halfgeek.codes

A couple of days ago, The Wall Street Journal ran a story about how all three mobile networks operating in the US — AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile — intend to dismantle their 3G infrastructure by the close of this year.

I considered the news for a moment, then broke into a cold sweat as I dialed OnStar.

My car is a model year 2013. That means that later this year, my car will be 10 model years old.

I knew with near certainty the OnStar transceiver in my car operated over a 3G network. Verizon's, in fact — based on previous conversations with OnStar.

According to the advisor I spoke with, OnStar will be marketing a device in the coming months to allow older transceivers to continue to function in the new mobile spectrum. I was told to watch for details in March.

I was also told these devices will "plug into" the transceivers, and that subscribers will be billed for the cost of those devices.

I suspect the subtext of the previous paragraph is that we'll have to have the devices professionally installed, and that subscribers are going to have to weigh the benefit of continuing the subscription against the costs of the device and the labor for installation. I fear this could be an expensive proposition, which could force owners to consider upgrading their cars.

Personally, succession planning has become a more serious matter. I love my car, and I've had very little trouble with it — so much so that I trust it for kiddo's use far more than I would buying another used car. But now the car has reached the point where the technology its emergency contact system relies on is being retired. In an age where cars are more and more computerized, and less and less maintainable by their owners, the cost of ownership is today now influenced by occasional disruptions like this.

Overall, posts were down this year. In 2020, I spent a lot of time out of work due to COVID-19. Happily, I spent 2021 hard at work.

Posts on fitness and cycling were way up this year. COVID-19 posts remained in the top spot, though 2021 saw only half as many such posts as did 2020.

• Art posts were up. Laurel gifted me a pair of Tarkay's and one or two Barnes this year!
  
  
• Books were down this year, which likely reflected my general exhaustion with all things politics — particularly following the attack on Congress in early January. There were a couple of books I wanted to buy, but never "closed the deals."
  
  
• COVID posts generally reflected the progress the United States had made against the virus during the spring and summer months. I posted 32 times about COVID-19 during 2021, with no posts ocurring between May and July. Contrast with 63 COVID-related posts in 2020. Posts to the topic began increasing late in the year, with the arrival of the omicron variant.
  
  
• Posts about fitness/health shot up this year, and for good reason: I decided to finally get my shit together and be an adult — to stop eating like a 17 year old and ignoring my diabetes. To say 2021 was a transformational year for me is underselling it — I got healthy in a VERY big way, dropping from about 275 lbs down to 219, and reducing my astronic A1C measurement to 7, earning the description "well-managed."
  
  
• Gaming posts dropped signficantly over the year, too. I haven't spent much time on the XBOX this year, except to use it to play DVD's... but I've been loving Grand Theft Auto III on my PC.
  
  
• Geek posts were also way down in 2021.
  
  
• Movie posts were flat, though we did go see a few this year. Theaters were prety much closed throughout 2020. Music posts were also flat, though I played a LOT of guitar over the year.
  
  
• There were several politics and national interest posts over the year, but one of them, recounting the aftermath of the Presidential Election, ran from Election Day through to Inauguration Day.
  
  
• Several posts to the Texas Life topic were made in February, when the state saw a terrible snow storm that took out power across the state and killed hundreds.
  
  
• No posts on whiskey this year, which is hardly surprising since I gave up drinking like two years ago or more.
  
  

Topic	Count
art	1
cycling	4
COVID-19	32
family/kids	1
fitness	9
gaming	3
geek	5
nation/politics	7*
texas life	4

 

I ordered a refurbished Roomba 980 on ebay for what seemed a very reasonable price. After setting it up this evening and running it for a while, I have to say the Roomba does not disappoint.

The unit arrived with only the charging station and an AC power cord for the charging station. No manual, no instructions, not even a quick start guide.

Googling "iRobot Roomba 980" quickly returned a manual. Following its instructions, I set up the charging station and docked the vacuum on it to allow it to charge. A short while later, I downloaded the iRobot Home app to my iPhone, and followed its instructions on configuring the Roomba for our home network... took maybe three minutes.

I set a schedule for the machine to run this evening. Right on cue, it sprang to life and started its task. After running for an hour, it had swept up the kitchen several times and did a fair amount of the living room and adjoining hallways. It navigated the carpeted areas with no problem at all.

In a house with more pets than people, the vacuum collected a very impressive amount of pet hair — partly, I suppose, because it moves unhindered beneath furniture I'm too lazy to move when I run the manual machine. (Look, I'm just being honest here.)

In the hour it ran, it consumed probably 80% of its battery — but much of the terrain was living room carpet. In practice, I'd probably maybe limit it to running for 15 minutes or a half-hour at a time instead of it just running open-ended like that.

Here's the most impressive part (to me, anyway): Each time the robot runs, it builds a map of the area. After the initial run of 15 minutes, it had a lot of the hard surfaces figured out — the back entrance and the kitchen area chiefly. I mean, it was sort of rough, but you could make it out. After the hour, it had added significant detail to the map: one can now clearly see the kitchen, bar, dining area, much of the living room, and the halls. It had mapped its position well enough that when I pressed the "home" button (which I thought would send it to its dock), it went STRAIGHT there, navigating the curvature of the walls and everything.

About the only negative I could say — and I feel a little dumb for saying it — is that the machine sounds like a vacuum cleaner. It's not quiet. It's every bit as loud as my Dyson vacuum or a hair dryer. Tonight for the hour it ran, I ended up "sending it home" because I'd had enough of the noise. I guess I thought it'd be quieter. Everything else about the machine so far is super impressive. The amount of junk it collected was astounding. Would I buy another? Today, I absolutely would.

UPDATE

One month on, and I just about can't love this thing any more than I do. It amazes me how much fur and dust and whatnot it collects.

I had a bit of a headscratcher last week... no matter what I tried, I couldn't get the bin warning to reset. Fortunately, the Internet came to the rescue. I learned two things from this person's blog post: (1) There are sensors inside of the bin compartment that work like obstacle sensors do on garage doors. If the sensors can't "see" each other, the machine interprets as if the bin is full. (2) I had been clearing the bin by sticking my fingers in its "mouth" and removing the filter from the top, then working the contents out into the garbage. It turns out the entire "mouth" side is hinged. If you look at the bin from the top, the side where the mouth is is black and has a pair of yellow triangles that appear as subtle arrows to suggest how to re-insert the bin. If you press at where those arrows are, you can open the bin, giving much easier access to its contents. The sensors I mentioned earlier are two rectangular shapes that jut out on either side of the mouth. Cleaning those may resolve a difficult bin error issue.

I would still buy one again in a heartbeat.

I also purchased a pair of virtual wall units — also from eBay, and far below retail price — and these things are awesome. The images suggest they're about the size of an electric coffee grinder, but they're actually much, much smaller... more the height of a coffee cup. Each runs on a pair of AA batteries (included). I use them to confine the Roomba to our living room — one as a boundary on the north side of the room to prevent access to the kitchen, and one on the east side of the room to prevent access to the main hall. I do actually need a third, though, to be completely effective for the family room area.

With all the amazing work the Roomba does, though, — at least, around my house, with four cats and a dog — I think it's already time to do some maintenance. I think I probably should have changed the HEPA filter a couple of weeks ago, and the brush bristles are looking pretty dark. Amazon.com seems to have no shortage of replacement parts available for purchase.

In summary, for a home that has pets, and carpet throughout, I'd recommend buying a refurbished unit straight from the manufacturer via eBay, and buying a maintenance kit with replacement brushes and air filters. When run regularly, the Roomba will capture tons and tons of debris at first — you'll be emptying the bin often. If you didn't vacuum your floors often before getting the Roomba, you may find the filter and/or brush could use replacement in that first month. Over time, you'll find there's less debris for Roomba to collect, and you'll be emptying the bin less often.

Over the last several months, there's been much ado about Apple's new ATT feature in iOS 14. ATT is what the cool kids call the defensive capability built into the iPhone's operating system that prevents apps from tracking your identity outside of Apple's "walled garden" without your expressed permission. Many postulated the new privacy move by Apple would kill especially Facebook's data collection efforts, which constitute a very large revenue stream for the social media platform. I've read several articles which exposed the breadth of data Facebook collects through its iPhone app — it's monstrous and unreasonable. Data collection of this magnitude, combined with weak protections, is what allowed a small company called Cambridge Analytica to weaponize Facebook for political purposes. With ATT now requiring each unit's owner to specifically authorize Facebook to collect their data, Apple, combined with user preference, have all but closed the data floodgates to Facebook entirely; the last reporting I saw suggested between 5% and 10% of Facebook users have given the permission now required for Facebook to collect data from their iPhones.

I have been using Facebook less and less of late, mostly as a function of the divisiveness and rancor that didn't entirely cease at the close of the most recent federal election cycle. But today, things in my native Facebook app were different: ads. About every third item in my feed was a fucking advertisement. This was pollution of a sort I'd never seen before, because they didn't seem to be driven by my preferences or history. It's just ad after ad after ad of random shit.

As I'd been reading about what a data Hoover the Facebook app is, I've weighed the price of using the app with the experience using a browser. I chose Firefox for an experiment, making Facebook the only page I used that browser for, so every time I'd open it, it'd open to Facebook. I found the browser-based experience not entirely distasteful. There was a lot about it that very closely approximated the experience through Facebook's app.

So today when I found all those ads cluttering my feed, I switched to Firefox and found... no ads. Anywhere. My feed was all content, no ads. I checked the app again — the SECOND item on my feed was an ad.

I looked closer at the settings on Firefox Mobile. What? A night mode? YES PLEASE! Once I found that setting, there was no reason for me to use the Facebook app any longer. It's outta here!

I'm not a hard-core privacy guy, but I do consider my information as currency where "free" apps like Google and Facebook are concerned. Put simply, if you're going to use their apps, you have to be okay with them monetizing your metadata. So be a smart shopper, and vote with your data. Personally, I'm not okay with the quantities of data Facebook and Google collect from my phone, so I choose not to use their applications.

So my preferred substitution for the Facebook App is accessing their site via browser. Firefox Mobile, built by Mozilla, is known for being pro-privacy, and it's new "night mode" sealed the deal for me.

This advice is not mine — it's from Mozilla Support — I'm just passing their information along.

This particular issue has affected me for months — I even went so far as to install a browser sizer widget to try to work around it: My Firefox browser software would always open full screen — not necessarily maximized, but... it sort of reminded me of JavaScript used back in the 1990's to expand the browser to full screen. It didn't matter what I did to try to stop it.

This morning I guess I found the right combination of search terms to Google my way to the aforementioned support article. The problem I was having can be traced to a corrupted XML file.

The solution, provided by Fred McD, suggested spelunking your AppData folder down to Firefox/ Profiles to find and delete xulstore.json. I found that file in a folder one level below — a lot can happen in software over a year (Fred McD provided the solution in April, 2020).

Sure enough, once I deleted the file I was able to open Firefox, resize it, close it, and reopen it at the size I'd previously set.

Thank you, Fred McD and Mozilla!

I don't like ads on anything other than broadcast TV, and that's only because I grew up with them. If I'm frequenting a website that's ad-supported, I'll typically purchase a subscription — I'd rather support them directly than deal with annoying ads. But where I really draw the line is seeing ads on a service I'm already paying for.

Apple has crossed that line by pushing notifications to my Apple Watch about its programming. I don't GAF about a new show on Discovery+; grabbing my wrist to tell me about it is not only unhelpful, but it's motivation for me to tell others how to configure their settings so you don't annoy them, either.

I am running the latest versions of the iPhone and Apple Watch operating systems, and I've never messed with any of these settings before — so I assume I'm about to walk you through changes to default settings.

I started with the Apple Watch app, because that app typically controls settings for your Apple Watch.

1. First, I touched the Notifications menu. Make sure you're looking at the My Watch panel (I think it's the default when you open the app).
2. Under Notifications, you'll see three switches that take up the entire screen. Scroll down to see notifications settings for individual apps... you won't find AppleTV there.
3. Scroll down further until you see "MIRROR IPHONE ALERTS FROM:" — and keep scrolling until you find the AppleTV app, just called "TV". You'll find its set to OFF. Switch it ON.

Now, move to your iPhone Settings app.

1. Touch the AppleTV menu (the text reads, "TV").
2. Scroll down to "ALLOW TV TO ACCESS," and touch the Notifications menu.
3. Set Allow Notifications to OFF.

Once you've completed that last step, if you look back in your Apple Watch Settings app, AppleTV is not listed in the "MIRROR IPHONE ALERTS FROM" list.

Hopefully, this will end the ads on my Watch. And yours.

It's not difficult to imagine that posts about COVID-19 were far and away more plentiful than any other topic in 2020 — there were so many that I split the content into separate records by month to try to better manage them.

After COVID-19 posts, gaming, national interest, and nerd posts took top spots in the interests topics this year. In 2019, nerd posts took the top spot, and posts in the national interest topic were only half of what they were in 2020.

Topic	Count
books	4
car	2
cooking/food	3
COVID-19	63
family/kids	6
fitness	0
gaming	14
geek	13
leadership	0
movies	0
music	9
nation/politics	12
texas life	1
whiskey	1

 

I think my totals for the year sort of reflect life during the pandemic: music posts are way up (bought a new guitar and have been playing it A LOT); I read a few books this year; my gaming posts are through the roof (I really got into playing retro games like DOOM and QUAKE on my Windows 10 laptop), and I made no movies posts. Much of our world was closed this year — including, and especially, movie theaters — and so at-home activities took the spotlight.

Also telling, my food/cooking posts increased, and my whiskey posts decreased: I was cooking more for my family, and I pretty much cut out drinking. Kiddo had a really rough year, and I wanted to show her that she could depend on me to be available to her whenever she may need. Mixed drinks don't fit too well with that goal.

There's one place where I sold myself a little short: I should have made a post in the fitness topic about the swimming I was doing starting in August. In short, I figured out a sort of a swimming routine I could do in our backyard pool, and after doing it for about a month I really started seeing some changes in my physique; others noticed it, too. So I can't wait to get back in the pool in a couple of months — I figure if I could look and feel good in the couple of months I was swimming this way, imagine how I'll look and feel after doing it for an entire season! It's actually emblematic of the pandemic, though — the truth is I don't know what I would have done had we not had the pool. I was in it every day I could this past year: being in the pool (in the sun) charges up the vitamin D, which had been said to have a huge impact on how the disease affects a person.

Perhaps this is a function of aging, but I guess I expect a relationship to exist between the expense of an item and its quality — or, closer to the matter, its longevity.

We recently replaced my Dyson upright "Ball" vacuum cleaner. It was an "animal" model, meaning — well, implying — it was a superior machine to the manufacturer's normal models. I paid somewhere around $570 for it new in about 2009. (By the way, I *think* Dyson announced sometime in 2019 or 2020 that it wouldn't produce its upright "Ball" vacuums any longer, preferring to focus on its "stick" models instead — perhaps as a function of demand; yet Dyson is currently selling two upright "Ball" models.)

Sometime in the past few years, it hasn't sounded the same as it had. To be honest, I believe the change in sound happened at the same time we let someone borrow it. I'm not saying that to be a jerk or anything — it's an observation, not an accusation. (Full disclosure: it's totally passive-aggressive accusation.)

Anyway, the bottom line is that my wife spoke to me about replacing it, and I was disgusted, I guess. Disgusted because I recall clearly how expensive it was when I bought it. How could this need to be replaced? Her calm response: "Well, it IS ten years old."

— and that's when my world started to crack.

My mind became overloaded with questions: "Has it really been that long?" Just considering that much produced a memory leak. I could feel letters and words falling from my brain and down my body as I tried to compare my memories and my expectations to reality.

I mean, yes of course I expected the unit to be a high-quality machine, but I guess I never really translated that expectation into time. How much time should I have expected it to operate? Is 10 years really too little? How much more should I reasonably have expected?

I don't have answers, because I never made an estimate. I was just stunned that I had to replace it at all. And that was maybe naive of me at best.

It just didn't occur to me to time-box the transaction. To think, "Well, we'll probably get 10 years of service from it" — you're not going to find that printed on the box or in the marketing materials. You'll perhaps find a warranty on what they present as a minimum time expectancy on various parts or maybe the entire machine. A lower bound, not an upper bound. Perhaps that's the value of Consumer Reports (not a sponsor).

A more pragmatic approach might have been to start with the assumption — mindfully, I might add — that companies understand that they can't build widgets so well as to preclude repeat business. Most of the time, obsolescence is built-in simply as a function of the life expectancy of the materials or as a function of use — meaning, at some point some dipshit is going to use the machine in an unintended way. Public means public. I think consumers inherently understand this, but perhaps don't approach home appliance purchases with this in mind — I just think it's not a consumer behavior.

My actual approach was more simplistic than the ideal: "This vacuum was very expensive, so I expect it to perform well indefinitely," I guess. Laurel mentioning that ten years had passed put a gaping hole in that thought. Ten years is not indefinitely, but, I mean... it's ten years, and that's a lot of years, right? The time it takes for your infant to hit double-digits is a long time, though it seems to pass in the blink of an eye.

Can I be happy with a ten-year lifespan? It's hard to resist doing the math: I spent $57 on that vacuum cleaner each year I owned it, whether it got used or not... $5 each month.

At $5 per month, did I get a good deal? Harder to answer. One the one hand, you could think, "I get to use this all I want for a month for only $5? Such a deal!" — but that's backwards of what the situation actually was. If I used it once each week, then it was like I spent $1.25 each time I ran it. If I used it every other week, the cost doubled. If I average the two, then it was like I spent $1.87 each time I ran it. Does it seem like such a deal now?

Now I feel like running the vacuum so I won't feel like I've wasted money. Which is not where I'd hoped this post would end up.

I guess it's easier to think about life expectancies when you're talking about consumer goods that one expects to have a relatively short life span. I was just inspecting a plastic food container I'd just removed from the dishwasher. The cool thing about this container is that it contracts to minimize storage space thanks to an accordion-like folding body. As I was looking it over — and I'd just been writing most of this post — it occurred to me that I've owned that container for probably longer than I had the vacuum cleaner. And I had no expection the food container would be around this long. Why? Maybe because it was about a $10 purchase.

Thinking about it now, I guess I would have expected to get maybe two to three years of service from that food container. If I'd been asked if I could expect over ten years of service from the thing, I probably would have replied that that'd be nice, but I wouldn't have expected it. Had I been asked the exact same question about the vacuum cleaner, I might have replied that I felt it should last me ten years, based on its features and expense.

On Halloween in the year of the COVID-19 Pandemic, I found a real treat: My iPhone 12 Pro arrived today.

Naturally I thought I'd share a few words about it.

First and foremost, it is the most expensive mobile technology I have ever owned. I bought it because the glass seems to be coming out of my iPhone X, and Apple stopped selling the iPhone 11 the moment they introduced the 12. Ever since Apple introduced a way to affordably buy the units directly from the company instead of through the carrier (p.s. — AppleCare was a way better deal than was the insurance AT&T was offering), we've not looked back.

FWIW, I used to be an Android guy, primarily because I could create on that platform in ways I knew Apple would never allow. But I'm an Apple guy now mainly because of my investment in content — movies and music — and because the Apple Watch is indispensable in my life now (so much so that I've not bought the Rolex I've lusted after for years because I know I'd never wear it).

Oh, and one more thing — to underscore what I mentioned above, I didn't bother to upgrade to the 11 — so some of the things I'll mention in the following paragraphs may also have been featured on the iPhone 11/11 Pro. I've zero experience with that model, nor its novel features.

Disclaimers and whatnot out of the way, I have to say the iPhone 12 Pro is the prettiest hardware Apple has produced — especially in "Pacific Blue."

Unboxing

The phone's box resembles a VHS cassette: the black box (BLACK — not white!) is about the same height as one, because Apple infamously declined to include a 5W USB power adapter with the phone, claiming, when they announced the phone, that they're simply "thinking of the earth."

I call bullshit, Apple. You're trying to hide the fact that a 5W power adapter won't push enough juice to your new product line.

USB-C

I offer as evidence the cable they DID include with the phone. It is NOT the Lightning to USB cable they used to include — it is a Lightning to USB-C cable.

USB-C is a technology that's been around only a few years — if you're like me, you replace your computers every 3 to 5 years. I *just* got my first laptop with USB-C almost a year ago.

You may think of the included cable as a nice accessory if you're USB-C enabled, but I'm betting most of us aren't there yet. Apple has a history of pushing progress on its customers — recall the iPhone 8 and X were the first units to ship sans headphone jacks. Apple including a USB-C cable should be viewed as another shot across the bow: Apple is about to make the standard 5W Lightning to USB power adapter a thing of the past.

(Check out the iPhone accessories Apple currently has for sale at https://www.apple.com/shop/iphone/iphone-accessories/power-cables. Using the site's default sort (by "Featured"), you'll find a 20W USB-C power adapter on page 1 for $19; the standard, 5W USB Power adapter is still available (also for $19) and may be found near the bottom of page 3.)

Charging

Also, take careful note of the wattage difference between the two chargers... I suspect Apple knew the standard 5W power adapter wouldn't cut it: Apple published this in their specs for the iPhone 12 and 12 Pro:

Power and Battery
   Both models:

   Built‑in rechargeable lithium‑ion battery
   MagSafe wireless charging up to 15W
   Qi wireless charging up to 7.5W
   Charging via USB to computer system or power adapter
   Fast-charge capable:
   Up to 50% charge in around 30 minutes with 20W adapter or higher (sold separately)

MagSafe
   Wireless charging up to 15W

MagSafe charging is twice as fast as Qi (because it can push 15W compared to 7.5W), and, if you can "fast-charge" 50% of the battery in 30 minutes using the 20W adapter, it'll take about 2 hours to charge 50% of the battery using a standard 5W adapter — meaning charging the phone 100% using a 5W USB adapter would take about 4 hours.

FOUR HOURS.

You've already spent $1300 on the phone and a USB-C cable you didn't really even want.

Apple knew damn well its customers wouldn't stand for spending a half day waiting for their phone to charge, so it slyly included a USB-C cable and left out the 5W adapter to force customers to spend at least another $20 on a 20W USB-C power adapter, OR go all-in on MagSafe charging accessories (Apple isn't selling any cases for the iPhone 12 line that aren't MagSafe — prices start at $49). This was never about the environment or the saturation of their 5W power adapters; it was about pushing people to more efficient charging solutions to hide the fact that the old adapters won't sufficiently charge these devices.

There was a lot of talk about wattage above. At a point, the wattage being pushed into your battery will create a noticeable byproduct of heat. I know that my older iPhones never really felt warm when charged using the 5W adapter, but I'd imagine that 20W USB-C adapter could make your new 12 feel warm — I don't know, because I don't have a 20W adapter. Apple's specs show that 20W is the max the iPhone 12 and 12 Pro will tolerate. As a reminder, MagSafe will charge at a max rate of 15W, and Qi charges at half of that.

WIRED, in an article titled "Why It Matters Which Charger You Use for Your Phone," reported that "Apple itself has gone on the record as saying the official MagSafe Charger is capable of interfering with the magnetic strips and chips inside credit cards, security badges, passports and key fobs, and that it might leave imprints on leather cases." (I experienced similar behavior from my EarPod charging case a couple of years ago — I kept having to get my hotel card key recoded until I figured out what the culprit was.) Apple is marketing a leather pocket that attaches to the phone using that MagSafe ring. If you bought one of these and are using a MagSafe charger, make sure you take that pocket off before charging.

Also included in the box is a poker thingie to be used to open the physical SIM slot, the customary Apple logo decal, and the instruction booklet nobody reads anyway — this edition must be targeting younger people, because this print is smaller than the fine print on medication packaging.

Phone Setup

Among the operating system improvements are newer and better ways to set up the phone. Along these lines, the iPhone 12 Pro and iOS 14 do NOT disappoint. It was basically as easy as holding the new handset over the old one for a moment to collect some initial data, then choosing whether to load the new phone via iCloud download or via BlueTooth connection between the two handsets. I chose the latter, and the process was complete within about a half hour. (I suspect your mileage may vary, depending on how much data is on your old phone.)

Even switching my Apple Watch to the new phone was easy peazy — as easy as clicking "Yes" on a prompt on the new handset.

Network Setup

This year, I did something completely new — I set up a new line with my cellular carrier and assigned a new telephone number to my new handset.

Setup through AT&T was about as easy as setting up the iPhone itself. I visited the AT&T website, chose the option to add a new line, and followed the instructions. The process included a form for typing in the handset's IMEI and ICCID, though once I typed in the IMEI the form filled in the ICCID and correctly identified the handset model.

As for a telephone number assignment, the process only allowed me to select from a list of area codes applicable to where I live, and the system assigned me an available number on that basis. I was disappointed by that, because AT&T will allow you to change your number and show you a list of about 120 or so to choose from. Why couldn't that be part of the process?

Perhaps one might have better luck if they called their carrier's customer service number and dealt with a person instead of an automated process. In my case, once I completed the process, the system emailed me a "receipt" which included my new phone number. The line was activated and number was working within about ten minutes.

Now, the truly magical part about adding a line and assigning it to my iPhone 12 is that the handset does not have a physical SIM card. AT&T was able to run it using a virtual SIM as part of the line purchase process. I don't know if previous iPhone models also have this capability. I will be calling AT&T about whether I can drop the card from the old phone into the new one (so maybe they can write the virtual SIM goop to it).

I've spent a few cycles thinking about the effort involved in switching my number. A big part of that effort is poring over every website and every application that I use two-factor authentication (2FA) on and changing my telephone number on each. It's a big undertaking, and one I'm sure most forget about. I started a spreadsheet a few weeks ago to try to track all such sites and applications.

Now that I've explained that effort, I can tell you that I learned I can change my assigned number to one from AT&T list after I've had this number for 30 days (a billing cycle). Today, I still like the notion of a "vanity" number, but I do not want to go through this whole 2FA/notify friends/notify businesses thing again. So I'll probably stick with what I've been assigned.

More about 2FA

2FA generally works like this: You attempt to log into a system — say, Microsoft.com — and after you successfully pass an initial authentication using a user ID and a password, a text is sent to your phone or an email is sent to your address. In both cases, the message contains a code that the system expects you to type in. If the two match, you have successfully authenticated yourself to the system. The first authentication measure is based on something you know (your ID and password) — the second is based on something you have (your phone or your email credentials). "Something you know" and the "something you have" are two factors used in authentication — this is actually two-factor authentication. (I would argue that a second authentication measure of texting your phone is truer to the "something you have" method, because your phone is a physical device; I'd place email account credentials into the "something you know" factor.)

The catch with 2FA is the "something you have" part — particularly if the system is sending authentication messages to your mobile phone and you're changing your mobile phone number — because you have to authenticate to the old number before you can change the system to use your new number.

It's a "catch-22": if you change your phone number on your handset (using the aforementioned list), the change is immediate. There's no "grace period" that will allow you to spend some time switching from one number to the other. Once that number is changed, you're locked out of whatever 2FA system you have because the authentication texts are going to a number that you don't have anymore. Your most likely alternative is to call customer support for each of your 2FA-enabled systems and hope a representative can make the change for you and stay on the line while you attempt authentication.

For what it's worth, here's how I approached it:

• I made a list of all of the systems I could think of that uses 2FA or communicates with me using my mobile number. My list included Apple, Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Mozilla, my bank, and my home security company.

• Next, I went through each of the companies on my list and found the URLs I'd need when it came time. Here are a few common ones one might need:
  

  System	URL
  Apple	https://appleid.apple.com/account/manage
  Google	https://myaccount.google.com/phone?gar=1
  Facebook	https://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=security
  LinkedIn	https://www.linkedin.com/psettings/sign-in-and-security
  Microsoft	https://account.microsoft.com/profile/contact-info

  
  Happily, some good folks made a pretty inclusive list for us. Visit https://twofactorauth.org/ for their categorized list.

• When my new phone arrived, I visited my carrier and bought the new line as described above. Once the line was active, it was time to work my 2FA list.

• To make the changes to each 2FA-enabled system, I needed both phones — the old one to receive the 2FA codes sent by each system when I started making changes, and the new one to test apps (for example, my bank has an iPhone app) to ensure I could authenticate using the new phone number.

• Keep that list handy — I added a few others as life happened over the next couple of days; places like ACE Hardware and the local grocery store, with memberships that identify you by your mobile number.

• Next, I went through Facebook and identified all of my friends who probably have my old number — I need to contact them with the new one. iOS has a feature that allows the phone owner to block calls that aren't in their address book — so if I'm texting or calling them, I know I'll have more success if I use the old phone. Of course, Facebook Messenger is also an option, but with all the news we saw in the past few years about Facebook giving away users' data for "researchers," I'd rather text from my phone if I can.

• Because I'm trading in my old phone for a discount on the new one, the time I have to spend on this 2FA business is limited — I think Apple requires the old handset to be sent in within 10 days.

• Once the old handset is sent in, I'll contact my carrier again and delete the line it used.

Pacific Blue

I was afraid the color would be too gray for me to enjoy. I actually planned to buy a case to hide the phone's body in prep for not liking it. I have a history with grayish blue — products made with it, like clothing and cars, seem attractive at the start, but then I burn out on the color quickly and end up hating it. It's the only color that has affected me this way.

Holding the iPhone 12 pro in my hand, I do not perceive "Pacific Blue" as a grayish blue; the color seems to have more of a metallic, steely quality that seems infused with a lighter shade of blue. Together, it's certainly more blue than gray, and much more interesting than the "space gray" I've preferred for years.

Historically, Apple has varied its devices' boot screens based on their color. Typically, lighter colored devices (like silver and gold) use a white boot screen with a black Apple logo; darker colored devices (this is why I keep choosing space gray) use a black boot screen with a white Apple logo, which is FAR easier on the eyes, in my opinion. (In my case, not just easier on the eyes: it avoids headaches.) So one of the questions I had in selecting the Pacific Blue model was about the color of the boot screen. I am happy to report the boot screen is black with a white Apple logo.

The Camera

I may have mentioned in a previous post that the reason I decided to go with the Pro model of the iPhone 12 is because I wanted a small upgrade to the camera subsystem.

I know that the term "f-stop" is a thing, but I don't know what it means. I don't need top-of-the-line because I can't understand top-of-the-line. But what I do understand is the majority of the photos I take generally involve zoom. The camera app on the iPhone 12 Pro has on-screen settings for 0.5x, 1.0x, and 2.0x zoom. And in portrait mode, there are two new lighting settings for mono images.

But to me, the most eye-popping improvement in the iPhone camera/software is in its treatment of low-light subjects. The other night, I took a photo of a directly-lit subject in a darkened room, and I was amazed at how much the camera detected — it was a bit like full-color night vision. Looking at that photo now, it's a bit hard to believe that room was dark when the photo was taken.

Everything I've said above likely in no way does justice to the advancements Apple has made in mobile photography. I mean, the tech specs for the camera reads a bit like movie credits.

Conclusion

So far, I love this phone, but emotionally I'm in a tug-of-war with my brain over its finish. On the one hand, the Pacific Blue is so lovely that I don't want to hide it beneath a case; on the other, I know I have to protect this beautiful shiny machine. I've been carrying it gingerly for the past two days while awaiting the arrival of a case from Amazon ($13, not $50).

Setting up the phone — including adding a new line through my carrier — was a breeze. I was stunned at how fast I was able to do both.

Working through my 2FA checklist went really quickly, too — doing my homework up-front seemed to pay huge dividends. Two days in, and I've made changes to all the accounts I've thought of, and sent texts with the new number to family and to friends. The key is this: if you're going to change your phone number for your new phone, buy a new line and assign it to the new phone so you can still work with your old number until you don't need it anymore — or until you have to surrender your old handset, which is my case.

Charging it on my current Qi charger is a little rocky. I'm not certain, but I suspect that once I get a case on the phone, it'll lay flat against my nightstand charger. I think the raised camera lenses are preventing the phone from having good contact. The great thing is that once it's charged, it sure seems to keep it — the battery doesn't seem to drain quickly at all, which may only mean that I'm simply not using power-hungry apps.

Apple is holding an event to announce the new iPhone 12 today.

Not pictured in the artwork above are the words "Hi, Speed.", which intimates the new model's ability to connect to new 5G cellular networks — the speed being in the network, as opposed to the actual handset.

But I've been looking forward to the 12 for some time now, and I've seen mixed reports about it — a year ago everybody was saying that the 11 was the model to skip, because the 12 was going to be amazing. But rumor-chasing pundits don't strike me as super enthusiastic about the 12 anymore. I even saw one review that suggested skipping the 12 and waiting for the next model instead.

Personally, I love my iPhone X. Something about it that I do NOT want to give up is that I can actually hold this phone without a case on it. Some materials that were used in previous versions made it nearly impossible for me to grip the phone without a case. My iPhone 7 comes to mind. The X was the first to solve that problem, and I loved Apple for it.

My iPhone X has a 256GB memory capacity. Thanks to services like Apple Music, I can stream my music to my phone over my WiFi instead of having to download it all onto the handset. Plus, just like on a computer, the more hard drive space you have, the better the unit will perform. So I'll require at least a 256GB capacity from my next handset.

Other than that, I really don't have any other requirements. I've LOVED my X. I've had it for two years, and it's been great. Just this morning, I found that the glass on the face of the handset has warped and pushed outward. Not noticeable visually or functionally, but very noticeable when holding it in your hand and running your finger along the side (sans case). Since it's a two-year old unit, it's WAY out of warranty — this seriously puts me in the market for a new handset.

I think I could actually be happy with the iPhone 11 Pro or Pro Max. The marketing materials claim it had a huge jump in battery life. Yes, the camera stuff is amazing, but it's not like I'm a professional photographer with a deep appreciation for all of those advances — but there's a problem: Apple appears to no longer sell the Pro models of the iPhone 11.

So... iPhone 12 Pro it is! I'm going for the Pro model because I find the idea of a 4x digital zoom pretty appealing — among all of the goodies the Apple photography wonks showed off today, the digital zoom is all I know I care about right now — and I use those words specifically because it's possible once I have it I'll find all kinds of wonderful things I never knew I couldn't live without. I think a 256GB model will fit the bill nicely. I'll also order it in blue, because it's a departure from space gray, but also because there's a chance I'll enjoy the color. If I get sick of it, there's no shortage of cases one can buy.

A couple of months ago, my wife learned that D Magazine — a magazine promoting the City of Dallas — was having contest to determine the cutest pet.

The rules were simple enough: voting was open to the public, and the public was encouraged to vote as often as it wanted for the pets in the contest. That is, there was no limitation on voting, and voting was as easy as clicking a button.

So I wondered, given these rules, if I could develop software that would do the voting for us: something I could run that would visit the link that was the destination of the button click, but do it in a way that wouldn't create problems for other users — no denial of service or anything like that. Something that could run inside of a loop and just click, but would also look like a browser to the server, so the server would have data available to collect.

Over time, the project grew more and more mature. It really wasn't about my dog at all — it was about learning something new, and adding more features as I learned more about developing in Windows Forms: I wanted this to be a desktop application, something outside of my comfort zone. And honestly, I hadn't built anything in Windows Forms since maybe just after high school.

As the project matured, I thought a lot about the pace at which the application operated. I decided to introduce a slow mode to really pump the brakes and run at a pace of one click per minute over several hours. Steady clicks at a rate that should not interfere with any other traffic. Slow and steady would win the race for us — slow enough, in fact, that I even "wired in" sounds so I could run the software minimized and hear a short beep each time a click was performed.

I also had the software output to a text file as an option, so one could see the incoming status messages from the server. Shorter runs produced shorter logs.

One big breakthrough was in learning how to create menus. It made the app look so much nicer than the simple tabbed interface I'd originally used.

I probably went a little over the top near the end of development, when I added web services. Two calls: one to report the parameters at instantiation, and another made intermittently to update the current click count. Using the web services, I could monitor the run without having to visit my computer; I could do it right from a browser on my mobile device. The first here: implementing web services on a desktop app.

This was never about the contest. My dog isn't really very cute. I don't care about having a professional photoshoot. He's a little pizza-stealing asshole who glues himself to me whenever it rains. He's not pretty. But we do love him, and he loves us so much. No, our good boi is simply a beneficiary of the development — development simply done to satisfy my curiosity.

(Even if it was about the contest, there was nothing stopping the other 999 participants from building their own click machines too.)

The contest has two parts: the popular vote and the judging. How are we doing? well...

D Magazine notified us today that pup is a finalist, and their art department made us the faux magazine cover. For me, this is enough. Really. If there were no judges involved, and the prize was awarded solely on the popular vote, I would explain things and insist the prize go to the next popular pet. I wouldn't feel right about that. But because there are judges, that tells me there's more afoot here than just clicks.

(Besides, I feel pretty comfortable that he's not the cutest in Dallas. I mean, look at him.)

UPDATE:
I'm thrilled to report that we didn't win!!!

Our good boi placed in the top 20, and that was pretty amazing, I think. I'm really glad we didn't win, though, because I think I would have felt awful had we won based largely on a program I wrote. It wouldn't sit well; I would have asked them to choose another winner... even though the rules did not prohibit his particular path to victory.

Late last year I bought a Lenovo laptop to replace my Dell Inspiron 13 laptop. I've loved that Dell — it's the perfect size, with an i7 processor -- but I figured out later its motherboard could only support 8GB RAM.

Over the past 18 months or so, the machine has been... slipping... with occasional "senior moments" between running the BIOS and booting into the OS. It's why I started looking for a replacement. I couldn't believe my luck when I found this ThinkPad at a crazy low price on Lenovo's Black Friday Weekend sale.

So here we are, about six months on. I use both laptops, side by side — the older one I use for work; the newer I use for fun. I've kept them both updated, and have marvelled at the speed at which my new machine (goosed with 24GB RAM) installs updates. The older one takes so much longer.

Last week (I think) I installed the new Windows 10 version 2004 on the new machine. With an update as large as that one, I figured I'd better hold off on installing it on the Dell.

Today I tried installing the update, but Microsoft wouldn't let me — Instead, I was shown a "learn more" link that reads as follows:

Windows 10, version 2004 is available for users with devices running Windows 10, versions 1903 and 1909, who manually seek to "Check for updates" via Windows Update. We are continuing our phased approach on initial availability, as we listen, learn, and adjust. Today [as of June 16, 2020] were are slowly beginning the training of our machine learning (ML) based process used to intelligently select and automatically update devices approaching end of service.

Clicking more links, I found this on a Microsoft blog:

You may not see Download and Install on your device as we are slowly throttling up this availability over the coming weeks, or your device might have a compatibility issue for which a safeguard hold is in place until we are confident you will have a good update experience.

I'm pretty sure I bought the machine at Best Buy in mid-March, 2015. So the machine is over 5 years old, and it had been running Windows 10 version 1909 just fine... what the Hell, Microsoft?

I guess they're saying either there's something about my Dell that 2004 won't yet run smoothly on, or they're saying my Dell is old.

A couple of months ago, my wife learned that D Magazine — a magazine promoting the City of Dallas — was having contest to determine the cutest pet.

The rules were simple enough: voting was open to the public, and the public was encouraged to vote as often as it wanted for the pets in the contest. That is, there was no limitation on voting, and voting was as easy as clicking a button.

So I wondered, given these rules, if I could develop software that would do the voting for us: something I could run that would visit the link that was the destination of the button click, but do it in a way that wouldn't create problems for other users — no denial of service or anything like that. Something that could run inside of a loop and just click, but would also look like a browser to the server, so the server would have data available to collect.

Over time, the project grew more and more mature. It really wasn't about my dog at all — it was about learning something new, and adding more features as I learned more about developing in Windows Forms: I wanted this to be a desktop application, something outside of my comfort zone. And honestly, I hadn't built anything in Windows Forms since maybe just after high school.

As the project matured, I thought a lot about the pace at which the application operated. I decided to introduce a slow mode to really pump the brakes and run at a pace of one click per minute over several hours. Steady clicks at a rate that should not interfere with any other traffic. Slow and steady would win the race for us — slow enough, in fact, that I even "wired in" sounds so I could run the software minimized and hear a short beep each time a click was performed.

I also had the software output to a text file as an option, so one could see the incoming status messages from the server. Shorter runs produced shorter logs.

One big breakthrough was in learning how to create menus. It made the app look so much nicer than the simple tabbed interface I'd originally used.

I probably went a little over the top near the end of development, when I added web services. Two calls: one to report the parameters at instantiation, and another made intermittently to update the current click count. Using the web services, I could monitor the run without having to visit my computer; I could do it right from a browser on my mobile device. The first here: implementing web services on a desktop app.

This was never about the contest. My dog isn't really very cute. I don't care about having a professional photoshoot. He's a little pizza-stealing asshole who glues himself to me whenever it rains. He's not pretty. But we do love him, and he loves us so much. No, our good boi is simply a beneficiary of the development — development simply done to satisfy my curiosity.

(Even if it was about the contest, there was nothing stopping the other 999 participants from building their own click machines too.)

The contest has two parts: the popular vote and the judging. How are we doing? well...

D Magazine notified us today that pup is a finalist, and their art department made us the faux magazine cover. For me, this is enough. Really. If there were no judges involved, and the prize was awarded solely on the popular vote, I would explain things and insist the prize go to the next popular pet. I wouldn't feel right about that. But because there are judges, that tells me there's more afoot here than just clicks.

(Besides, I feel pretty comfortable that he's not the cutest in Dallas. I mean, look at him.)

When I was working for the university, I was in a department that was split between web programmers and mainframe programmers. The mainframe folks were all approaching retirement — I mean like they had months to go before getting their full medical — many having joined the staff as punch card operators way back in the day.

After a couple of years, the U decided it was dumping the mainframes and moving forward with Java. All of the mainframers were given the option of learning Java or retirement. Suddenly retirements were happening left and right.

I'm reminded of all of this because the Stte of New Jersey put out a plea for COBOL programmers to support the state's 40 year-old unemployment insurance system. That system is run on mainframes which run the 60+ year old computer language. New Jersey is looking for volunteers.

COMPTIA asked me to take a survey for candidacy to take their new Server+ exam.

I thought it was weird, but... they asked. So I gave them a link to my LinkedIn page and a copy of my resume, filled out a survey, and sent it off. Maybe I'll end up with a tee shirt.

Would I like another certification? Of course! But I don't want to get my hopes up for anything here. Heck, I don't even know how I'd study if I'm selected.

At least there are more Pearson Vue exam places nearby than I could shake a stick at... no shortage of exam facilities.

UPDATE:

From an email I received from CompTIA on March 2, 2020:

Congratulations, you’ve been selected by CompTIA to participate in the CompTIA Server+ Beta Exam! If you take and pass the CompTIA Server+ SK0-005 Beta exam, you will earn the new certification at no cost, plus CompTIA will pay you $200! Simply complete the beta exam by March 31, 2020.

Then the pandemic hit: public places have closed; restaurants are only available for take out; the stock market went into the toilet, and there's no toilet paper to be found because idiots keep buying it all.

The pandemic had reached the east and west coasts in advance of reaching Texas. On March 17th, Dallas County issued orders which placed an emphasis on "social distancing" — the notion that people need to stay apart so the virus could not spread as easily — including limiting gatherings to 10 people — even social gatherings on private property. With this order, followed by a state of emergency declaration from the governor of Texas, it became clear the testing facility would not be open, and likely would not reopen in time for me to take the exam. Time to find some guidance from CompTIA.

I visit the main help page on the CompTIA website, and it says, in very large font, that all vouchers for currently scheduled exams are now extended throgh the end of June. This would have addressed all of my concerns handily, but I knew the beta was on a deadline, so I chatted in.

Get this (names omitted):

Chat started on 19 Mar 2020, 06:03 PM (GMT+0)
(06:03:05) *** I joined the chat ***
(06:03:05) Me: I was scheduled to participate in the Server+ beta exam. The deadline for scheduling my test was March 31st. Has this deadline also been extended to June 30?
(06:03:18) *** CompTIA Customer Service joined the chat ***
(06:04:30) Customer Service: Good afternoon, I would be happy to assist you.
(06:04:56) Customer Service: Thanks for your interest and intention to take the Server+ SK1-005 beta exam. The beta exam cutoff date is March 31, 2020, and unfortunately, it's not possible to extend this date in order to maintain the exam development schedule. We apologize that not everyone scheduled to take the Server+ beta exam will be able to complete the exam, due to the impact of the COVID-19 (Novel Coronavirus) pandemic.

Cold.

(By the way, it's obvious to me that the customer service rep was copy/pasting a prepared statement. These people do what they're told. The shade I'm throwing here is meant for the Draconian fucksticks who made the shitburger she had to serve. And yes — I changed the font of the response so it could appear as cold and impersonal as it seemed as I received it.)

CompTIA could have approached this differently. Softer messaging would have helped. A lot. Perhaps because their messaging was as cold as it was, I got pissed off: Because CompTIA's guidance to beta testers was to study as though I was taking an actual exam (that's almost a quote), I'd spent $200 on CertMaster practice software (for the previous version of the Server+ exam) to study. I bought it figuring I'd use it to pass the course, and the $200 would cover the cost. Now I wanted that money back.

(06:06:24) Me: Not cool. The state of Texas is under a state of emergency and there's no way the testing center is going to remain open.

(06:06:50) Me: Also, I was counting on the $200 I was going to get paid to cover what I spent on the CertMaster for the exam!

(06:06:56) Me: will I be reimbursed?

More of that amazing bedside manner follows. Reading it in the voice of IG-11 from The Mandalorian might help:

(06:08:24) Customer Service: It's unfortunate that you and others scheduled to take the Server+ beta exam will not be able to complete the exam, due to the impact of the COVID-19 (Novel Coronavirus) pandemic. We appreciate your intention to do so, and we'd like to offer you a complimentary voucher to take the new Server+ SK0-005 exam once it launches (in lieu of the $200 Amazon gift card stipend). Please confirm if you would like to receive a complimentary voucher for the new Server+ SK0-005 exam, and we'll track this ticket and follow up with you when the exam launches. The new Server+ SK0-005 exam is currently targeted to launch in July 2020, but this is subject to change.

WOW.

Let's review. I was taking the exam in the first place because CompTIA asked me to. CompTIA promised a free voucher for taking the exam, plus $200 for passing. So replacing a free thing with another free thing and taking away the $200 thing doesn't seem like a good deal. Even my kid, when she was 4, could do THAT math.

I did pursue the issue of reimbursement, and am waiting on a response. I feel I gave it a good shot, anyway (again, names replaced):

[Customer Service Manager],

CompTIA approached me about taking the Server+ beta. It's not really in my wheelhouse, nor is it really on my training trajectory, but I consider the offer and I'm accepted. CompTIA explains that I should treat the beta as an actual exam, and that I should study for it as I normally would. So I bought the CertMaster course to accomplish that. (Why would I do that? Have you seen the marketing materials?) After the State of Texas makes a declaration about COVID-19, I see a post on the CompTIA help website that says that all exam dates have been pushed out until the end of June. I chat in to be sure, and basically get told to pound sand.

CompTIA asked me to take the beta. I agreed.
CompTIA asked me to study for it like a normal exam. I agreed.
Now I'm out money and time, and CompTIA has taken advantage of my goodwill.
Please make this right, and reimburse me for the expense of the CertMaster training. The Order Number is 719987.

I have a bunch of hard drives from tower machines going back years and years. My intention has been to either keep them for the data they have on them, or to wipe them before disposal.

Motivated by my studies for the Server+ exam, I figured I'd finally get serious about looking at the data and wiping them.

In present day, I don't have a tower machine anymore... just my laptops, which use hard drives of a much different form factor than the "bricks" from my old machines. So I knew I'd need a way to access those old drives via a USB connection to my laptop.

After some online research, I decided to buy a unit from Unitek to handle the hardware connection. The device is light and compact — about the size of one's fist. It ships with a AC power cable (to power the device), a small MOLEX power cable to connect to older hard drives, a USB cable for connection to the laptop, and a small CD containing a program for the device's on-demand backup capability, if you care to use the device that way. You'll also find a tiny red instruction booklet on how to use the device. (Yes, of course I read it.)

The second thing I needed was software to handle overwriting the drive with data. I chose Macrorit® Data Wiper for this job. I found the software very easy to use, Windows 10 compatible, plus its available for free for home use. One note I'd offer — Macrorit is a trademark of Bada Technology Co., Ltd. When you install the software, you'll see that Bada name, not Macrorit. I'm very wary about installing software from developers I don't know. Don't let the different name scare you.

The Walkthrough

To save you the trouble, here's how I erased my first drive — an old 300GB Maxtor PATA drive -- using this set-up. I'd recommend you set this up in early evening and let it run overnight.

1. Install the Data Wiper software on your Windows computer, but don't run it yet.

2. Set the Unitek device near your computer, plug in the AC adapter, and connect the adapter into a power source. Do not turn the device on yet.

3. As you're looking at the device from above, with the AC adapter plugged into the top, plug your old hard drive into the female interface on the left side.

4. Now connect the provided molex cable to the device and to the hard drive.

5. Connect the provided USB cable to the device and to your computer.

6. Power the device up. You should see a new drive letter appear in Windows Explorer.

   

7. When you're ready to wipe the drive, open the Data Wiper software.

8. Find the drive you connected — if your computer has only one hard drive, that drive should appear as Drive 0, so your old hard drive should appear as Drive 1.

   

9. To hard wipe the drive, select Entire drive or disk as the Wipe target, then choose how you want to wipe it: I went with DoD 5220.22M as my Security level. These settings are above the partition displays, and to the left of the giant silver "WIPE NOW" button.

10. When you're ready, click the giant silver "WIPE NOW" button. The software will prompt you a couple of times with "Are you sure?" prompts. I recall it actually made me type the word "WIPE" to start the operation.

    

11. The wipe will take some time, depending on your computer's capabilities. I used a laptop with 8GB RAM and probably a USB 2.0 port, so the operation was projected to take 12 hours. I'd recommend setting all this up and kicking it off at about 7 PM, so it'll be complete the following morning.

12. Once the wipe is complete, you'll see the target drive is now shown as uninitialized.

    

13. Turn off the power to the Unitek device.

14. Carefully remove the molex cable from the hard drive.

15. Detach the hard drive from the device.

The wipe took about as long as the software had initially expected. The hard drive was warm to the touch during the wiping process, so keep that in mind if you have mobile little ones or pets.

Have you ever wondered how much power your PC or laptop consumes? I work on a laptop all day long... how much juice does it pull?

While studying for the CompTIA Server+ exam, I encountered several statistics for use when troubleshooting computer problems:

EQUIPMENT	POWER
MOTHERBOARD	30 W
CPU	45 W - 150 W
RAM 2GB	30 W
OPTICAL DRIVE	5 W

Notice the power consumption for RAM is 30 W for every 2GB installed. If you consider a standard laptop ships with 8GB installed, you're talking about power consumption equivalent to two incandescent light bulbs.

Assuming a minimal demand on the CPU, a laptop with 8GB RAM is puling about 200 W — with over half of it being consumed by the RAM.

COMPTIA asked me to take a survey for candidacy to take their new Server+ exam.

I thought it was weird, but... they asked. So I gave them a link to my LinkedIn page and a copy of my resume, filled out a survey, and sent it off. Maybe I'll end up with a tee shirt.

Would I like another certification? Of course! But I don't want to get my hopes up for anything here. Heck, I don't even know how I'd study if I'm selected.

At least there are more Pearson Vue exam places nearby than I could shake a stick at... no shortage of exam facilities.

All done!

Both of my CompTIA certifications have been extended through May, 2023. How cool is that?

Three years passes in the blink of an eye.

And jeez what a busy three years it's been. I originally got these certifications because my job required I had at least one. For good measure, I got two — thinking I'd look good for the government contract, but also it could open a path into a cybersecurity career.

I have no complaints about CompTIA's CertMaster CE program. You read over the material and take the assessment. Once you can pass all assessments with 100% correct, you're done with the course and your certification is extended. I thought it would take me much longer than it currently seems to be; I'm over halfway done and I only started the thing two days ago.

Plus, it's a little cheaper than retaking the exam, and you have access to the course materials for a year (if retaking the course way before your certification expires is your thing).

I'd mentioned before that I was concerned about the ability to expand the RAM in the Lenovo ThinkPad T490. I bought the machine based on the customer support representative's information: (1) that yes, it is expandable and (2) The board will take up to 40GB RAM.

I couldn't surf to Crucial.com fast enough. Found a 16GB stick that appeared reasonably priced, and placed my order.

Ten days had passed when I contacted their customer service. I hadn't received so much as an order number... in the past, my order would have arrived sooner than that.

I got the order number from the chat specialist, and used their online form to check status... it told me my order was out of stock. Through an additional and completely half-assed subsequent customer service interaction over email, I learned they also had no idea when the RAM would be back in stock. WTF?!?! Why did Crucial let me order something that was out of stock with an undetermined arrival date?

Then I ordered from Kingston. It arrived quickly, and the upgrade operation lasted about three minutes. BOOM.

Crucial is not the same company it used to be. I won't buy from them again.

I love love love my Dell XPS 13 laptop. It's been quite a nice workhorse. I bought it at Best Buy several years ago, and over time I've learned a few things about it that soured me a bit on the experience — primarily, that I couldn't expand the RAM beyond the 8GB it came with. But with the Intel Core i7 processor, it's still been a very capable machine — capable enough that I would absolutely order another through DELL (with a custom configuration, of course).

That is, I would have purchased another through DELL, if it wasn't for the ThinkPad I was issued by an employer a couple of years ago.

I was really taken by a few things about the ThinkPad. One, it was amazingly thin. Two, the keys had a nice feel — and that's super important to me. Years ago I had a Toshiba laptop that I regretted buying about a week in because the keys wouldn't give good feedback to my fingers. I had to constantly retype things because it felt like I wasn't striking keys — I was just pounding on a flat surface with my fingers. But the ThinkPad T470s felt good. Three, the ThinkPad had a docking station that allowed me to run multiple monitors from it, and to secure the machine to it. All-in-all, I really enjoyed my experience with that machine. PLUS it was a 14" laptop. A little larger than my personal DELL, but it didn't feel big.

So, for funsies, I started surfing yesterday for Black Friday deals. Not as a serious shopper — just as a curious consumer. I started at Dell, and didn't find anything exciting there. Then I hopped over to Lenovo... where they were selling the T490 — a $1900 machine -- for $749?! What the what?!!

Things got more serious. I reached out to their sales support people to address a single concern: is the RAM expandable beyond the 8GB it ships with? Answer: Yes - the board can handle up to 48GB!!

I couldn't bring myself to pull the trigger on it yesterday. I let it sit in the cart while I was wracked with indecision. Laurel and I have been working very hard on getting debt paid down. To me, this represented a significant detour from our plan, despite my current machine's occasional "senior moments." So, with that, I let it go.

Fast-forward to morning coffee today. Laurel mentioned we now have a little money coming in we weren't expecting — compensation from an auto accent at the start of the year. So she gave me the go-ahead to buy the laptop if I still could.

With a mixture of excitement and guilt, I powered up my Dell and pointed the browser back to the Lenovo site. I was amazed to find they'd extended their sale — and that the T490 was still in my cart at the discounted price!

The new machine should be here this coming week (SQUEEE!!).

Sometimes I forget to engage my PawSense software, and the cat gets one over on me. The other day I came home from lunch and found she had renamed one of my Outlook folders with an extraordinarily long string of the letter "P", plus the magification on the active window was set so high I could see a few giant letters and the window close button.

Of course this led me to consider other solutions.

I use — and adore — the Microsoft Sculpt ergonomic keyboard. It uses a wireless transceiver to communicate with my laptop. The transceiver is a teeny tiny USB dongle. I briefly considered simply unplugging it and putting it in my pocket when I leave my desk for long periods, but the unit is so tiny that it could easily fall out of my pocket when, say, getting my keys out or something, and I'd never know it. Plus, the transceiver and keyboard are paired by some means below the software level; one can't just buy a replacement transceiver and pair it to the keyboard. So any solution involving arresting the keyboard must exclude removal of the device.

Why not just lock my keyboard? Doing that engages the screen saver or background, too. Certainly a very good idea — good enough to be SOP at an office where prying eyes are about. But I'm working from home, and want to leave certain communication software up and visible. I know how nitpicky this is. But not everybody uses only one machine or one location for everything.

My ideal answer came in the form of a USB hub my daughter had bought from Amazon. Made by a company called Sabrent, it is a four-port USB hub with the added feature of a button above each port.  Push the button in to engage the port beneath it. This allows me to disconnect the transceiver from the keyboard with the touch of a button, and without physically separating the transceiver from the port. AWESOME!

It's probably the next best thing to a switch directly on the keyboard to turn it off (which I wish the Sculpt actually had).

Now my cat can sit her fat butt on my keyboard while I'm not around and no input will be passed into the laptop. It's SUCH a beautiful thing.

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Lately I've been working pretty hard on a new stylesheet for the iPad. I was pretty happy with it, but it suddenly stopped working. I frantically went through my code to figure out what I broke — then I realized I hadn't broken anything. Apple did.

...In a way.

The new iPadOS is here. I believe this is actually a fork of the iOS code, now meant to concentrate solely on the iPad as a platform. Along with the new operating system, a subtle change in Safari's behavior: it now requests, by default, desktop versions of websites. Put another way, stylesheets made specifically for devices like the iPad are now ignored by default.

To make Safari stop requesting desktop websites by default,

• go to Settings > Safari.
• In the right pane, scroll down to a region called SETTINGS FOR WEBSITES
• tap on REQUEST DESKTOP WEBSITE.
• Under the heading REQUEST DESKTOP WEBSITE ON, switch the "All Websites" toggle to OFF.

Apple, you tried so hard and for so long to make me sign up for Apple Pay. In iOS 13, you even went so far as to tie the setup of the new operating system to your beloved Apple Pay. So I signed up for it because I wanted to finally. Shut. You. Up.

I figured that having it didn't mean I had to use it. Oh, but I DID have to use it. And thanks to Jersey Mike's, I now appreciate Apple Pay.

Jersey Mike's sandwich shop is a place where my family and I pretty much always get the same things. I ordered from there online once, and the site suggested I'd receive some sort of reward for using their mobile app... so I downloaded it, and used it the next time I placed an order. The app allowed me to mark the order as a favorite, so on future orders I'd just find the favorite and all would be set.

Six taps.

Six taps and a double-click is all it took to order sandwiches from there today. The double-click was the payment part, through Apple Pay.

And now I appreciate it. Now I get it. Using Apple Pay was SUPER easy. I had the entire order done in 30 seconds. Again, six taps and a double-click is all that stood between me and a #9, Mike's Way, no onions.

This morning when I opened the Facebook app on my phone, I was notified that Smart Lists are going away.

Smart Lists are lists that Fecebook makes automatically, based on certain elements in your profile that you have in common with friends, like home town, current city, and workplace.

Facebook advises that posts that use Smart Lists for access control will be converted to "Only Me" privacy when the Smart Lists feature is deleted.

For me, I have tons of posts from previous years that have at least one Smart List as part of a custom privacy setting. As a precaution, I archived all of the Smart Lists I have in my queue, hoping to prevent those posts from becoming inaccessable.

My wife has given me an Apple Watch Series 5 (44mm) as a gift to replace my Series 3. I thought I'd offer some thoughts on the setup for others who have found it's time for an upgrade.

Right off the bat, you're asked if you want to set up the Series 5 as a new watch, or to restore from backup. I opted to set it up as a new watch, but my wife advised (a little late) that I should have opted for the restore from backup option. (Happily, I later learned the Apple Watch app on my phone can differentiate between the two watches and control them both. That's pretty slick.)

The first thing I noticed when I pulled it from the box is how much larger the display seems to be. My Series 3 is a 42mm; it shouldn't seem that much different. But when I was asked to add a password once it was on, I was pretty surprised by how much larger the display seems; the digits seem much bigger than they do on the Series 3. I believe the difference is that the display is longer than previous versions were, and this length offers some nice changes to support rectangular faces.

Okay. Let's make with the unsolicited advice. Here are my do's and don'ts:

Don't Push All Your Apps

The watch offers one the option of pushing all of one's phone apps over automagically, or the option of doing it manually. Personally, I don't want everything that has a companion Apple Watch app pushed onto the unit. I use very few of them; there's no need for them all to take up space... or RAM.

Don't Let Content Fill Available Space

I hvae a pretty big music collection. But I listen to it on my phone, not my watch. So while I'm thinking about it, in the Apple Watch app with my new watch selected, I scroll down the list of apps — not available apps, just the apps onboard by default — until I find music. When I tap into the menu item, I find that Apple has by default set my watch to download music I play in heavy rotation, plus three different curated mixes updated weekly... it turned all of those switches off.

I then do the same with the Audiobooks menu: I turn off the switches for "Reading Now" and "Want to Read."

Both Music and Audiobooks will automatically fill available space on your watch with content. The problem I have with this is updates to Watch OS won't install if you've no available memory. That's why I ensure these are all shut off.

Don't Let Your Watch Pester You with Everything on Your Phone

If you want to experience how annoying the Apple Watch can be, all you need is one group messaging thread.

As every message comes in, the watch will give your wrist a sharp tap. One very active group thread was enough for me to learn that the watch does not have to tell me about everything happening on my phone.

In the app, navigate to Notifications, then scroll way down to the section that reads "MIRROR IPHONE ALERTS FROM:"; now turn off the notifications from any app you don't feel is important enough to nag you about. Do I want notifications about my flight? Yes. Maps? Yes. Facebook? Nope. Outlook? Absolutely not. Flavor to your taste.

General Settings

The first thing I do here is scroll down to the Wake Screen item and zealously disable Auto-launch Audio Apps.

Monogramming

One of the settings under Clock is for a monogram. I've published instructions in the past on how to set this to the Apple logo, if that's of interest to you.

Now for the Best Part: The Faces

Sex sells. And you can bet these sexy watch faces are a big part of why these units must be flying off the shelves. I have a couple early favorites:

• Solar Dial. The new and improved solar watch face is completely gorgeous, with the time placed prominently across from the relative position of the sun in the sky and four complications, all displayed in hues of blue.
• Meridian is the default face displayed when the watch setup completes. One of the really nice things about it is its white face presents when your wrist is lifted, but the face fades to black when your arm is returned to your side. That is, you can still see the hands and its four complications all grouped toward the face's center which are set to multi-color by default, really showing off the beauty of the new face.
• Infograph is similar to Meridian, except the Infograph face is circular, as opposed to Meridian's more rounded rectangular face. Infograph features a series of up to eight complications -- four circular ones clustered near the center (like Meridian), plus four that appear at the corners. Information overload all right at your wrist.

Functionality

The new Watch OS does behave differently based on which version of the Apple Watch you have. One nice improvement I noticed on the Series 5 is that it will show you the time even if the last thing you were displaying was something other than a watch face.

Say you're doing what you do when a summary of a news story pops up on your Apple Watch. So you read it and drop your wrist back to a natural position. When you next look at your watch, a clock appears over the blurred image of that news story you didn't dismiss. I think it's a nice touch... I feel it was somebody's pet peeve — it seems rather a specific use case, no?

What Next?

So now I have my super shiny Series 5. What do I shop for next? More watch bands? Well, maybe. Happily, I'm told the bands I already own from my Series 1 and 3 will fit it. But I'm actually thinking about screen protectors instead.

The screen on my Series 1 smashed when the watch fell from my wrist. My Series 3 has a few scratches from bumping the face against various things. I don't want this Series 5 getting the same kinds of scratches, and a screen protector might prevent the screen from smashing from a fall. I'll be placing an order through Amazon here shortly.

Summary

The Apple Watch Series 5 is a beautiful, beautiful machine. I've found these watches to be very reliable, and indispensable. If you're careful about balancing the software and content you'll actually use against the software and content you have available, you should be able to perform upgrade after upgrade without complication (pun totally intended), and enjoy it for years.

iOS 13 installed very smoothly on my iPhone X. Between the new OS and my new glasses, I feel like I have a brand new phone.

I'm not a power user or anything, but I've been an iPhone customer since the iPhone 3G, so I think I know a fair amount about how the product has evolved, and how I use it. Based on these, I'd like to tell you what I LOVE about iOS 13.

Dark Mode

I'm a programmer. I'm on a computer (full disclosure: a Dell PC, not a Mac) for over eight hours each day. I'm a big fan of software that lets me run in dark mode on my PC, so you can imagine how happy I was to learn that iOS was also coming to the dark side.

Now I just need the app developers to implement the new capability into new versions of their apps.

Improved Share Sheets

Select a photo from your library and opt to forward it. Instead of seeing a share sheet with an open area for AirDrop and some other options, you now see forwarding options for the people you're in touch with most often as a top row, a list of applications as a second row, and other options in a scrollable list below that. This new format is far more useful than was previously available. I'm really glad Apple rethought this.

Memojis

The introduction of personalized animated emojis ("memojis") was a very nice novelty-— cool that you could animate them using facial tracking. But I don't know how widely used they ultimately were. Bringing up your memoji then recording yourself responding in conversation was kind of a lot of work, so I think they were largely ignored. In iOS 13, Apple introduces us to some preset memojis with various common emojis as facial expressions — that is, YOUR memoji's epressions — all ready for you to use. It seems many of the most commonly used emojis are represented here. Very slick.

Plus, memoji construction is more advanced. I could finally add my single hoop earring to my left ear!

Integration of Bedtime Clock with Other Clock Functions

The bedtime feature has been pretty nice, but it always seemed weird it wasn't integrated in with the other clock app functions (like timer, countdown, and the other alarms). No more: this is rectified in iOS 13. The bedtime alarm may even be disabled and enabled on the alarms form. Still, it's not fully integrated: the bedtime alarm sounds are still exclusive to the bedtime feature.

Summerland in my past
Days were full and I knew it would last
I never thought there was anything else but you
Summerland
The wind is getting cold
Summerland
You're finally getting old

About two weeks ago I noticed a significant shift in my near-field vision. At first, I thought I was just tired from having spent too much time working that day, but when I noticed this was happening evening after evening, and that adjusting the text size on my phone made very little difference, I realized I had become dependent on my glasses for reading just about everything up close. The glasses made things manageable, but not clear.

New glasses are on the way. My prescription now includes a Near Add value of +2.00. Holy shit. I'd never had additional correction before. Suddenly I'm... Suddenly I do.

I'm starting a position with a new company next week. I'll be working remotely, which means I'll be depending on my personal mobile phone for voice calls. Not that I mind that so much, but over the past few years I've learned the value of keeping my private number private. So I thought back to the days of Google Phone, and wondered whether a present-day app could do the same.

I'm considering two apps - Burner and Hushed. I'm reading reviews of both, and I'm leaning toward Burner. But then it hit me — these apps provide exactly the same kind of service that keeping multiple addresses does for e-mail: lets you quickly separate "spam" and solicitations from content you actually want.

This was sort of a bellwether moment for me — the idea that as communications technologies emerge, we'll always develop a need to fight unwanted traffic. It didn't take too long to catch onto the idea that you should have two email accounts: one for transactional use — buying stuff online, for example, because you're going to get spammed the moment your purchase is made — and one for personal use. Fast-forward to the smartphone era, when early adopters got onto apps like these to separate their personal line from whatever else they were doing (one reviewer of Hushed identified as running a "strictly-platonic cuddle business"). These apps must be becoming more popular — within the past couple of months I saw some press on the mobile phone carriers being given the authority to crack down on robocallers.

The same is obviously true for social media — Facebook got called on the carpet for not doing enough to combat the emergence of accounts spreading Russian propaganda in advance of the 2016 presidential election, and still gets blasted at the federal government level for leaks of private information (think Cambridge Analytica).

Tumblr, another social media platform, saw a huge percentage of its user base leave late last year because Verizon was having trouble monetizing the platform. Put simply, Verizon updated its acceptable use policy to drive out the porn communities so they could sell ads; but then they found they didn't really have anybody left to sell ads to!

It seems that in the digital age, regardless of the platform, somebody always has to be the reason we can't have nice things. PCs got viruses. Email has spam. And phishing. And spear phishing. Voicemail? "Vishing." Phones? Robocalls and other assholes out to trick the elderly, and people "calling from Microsoft because my computer has a virus." It's just absurd, the shit people do.

People get new technology, and then they have to think of ways to protect themselves while using that new technology. Protect themselves from everything from invasive advertising to bad actors. In a world where YouTube actually interrupts a video to show you an ad, I'm afraid that's just how it's going to be. Forever.

And the "bad actors" thing brings me back around to burner phone apps. You know, with GMail, all of the data you receive and send via GMail is available for them to do whatever they want with: ¹

When you upload, submit, store, send or receive content to or through our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content.

Personal assistants monitor you all the time. And anything that gets recorded is stored and tagged and analyzed by a legion of linguists who will do who knows what with the data they capture. So as I think about something like a burner phone app, I have to wonder: who owns the data?

Who Owns the Data?

Ad Hoc Labs is the maker of Burner. Their privacy policy, dated 2015, explains that they do collect personal data "when you use certain services" (which they do not identify), and that they will "use your Personal Data to provide you with access to such services and to monitor your use of such services." In short, whatever you're saying over that line or text is being captured on your phone, sent to Ad Hoc Labs, and shared with other companies:

By voluntarily providing us with [personally identifiable data, aka] Personal Data, you are consenting to our use of it ... you acknowledge and agree that such Personal Data may be transferred from your current location to the offices and servers of Ad Hoc Labs and the authorized third parties referred to herein located in the United States.

Interestingly enough, the privacy policy says that you can use the app without providing any personal data, but that you may not be able to use "certain services" as a result.

Try Before You Buy

I have decided to try Burner.

After reading some of the reviews, I was a little worried that the app would try to trick me into signing up for some sort of premium service, but I found the setup to be pretty straightforward. I'm on a two-week trial that has limited services — 20 minutes of phone time and a maximum of 40 texts. I chose the number from lists of about ten numbers associated each area code I selected.

One thing I'm really excited about is that the Burner app appears to interface with Nomorobo, a subscription service I have that notifies me in real time of calls from numbers reported to be bad guys.

Burner also reports it integrates with other serivces. For example, Burner shows how I can use its Developer connection to integrate with IFTTT and Zapier. But when I tried the IFTTT integration, it appeared that IFTTT had no idea what Burner is, and had no intention of connecting with it. Granted, this is nerdy advanced stuff that isn't critical, but, if it SAYS it can connect with IFTTT, I expect it will connect with IFTTT. Burner will actually integrate with Dropbox, which I think is a very nice plus.

So I'm going to publish the Burner number on my outgoing messages, for the client to use. So far, I've received no robocalls, no texts, no messages, which is a great sign -- I interpret the silence as the line has probably not been cloned or the target of suspicious campaigns.

Tempus Fugit

So, it's Monday, and Burner is already trying to tell me my trial expires tomorrow:

For reference, when I created the number on Saturday, the app showed that it expires the following Saturday. The app still shows the number expires in five days, regardless of their poorly-implemented popup message. Things like this are irksome. I don't tolerate them well. Maybe I'm predisposed to be aloof because of the reviews I read, but telling me two days into a 7-day free trial that my trial expires TOMORROW certainly doesn't read like an honest mistake. Not cool, Burner.

 

I'll update this post as warranted.

Ransomware is software that gets introduced to usually a company's data systems by a malicious actor (who wrote the program) and a generally unwitting victim (who downloaded or activated it). The victim clicks a link in an e-mail message or a web page, and that click connects that person's computer to a computer elsewhere, which transmits a file back to the requesting machine. Like almost any computer virus, the file spreads itself to all the other machines on the local network. Ransomware programs differ in that they encrypt the contents of the hard drives and advise the victim that they must follow a series of instructions to purchase the decryption key. Some versions demand payment be made within a specific amount of time; others increase the cost of the key as time passes. Given the strength of modern encryption algorithms, the data is lost without the key. In this way, the affected machines are being held for ransom by the software — hence, "ransomware."

Ransomware is also something that I read about in tech news stories and summaries. It's... it's a far-off thing for most — something we've heard of like so many bad things in our world, but it's never close enough to be... real.

Well, here's reality: I've just learned of a friend whose company was struck by a ransomware attack. I don't know any details beyond that, except to say that if the company is unable to meet the captor's demands, it could go under.

I don't want to see my friend out of work, especially due to something like this. In the IT world, the job market is volatile enough without threats like these. Why, in my own resume I mention, as a final bullet under certain employers, the circumstances of my departure: layoffs, end of contract, that sort of thing. Way back in my history I do have an instance where the company I'd worked for for several years closed. It's far enough back now where I don't generally have to reference it, but back when I did, it was always awkward to have to say "I did all these great things for this company, but you can't contact them for a reference because the company is gone." It caused problems for me for years.

I wish him and his company great luck. I don't know how many people the company employs, but I seem to recall it's a small shop. Hopefully law enforcement has been engaged, and they'll resolve it without the company suffering too greatly. I'm convinced all these captors want is money; but in situations like these, they get no money AND they ruin lives. Is that really acceptable collateral damage?

Posts about politics and national issues dominated the interests posts in 2018, with some healthy side-effects: posts on books rose 500% from last year. There were maybe some not-so-healthy side effects too: fitness posts were way down, and I started a new topic about whiskey (!!).

Topic	Count
books	6
car	1
cooking/food	4
family/kids	9
fitness	3
gaming	5
geek	10
leadership	0
movies	4
music	1
nation/politics	21
texas life	5
whiskey	3

 

I published far less interests content this year than I had in 2017 — and for good reason: I spent far less time in front of a keyboard this year. We moved to Texas (the inclusion of Texas life and whiskey topics should have provided a prtty big hint) and I spent every day I could in our pool with kiddo, reaching all the way into NOVEMBER. Between the move and the sun, it's little wonder I'm not seeing the numbers I saw in 2017.

The nature of my posts were different this year, too. Those national interest posts were typically very long and very involved, with a lot of research behind them — most of the time, they were news articles (The Washington Post is my main source because I'm a subscriber), but in some cases, the sources were books that I'd read from cover to cover. So, fewer posts, but with much more behind them. I wouldn't call it a format change; I'd just say it's a function of the content — it demanded greater discipline and effort.

Finally, I split some content out into new topics this year. Kids/Family was used for probably most things family-related, and eventually I split out the posts related to our move and adjusting to life in Texas into its own topic. The cooking topic was renamed to food, so I could talk not just about dishes I prepare, but others I got to experience not of my kitchen (I still miss forkly). The new whiskey topic is separate from food, because I wanted to highlight our new discoveries in their own topic.

I started looking into Microsoft Power BI for work, and thought I'd use some data from my website as a test. I was very impressed at how powerful and easy to use Power BI is.

There's a lot of functionality packed in there by default.

For example, date data is imported in a heirarchical nature, so the graph, which is currently showing the number of posts by year, can be reorganized to show posts by month and posts by day of the month. (The graph showed me that I tend to post significantly more to interests topics on the 7th of the month than I do on any other day. I wonder why that is?)

One can also highight certain topics on the graph by clicking on them in the legend. Clicking on a topic will fade the other topics in the graph, which helps the data you want to see stand out.

There are some things I could clean up inside the data here (like the legend), but considering I threw this together with raw data, I'm really impressed with how easy this was to make!

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post about Facebook privacy, and how one can examine and change settings related to the data you're giving to third parties through the use of Facebook authentication (that is, using Facebook to log into third-party applications and websites).

This morning I realize that everything I put in that post will not be enough to significantly help you keep your information from being leaked to third parties. The reason is the entire point of social media: connection with other people.

Yesterday, I was confident I wouldn't be seeing the warning banner that Facebook talked about displaying to the 87 million affected by the Cambridge Analytica scandal. This morning, I can reproduce for you exactly what that banner said. Despite my elaborate system of lists to compartmentalize my Facebook relationships, my account is among the 87 million whose data was provided to Cambridge Analytica, and here's why: even though I never logged into the "This is Your Digital Life" app, a friend of mine did. Facebook explains:

As a result, the following information was likely shared with "This Is Your Digital Life":

• Your public profile, Page likes, birthday and current city

A small number of people who logged into "This is Your Digital Life" also shared their own news feed, timeline, posts, messages which may have included posts and messages from you. They may also have shared your hometown.

There's no mention of a time period, except to say that it stopped in 2015. This still means that potentially several years' worth of my "digital life" — more precisely, the time between 2015 and whenever I connected to this person — was exposed to Soviet-born Aleksandr Kogan and Cambridge Analytica and whomever else copied it simply because one of my Facebook friends used the survey app.

Perhaps it might be best if we paused and thought about our Facebook relationships as we would consider a sexual partner: We now know we have to trust our Facebook friends to protect and minimize the data they provide to others, because their data could include information about us. I imagine this isn't too dissimilar to the trust we must place in a potential partner to protect their bodies from diseases we could contract. In both cases, we have to determine whether these other people have been reckless and put themselves and us in jeopardy — whether they knew it or not. There are things we can do prophylactically in both cases to reduce, but not eliminate, our risk.

Make good choices.

 

P.S.: Gizmodo apparently feels similar frustration.

I've a friend who started a thread about leaving Facebook. Now, I don't know what his Facebook habits are, like (get it?) how much time he spends on it daily, but I've never thought he posted too often or was particularly combative on threads I've seen. But the point he made wasn't really about politics and associated vitriol that has seemed to sully everybody's Facebook experience since 2016 — it was about Facebook as a steward of its users' data.

In the same thread, another friend posted a link to a neat commentary by Shelly Palmer about precisely that sort of thing. My favorite few words from the post get straight to the point:

Right now, you get to use Facebook, Google, Gmail, Waze, and other “free” apps for the cost of your data. If you don’t want to pay with your data, you are welcome to make other choices.

That's really the bottom line. Palmer's post also recounts for us the Cambridge Analytica scandal and observes, "The silver lining ... is the fact that you are becoming aware of what data you create, what is collected, and how it is used."

And by the way, let's be clear about what this Cambridge Analytica mess really is — It's about Facebook and their privacy practices. This wasn't a breach like Equifax, Anthem or MySpace. Data wasn't taken. Facebook gave CA's researcher the data, because in part the researcher lied about its use.

Let's move on.

Inspect Your Facebook Settings: Facebook Authentication

Facebook is more than just a social media platform. It's also a very convenient authentication platform. Loads and loads of phone and web apps offer authentication using your Facebook credentials as a way for you to access their content. But, as stated above, there's a price to using Facebook authentication elsewhere, and that price is your Facebook data.

Do me a favor. Open up the Facebook app on your mobile phone. Right now. Let's take a look at the permissions you've given the apps that use Facebook authentication. Jeff Rossen did a piece on this on the Today Show last week, and I was grateful for the walkthrough. Here's how — at least, on the iPhone:

• Open up the Facebook app's settings by clicking on the icon in the lower right corner of the Facebook app's screen — the one that looks like three horizontal lines. Don't confuse this with the iPhone's settings.
• Once the form loads, scroll to the bottom to the region marked "SETTINGS", and tap on the word "Settings" to the left of an icon that resembles a white gear against a gray background.
• A menu should pop up with a few different headings. Tap "Account Settings."
• On the Settings screen, scroll to the bottom and tap on "Apps."

• You'll arrive at Facebook's Apps and Websites form. Tap on "Logged in with Facebook".

Spend a few moments taking this all in. This form is now separated into regions by sharing settings, in increasing order of privacy. In other words, the group of apps that are shared only with yourself are at the bottom, and the group of apps that are shared with the public are at the top.

Just spend a few minutes surfing this Apps and Websites area and make certain you're good with your settings, or change them. Different apps will request different data — some of them will take absolutely everything they can get:

In exchange for logging into this app with your Facebook account, the app is collecting information on your friends, your posts, your likes, your birthday, and more.

---

If you're not comfortable with the Facebook data you are providing this third-party app, you can change those settings here. Personally, I've set all of my apps and websites to share data with only me, and have limited the particular data to my public profile and maybe my email address, but that's it.

Inspect Your Facebook Settings: Posts Privacy

When I think of "Facebook" and "privacy," the privacy of my posts is the first thing I think of. In a time of change, a couple of years after I joined the network, I figured out how to use Facebook's lists capability and came to use it exclusively, despite whatever other controls Facebook introduced in the years since.

The key to the effectiveness of the list method is in your post security. You have to be certain that the visibility of every post you make is restricted to your lists. That means at least the posts you make from here on out, but could include modifying every post you've ever made (as far back as your wall goes) if you want to be thorough. The choice is yours.

Imagine two lists, for the sake of simplicity. One is your "white list", with ALL of your Facebook friends on it. The other is a "black list," for putting friends in "time out" on occasion. Let's say you have a friend who has been getting particularly annoying of late — maybe you've tired of her constant Candy Crush posts, or you're just done with the poltical rancor he is spreading. Put them in the penalty box by adding them to your "black list." Just make certain the privacy on your posts is set to only include the "white list", and to specifically exclude the "black list." Doing this for all subsequent posts effectively denies "black list" members visibility to anything you post (except for profile picture changes) until they're off the "black list." If you chose to change the settings on all of your previous posts, people in the penalty box will see none of your posts on your wall.

You'll likely have multiple lists. I do — life isn't as simple as black and white (lists). The more lists you make, the greater the demand for maintenance. For example, every new friend you take on must get assigned to a list with view permissions for them to be able to see any of your posts on your wall. I started with a "white list," then branched out. Some lists are confined to my neighborhood, and some are confined to family. I also have a "children" list, so posts that aren't appropriate for younger eyes can exclude that group. You get the idea.

Creating, populating, and maintaining lists is much easier using a PC browser than on a mobile device. So log into Facebook on your browser, and look down the left side of your News Feed for a heading called "Explore." Click on the item titled "Friend Lists." You may have to click on "See More..." to reveal it.

You should land at this URL: https://www.facebook.com/bookmarks/lists/. You can create and manage lists here. Clicking on an existing list will show your wall, filtered to the list you clicked on — but you can see and manage the list's membership on the right side either in the header or in a section titled "On this List".

The screen shot above is my actual "black list." There's currently one person on it, and this list has been in existence for over ten years. Notice the list has zero access to any of my posts on my wall. Toldja it's a penalty box!

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I find it's much easier to manipulate the permissions of a single post using a computer browser than to attempt it through a mobile app. I think the way to go is to find a custom permissions set that will work well for most of your posts and to revise permissions once posts are made, than to mess with the permissions prior to creating the post. This is largely because a change in the permissions settings before you make a post will be retained until you change it again.

Let's say you're going to post some pics for your motorcycle buddies. I find it's better to leave permissions as they are, make the post, then edit the permissions on that one post, than to edit the permissions at the start, make the post, then have to change the permissions back to the way they were; particularly if your standard custom set is complex or if you're posting from your mobile phone.

Think about it this way: using the latter method, you might easily change the permissions to being only viewable by your motorcycle buddies list and make the post from your phone; but if you forget to get onto your laptop later and correct the custom permissions set, everything you post until you get it corrected will default to go only to your motorcycle buddies list.

A few years after I started my list scheme, Facebook created several automated lists, like "Family" and "Acquaintances" and so forth. The premise is exactly the same -— consider these as "starter" lists. They'll require the same maintenance as the lists you create.

Use Facebook's Privacy Checkup

Facebook has created a privacy checkup wizard. Apart from an appearance on your wall from time to time, you can also access it from your iPhone by tapping the Settings icon, then scrolling down to the SETTINGS region and tapping on the Privacy Shortcuts menu item.

The Privacy Shortcuts screen is also where you can verify your posts settings and even explore Facebook's data policy.

You Own Your Facebook Data

Remember that you can always request the data Facebook has on you. Log into Facebook on your computer or phone's browser — not the app — then go to Settings. The easiest way to do this is to click on the downward arrow at far right on the blue banner at the top, then click "Settings." You'll land at the General Account Settings. You'll see a series of rows of data — Name, Username, Contact, et cetera. Below this is a link you might otherwise miss: it reads, "Download a copy of your Facebook data."

Conclusion

1. The Internet is forever. Be careful about who can see what you post.
2. "If you don't want to pay with your data, you are welcome to make other choices."
3. Check the permissions you've given to third party applications by using Facebook's authentication.
4. Check the privacy of your posts. You can use lists if you've got the drive to see it through.
5. Facebook has a Privacy Checkup wizard available for you to run at will.
6. You can download a copy of your Facebook data at will.

Finally (if this hasn't been bad enough), check out this Twitter thread from Dylan Curran where he reviews all of his data from Facebook and Google.

Welp, this is silly.

A couple of weeks ago I had a period of a few days where seemingly everything I had been working on achieved their desired end states. It was weird. And now I'm on the downside of all of those achievements: I'm kinda left a little listless because I finished it all.

Years ago I really wanted an HP LaserJet printer. A model was introduced that was designed for the home or small office, and I really wanted it — but the price was just too high for me. For well over a year I kept a close eye on the price — I'd make a bee-line for the printers section whenever I walked into any technology store -- but the price never dropped. Then one day I got brave and looked online at eBay. There I found them, new, in-box, for a better price than I was finding in retailers. So I created an eBay account and bought one. For a long time after that, I'd just feel lost when going into a technology retailer because the thing that had driven me to go for so long wasn't a thing anymore. I remember stopping myself when I'd get to the printers section and actually ask myself what I was doing — the search had become habit, but now that the search was over, I just felt... empty. Listless. Wondering, "Well, now what?"

Here I am feeling much the same, because so many different things all ended within those two days. Major upgrade to my website is completed, in production, and I'm really happy with it. I've had really good interviews with several potential employers. I'd even finished Wolfenstein II and finally reached level 30 in Pokémon GO!.

Now all that remains on the website work is some maintenance items; I have an offer from one of those firms, and I've barely the motivation to even open the Pokémon GO! app: Before, If I was driving by the local cemetery (a major location for Pokéstops), I wouldn't have missed an opportunity to pull in, open the app, and pick up some items or maybe join a raid. Lately, I can't be bothered. And it feels really weird. I'm just so used to working so hard at it.

I guess I'll just await the next bit of "brain candy" to devour.

I've been staying in a hotel for the past week. After two days here, I discovered the key card to the room was erased. A couple of days later, I discovered both of the key cards had stopped working, and had them reprogrammed by the front desk.

This was when I figured out I had been carrying my AirPods in their case in the same pocket as the cards.

I don't seem to have any trouble with the room key when I don't have the AirPods case with me.

I remember from my NEETS modules days that anything that generates an electrical field also generates a magnetic field. The AirPods case is a small capsule that acts as a charger for the AirPods, hence it generates electric and magnetic fields.

With the case and the key card in the same pocket, I can't help but wonder if the magnetic field created by the AirPods case is at least partially erasing the data recorded on the key card's magnetic strip. Apparently, this is a thing.

I'll simply leave this here: If you're an AirPods user, consider carefully where you carry the case in relation to things like key cards, bank cards and credit cards which use magnetic strips.

UPDATE:
We're now in our third week at this hotel. I met a guy this morning at breakfast who was wearing AirPods and had his case out on the table. I told him about my experience, and then showed him the big dumb credit card case I bought as a defense against the constant card erasure. Surprised, he admitted that he kept his room card and the AirPods case in the same pocket (as had I). He thanked me for the advice and left after a few minutes.

About ten minutes later he came back to our table and told me that his room card wasn't working!

Posts about fitness, family, geek stuff and national events dominated the interests posts in 2017.

Topic	Count
books	1
cooking	4
family/kids	34
fitness	45
gaming	7
geek	35
leadership	4
movies	2
music	10
nation/politics	24

 

Technically speaking, I did a lot on this website over 2017:

• Added a crawler atop the welcome page
• Made a cryptographic class
• Upgraded the professional section to include an interactive resume, a reworked certificates and certifications form to include a coverflow-like interface, and the introduction of a technologies list
• Implemented a major change to post favoriting to prevent records from being overwritten by production pushes
• Numerous fixes and other minor enhancements

We adopted two kittens from the shelter over a year ago. The male has matured into just a bundle of love — I adore him. The female has matured into a standard cat, who does not care one whit about people and everything has to be done on her terms. As I said, a standard cat.

One can definitely tell the difference between the two cats when they're around my laptop. The boy will very carefully walk around it and other obstacles in... whatever he decides his path is. The female simply can't be bothered, and will walk straight over the keyboard.

If you have a "keyboard cat" like I do, I've a software suggestion for you.

PawSense is the brainchild of BitBoost Systems, which seeks to solve the very problem of cats walking over your keyboard. PawSense monitors keyboard input for values typically distinct from human typing — cats' paws typically strike more than a single character at a time — and locks the keyboard until a human unlocks it, either by clicking in a particular spot or by typing specific input.

PawSense likely runs as a service on your Windows computer, monitoring the keyboard for unusual input. The software can play a sound as an attempt to startle your visitor and to train her (or him -— my bias) to keep off your keyboard.

PawSense is available for download for $19.99. BitBoost uses Paypal to handle transactions. One word of advice: the download form requires two inputs - one is associated with the name of the purchaser, and the other is a purchase ID. That purchase ID is displayed on a screen during the transaction, but it is not included in the confirmation email coming from Paypal. Do yourself a favor and copy down or take a screenshot of that purchase ID while it's displayed on the screen so you'll have it when needed. Otherwise you might find yourself e-mailing BitBoost support for assistance (like I did) — and by the way, BitBoost support was very responsive. I had reached out to them yesterday afternoon, and had the fix waiting in my email this morning.

One more thing: PawSense was last updated to run on Windows 8, though it's running fine on my Windows 10 machine.

Perhaps an unintended additional benefit of PawSense is that it could make you a better typist. I've triggered the PawSense software twice since typing this, telling me my accuracy could improve.

Learn more about PawSense.

According to CNET reporting, Apple has released a statement this week which verifies a long-held suspicion: Your older iPhone or iPad really IS getting slower.

The statement was in response to an observation from Primate Labs. Published in a blog post from its founder, Primate Labs' testing showed that iPhone performance did not remain constant as the unit ages, contrary to the public's expectations.

It's a Feature

Apple's response, reproduced here, was included in the CNET article:

"Our goal is to deliver the best experience for customers, which includes overall performance and prolonging the life of their devices. Lithium-ion batteries become less capable of supplying peak current demands when in cold conditions, have a low battery charge or as they age over time, which can result in the device unexpectedly shutting down to protect its electronic components.

Last year we released a feature for iPhone 6, iPhone 6s and iPhone SE to smooth out the instantaneous peaks only when needed to prevent the device from unexpectedly shutting down during these conditions. We've now extended that feature to iPhone 7 with iOS 11.2, and plan to add support for other products in the future."

I admit, I'm in that camp — I've wondered why, after the release of a a newer model, my iPad suddenly seems like someone replaced its chip with a Pentium 60. My suspicion has been that AT&T had been throttling it's network performance. Happily, I've never had a problem with a unit (iPhone or iPad) simply shutting itself off. Thanks to this article, if that happens, I'll know one reason why.

Read the full article.

MICHIGAN NEWS, a publication of the University of Michigan, reported their computer science department is working on a new computer hardware design that moves information rapidly and randomly within the system, destroying the data occupying the previous location. "The technology works to elude attackers from the critical information they need to construct a succcessful attack."

Todd Austin, who leads Project MORPHEUS, offered this simile: "It's like if you're solving a Rubik's Cube and every time you blink, I rearrange it."

Austin is excited about the program, because he believes the design offers a solution that is "future-proof." The article argues that MORPHEUS could protect against future threats, because zero-day attacks that focus on software vulnerabilities require fixed locations of the vulnerability and the data. Under MORPHEUS, the locations of everything — the vulerability, the data, passwords, everything — would constantly be changing. In such an environment, vulnerabilities won't matter, because an attacker would not have the time or resources to exploit them.

Read the full article.

I noticed the other day that my Windows machine went through a GIANT install — on the order of the Fall Creators Update: installing a percentage of the update, then restarting, then installing another percentage, then rebooting.

It turns out it actually was the Fall Creators Update — again. An update to the update, if you will.

I watched a video that offered a summary of updates, and found one thing that seemed useful to me directly: the ability to save a link right onto your taskbar.

Yeah, yeah, it had all kinds of other updates to Paint 3D and so on, but I don't use those. I don't need them in my life right now. But I can get behind the URL thing.

Why? Because as it happens, I have a client for whom I'm doing a lot of work using a Web form on a specific development server. It'd be nice to have a link to that URL directly on the taskbar instead of having to open the browser, fight with it while it tries to load the home page the client has set, to get to the dev box.

Luckily, Microsoft implemented a version of the feature in IE. If I was an Edge user, I should see the feature shown in the video. The implementation in IE is a little different. Under Options (the gear icon in the upper right corner) is an option titled "Add site to Apps." After clicking, I found the shortcut (pictured as the Internet Explorer "e" logo against a white background) right at the very top of my Start Menu (the first entry under "Recently Added.") Right-clicking on the menu item gave me the option to pin it to the taskbar.

You can go as far as view the properties of the shortcut from the taskbar, but you can't edit the shortcut icon. Somewhat interesting: The shortcut is of a type called "Pinned Site Shortcut" — not just "Shortcut."

I think it's a nice-to-have feature, because it keeps shortcuts off of my desktop and down on the taskbar, where I live. One can create a shortcut on the desktop to an internet URL, but about the best you could do to get it onto a taskbar in Windows 10 is to pin it to a browser taskbar icon. Not bad, but not quite as handy.

Since the iPhone X was announced, Apple has marketed its Face ID feature as purely a security enhancement, designed to increase the security of the unit tenfold over its earlier fingerprint ID technology.

But I believe Face ID's hidden purpose is to combat distracted driving — or at least provide a mitigation strategy for the company. Intentions aside, Apple has made using an iPhone in a car significantly more inconvenient than ever.

Do Not Disturb While Driving

iOS 11 contains a key enhancement in this regard — its Do Not Disturb While Driving feature activates automatically by default when your phone connects to a Bluetooth system in a car, or when you're traveling at a relatively high rate of speed (determined through Location Services). While the service is engaged, use of the phone is permissable only after you signify that you're not driving — performed through an extra tap on the phone's lock screen. Players of Niantic's Pokemon Go! might recognize this from the game — if location services detects that you're moving rapidly, the game makes you acknowledge an "I'm a passenger" alert.

Face ID Demands Your Attention

Face ID completely ups the ante on Apple's anti-driving campaign because, by default, Face ID requires you to look directly at your phone before unlocking it (Apple calls this "requiring attention"), and applies attention awareness to other features, like dimming the phone's display. (See Settings > Face ID & Passcode for the settings.)

The new unit also forces requirement of a passcode immediately, without any other option or the possibility of disabling the requirement (see Settings > Face ID & Passcode > Require Passcode). What this essentially means is you can no longer just unlock your phone, keep it in your lap and casually use it in the car. The iPhone X and iOS 11 demand you bring the phone up to your face to unlock it, OR make you unlock it by typing in your code if you're not using it continuously.

Cheap Sunglasses

Another note for mobile users (pun intended): Face ID probably won't work if you're wearing sunglasses (it doesn't work when I'm wearing mine). So now, in addition to having to bring the unit up to your face and to look right at it, you've also got to take off your sunglasses.

Who wants to have to do all of that stuff from a car seat?

Distracted Driving

So now I feel obligated to insert some data about traffic fatalities related to distracted driving and mobile phone use, to highlight the problem. To be fair, the numbers are alarming. According to statistics offered by a personal injury law firm, quoting the National Safety Council, "1 out of every 4 car accidents in the United States is caused by texting and driving. Texting while driving is 6x more likely to cause an accident than driving drunk." ¹

With figures like these, it seems petty to argue whether Apple is acting to protect consumers or to protect itself. Besides, one could also argue that Apple is incentivized to make these changes to their products to keep people alive so they can buy more of their products — or, in the case of younger consumers, appeal to their parents. (Cell phone use is highest among 16 - 24 year olds.) ²   I'm not saying these things to act in poor taste; I'm merely exploring Apple's rationale for making the changes I'm griping about.

Not Yet Sure How I Feel About It

Yes, this makes me one of the 660,000 guilty of using a mobile phone in some way while in a car. I also wrote some software called "AUTOreply" several years ago for my Android phone because I was tired of constant text messages while I was driving.

Typically if I'm using the phone, I'm answering it over the car's stereo in a hands-free way. Sometimes, I make calls, too — and Apple's now made it really difficult for me to do that, because dictation doesn't work well through my older car's system (hmm.... are they trying to boost sales of CarPlay-equipped units too?) I'm still against texting.

The design changes of the iPhone X absolutely discourage any active use of the unit while driving or even just being in a car, and for good reason.

Over time, I'm sure I'll get used to them; right now, I guess I'm too familiar with the relative convenience my 7 Plus offered, and find myself wanting it back.

 

UPDATE: There is one setting change you can make to make your life a little easier. I found it after I'd published the original article (of course). You can modify the Auto-Lock setting to give you a little breathing room. Find it under Settings > General > Display and Brightness, at about the middle of the screen. I believe my machine was set to 30 Seconds as a default. Set that value to something higher to give yourself a little more time before having to reverify your identity to your phone again.

Since the iPhone X was announced, Apple has marketed its Face ID feature as purely a security enhancement, designed to increase the security of the unit tenfold over its earlier fingerprint ID technology.

But I believe Face ID's hidden purpose is to combat distracted driving — or at least provide a mitigation strategy for the company. Intentions aside, Apple has made using an iPhone in a car significantly more inconvenient than ever.

Do Not Disturb While Driving

iOS 11 contains a key enhancement in this regard — its Do Not Disturb While Driving feature activates automatically by default when your phone connects to a Bluetooth system in a car, or when you're traveling at a relatively high rate of speed (determined through Location Services). While the service is engaged, use of the phone is permissable only after you signify that you're not driving — performed through an extra tap on the phone's lock screen. Players of Niantic's Pokemon Go! might recognize this from the game — if location services detects that you're moving rapidly, the game makes you acknowledge an "I'm a passenger" alert.

Face ID Demands Your Attention

Face ID completely ups the ante on Apple's anti-driving campaign because, by default, Face ID requires you to look directly at your phone before unlocking it (Apple calls this "requiring attention"), and applies attention awareness to other features, like dimming the phone's display. (See Settings > Face ID & Passcode for the settings.)

The new unit also forces requirement of a passcode immediately, without any other option or the possibility of disabling the requirement (see Settings > Face ID & Passcode > Require Passcode). What this essentially means is you can no longer just unlock your phone, keep it in your lap and casually use it in the car. The iPhone X and iOS 11 demand you bring the phone up to your face to unlock it, OR make you unlock it by typing in your code if you're not using it continuously.

Cheap Sunglasses

Another note for mobile users (pun intended): Face ID probably won't work if you're wearing sunglasses (it doesn't work when I'm wearing mine). So now, in addition to having to bring the unit up to your face and to look right at it, you've also got to take off your sunglasses.

Who wants to have to do all of that stuff from a car seat?

Distracted Driving

So now I feel obligated to insert some data about traffic fatalities related to distracted driving and mobile phone use, to highlight the problem. To be fair, the numbers are alarming. According to statistics offered by a personal injury law firm, quoting the National Safety Council, "1 out of every 4 car accidents in the United States is caused by texting and driving. Texting while driving is 6x more likely to cause an accident than driving drunk." ¹

With figures like these, it seems petty to argue whether Apple is acting to protect consumers or to protect itself. Besides, one could also argue that Apple is incentivized to make these changes to their products to keep people alive so they can buy more of their products — or, in the case of younger consumers, appeal to their parents. (Cell phone use is highest among 16 - 24 year olds.) ²   I'm not saying these things to act in poor taste; I'm merely exploring Apple's rationale for making the changes I'm griping about.

Not Yet Sure How I Feel About It

Yes, this makes me one of the 660,000 guilty of using a mobile phone in some way while in a car. I also wrote some software called "AUTOreply" several years ago for my Android phone because I was tired of constant text messages while I was driving.

Typically if I'm using the phone, I'm answering it over the car's stereo in a hands-free way. Sometimes, I make calls, too — and Apple's now made it really difficult for me to do that, because dictation doesn't work well through my older car's system (hmm.... are they trying to boost sales of CarPlay-equipped units too?) I'm still against texting.

The design changes of the iPhone X absolutely discourage any active use of the unit while driving or even just being in a car, and for good reason.

Over time, I'm sure I'll get used to them; right now, I guess I'm too familiar with the relative convenience my 7 Plus offered, and find myself wanting it back.

Left your Apple Watch's Activity app running after your workout? Use your iPhone's Activity and Health Apps to delete bogus workout data

"I figured that since the Health app also takes input from some measurements on the iPhone, some percentage of the workout could be retained, like distance. In short, NOPE."

"Autofill can insert your personal information into multiple controls at once, like filling out an entire address form for you as a convenience. NaviStone's code can snatch it up and send it as each field is filled."