Migration Issues

Where were we? Oh right, new iMac. Big screen, lots of RAM, faster wi-fi, fast hard drive. It checked all the boxes for me. Remember, too, that I am working at home (two jobs, in fact, these days), so I also saw my new hardware purchase as an investment in improved productivity.

One of the little things that makes someone like me a loyal Apple partisan (for nearly 25 years at this point) is a utility called Migration Assistant that allows you, with relative ease, to transfer everything from an old Mac to a new one. Files, photos, music, web bookmarks and passwords—all of it transposed, as if you had cloned your old computer's brain onto a new hardware host. It's a simple and relatively painless way to switch everything over when you get a new Mac.

In the old days (ten years ago), the two Macs had to be connected by a cable, and then there's a bit of trickery called Target Disk Mode (really, just holding down a particular key combination while starting up) that allows the older Mac's hard drive to appear on the desktop of the new Mac; from there it's really easy to run the Migration Assistant. Here in 2016, this can also be accomplished using wi-fi and does not require Target Disk Mode, or for the computers to be connected by a cable.

(new iMac on the right)

Or so I thought. In trying to be modern and using wi-fi, I think I opened myself up to some trouble. The migration also took a lot longer over wi-fi than I expected, something like seven hours. When it was finally finished (I had gone away to do other things), not only could I not find some of my stuff (my photos seemed to be fine), but I could not open a number of programs: Spotify, the Firefox browser, the Chrome browser. And I was getting weird error messages about them: "profile is missing," "error type 6," that sort of thing. Huh? And my Bluetooth trackpad would not connect to the new Mac, either.

Without the use of Firefox and all my bookmarks and passwords, I could not use the new iMac for my jobs, which are done almost entirely via web browser; I ended up having it sit off to the side on my desk while I spent the next several days continuing to use my old one for work. I knew a call to AppleCare was in my future, and since I imagined it could take a while, I had to wait until the next weekend to ensure I had enough time.

That didn't go so well. Apple was not interested in helping me with the Firefox problem because Firefox is not Apple software. Apple, naturally, wants its users to use Safari, but there are a number of things about the way Safari does stuff that irritate me to varying degrees, so I tend to stay away from it. They couldn't help me with Spotify either. Their suggestion in both cases was to delete and reinstall the software; that did not work in either instance.

While I was on the phone with Apple, I figured out the Bluetooth problem on my own. It's embarrassingly stupid, but we're all friends here, so I don't mind sharing. If a Bluetooth device is paired with a particular computer, and you want to use it with a different computer, you must first un-pair them so it is "discoverable" by the other computer. But then, you must also TURN OFF BLUETOOTH on the old computer so it can't interfere while you are trying to get the device to pair with the new computer. Head-smackingly simple, yet not obvious to me for more than a week.

After that small victory, I started to think about the whole migration process. And the more I thought about it, it seemed pretty obvious to me that the migration had missed a bunch of stuff; I wondered why it wasn't obvious to the AppleCare techs. I decided to delete the incomplete user profile that had been created during the migration and redo the whole thing, this time using the older method. One small hurdle: Apple had abandoned Firewire for another high-speed date transfer technology called Thunderbolt. But I'd had to obtain a Firewire-to-Thunderbolt adapter from the Apple store anyway, in order to continue using my external hard drive for backups, so I was ready to roll.

The second migration, with the two iMacs connected via cable and employing Target Disk Mode, took under three hours (less than half the time of the first one) and was completely successful, right down to my desktop picture (Edward Hopper's painting Nighthawks). It's very satisfying to be able to resolve these things oneself, which is another reason I have been a Mac user for so long. And while I don't think there will be any other Mac migrations in my near future (I'm hoping to be able to get close to a decade's use from this new one), if one does happen to come about, I know I won't be using wi-fi.

New Hardware

Over the past several months, we've been making some hardware upgrades here at SAR Studios (a wholly owned subsidiary of Chaos Productions Ltd.*), in order to serve you ourselves better. I've been fortunate that I have not had to deal with any significant computer issues, as some of my friends have. But as time passes, even solid equipment can become obsolete.

For most of last year I was hounded by my cable company (whose name rhymes with Bombast) about my cable modem, which was at least a decade old. I was warned repeatedly that my modem had reached "end of life" status. What that meant, exactly, was not clear; it still worked, but there was an ominous suggestion that there would come a time when the company might no longer support it. I had chosen to purchase the modem in order to avoid an indefinite monthly fee, so it was up to me to acquire a replacement.

I'd happened to read an article on The Wirecutter (a useful and highly recommended site) on this very topic, and based on their advice I decided to purchase what was basically a several-generations-newer version of what I had. The going price at the time was around $90, but in September I was able to purchase a refurbished model for $50, which was more in line with what I wanted to spend.

The next step was my wireless router, which I'd had at least as long as the cable modem, or maybe even longer. All the devices we're using on our wireless network are capable of faster speeds than the router could provide, so a couple of months later I found another deal on an Apple AirPort base station (what Apple insists on calling its routers). Replacing a router in an existing home network is a bit further beyond the level of tech stuff than what I'm used to, so I invoked the assistance of my old college friend Dr. Hackenbush, who resides far from here in a land of pickup trucks and guns. Through the miracle of FaceTime he was able to guide me through the process (thanks again, Dr. H!), and I had the network cruising along again in a couple of hours.

That left my computer, an iMac with a 24" screen. It dated to 2008, and it had been my work computer until I left my job in 2012 (don't worry, we were allowed to take them with us as a "parting gift" of sorts). One of the first improvements one can make to an older computer is to add RAM. The iMac had 4 gigabytes of RAM out of a possible 6; why it wasn't built to allow expansion up to 8 is a question only Apple can answer, but it did not seem worth it to add only 2 more gigs.

New iMacs and Mac minis no longer have the option to add RAM after you've purchased the computer; you have to buy what you think you'll need, or risk having programs run more and more slowly years down the road. Of course, Apple charges a premium for this: to double the RAM in a new Mac from 8 gb to 16 adds $200. I found a new, unsold 2013 iMac, the last model with user-upgradeable RAM, that also had the latest, fastest wi-fi standard that my new router supports, along with a faster-spinning hard drive and the larger 27" screen size I wanted. That ended up being my Christmas present to myself. Doubling the RAM and installing it myself was $45 instead of $200.

Next time, I'll tell you about what happens when you move from an older Mac to a newer one, or rather, what's supposed to happen.

(*Those of you who have known me the longest will likely recall the genesis of the Chaos brand; no slight is meant to any other readers, and perhaps I'll go into some details and dig into the "archives" at some point.)

Econo-Case

A new phone usually means a new case. Over the past few years I have tried some different styles, including top-opening sleeve and book style. But although I've been working again for several months, I'm still trying to be careful with money, and spending another $40 or $50 for a new iPhone case may not be the most prudent move, at least not yet.

I decided to take an economical approach this time. I happened to follow a link to an eBay seller offering silicone slip-on sleeves for $1.50 (that's not a typo) with free shipping. They even offer a choice of five or six colors. I was going to get clear but since my phone is black and gray I decided to get a gray-tinted sleeve. It isn't super-snug but it offers at least a minimum of protection, and makes the phone easier to grip (the aluminum body of the iPhone can be somewhat slippery).

I may decide to upgrade the case at some point in the future, possibly to something in a similar style but done in leather. But for now this one will do.

Phone Quest '15

It's that time of year... when my thoughts wander to the idea of getting a new iPhone. Actually it's been an every-other-year thing, since that's what my provider and plan allowed, but I got my 5S almost two years ago. I thought my upgrade eligibility date was at the beginning of December, but that was my contract date; a few days ago I was in my phone account online and saw that I had hit my eligibility date for a new phone.

I had also considered switching to T-Mobile, because I like the way they have been pushing the mobile industry to adopt policies that are more consumer-friendly. One of these (that so far I don't think other carriers have embraced) is that music streaming does not count toward your monthly data usage. T-Mobile is also offering the new iPhone 6S for $10/month if you trade in an iPhone 5S (or just $5/month with trade-in of last year's iPhone 6) and join their payment plan/annual upgrade option. But the Mrs. has been disinclined toward getting a smartphone of any kind for a long while, and T-Mobile has only smartphones these days (and one flip-style phone), so I did not think switching would work for us.

I'm sure a lot of you know that all the big mobile carriers, spurred by T-Mobile, have been moving away from phone subsidies (how we used to get new phones, with an upfront payment) and into a somewhat more transparent approach, separating the cost of the phone from the cost of the plan. This means that more of us will be getting our phones via monthly payment options. One advantage to this method is that there is usually an option to upgrade after a certain period of time and a certain number of payments have been made, i.e. annual upgrades instead of every two years.

I read an article in last week's Personal Technology section of the New York Times comparing the payment plans of all four major phone carriers, as well as to the costs of paying full price for a new phone up front. That's what led me to look at my account online. I also learned that customers who opt into Verizon's payment-plan program get a discount on the service portion of their plan, so on a monthly basis I would be paying roughly the same amount, plus I'll be able to trade in and get the iPhone 7 when it arrives next fall. The initial cost amounts to the sales tax on the full price of the phone. (Note: even if you're a Verizon customer, your plan may be different.)

When I upgraded two years ago I was able to order the phone to pick up in one of Verizon's stores. This time that option was not offered, so it shipped to me via FedEx. Delivery was Wednesday, so I made a point of staying home because I knew I would have to sign for the package. Of course the dog still needs to go out, every couple of hours these days, and of course I missed the delivery because I was out with the dog. But the tag left by the driver indicated that I could pick up my package after 6 pm that evening at a FedEx facility in South Boston.

And of course it was raining quite hard Wednesday, but that didn't deter me. I figured out where I needed to go, way down Summer Street past the convention center and the cruise ship terminal and across the Reserved Channel. Fortunately the 7 bus passes right by, and it's a short walk from the Downtown Crossing T station to where the 7 boards on Otis St. The bus was packed, and the windows were all fogged up so I couldn't see out, but I could tell more or less where we were and managed to squeeze my way out of the bus at the correct stop.

Once I got to the FedEx facility, it took less than three minutes to get my package. If you ever need to go down there, there's plenty of parking, the people working there are pleasant, and it's open until 9 pm on weeknights. If it hadn't been pouring it would have been a piece of cake, just another errand.

Not Quite

I'm working on another short-term temp project. This one involves checking transcripts against audio recordings. I just came across an amusing instance of auto-correct: "user info" on the audio became "urine foe" in the text file. Hmm...

Print Queue

I haven't had good luck with printers. I've had several over the past decade, and they seem to start getting problematic after only a couple of years. We had various issues with them that I don't even remember now, mainly ink issues and printing issues, and spending too much on ink.

In 2007 I bought a Mac mini that came with a free printer of my choice up to $100 valu, so I picked up a Canon inkjet. The frequency with which we had to buy replacement ink, and its cost, left us very unsatisfied. Kodak had come out with a line of inkjet printers that had significantly lower ink replacement costs, so we decided to get one of those. I bought that printer in 2010.

That printer really seemed to blow through ink too, and I didn't even use it that much. Eventually I read a story on Consumerist that said leaving a printer on standby rather than turning its power completely off would save ink, and the Mrs. pointed out that I could use the "draft" setting for print quality, something I hadn't even thought about. But this printer, too, became problematic, particularly after I upgraded my Mac to the latest version of the operating system a few weeks ago.

When I sell an item on eBay, I can purchase and print a postage label at home, and then just drop the package at a post office. But twice within a few weeks I purchased the label and was unable to print it. eBay lets sellers void a purchased label, but the refund takes 15 days for the postal service to process! When I sell an item I need to be able to reliably print a label so I can get the package out as quickly as possible. We decided we needed to replace the printer again.

This time I went to the library and spent half an hour going through the past year's issues of Consumer Reports to see which printer models they had tested and which ones they thought were a decent buy. I also looked at replacement costs for ink cartridges for the three major inkjet printer brands: HP, Epson, and Canon. Among CR's recommendations was an HP printer called the Envy 4500. The Envy models are sleeker than average, which appealed to my aesthetic sense. HP's ink costs are reasonable ($36 at Staples for a combo pack of black and color ink) and most retailers were selling it for about $80.

There was also a slightly nicer model with the same specs plus a two-tone black and silver finish and a larger color touch screen instead of a simpler LCD. That model was selling at most places for $100, but there was a Staples coupon in last Sunday's paper for 15% off one item, and being able to go to a nearby store and get one right away was preferable to having to wait for one to arrive from ordering online.

So we ended up with the Envy 5530. If you want to spend a little less you can get the 4500, which will perform the same. I've sold two items on eBay this week and the printer has done its job. It was easy to set up, it's quieter than our last one, and it prints more quickly. I'm hoping this one will last a little longer than two or three years.

Streaming Blues

The streaming-TV site Hulu has been around for six years or so, and for a while I used it as a way to catch up on episodes I'd missed of certain shows. Generally a certain number of episodes of a show are available at a time, and if you don't keep up while a show is airing, the ability to view an entire season requires a subscription to Hulu Plus. I don't subscribe because I don't need to, and also because for your $8 a month, you still have to endure ads.

Lately I've been watching only one show via Hulu, a period drama about the scientists working on the atomic bomb project during World War II called Manhattan. The show airs on an obscure channel called WGN America that is not carried by Comcast, and WGN doesn't stream the episodes on their website, so I figured I wouldn't be able to see it. It wasn't until maybe three weeks after the show premiered during the summer that I even thought to look for it on Hulu, and didn't expect to find it but it was there (possibly because WGNA doesn't have the availability of some other channels).

New episodes are delayed three days after they originally air on WGNA before appearing on Hulu, which is no big deal (some Fox shows are delayed eight days). But my viewing experience with Hulu's streaming player has been atrocious. I've used all the TV channels' online players, and most of them work as they're supposed to. With Hulu, playback itself is fine; it's the transitions between ad blocks and show segments that's the problem.

Hulu shows blocks of ads that run between 90 and 120 seconds. When the blocks are finished the next segment of the show is supposed to play, but often nothing happens. The only way to restart the show is to refresh the browser, and then I have to watch another ad that's between 15 and 30 seconds, and then I wait to see if the show will start playing again. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't and I have to refresh two, three, or four more times, not knowing if it will work and enduring another ad each time. There are five or six ad breaks in each episode of Manhattan.

I assumed this was a nefarious ploy on the part of Hulu to subject viewers to more ads in each show they watch. Then it occurred to me to try a different browser. I already have to watch Netflix content in Safari because of some bug in Firefox that prevents proper playback, so I used Hulu in Safari and the show played flawlessly. I even got to forgo three ad breaks by watching a movie trailer, which Hulu does at random.

There are comments on Hulu from other users complaining of the same issue, so I have to think it's a browser-related bug. And there are only two episodes left in the first season of Manhattan, so I may not need to use Hulu again for a while.

Under the Chair, Over the Carpet

I spend a lot of time at my computer. I still have a desktop setup; I don't like typing on laptops, I prefer a large screen, and I just find it more comfortable overall to use a traditional setup at my desk rather than hunch over a laptop, or sit with one on the couch as the Mrs. does.

Back in June I mentioned that I had worn a hole in the plastic chair mat where I sit, mainly from having my weight press on a certain spot. (I have to have a mat because the room is carpeted.) We went to look for a replacement, and liked the ones made of strips of bamboo wood mounted to a flexible backing. They are far more attractive than the plastic alternative, and the Mrs. had a Staples gift card so I only had to pay the difference.

Some people have said that the bamboo can get scratched depending on what kind of chair you use and what kind of wheels it has, but it's still going to be far more durable than a plastic mat and will likely still be more attractive.

Now, Staples sells two brands of these mats, their own and another that is far more expensive. But the Staples-brand mats are not online, so you have to go to a store to get one. They come in two sizes and two finishes, "natural" (which resembles hardwood flooring and goes nicely with our bookcases and my desk) and a darker, browner finish that I think is called "cherry."

It's Alive!

I visited the Apple store this morning, and one of the Geniuses was able to revive my iPhone. I don't know exactly what happened, and even if I'd asked I'm not sure he would have been able to tell me. The important thing is he was able to get it into restore mode and get it working, then restore my data and such from the cloud.

Since I hadn't backed up to iCloud in a while I lost some photos, but otherwise everything is back the way it was. The tech mentioned that if I use wi-fi at home (something I don't tend to do, as I'm not a big data user in general), the phone will back up automatically whenever I plug it in to charge, so that's going to be part of my regular routine now.

Uglified

I updated my iPhone to the latest operating system last week. I don't really have any opinion one way or the other about the Maps app, except that when using the traffic overlay it only shows problem areas, whereas Google's map showed traffic flow as green, yellow, or red, which is easier to take in at a glance. On the other hand, the new map app does seem to scroll and zoom in and out much faster, which is frequently more important when trying to obtain information in a moving vehicle.

But Apple has made other changes that you might not notice immediately. I don't make a lot of phone calls these days, so it wasn't until a few days later that I went into the phone function and found that Apple had made a significant change to the appearance of the dial pad. The number pad has been reversed from white digits on black keys to black digits on white keys. Not only is this ugly, it's also harder for me to read. There just isn't as much contrast.

Obviously this isn't anything crucial, but I haven't seen it mentioned in any reviews of iOS 6. This might be one of those things that you can change if you are willing to "jailbreak" your phone, but I don't feel confident enough to undertake such an endeavor.

Next Issue Please

After finishing the computer switch, my next tech task was to sync my iPod with the computer. The computer already had the bulk of my music on it, roughly duplicating what was on my computer at home. But since iTunes doesn't let an iPod sync to more than one computer, I had cheated, sort of. I used a freeware utility called Senuti (get it?) that works in reverse: it pulls music off an iPod and loads it into iTunes.

I could have just left it alone and continued using the iPod with the songs and playlists from my old home computer. But being stubborn, I wanted to have everything matching and up to date. Unfortunately the computer didn't want to cooperate. Each time I tried to sync the iPod to the iMac, it would choke on a random song during the sync process and I would get an "unknown error." Each time it was a different song at a different point in the process, so I did not believe I had any corrupted files. I gave up for a couple of days, tried again, and got the same result.

I had already been thinking about upgrading to the newest Apple operating system, which came out a couple of months ago (something my old computer didn't have the specs to handle), so I thought that doing that might eliminate the sync problem. Turns out it did, though I don't have the slightest idea why. Now the only issue is that my iPod is full, but I have a lot more music in iTunes that won't fit.

I think the solution to that might be to spend $25 a year to sign up for iTunes Match, which mirrors your entire music library in the cloud. That would let me play my music through my iPhone without having to have the files physically stored on it, which would be great because the iPhone's capacity is half of the iPod's.

Tedium

I finally finished switching computers, although I would have been done a lot sooner if I had not drawn out the process so much.

The big time sucks were the iTunes library and browser bookmarks. I could have saved myself a lot of trouble if I had set up both computers with iCloud, but I didn't see the point of doing that with a computer I was about to stop using. There was also a reason why I didn't want to use Firefox Sync to match the bookmark sets, but I've already forgotten what it was. I copied the bookmarks file over to  the new Mac, but I still had to visit each site manually and re-bookmark it.

As for iTunes, I copied a bunch of music that was on the older computer onto a flash drive and dropped it in the newer one, so that only took a few minutes. I was trying to find a way to transfer my playlists instead of having to rebuild them, but when I took a good look at my music library I realized that I had only three playlists that I used with any regularity, and that I had put any effort into compiling. So I just went ahead and recreated them manually with the two computers sitting side by side.

Hopefully this type of thing won't be an issue in the future, because either my stuff will be living in the cloud (or at least backed up to a cloud somewhere) or I'll just be moving to a new computer (one without anything on it that I want to keep) and can use the Migration Assistant to automate the process.

Mac to Mac

All right, my imaginary vacation is over. Now it's back to my ongoing sorta permanent vacation, otherwise known as unemployment.

Not working has some advantages, though. The weather was really nice last week. The Mrs. and I had lunch with the Proper Bostonian outside at Piattini on Newbury Street, and we even had a brief visit from the male contingent of our West Coast relatives (our two nephews and their stepdad), who were on their way back from visiting one of the stepdad's relatives in Vermont. We had a nice dinner at Watch City Brewing in Waltham, and a tasty brunch at the Warren Tavern in Charlestown.

TWiA took the weekend off, in case you were wondering. I had intended to post something yesterday, but I got wrapped up in a home tech project: when I left my job I was able to take my computer with me. It has a lot of useful software on it that I didn't already have on my home computer, so I had planned to switch over eventually. My current monitor is six years old and is starting to show its age (it's too dim when first turned on, and takes a couple of minutes to stop flickering and reach proper brightness), so it seemed like the right time to make the switch. The work computer is an iMac, so the external display won't be needed.

When you buy a new Mac to replace an older one, you can use a utility called Migration Assistant to copy all the relevant stuff from old computer to new. But with a machine that's been in use for a while and has software you want to keep, I'm not sure the assistant would work. I suppose I could have gone into an Apple store and asked someone, but I remembered that you can also connect two Macs with a Firewire cable and make one appear on the desktop of the other, just like an external drive, and then just drag files from one to the other.

Now that that's been accomplished, I need to go through the browsers and make sure I have all the bookmarks I want, and go through iTunes and make sure I have all the music I want. Then the old computer can be officially decommissioned.

Game Face

I've never been much for video or computer games. I've never used an XBOX or a Playstation, or even a Wii. I do not have Angry Birds on my iPhone, nor have I ever played it. Way back in the pre-smartphone days when I was using a Palm handheld, I used to like a couple of puzzle games, Tetris and Bejeweled.

But not long after I got my iPhone, I did download the free version of Scrabble. And about a week after that I downloaded the $2 version so the incredibly annoying ads would be gone. I started a game with a college friend who lives in Texas, and another with a friend who lives nearby. When we visited family in California in May, I started a third game with my brother-in-law.

A couple of days ago, my in-progress games suddenly would not load on the main menu screen. The game would search and a little cursor thing would spin, and after a couple of minutes I would get this message: "something went wrong, pull down to retry." Not good.

I found a support email address in the game info, and sent a request explaining the problem. I expected it would be at least a couple of days before I heard anything back. This evening, nearly 48 hours later, my games were just as suddenly back, and shortly after that I received a message from Gmail informing me that it has been unable to deliver my message, for vague reasons. I suppose it was a bit naive of me to think that email address would actually work, but at least my games are back.

Paperless

I happened to hear a T announcement today about new bus schedules taking effect this weekend, and it made me realize that I hadn't bothered to get new paper schedules in at least six months, if not longer.

I used to make sure I always carried the current schedules for the routes I used most frequently, plus a few others it was likely or possible I would need. But with the gradual ubiquity of mobile internet access and apps that tell you how far away the next bus is, I no longer need a printed schedule.

Today I left work early to do an errand in Harvard Square, after which I needed to know how long I would have to wait for the next 86 bus to get me over to Sullivan. I pulled out my phone and checked MBTAinfo, which told me I had seven minutes to get to the underground bus platform inside Harvard station. Progress.

I'd like to think that smartphone use has resulted in the T not having to print as many copies of their bus schedules, perhaps saving some trees in the process as well as saving the T some money.

Geek Tragic

For the iPad user who can't sit still, there is now a wearable iPad desk/carrier thing. Can't wait until I see someone wearing/using one of these on the T.

Data Blindness

My lack of foresight has come back on me.

Earlier this year, I was looking over the account info for my cell phone plan. I was paying $30 a month for data service for my smartphone, but I wasn't using all that much data. In the time since I'd gotten the phone, Verizon had added the option of paying $15 a month for a smaller data allowance.

I thought about it and, even though paying the cell phone bill was not a hardship, I figured saving that $15 a month would still be nice. I looked at my data usage patterns and saw that I had not exceeded the amount being offered at the lower price, so I made the switch. I figured if I went over, I could switch back.

I did go over my data cap (150 megabytes) in July when we went to New York, because I was using the phone's map capability a lot, plus looking up other assorted info on the web and checking traffic on the drive down. But worse, now I have an iPhone, which means I'm using data on the network a lot more, to do stuff like play Scrabble with a friend in Texas.

But there was one aspect of the data plan I did not take into account. When I had signed up for the smartphone data plan, Verizon was still offering unlimited data at that $30 a month. At some point after I'd switched to the lower amount of data, the unlimited option had gone away, but customers who still had it were grandfathered and allowed to keep it, at the same rate.

When I made the decision to downgrade my data plan, I already knew at that point that I was going to bail on that phone as soon as I was able, but I still didn't take the long view of my future wants and needs. Had I just left the plan alone, I would now have an iPhone with unlimited data access for $30 a month. Arrrrgh...

Today I checked my usage for the two-plus weeks since I got the iPhone, and I could already see that I was going to pass the cap before the end of the billing period, so I switched back to the $30/month plan, but for that I now get 2 gigabytes of data. It seems unlikely that I would exceed that, but it wouldn't have mattered—I could have streamed Spotify or Pandora 24/7 without caring about my data usage. That stings.

Casing the iPhone

Now that I have an iPhone, I think I need a case for it. But I can't stand those neoprene "bumper" things, which do nothing to protect the glass anyway. I'm having a tough time figuring out what to do, because I have not seen much out there that isn't crap.

The iPhone is thinner than my Palm Pre, but it's also about half an inch taller. The Pre also had rounded edges on every side, making carrying it in my pants pocket easier, even in its case. I guess what I want is a protective case for when the phone is in my bag or pocket, but one that it's also easy to remove the phone from for when I want to use it.

I have seen a couple of things that fit these general parameters. Twelve South makes cool cases that look like antique books, for iPhones, iPads, and MacBooks. Their iPhone case also serves as a wallet, a feature I would be unlikely to use but could be handy. Overall I like the idea of this, and Twelve South's cases are made in the USA, but it might be a little too precious.

I found something similar in the guise of a Moleskine notebook, which would work nicely, but the product page says it's for the iPhone 3 and 3GS, which suggests that either they are a bit behind in development, or they decided not to proceed with making a version to fit the iPhone 4, in which case I would be out of luck.

Orvis has a rather rugged-looking leather case that's sort of like a pocket notepad with a slot large enough to slide an iPhone into. At $70 it's more expensive than either of the others, but it's distinctive (a quality I always consider when making a decision such as this one) and it's also made in the USA.

If anyone has suggestions, please send them along.

Time for an Upgrade

A few months back, my home computer started behaving very sluggishly. Web browsing was painfully slow, sometimes reminiscent of the bad old days of dial-up internet connections. It also had a sudden difficulty in holding onto its wireless connection. Neither of these things had been a problem previously, and I suspect it had something to do with one of the Mac OS updates, but I didn't have the patience to go back and uninstall it; I wasn't even sure that was possible.

The computer is almost four years old, and I would have loved to simply replace it, but I could not justify the expense just now. I knew the RAM was upgradeable, so I looked into that. Back in 2007 Mac minis came with 1 gigabyte of RAM, which was adequate, but over time it had become less so. They can take as much as 4 gigs, and it isn't terribly expensive: $60 to max it out.

There was one hurdle, though: the procedure to open up a Mac mini of that vintage and install the RAM is a huge pain in the ass. I watched an instruction video on the site of the RAM vendor; it began with sanding down the blade of a putty knife to slide into the bottom of the case to separate it from the top, and got into much more complicated things like having to detach cables. It was way beyond my comfort zone.

(New Mac minis are much easier to open and upgrade, but if you still have CDs you want to load into iTunes, you have to buy an accessory external drive, which sucks. iMacs have a little RAM access compartment on the bottom edge.)

Having the RAM installed at an Apple store or other authorized service center would certainly cost enough to negate the notion of boosting the computer's performance on the cheap. I back-burnered the idea for a couple of weeks, until the computer's torpor got annoying again.

Then I had the idea to ask our IT guy at work if he had experience doing this sort of thing. He did not, but he knew someone else who did. I made it clear that I was willing to pay something for the person's time, but he said that wouldn't be necessary. I ordered the RAM, and when it arrived I brought my computer into work (its small size definitely made that easier), where our IT superhero took over and brought it to its appointment with Dr. Macinstein.

In practically no time the upgrade was complete, and my Mac mini had quadrupled its RAM, which made a huge difference in precisely those areas that were problematic. I still can't install the Lion OS, but based on what I've read so far, I don't feel like I'm missing anything.

Orphaned Tech

On Thursday HP announced that is is ending production of its smartphones and tablets that run the WebOS operating system. HP acquired WebOS when they bought Palm last year for $1.2 billion. That's a lot of money to spend on something to throw away so quickly.

WebOS is a great platform, but the available hardware has always held it down, and consequently app development has been almost nonexistent. You know that if a company like HTC had been developing phones that ran WebOS, they would have been better, and would have appeared more frequently.

My current phone is a Palm Pre that I've had for about a year and half. There's a lot I like about it, and some I don't. Every time I hear or read about a cool new app for the iPhone, I find myself thinking that's probably what I will end up getting next. The iPhone's arrival on Verizon earlier this year pretty much solidified my feelings.

I really wanted Palm to succeed and survive, and when WebOS was first announced I thought that could do it for them. But now it's over, and my phone is an orphan. There are mumblings that HP may try to sell WebOS, but the chances of that are very slim. The next version of the iPhone is rumored to be arriving in late September or early October, coincidentally right when I'm eligible for an upgrade.