Playing in the Litter Box

Look Ma No Track Pad!

Installing Mt. Lion was a pleasant enough experience and at first everything appear honky dory...until I tried to use the track pad!  Oooops. Nothing happened.  My first visit to the Apple Forum and certainly not my last to this gathering of brave if befuddled Mac users brought a remarkably simple solution: reboot the computer!   This also proved to be the same cure for many future problems: Just turn the Mac off and on and voila, it  just works...now, that is.

Synch Stink

Synchronization generally provides rich opportunities for frustration and more of the magic of rebooting on Mountain Lion.  I suddenly noticed that Reminders (a clumsy new app that is no longer part of Calendar where one would expect to see reminders) was not the same on my MacBook at home and on my iPhone.  Bit of a downer since the idea is to remind you seamlessly wherever you are.

Next came a nasty surprise when I used iMessage to connect with a dear friend about getting together for lunch while I was on their side of town.  My day hung on the answer to the message which I had sent from my MacBook and had been confirmed as "delivered".  What I didn't know was that my iPhone was unaware of that conversation and the three messages sent to me went just to my laptop.  Arrrgh!  This wasn't just a minor inconvenience; a dear friend was in need of some support and was left out in the cold because Apple fumbled on the 10 yard line.  Another visit to the Apple tech Forum and the answer was maddeningly familiar but different: Reboot your iPhone, hook back up to iCloud and all is well.

"Antennaegate"

Here we are on the eve (9/11/12) of the big Apple iPhone 5 launch that some say will net them 10 + million sales.  Certainly good news for Apple fanboys and investors but I see a very dark lining to the iCloud.  Apple's success is its own worst enemy.  Only those of us who have bought the devices and now depend on them "just working" as Steve Jobs once boasted, really understand the dirty truth that they don't just work.  Sure the iOS ecosystem is wonderful and it does a much better job of tying the devices into a common interface and paradigm but along the way some basics are getting lost.  Basics like a track pad that won't work after installing Mt. Lion, Reminders that won't sync without gymnastics and iMessages that aren't delivered to all the devices. Tim Cook, the new CEO of Apple, is a supply chain guy who understands about getting the goods in peoples' hands and the Apple PR machine is enviable ion its ability to make customers salivate on command.  Let's see if the universal love lasts the inevitable bungling that will soon follow. (Do you remember "Antennaegate"?  Apple scolding customers that they must be holding their new iPhone 4 the wrong way to make it drop all those calls?!)

I have invested too much in the orchard to turn back now and as a matter of fact I will be buying a refurbished Apple TV just as soon as I can collect the $85.  Why?  Because with AirPlay on my laptop, I can wirelessly stream everything that appears on my laptop or iPhone directly to my TV; no more switching monitor cables.  In the meantime I will do my best to also share the good and the bad of Mountain Lion with you and pray that the Apple software engineers are allowed to give their customers the kind of service that they overpaid for.

Housebreaking Mt. Lion

New Cat in the House (NOT a New Cathouse)!

I waited as long as I could (poor impulse control) and finally ponied up the $20 for the newest OS Mountain Lion (OSX 10.8.1) on my 2011 MacBook Pro 13" (Jan. 2012) If you are an Apple hater, feel free to bail out now; if you are an Apple fanboy/girl I may just offend you too.

Preparation

Needless to say, I hope, there is some homework to do before you download even if your faith in the house that Steve built is next to Biblical.  Not all of your current software will necessarily be compatible with the new OS. This is not necessarily Apple's fault all the time because some companies just decided that you would need to buy an expensive upgrade of their wares in order to be compatible e.g. in my case Fusion vs 5 $50 or they just flat discontinued compatibility viz. Pro Tools LE 8.0.  The bottom line is to research ahead of time so that there are no nasty surprises.  For instance I decided to use the Boot Camp feature of Mt. Lion to install a dual boot version of Windows 8 Enterprise and I switched editing software to Amadeus Pro for $60 vs. nearly $400 for the baseline Pro Tools Edit Suite.

The next step is to make sure that you have a good back up copy of your previous OS (Lion or OSX 10.7 in my case) before you make the big leap.  Either burn it onto a DVD or USB stick or External HD just in case it all goes sideways, darned gremlins, don't ya know.  

My partner Cal Carson from the Internet Advisor show suggested using the SuperDuper app to burn a complete image of your current system as a safety back up on a removable drive.  Then he suggested installing the new Mt. Lion OS on another external HD and using that as another Start Up Disk (see System Preferences.)  That way you can boot into the new OS on the external HD and see if you like what you see before you buy the farm or more specifically sell the old one!

The download and saving the Install Disk

Like any purchase from the App Store, was pretty seamless since I was already using Lion (OSX 10.8). As a cautionary note I spent a good deal of time researching how to download the new OS and burn the Install Disk to a DVD only to find that even though the file is 4.35 GB, the system will not allow you to burn it to a normal DVD (4.74 GB) Huh?!  you say?  Yeah, my reaction too.

There was a cool post online about an Apple script that would fool your OS into thinking that the Install Disk was actually smaller (someone suggested that it just removes the foreign language scripts) and then allow you to burn it to a DVD.  No dice; either I couldn't figure out how to follow the directions about using Terminal (a very likely choice) or it just didn't work.  The solution?  Buy a $6 8GM USB stick at the counter of Micro Center in Madison Heights, MI (find a good deal wherever you want for a cheap one because this is just going to be filed away in case of disaster.  Just don't forget where you put it!  LOL)

I should mention that there is a little free utility that automates the burn which can be found on a number of sites that feature the instructions on burning Mt. Lion to a USB or external HD. (Just don't use the original one that still has the French instructions as part of it.  That one didn't work which raised my BP a few points until I found the right upgrade on another site.)

The Install

The install itself was pretty seamless and basically involved walking away from the computer for about an hour followed by a few anxious moments as I waited for the reboot.  No big drama but I did receive

In my next installment I will chronicle some of the ups and downs of housebreaking this cat including some annoying basic issues (how about your Track Pad doesn't work without a "fix" from one of the forums!)

Tata y'a,
Foster

Excelsior!

A New Day is Born

A new look for a new decade!

Well, let's say that is the excuse I am using for finally restarting a blog to which I last posted in 2009 just months before my life took a turn that no one could have imagined.  One simple word: Cancer (Multiple Myeloma /Bone Marrow Cancer)  It was always something that happened to others, deeply sad and incomprehensible, yet at the same time there was a veiled thought, "There but for the grace of God go I."  And then it stopped at my door.

On a recent trip my wife Ginny pulled out her prayer journal and asked, "Did you know that it was today on October 9, 2009 that we received the diagnosis of your cancer?" I hadn't remembered because my view has been steadily forward to the next step, whatever that was, and there have been many of them: New home, new city, new church, new "used" vehicle...new pains, new hopes, new fears, new career, new connections.

In the course of the last two years, I have found that I love writing as a way of crystalizing experiences, insights, and perspectives on life.  Perhaps this grew out of Caring Bridge, a wonderful free blog for cancer patients and their families. I used it both to keep those who loved me up-to-date about my welfare and to chronicle the journey through my particular valley of darkness.  It helped keep me honest and I was overwhelmed by the more than 14,000 responses that bathed me in love.

So here I find myself, squinting at the screen and wondering just where this will take me but excited to launch out on the journey.  You'll find all sorts of content here from technology to theology and all the stops in between. The one common denominator will be the perspective of an aging baby boomer with a renewed lease on life looking forward to the next adventures to which the Lord calls.  I will continue to cling to the promise that "...we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago."  Eph 2:10  Thanks for stopping by; feel free to add a polite (old friends and family members are permitted clean shots) comment.

And now...as I have often said on Caring Bridge, "Excelsior...Onward and Upward!"

In the War on Terror Bigger is not Necessarily Better

Three stories about digital spying and vandalism and the ongoing saga of the Somali pirates make me think of the American Revolution and how far we, as a nation, are from that.

First the news:
Wall Street Journal claims Chinese and Russian hackers have infiltrated the US power grid system leaving the spector of our enemies suddenly pulling the plug on our gadget crazy culture. Why bother to bomb us when we can be so easily stricken at one of our most vulnerable points? (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123914805204099085.html)

AT&T Broadband and Telecom Paralyzed in California Attack on Fiber Optics lines
Last week 10's of thousands of Californians had no cell phones, Internet access or 911 services because "vandals" cut a series of the fiber optic cables that not only supply Internet access but also serve as the "backbone" for many of the cell phone companies in the area including Sprint. Subsequent commentaries have show similar incidents in the past year around the country leading some to speculate that these are terrorist tests for our vulnerability.
(http://www.domain-b.com/companies/companies_a/AT&T/20090413_saboteurs_paralyse.html)
17 year old Cyber punk infects Twitter with a worm...because he was bored.
(http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/stories/2009/04/13/daily5.html)

And then there are the Pirates of Somalia (the screenplay is probably being written somewhere in LaLa Land even as you read this.) Easter Sunday was a resurrection for the US captain recently captured and a moment of judgment for three pirates who died. The drama has not ended with their deaths because the piracy continues with increasing boldness even in the face of a massive, multinational naval presence in the area. How is it that these pirate warrior clans can prey with such brazen impunity? The answer to this question and the truth that ties all them all together is utterly simple: Bigger is not better and we were the ones who taught the British.

King George's army landed on American shores believing that the undisputed might of the British Navy and Army could squelch the colonial uprising only to find that the Minutemen didn't "fight fair". Guerilla tactics defeated over-extended supply lines and armies of professional soldiers found they could not defeat an impassioned populace fighting in their backyards for the right to "live free or die". Bigger was not better.

American military might, billions of dollars and some of our finest young men and women have been spent in two wars (Iraq and Afghanistan). Those struggles have helped to bankrupt our economy, scar a generation of young and impassion some of the world's deadliest terrorists, but by no stretch of the imagination can America claim to have won these contests.

Now the battle seems to be coming to our comfortably insulated shores. 911 showed us just how patient and bloodthirsty our terrorist enemies can be. The vulnerability of our electrical power grid and its penetration by hostile foreign agents show the breadth of the internal threat. The fiber optic vandalisms, according to some reports, showed a high degree of sophistication (knowledge of the underground locations and which wires to cut), and they smack of probes by terrorist cells testing our infrastructure further. All of these threats were executed by small numbers of strategically placed, small units. Bigger definitely is not better.

Detroit: Resurrection Postponed

Ironic, isn't it? As the Christian feast of the Resurrection (Easter) approaches, a local judge has struck a blow to make sure that the city of Detroit doesn't have an even chance to rise from its ashes.

Quoting Thursdsay April, 9 Detroit Free Press:

Wayne County Circuit Judge Isidore Torres held that Detroit Mayor Ken Cockrel Jr. had no power to veto the City Council's rejection of the state law creating the authority....The decision puts into doubt the $288 million that would have funded an expansion and renovation of Cobo that has been viewed as essential to preserving the city's signature event -- the North American International Auto Show.

Detroit's Queen of the Council, Monica Conyers, was ecstatic: It gave her a chance to deride Detroit Mayor Ken Cockrel once again and babble on about how this keeps Cobo's assets under Detroit City Council's control. Read: Somebody was trying to cut Detroit's inner political circle out of the loot. This in a city reeling from tales of graft, incompetence, feather-bedding, bribes, nepotism and all the other earmarks of a corrupt, self-interested political machine with one goal in mind: Keep the control and the devil take the hindmost.

Detroit, now more than ever, needs a miracle resurrection that will transform this profoundly compromised political landscape into one that will become part of a regional coalition to revive this once great metropolitan era. Monica Conyers and her supporters have assured everyone who will listen that she will have no part in that unifying and healing process.

Tell us, Monica, when the North American Auto Show follows the rest of the industry out of town, exactly what will you be left to rule?

The End of the American Empire

The 20th Century was arguably the prime 100 years of American economic ascendancy. Our industry put the world on wheels, armed our forces and sent heavy equipment around the world while, among other things, our granaries fed the world. Our burgeoning middle/working classes gobbled up goods and services like there was no tomorrow, particularly after WWII. But that all changed as the century drew to a close and teetered on the brink of destruction amidst the smoke and ruin of 9/11.

We suddenly found ourselves in a world where our economic obesity was being fed by Chinese made goods, most major economic controls lay outside of our borders and our vaunted manufacturing centers were being replaced by cheap foreign labor. Greedy investment bankers put the final nails in the coffin by first feeding unreasonable expectations of continued prosperity and then avoid any accountability and bailing themselves out with help of their political cronies.

This is a new world where China suggests that the dollar is no longer a viable measure of currency while it artificially suppresses its own currency and Hugo Chavez, military dictator in Venezuela, recommends oil as the basis of economic exchange. A short 25 years ago both ideas would have been laughed off the world stage; now President Obama approached the G20 meeting of leading economies less as a rock star and more as a supplicant.

I believe our economic healing will begin with a new generation of Americans who see themselves as less entitled to the good times than they are dedicated to creating new value for global markets. My fellow members of the self-focused Boomer Generation may have to be pushed off the stage seeing how so many of us have run the economy into the ground and then taken fat bonuses. Maybe necessity will then become the mother of a whole new culture of inventive people looking over the horizon and outside the overstuffed chair that their elders have occupied.

Who do you think will lead us out of our economic swamp and into a new land of promise and opportunity and how will we get there?

Where's the paper?!

Is it coincidence that this week we have learned of a whole host of Michigan newspapers (Saginaw, Bay City, Detroit, Ann Arbor) that announced they are closing shop or reducing home delivery and going online? I don't believe in coincidences and neither do a lot of our listeners. One very articulate email crossed my desk that I want to share with you because of all the questions it raises about the changes. Our listener agreed to let me post it anonymously.

As you also know, home delivery customers typically pre-pay 6 months of subscriptions. This provides the Freep with free cash flow they don't have to get somewhere else. The time value of money is worth something, as well.

I'm a 25+ year home delivery subscriber to the Free Press. It seems that I, and other long-time customers, are being singled out as a profit problem and I just don't get it. I haven't read anything about renegotiation of the Teamsters contract nor any of the press production unions, so I'll assume that didn't happen. And, as I mentioned before, they can somehow "afford" to deliver newspaper to 18,000 retail locations, but not to home delivery carriers? I'll also assume they didn't renegotiate the debt load to cover their new presses.

So, I am left to conclude that their contracts with the home delivery carriers are the crux of the problem. But they can still "afford" home delivery a magnanimous three days a week. The old monthly subscription rate was $14 and change for 7 days a week delivery. Now it's $12 a month for 3/7 of the product. That looks like close to a 100% increase in price to me.

And no, I don't plan to read the digital free press, which presents me with an exact duplicate of the printed product. Who cares? The electronic version should be better than the printed product. Freep.com is still free and nytimes.com is also free.

One last comment - the next time someone from the Freep appears on your show, please ask what the cost is for a full page ad in the printed newspaper. Then, have him explain how he would hope to generate that much revenue on-line. Also ask if their jump in web traffic might have had something to do with the Kwami mess.

Oh yeah, I recently retired after 28 years with Hewlett-Packard. So I am well acquainted with technology. But I just don't envison firing up my PC in the morning and staring at a screen to read the paper. I could do that now if I choose to. Don't need the Free Press to do that, which at best is no more than a barely adequate regional product but it's the only morning game in town.


What is your reaction to the changes?