs.]I've gone through innumerable Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird updates through the years. Normally the upgrades have maintained existing configurations although I did notice a few weeks back I had to reconfigure my browser settings (menu and bookmark bars, reset my bookmarks, download my prior add-ons, etc.)
But every once in while I run into issues (often with the iTunes Win update) where an update fails and I'm advised to download the full product. So this happened with Thunderbird over the past day, and I downloaded the full product--only to find out when I restarted, it was totally unconfigured and blank, wanting me to configure a first email account. DAMN! I know instantly what happened--it created and linked to a new profile. There are some nuances to my configuration, include locating mail storage under a cloud backup directory. So a short-term fix was to archive the new profile and replace its contents with those of my old profile.
I then discovered an unexpected new problem: the newly-installed software wasn't updated--and deja vu I ran into another update issue. This time I noticed there was a 64-bit version at the website and downloaded it. Interestingly, it seemed to want to install in Program Files X86 vs Program Files by default. That seemed odd, but I allowed the default to continue, including any necessary 'cleaning up the bird cage'. It seemed to complete as expected but within a day or two, I saw a notice that an update was needed again--and to be astonishment I was not only running the same version--but the 32-bit version. What the devil happened--did the 64-bit installation fail and/or restore the old 32-bit version?
So this time I went to the custom installation option and pointed the application to a Program Files folder and made sure a desktop link was generated. This time I could confirm the 64-bit version and software version (via About Thunderbird). However, two recent add-ons I had recently installed (Provider for Google Calendar and Quick Folders (tabbed)) were missing and I installed/configured again without issue.
This is a new update to this segment. I have software version checkers, and one came back and told me Thunderbird needed to be updated. Say what? Usually the Thunderbird interface lets me know of a new version and/or automatically updates it (e.g., I get a notice on startup that Thunderbird is first applying the latest update). So I connect to the update channel via About Thunderbird, and sure enough it identifies an update, downloads and installs it. A subsequent reboot of Thunderbird and version check--what the devil? No change in version; once again, it's downloaded and applied. This time on restart I get the pop-up bar saying it's applying the update; I get into Thunderbird, check the version (yup, as expected) and the update channel says I have the latest version.
I'm not going to report all the usability issues here, but the initial failed update, having to do updates and add-on installs multiple times, the 64-bit installation path issue, and having to copy over my old profile files to the new profile were all unexpected.
My Infuriating Voice (Tree) Mail Loops
The ISP/Cable Provider Incident
One of my pet peeves deals with service interruptions with power and cable/internet services. I, especially as an IT consultant, do realize crap happens, not to mention occasionally some maintenance interruptions are necessary that are difficult to work around. But in the business world we normally schedule maintenance activities to minimize user inconvenience--like evening, weekend, or holiday times; if and when it cuts into business hours, we typically promote service interruption schedules days in advance.
I have dealt with numerous ISP interruptions (over and beyond power interruptions) to the point I know to power cycle the router/disconnect power cables for several seconds during the process. Occasionally they need to send a reset signal from their end.
Cable TV issues occur less frequently. So when both my Internet and cable went out shortly after midnight, no storms in the area, etc. I immediately suspected maintenance was at play. But I got looped into automated voice mail hell. There was no option to bypass to customer service; the system simply said in effect, "We are having trouble getting to your box; let's send a signal to your box; check if you still have a problem in 10 minutes..." It was clear after 2 or 3 iterations, there was a more general issue, but no reference to outages in my area. After calling back multiple additional times over the coming hour, I finally got a message there was maintenance in my area being done and an expected time for service resumption. You would think that would have been pushed out sooner than later, instead of this absurd "let's test sending a signal to your box" loop; what I really wanted was closure on a time for maintenance completion; I had been convinced about the fact of maintenance being done before I called the first time.
My Utility Auto-Payment Problem
For some routine recurring expenses, there is often an option to auto-pay, e.g., through one's checking account and/or credit card, such as rent, storage rentals, car payments, auto or health insurance payments, cable bills, credit card bills, and utility payments, among other things. I do regularly audit the payments for accuracy and to ensure things like no fraudulent charges. In part, this is to ensure I don't accidentally forget to make a payment. (I have come close on a few occasions, e.g., forgetting to press a payment submit button being interrupted or distracted by phone calls or other things or not getting or overseeing a payment notification.) But I don't really think I should have to double-check auto-payments, which should be highly automated.
So I did a double-take when I got an email for my upcoming utility payment and saw an existing balance line item. Say what? Never mind a late-penalty fee. How the hell did this happen? I remember contacting customer service; I think at some point I got a general email notification of some sort of systems hiccup affecting some customer accounts and late-payment fees being waived.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)