The recent wave of bad Apples

Recently, we placed a call in to Apple Support and requested to speak to a senior-level support executive to discuss some issues, for which we've been noticing more and more incoming calls from Apple owners.

Below is a summary of the three most-prevalent Mac-related problems and when appropriate, the response from the very professional and knowledgeable Jonathan at Apple. It is worth mentioning that Jonathan confirmed that these issues are some of the most common calls he currently receives at Apple Support.

iWeb Replacement in the Film / TV / Entertainment Industry

Finally, a solution to replace iWeb with iPhoto's Journal feature, available on Apple iOS:

In this posting, we are providing a step-by-step tutorial for using the Journal feature to easily publish photos, text, etc using Apple's iPhoto iOS App for iPads/iPhones. However, if you don't have an iOS device, or just want to keep using iWeb to make all of your site changes, you are going to need to set up hosting with an entirely new company & reupload/move your website to their servers (yes you can cancel your subscription with Apple and keep your site). Apple inexplicably recommends GoDaddy for this, but we can certainly provide support and other recommendations- just give us a call if you need any help.

We believe this will meet the requirements of photographers, designers, and artists working within the entertainment / advertising / commercial film & television businesses who have been searching for a replacement to the ever-popular Apple iWeb photo publishing/sharing software previously provided with MobileMe. In transitioning to iCloud, subscribers are informed that as of June 2012 Apple will be sunsetting iWeb.

All you’ll need is an Apple mobile device, the $5 iPhoto App and an iCloud account. In fact, as of this writing you cannot create or edit your journal on a computer or via iCloud’s website - only on iOS meaning only on your iPad or iPhone. The app autosaves everything as you create & edit, in real time; however, any edits you make to individual photos in the iPhoto app reflect in your published Journal online.


For an example website with three separate Journals, click here.

Amazing piece of Microsoft's past

Lifesaver for when your iPhone's home button is broken

...and you know it's hardware-related:

The following workaround makes the iPhone quite usable until you find the time to get it fixed.

1. Go into Settings –> General –> and tap Passcode Lock and set up a passcode on your iPhone.
2. When you are in an app and you want to back out just press your power button twice –> slide to unlock
3. Then tap Emergency Call –> tap the left arrow key at the bottom left
4. Then input your Passcode and you are out to the app and at your home screen.

From these kind folks.

Epson WorkForce 545/645 Series incapable of printing its own User's Guide

A retired Fire Dept Battalion Chief called me recently to help out with a few computer problems, mainly related to the new fully-featured Epson printer/scanner/fax he'd just purchased. I'd assumed he needed help installing it, but when I got there he'd already had that covered. His (odd, I thought) request was to help him print the detailed User's Guide to the printer, which (despite the inclusion of a "quick start guide" and a full-color brochure hard-selling the printer he'd just bought) was not included. 


We went to the support site, and found a link to the User's Guide. The manual looks like this but you can't print it! You'd have to expand all the little +'s and expand some more and some more and click print on each individual page in order to accomplish this. 

So I called Epson to request that they email us a PDF file, or some printable version, and the kind voice of Sanj from Pakistan told us over the speakerphone, "No, there are none, and please you should check the installation CD". When I explained that the CD only contains an HTML link (to the same page linked above) and no actual file for the guide, he asked why Chief wanted to print a 100+ page technical user manual...

He's interested in all the detailed features and in learning about the Epson product so he can access them, naturally. 

So why then does he not visit our site and search for it that way?

Because he likes to read the actual manuals, and print things out; that's a reason he bought a printer.

email accounts, mail programs, and The Stamp

Hi Adam --

Hope you're well.  I started teaching at TheUni this semester and am forwarding my .edu mail to my .com account.  I'm just wondering if I need to set up my Uni email in my email program.  It does forward, but I don't have a separate icon for TheUni email account.  Part of the problem is I don't know if it's a POP server, etc, and couldn't seem to determine that.  What is the advantage of having the separate icon/account?

Thanks,

Jane

adam@computersWTF
to Jane

Hi Jane-

It's purely a personal preference. Think of the Mac Mail program (aka The Stamp or technical term: mail client) as an old mail room in a big office building- sorting, filing and ultimately providing you with your mail as you like it. If you want to have a separate "box" for each of your accounts, each with it's own inbox, sent folder, and so on, then Mac Mail can do that. If you want to have TheUni forward their mail to another account and come in that way, you can obviously do that too as that is your current setup. Each computer has a different mail client (or more than one, like Thunderbird, Outlook, etc), as do mobile devices and tablets. Conversely, web-based email can be logged into remotely from any device or computer with Internet access. Most email accounts can be accessed either way, although some companies/orgs choose to go with one or the other.

Best,

Adam

...but what happens when your car kills someone?

Tom Vanderbilt's new Wired cover story on robotic cars is a must read:

The last time I was in a self-driving car—Stanford University’s “Junior,” at the 2008 World Congress on Intelligent Transportation Systems—the VW Passat went 25 miles per hour down two closed-off blocks. Its signal achievement seemed to be stopping for a stop sign at an otherwise unoccupied intersection. Now, just a few years later, we are driving close to 70 mph with no human involvement on a busy public highway—a stunning demonstration of just how quickly, and dramatically, the horizon of possibility is expanding. “This car can do 75 mph,” Urmson says. “It can track pedestrians and cyclists. It understands traffic lights. It can merge at highway speeds.” In short, after almost a hundred years in which driving has remained essentially unchanged, it has been completely transformed in just the past half decade.

As an extremely alert and aware driver this scares me quite a bit, but as a tech-geek I'm completely mesmerized by the idea of being able to read on a drive somewhere while knowing that the computerized-cars are probably (more than) twice as safe as all the bad drivers out there.

I just can't help the nagging thought: what will happen when someone's car freaks out (or worse, is hacked into) and goes on a rampage?

Google's new Terms of Service leaves us shrugging

In the handful of reviews of Google's new TOS we've looked into, it all comes back to one sentiment expressed in just one of the reviews [Bianca Bosker's piece on HuffPo] - what are you gonna do, not use any Google Products or Services? That would be like trying to avoid vegetables at this point- doable but extremely arduous. And really, why? If marketing bothers you that much, train your brain to avoid its influence.

iPhone, call waiting, and disconnect problems

When I'm on my Verizon iPhone 4, and get a call waiting beep:

If I press IGNORE, it doesn't send the 2nd caller to voicemail (VM) as stated in Apple's out-of-date support doc, but instead it beeps AGAIN interrupting my phone call, and sometimes even a THIRD BEEP before it finally goes to voicemail. This is also annoying for my caller as they have to wait 6 or 7 rings before VM picks up.

If I accept the 2nd call, it puts the first on hold, and I am able to SWAP calls / switch back and forth, or even MERGE calls. However, I am UNABLE TO END only one of the calls, regardless of whether or not I merge them. If I press END, it disconnects all calls. There is no option to END only one of the calls.

If I am simultaneously on with 2 callers (merged or separately) and one of them hangs up, my line remains tied up and my on-screen menu continues to display options for simultaneous-dual-calls.

For example: I'm on the phone with Jack, and I put him on hold to quickly take a call from Jill; after she hangs up and I switch back to Jack, anyone who tries to call me receives a busy signal. In addition, my on-screen menu continues to display options to merge the two calls, or swap back to Jill (who's no longer there and if I do, I get dead air silence). As I stated at this point I cannot "END" only the call with Jill (or I risk disconnecting Jack as well) and here's the strangest part: Most of the time in this kind of scenario, when I switch back to Jack I'll just leave the "2nd" line tied up after the call is completed... and when I do finally wrap up the call with Jack and hang up (thereby disconnecting both lines) - the SECOND ("dead") LINE CALLS ME BACK! The phone rings with an UNKNOWN number, and when I answer it's just the dead air silence calling. If I let it go to voicemail it leaves me a 3+ minute voicemail message of nothing but white noise. [OK OK audio-sci geeks, I know dead air, white noise, and silence are different sounds but youknowwhati'msayin here.]

I called Apple Support and they said for CDMA (Verizon) phones they can't troubleshoot call waiting issues. Just spoke with a tech at Verizon Support, but unbelievably he told me the following:

1. This is not unusual.

2. These are fairly common issue complaints.

3. This is not something that can be fixed, but is programmatic to their network.

Apparently this is not only just how it is, but it's actually working as it's supposed to! The rep said he will file a complaint with the internal IT group at Verizon who deals with the coding of the voicemail and the way it works with the phones, but could not transfer me.

He speculated that the next (4G) iPhone will have working call waiting features, as Verizon's forthcoming LTE (all 4G) network treats voicemail and call waiting completely differently than CDMA.

Sigh.

To follow this discussion, visit Apple's Support Forum and view the original post and all replies:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3542384?start=0&tstart=0

Hewlett Packard packs a punch

Had to share this recent Hewlett-Packard experience from a wonderful client of ours:

I paid extra for the 2 yr in home tech warranty [on a less-than-year-old HP desktop PC]. They refuse to send an in home tech unless I let guy in India with script walk me through a dis-assembly and diagnostic.  Appearantly the "in home techs" can't diagnose--- only come with a spare part and insert. Worthless warranty. I gave up arguing after 3 hours on phone.

I bought another cheap desktop tower and am sending this broken one in by mail for and overhaul......

Awesome plumber

OK, so not exactly computer-related, but LA has a superstar plumber and his name is Robert Jaramillo. Between Robert and his uncle Russell (it's a family business started by Robert's late father twenty-plus years ago) they can fix anything at a totally reasonable price. Bobby's Plumbing comes highly recommended.

iPhone and data security

Recently, a client wrote asking the following:

Can someone access my iPhone's address book data through Bluetooth?  For example, if I have a sensitive ID number listed in a contact, can someone steal it off the phone?

Our reply:

You'd have to jailbreak and hack your own iPhone first to allow it to use BlueTooth technology for data transferring. It's defaulted by Apple to explicitly use BT for devices only (headsets, printers, keyboards). 

However, your data is susceptible to relatively easy theft when using public WiFi (cafes, libraries, etc). The big online banking apps, websites, Gmail and the like use secure protocols (you can tell by the https:// as opposed to http://) to prevent this.

If you keep sensitive information in your iPhone's Address Book, you should at least passcode lock your iPhone and enable Mobile Me's (free) Find My iPhone service, so you can remotely send messages, GPS locate, or brick (lock and/or erase it) in the event of loss/theft.

What to do when your email password has been compromised

This is such a wonderful resource, not only do I wish I wrote it, I wish I'd read it 5 years ago.

I've considered all space... and literature

Exciting programming and events at the Griffith Observatory, including the monthly lecture series "All Space Considered." 


Google's ngram viewer allows you to enter terms and compare their prevalence in all printed material scanned by Google (over 4 million books dating back to 1600AD).

iMac: overheating display issues, symptoms, & a band-aid

The white iMacs (3+ years old, out of warranty) are starting to have overheating issues, symptoms include strange display issues- shapes, color-shifts, "smudges" and "tears" in the screen may flash or remain present. There is a utility that will help, and we are monitoring for any recalls or warranty exceptions issued by Apple. Please give us a call if you need help for this!

How to block spam text messages on your mobile phone

Great how-to article from the NY Times, works like a charm on Verizon iPhone!

Google, search personalization, and filter bubbles

[or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Turn Off Search Personalization]

Eli Pariser gives a great TED Talk about the way we search:

As web companies strive to tailor their services (including news and search results) to our personal tastes, there's a dangerous unintended consequence: We get trapped in a "filter bubble" and don't get exposed to information that could challenge or broaden our worldview. Eli Pariser argues powerfully that this will ultimately prove to be bad for us and bad for democracy.

then...

Click here for a great how-to on disabling personalized Google search results.

Extend

Xmarks is a free utility that keeps your bookmarks, passwords, and even open tabs synced across multiple computers/mobile devices. They also have a great, easy-to-use extension for all your favorite browsers.


...and while we're on the topic of browser extensions: the goo.gl URL shortener, Email this Page, and Google Voice add-ons for Chrome are all quite convenient. Find extensions for your browser here:Chrome (our recommended browser), Firefox, and Safari.

If you're wondering what an extension is, it's an easy-to-use add-on that makes your web-browsing experience more useful and functional; watch a tutorial here.

Googley-eyed back ups

There was a Gmail crash back in February, with 40,000 of their users affected (0.02%), which got us thinking: not enough people are backing up their web-based email. Google publishes a tutorial for backing up Gmail; please don't hesitate to call if you need help with this or any other web-based email providers (don’t forget to export/backup those Contacts too!). For backing up Google Docs, there are a few 3rd party applications out there, but the best all-around goes to Syncplicity, which was simple to setup, inexpensive, fast and easy to use. Finally, if you make changes to your contacts that you want to undo, you can restore your full Google contacts list to an earlier saved version.

cell phone + speaker buzz = twitchbrain

Choke Cores, available for about $3 at Radio Shack, can help cut back on that annoying buzz (EMI, or electromagnetic interference) caused by some cell phones when they are close to speakers.They are easily attached to your speaker cables (slide them right up to the back of each speaker). Some GSM-type cell phones have extremely strong signals– try two on each speaker if necessary, or move them around to different places on the wire (CDMA phones generally do not cause this buzz).