Computer upgrades, continued: DisplayLink on MacOS 11.4 (Big Sur)

Yesterday I related my experience upgrading the harddrive/SSD and replacing the battery. I also mentioned that I lost the ability to turn my screens 90 degrees. I like doing that so that the middle screen of my three-screen setup is more like a sheet of paper. Like this:

Late last week, I read that DisplayLink now supports it under Big Sur (MacOS 11.x), so I figured I would update my system over the weekend. So, Saturday evening I started by downloading both Big Sur and the DisplayLink update and then tried to install Big Sur. Well, something in 10.4 was causing my admin password entry to hang. Not sure what it was, but it probably was a kernel extension (kext) based on my research. Anyway, I decided to wait and try again on Sunday rather than stay up all night trying to get it to work : )

I started from a fresh restart and the admin password took with no problem. The computer did it's thing, rebooting a couple of times. Ever since I had a bad logic board on my older MacBook, I'm always nervous when a computer reboots. But it did fine; the fans raced a few times when the processor was doing its thing, but otherwise uneventful. I logged in and a few things asked for permission—Big Sur is very restrictive about what can access what. That's good, but even now, three days later, I'm still answering permissions. Some are turned down and I don't recall ever giving them permission to access that stuff in the first place! So, good move on Apple's part. I tend to be pretty restrictive about what I let touch what files and software developers always seem to think they need more permissions than I'm willing to give them.

When I first logged in, DisplayLink was showing me all three screens, just not allowing me to rotate them. I installed the update, gave it permission to record my displays—it needs that the rewrite to the three screens—and then rebooted. And waited. I only had the one screen via the HDMI, not the other two via the GUD 300. Great. Now what?

Frantic googling showed that others had the same problem. The DisplayLink site said to check the hardware in your About this Mac and showed a screenshot. Don't go down that road! Mine didn't show the DisplayLink, so I lost a bit of hair over that. Everything else looked fine, though. I moved my backup drive from the GUD 300 to direct just in case, but nothing changed.

More frantic googling turned up someone saying that you need to manually start DisplayLink from the Applications directory and implied you had to do that everytime you log in. So, I started it manually via Cmd-Space and typing DisplayLink.app and viola! I had three screens again. One thing more thing that no one had mentioned was that a DisplayLink logo shows up on your menu bar at the top of your screen.

This is important!

Clicking on that gave the option to download an app that allows you to start DisplayLink on startup. Do it! It works like a charm; across multiple reboots and logouts I haven't had an issue with it. As for rotating the screens, it works great. See the two screen shots below. Be sure to click the menu bar option so you can easily change stuff.

Now I just need to get Dropbox to stop grabbing my screenshots and dumping them in a subdirectory! I'm disliking how possessive Dropbox seems to be getting with the passing of time, but in my line of work its the default, so I need to use it. I just need to reign it in a bit more...

I hope that this helps someone with a DisplayLink problem. It would have been helpful to me to have all this in one place instead of chasing it down all across the internet!

One complaint about Big Sur: They took away the dashboard! They have been gradually taking away its functionality over releases, but now it's totally gone! It was handy for me because I would put sticky notes there and I had a calendar and iStatPro for monitoring the system. Not sure what I'm going to do, but I did find this for monitoring fan speed and cpu temps, which referred me to this and this. I've installed them both; not sure which I'll keep. I moved stickies to the desktop, but I don't like it. Not sure what to do about a quick calendar view yet. I like seeing the whole month, without any added stuff. There's got to be a small app for that somewhere...

Computer upgrades

A few years ago now I upgraded from my Macbook Pro 2011 to a refurbished Macbook Pro mid-2015. The stuff I was doing was overtaxing the 2011 machine, but I still wanted to stay with a Macbook with a magsafe connector. The last one to have it was 2015. It wasn't ideal in that it only had a 256 GB harddrive, so I knew I would be upgrading it at some point.

Well, that point was about 2 weeks ago. I needed to install Adobe's stuff for the work I'm doing for Lockwood Press. Needless to say, I was already bursting the limits of the harddrive before; Adobe's Suite isn't exactly small! And, at about the same time, my battery started doing the dreaded swelling thing. So, I bit the bullet and ordered a new SSD harddrive and battery.

The web site warned that replacing the battery wasn't going to be child's play; they recommended a professional do it. Well, I've been building computers since 1983, and I've had my Macbook 2011 apart more than once, replacing its battery, upgrading the RAM, and putting in an SSD to replace the 5400 RPM drive, so I figured I could handle it. Replacing the harddrive would be a cake walk, I figured.

Of course, because I needed to upgrade to Mac OS 10.14 to make the new harddrive work (that's the way they designed the Macbook 2015—bad design), I also had to upgrade some other software, such as MS Office 2011 for Mac, since they were 32-bit software and 10.14 didn't reliably run 32-bit software—believe me, I tried it! Word would crash all the time at the most inopportune times. You couldn't minimize a window or change screens without a crash! I decided to wait to upgrade the software until I had the new harddrive in to avoid having to authenticate it twice (a real pain! I've done it before).

Once the hardware arrived, the next evening I proceeded to replace the battery. Because the battery in the newer Macbooks is glued in (actually extremely strong double-stick tape), you theoretically need to use acetone to soften the glue. Not something to tackle in the house—Debbie and I both get headaches from the smell of it, even in small amounts. So, I decided I would disassemble the Macbook in my study to the point where you needed to use the acetone and then move to the garage, open the doors and do it on a table out there.

The disassembly video was extremely good, giving each step in detail. Because I had been inside many laptops over the years, it went relatively well. My eyes aren't as sharp as they used to be, so I had to go slower to make sure I didn't break any of the tiny connectors, but it came apart fine. Because the battery had swollen, I was able to get the double-stick tape off without using the acetone, so that was a huge plus.

Now to reassemble it. I didn't replace the harddrive at this point because you need a functional computer to condition the battery. Reassembly was much slower. If you ever do it, be very careful to keep all the ribbon cables out from underneath the logic board. I missed two of them and had to partially disassemble it again to access them. But, finally, after about two hours total, I got it together and plugged it in. It needed to charge fully before turning it on, so I let it charge overnight. The next day, I turned it on and it fired right up! You need to let it discharge completely and then recharge to condition it, but you can work on it while it discharges, in fact they recommend that.

Next up was the new harddrive. Replacing it physcially is a snap, no more than 10 minutes. The next step was a bit more complicated. Because the SSD in the Macbook was a proprietary style, you can't use a standard drive enclosure to just clone the drive—unless you buy a custom enclosure for $99.00. The upgrade was already running me almost $500 for everything, so I didn't want to drop another $100.00, so I figured I would use my Time Machine backup instead.

So, I booted into Internet Recover mode. It found the correct wireless network, so I figured everything was cool and clicked on it. The spinning disk went nuts for 10 minutes before deciding it wasn't working. Great. Try again. Same thing. Frantic Google search. No joy. Try again, this time, instead of just clicking on it, I hit return. It brought up the password box. Why didn't they mention that??!!

It did its thing for a while, then rebooted into recovery mode again. It wanted to download and install Big Sur (MacOS 11.4), which is what the instructions recommend so you have a recovery partition. But, it said it would take 5 hours! Yikes and then I would still need to take the 3 hours or so to restore from Time Machine. Sorry. Not going to happen! I restored from Time Machine.

Everything worked fine. Except I lost the ability to rotate my monitors 90 degrees. Seems DisplayLink doesn't have the ability to do that above 10.12. Bummer. Meanwhile, I needed to upgrade my Time Machine backup. It was a 500 GB drive and now I have a 1 TB drive in the Macbook. Not using it all, but it seems stupid to have a backup that is smaller than the drive its backing up. So, on our monthly trip to the local big box store, I picked up a 2 TB USB 3.0 5400 RPM Seagate drive. Its working fine; I plugged it into my GUD 300 hub.

Summary: I should have dropped the extra $100 for the custom case, because now I have a 256 GB SSD that I can't use anywhere, even as a portable. And, if you aren't really comfortable inside a computer, get someone else to replace the battery. Given how my eyes are now, next time I don't think I'll do it; I'll hire somebody with younger eyes than I have to do it. I really don't like the fact that Apple has done their best to make the machines nonupgradeable. By the way, because I replaced the harddrive, no Apple store will even look at my machine anymore if I wanted them to replace the battery. That's just stupid.

One final word: I found out last Thursday that DisplayLink now supports rotating displays under Big Sur, so over the weekend I made the move, but that's for another post because it wasn't obvious and Google wasn't terribly helpful. Stay tuned! And hopefully this post will help someone somewhere when they get the dreaded Internet Recovery errors.

Customer service?

My phone died today. It wasn't even a year old, ten months to be exact. So I set up a chat session on the phone provider's web page. As you log in, they ask for details about the problem. So, I proceed to type in the issue, complete with the fact that I have already removed the battery, sim card, and sd card and reseated them all.

I wait a couple of minutes and the person on the other end asks what the problem is…hmmm…I thought I just told them. Oh well, I retype the issue—and wait another couple of minutes before they ask me to remove the battery, replace it, and try powering it on again. Hmmm…I thought I just told them that. Oh well, I'll humor them.

No change in the phone—what a surprise : (

The agent types, well, we'll just have to reset it then. OK. Remove battery, replace, and press the power and up volume at the same time. No change, as expected. Agent types, we'll check to see if it's eligible for exchange. Several minutes later: it is. Ok, needs all my contact information, address, etc. And phone number. Hmmm…it doesn't work! I give them Debbie's.

More exchange about how to return it, etc. Finally, "Would you like to participate in a survey about this exchange?" Sure, why not? They reply, "Great! You will get a text message…" Face palm! I don't have a phone that works! Response, "Well then I guess you won't be able to receive the text message." Oh, the irony!

You gotta either laugh or cry. I'll laugh. Without a phone for at least a week, which isn't so bad, I guess. Unless someone wants to call me or text me : ) Good thing most of my work interactions are via email!

Clearing hidden field codes in Word for Mac 2011

Because the references are disappearing from the web and I never remember it:

To remove field codes in Word™ for Mac 2011 but retain all the formatting, select the text and then press Cmd-Shift-F9

Very handy in editing when you get a document that links all their bibliography to who-knows-where!

What happened to my Character viewer?

I upgraded to OS X El Capitan the other day. Ever since, I haven't been able to get the Character Viewer (they renamed it Emoji & Symbols) to show. At first it just wouldn't show if I was in Word; I was still able to get it to show when I was in TextEdit, so I was copying and pasting between TextEdit and Word (what a pain!). Now it won't appear anywhere! I use ʿ and ʾ all the time, plus I need the paragraph marker (not the pilcrow [¶], but this one §). I'm using the HTML entity on that last one because I can't find it on the keyboard. The ʿ and ʾ I have in my Syriac keyboard cheatsheet, so I'm just copying and pasting. But I can't use the HTML entity in a Word doc!

Frustrating! What is the keyboard command for the § sign? Or better yet, Apple! Fix the Character Viewer!

Update: the § is Option 5. But I still need the Character Viewer for some other characters!

Arghh!

I have not been a fan of Microsoft Word since version 1, way back in 1983. I always preferred either WordPerfect or WordStar (or more specialized word processors, such as WatchWord). But the version of Word I'm using now is driving me crazy (Word for Mac 2011)! It reformats at the drop of a hat, silently! Especially Hebrew or Syriac (or any other R-L language). The words will suddenly be backwards, or the letters will. Frustrating! This was especially a problem with the HBCE Proverbs. In fact, for that, I worked off of PDF generated hard-copy to prevent it.

But in the book I'm editing now, a book on the wisdom tradition, Word has started doing something even more devious. It will reformat a sentence by moving words to the next line, but then not rewrite the preceding line. The result is that it looks like there is a double occurrence of the word, but there isn't! Arghh!

So, if you happen to read a book on the wisdom tradition and find a missing word in a sentence, it isn't the editor! It's MS Word!

And I still hate it, 30+ years later! But I have to use it, because it has functions that the open source alternatives don't do properly...Arghh indeed!

Fonts on an iPad

I'm probably way behind the curve here, but I just discovered over the weekend how to add fonts to an iPad...

Why would I want to do that, you ask? Well, for one thing, I'm sick of Syriac displaying as square boxes : ) For another, now that Dropbox integrates with M$ Word—and you don't have to pay them a fee!—it would be nice to have the option to edit manuscripts containing Greek and Hebrew on the iPad.

But the iPad already displays Greek and Hebrew, you say. Indeed, it does. But, when I'm editing, one of the things I need to do is make sure that the Greek and Hebrew are in the proper font. In most cases, that is SBL Greek or SBL Hebrew. Neither of those are included in the iPad's default fonts.

By now you are probably wondering how to do it, right? I've whet your appetite by giving you good reasons and you're sick of my delaying. Well...

Last night I did a handy-dandy Google search for "adding fonts to an iPad." The first hit was the Mac Observer from last June. He recommended a little app for $1.99. So, I went off to the App Store and did a search for it. Low and behold, there was also a free app called iFont that seemed to do the same thing. (Note: you need to look for iPhone apps to see it; for some reason it doesn't show up under iPad searches.) I figured I'd give it a try.

iFont allows you to access the desired fonts in various ways, but for me the easiest was Dropbox. I opened up Font Book on my MacBook, copied the desired fonts over to Dropbox, and waited for them to synchronize. Then I opened up Dropbox on my iPad, found the first font, SBL Hebrew, clicked on it, chose Open in, and then selected iFont (it was the first option). I clicked User Fonts, and there it was, listed as uninstalled. I clicked on install and wham! I was sent through a dizzying array of apps opening and switching until I was in Settings. OK, that's an exaggeration, but it seemed that way...I don't remember what else I did, but it was very straightforward. When I got back to iFont, it listed the font as installed. I repeated the procedure for SBL Greek and Estrangelo Edessa (Syriac).

Now for the test...I switched back to Dropbox and clicked on Final_Corrections_HBCE_Proverbs.doc. This file is loaded with Greek, Hebrew, and Syriac. Bummer! The text in Dropbox didn't show the Syriac font. Well, let's see what it looks like in Word. Hey! It's there! Sweet! The Syriac displayed correctly! I checked the font on the Greek and Hebrew. Sure enough, it was correct. Even better, I didn't get the notice at the beginning saying that the requested fonts weren't available.

So, now I can edit on the iPad. I'm not sure how much I will—I usually have too many windows open on too many desktops for the poor iPad—but it is nice to have an alternative. I can see using it for quick changes, too. By the way, about 6 months ago I bought a great keyboard for the iPad, the Ultrathin Keyboard Cover. I had been eyeing it for some time, but there was no way I would pay $100! But one day I saw it for $25.00—now that was a price I could justify. So, I ordered it and have been using it ever since. I've only had to charge it once, so it's easy on the battery life. Highly recommended. And it makes the iPad look like a small MacBook Pro with the metal casing on the keyboard.

Hit the flashing animal

Remember those early Internet adds with the flashing animal running across the banner? You were supposed to hit it and then you won some kind of prize. I never did it, so I don't know what you would win, but for the last week or so, I had a sense of déjà vu on my Macbook Pro Finder window.

When I'm copy editing, I usually have a few windows open on my desktops (I run 4 desktops). For example, on the first desktop, I'll have Chrome open with a tab for Google, a tab for WorldCat, and a miscellaneous tab or two (usually Google Books, or some such); on the second desktop, I'll have Word open with the chapter I'm working on, the abbreviations file, and the bibliography chapter; I usually also have a Finder window open in case I need to access another file. On the third desktop, I keep my style sheet, any notes from the publisher on that book, iTunes, and Accordance with the Hebrew, Greek, and whatever English text the author is using. On the fourth desktop is my e-mail and RSS feeder. So much for background...

A few weeks back, I installed Google Drive and then we left for Wisconsin—and no Internet for a week. Everything was working fine—until the day we got Internet back. That day, for the first time ever, I got a blue screen on the Macbook! I rebooted and everything seemed fine. I save continually, so I didn't loose any work. For some reason, I didn't have the Finder window open on desktop 2 and the Word windows took up the whole screen, so I couldn't see the desktop.

Over the next few days, I noticed that the laptop didn't always wake up after going to sleep and I started to wonder if I didn't have a hardware issue. I did a bit of googling (on the iPad—praise God for a second computer!) and found this on how to reset the System Management Controller (SMC). Apple says that it controls

Responding to presses of the power button
Responding to the display lid opening and closing on portable Macs
Battery management

among other things. So I did the reset. Everything worked fine—until we got home. I plugged in the Time Machine backup (I didn't take it with me, depending on Dropbox for backup of the book I'm editing). Next morning, the computer wouldn't wake up. I did a hard reset and powered back up. I got the Apple logo with the spinning whatever, then gray screen. Yikes. I tried again. Same thing. Now I'm getting worried. I tried resetting the SMC again. Nothing. I tried booting into Safe Mode (hold down the right shift key while powering up) and got in. Whew!

I started editing, and noticed that the Finder window on my second desktop would keep showing itself over the bibliography window and then disappear. Hmmm...had I been hacked? I turned off wireless just in case. Still doing it...strange. I kept editing until lunch. I made lunch and came back to a nonresponsive computer : (

This time it didn't come back with any of the above techniques. Now I'm worried. I have a book that is due by Friday and I'm 2.5 hours from the nearest Apple store. I really think it is the logic board, based on my Google results. But I ran across a post that suggested I reset the NVRAM. How in the world do I do that? Oh, here it is. Apparently resetting the NVRAM will clear any kernel panics and reset a few other things. One thing that I had noticed was that I wasn't getting the normal Mac startup chime, but I chalked that up to the possibility of a bad logic board.

I reset the NVRAM, praying the whole time! Everything came back—including the startup chime! But what could have caused the kernel panic? Maybe my Time Machine backup drive is bad? I disconnected it and turned it off. I went back to editing...and noticed that the Finder window was doing its funky thing again. I moved to desktop 4 to check e-mail and noticed that all the folders on the desktop were flashing. Weird! Could this all be related?

Quick Google check on flashing Finder and Desktop icons. Hmmm...turns out Google Drive and Mavericks don't play well together! So far nobody else has mentioned that it also affects coming out of sleep mode, but I figured its worth a try. I quit Google Drive (I use Dropbox anyway) and uninstalled it. Flashing is gone!

Great! But what about sleep mode? I didn't plug my Time Machine back in, just in case it might be the culprit. I let the machine go to sleep multiple times and it came back every time.

OK, let's try plugging Time Machine back in...just in case, I closed all my windows : )

I made supper and came back. It started right back up. Great! Now, let's try it with a few windows open. It came back!

OK, now let's open all the normal windows back up and see what happens...No problems. Great, I'm going to bed!

This morning, the computer woke up with no problem! So, it wasn't a hardware issue after all. Now to finish that book before tomorrow!

Update 3/18/14: It isn't Google Drive. It just happened to me again. Not sure what it is...but I'm experimenting.

It works!

I've posted a bit recently about my problems with iOS 7. Here's what I hope is the final update.

The AppleCare rep called me Monday morning to see if the iPad had arrived. Her screen showed it as on the truck, which it was. What she didn't know was that it is a 2.5 hour drive from Duluth to here : ) The iPad arrived around 1:00 that day. It was cold! But, because there are no moving parts, I didn't hesitate to turn it on.

I went through the set-up routine, answering all the questions. I also connected it to the MacBook via iTunes. Disappointment! iTunes said it couldn't be restored without the iPad updating its software first. Bummer! Oh well, I finished the set-up routine on the iPad and let it do its download of iOS 7.0.4.

Much later...it finished the update and I was able to restore it via iTunes. Boy, does it take time to restore 53 apps and their data! Late that evening, it was up and running—pretty much. The passwords for stuff all needed to be re-entered—a very wise decision on the part of Apple! But, all the other settings were there.

On Tuesday, I opened Accordance for the first time. Major bummer! I had forgotten this (it happened to me twice before), but when you do a restore of Accordance, you have to re-download all your add-ons and purchases. Of course, I had forgotten my username and password, too.

I dug around in my records and found the username and guessed (correctly) at the password and then carried on with the restore. It took a while to download and restore, but now it is all there and running fine.

Note to my Accordance friends: Please revise the restore so it contains the modules! Also, the interface for the username and password should check when you enter it, not when you try to synch. Minor issues, though...it's still my favorite Bible software program : )

I give Apple an A for their handling of this. They definitely know how to make things right once they decide to. From the time they decided to repair/replace the iPad until I had the new one in my hands was 5 days—and two of those were Saturday and Sunday, so effectively a 3-day turnaround. I doubt very many other companies would do that without an expensive service contract...

Mess up?

Right after I got done with graduate school, I got a job as warehouse/operations manager for a company in the cutthroat business of video distribution. The gross margins were in the 5-7% range—and out of that they had to pay all expenses; net profit was probably in the range of less than 1%. With margins that thin, every customer counted. Consequently, customer service was highly emphasized. It was there that I developed the philosophy that the most important customer service employee was the warehouse employee. After all, what is the first thing that a customer sees from the company? That's right, the package. If it is mispicked or damaged, what is the initial impression on the customer?

Anyway, I digress...

One of the things I learned there was a tacky little phrase: Mess up? 'Fess up. Dress up.

Huh? OK, let me translate: If you mess up, then admit it ('fess up) and then fix it (dress up). Simple isn't it? Except it is hard to do for various reasons. For some it is pride; they are afraid that it will lower their standing in the eyes of some if they admit to being less than God.

For others, it is profit margins. To fix the product will cost money, so better to stonewall and hope the problem goes away. Pity the poor customer service rep who is trying to assist the customer, but the policies of the company get in the way.

So what is the point of all this????

Two fold. There has been a recent flap about plagiarism by Mark Driscoll. You can read about it here. Anyway, rather than admit to wrong-doing, someone (the publisher? Dricoll's PR team?) pressured Mefford to remove the accusations from the web site. Perhaps Driscoll's defense should be he was predestined to do it!

Personally, I see this as a case of pride getting in the way...

What's the other situation? My recent bouts with my iPad locking up/bricking because of iOS 7 (you can read about my woes here).

Well, I have to say that I am giving Apple a solid endorsement for customer service here. It was a bit hard to get them to admit it was their fault (Mess up?, 'Fess up.), but once they did, it has been amazing. The box to send the iPad back came the next day (Wednesday), I sent it out the day after that (Thursday), and they received it Friday.

The customer service rep called me to let me know it had arrived. Two hours later, I received an e-mail telling me it had arrived. A few hours later, I received an e-mail saying that a replacement was on the way. Today I checked the status and it is scheduled to arrive here on Monday!

Besides that, the customer service rep told me she would call to make sure it had arrived...

That is a clear case of "Dress up" if ever I saw one. So, even though the iOS update was screwed up, Apple gets an A from me for fixing it... Here are the relevant screen shots:

iOS 7.0.4 woes, continued

Well, it's been about a week since I last posted on my iPad woes. During that time, I've scoured the Internet and the Apple forums (fora?) looking for answers. What I've discovered is that about 1-2% of iOS devices are experiencing the problem I'm having. That might not sound like very many, but it works out to between 500,000 and 1,000,000 devices. Yep, the number of zeroes is correct. Up to a million devices!

I read here that you could get it to kickstart if you held the home and power buttons down for up to 15 minutes! I had nothing to lose, so I figured I'd try it. My fingers would slip off one of the buttons after about 10 minutes. Finally—I'm a bit slow sometimes!—I decided to take the iPad out of its case. Now I could actually hold the power button down without destroying my finger : )

I held it down for 20 minutes. No success : (

I decided to try Apple Support. I set up a chat session last night and was online with them for over 2 hours. The initial contact was somebody who called himself Micheal [sic]. I suspect he was in India; he went through the script, but I had already done everything there. We got disconnected, so I tried again and this time I got someone calling himself Mercedes. Again, I suspect India‐definitely not a native English speaker. After about an hour of more of the same, he told me it was a hardware issue and that I would have to pay to have it fixed.

NOT! I told him it was a software issue. I never had an issue until iOS 7. He told me to hang on for a minute. He transferred me to someone else. This person called himself Colsen and was very pleasant—I found out later in the conversation that he is based in Atlanta. He reviewed the case, asked me to resend a couple of screenshots and photos I had already uploaded but didn't make the transfer. We tried various things for about 30 minutes before he came to the conclusion that it needed to be reset by an Apple tech.

He asked if I could get to an Apple store. I told him I was about 5 hours from the nearest one : (

Looks like sending it in is the only option...so I'm waiting for the labels and packaging to come from Apple. The bright side: They pay the freight. And it doesn't look like I'm going to have to pay anything—which is the way it should be. It was their software screw-up that has "bricked" it...

By the way, Apple, if you happen upon this post...I suspect the problem is in a code change in the software power off sequence. Every time the software tries to reboot the iPad, it locks. If I'm not connected to a power source (either via USB to the MacBook, or via the power adapter), whenever the software turns the screen off, it locks. Anytime an iOS update tries to reboot (since iOS 7.0), it locks. Please fix it! You have about a million devices that are worthless until you do...

Update:
I just spent 33 minutes on the phone with 2 different people at Apple. They are going to repair/replace it free. They didn't even ask for the credit card information. Of course, I had to keep reiterating that it was a software issue, not a hardware one. But, hey, it looks like I'm going to get a working iPad again soon...

iOS 7.04 woes

A while back I posted about my woes with iOS 7 and my iPad . Since then I have figured out a bit more of what's going on. As long as the iPad is plugged into either a power outlet or computer, it will come back on when you push the home button. Considering this is supposed to be a mobile device, that kind of puts the skids on it, doesn't it?

Anyway, if it isn't plugged into some power source, the screen is supposed to go black to save battery power. If it is allowed to do so, it goes into recovery mode. Usually you can get it back by holding the home and power keys at the same time until the Apple logo shows up. But not always right away; sometimes it takes dancing on the keys a bit and waiting around. Sometimes I plug it into the laptop and let it go through the restore—it doesn't really restore though. The Apple logo shows up on the iPad, then the progress bar quickly moves to finished—and it sits there, and sits there, and...well, you get the idea. The only thing to do is kill it by holding down the home and power buttons at the same time until the power goes off. Then, I can usually get it to come back by holding down the power and home buttons at the same time.

Unless, of course, it is an iOS software update...up until last night, I have always been able to get it to come back after an iOS update, but it would take a bit longer. This time, iOS 7.0.4, it won't come back. I can get the Apple logo to come up and the progress bar runs to done. But when I kill the power, I can't get it to come back. At all. Unless I run it through recovery mode; but then it freezes at the progress bar being done.

I've been messing with this for almost 24 hours and it's getting old...there doesn't seem to be any answers on the support forum and Google isn't being terribly helpful, either...

I'm sure it is a software issue; it only started happening with iOS 7. And it only happens when the software does the power shut off—unless it is an iOS update.

Anybody got any ideas? Otherwise, I just have an expensive paperweight...bummer!

ios 7 woes

I've heard about this on the Internet, but nobody seems to know the answer: Ever since updating to IOS 7, my iPad 2 randomly locks up. I have to press the home and sleep buttons at the same time—and even then it doesn't always come back! It's thrown it into recovery mode 4 times now...

Anybody know what the problem is? Is there a fix out there? Why isn't Apple offering another update to IOS 7?

This time it really died...the Apple logo is on the screen, but it won't move. Won't shutoff, won't respond to plugging into the Macbook...I hate computers!

Update: it came back—again! But this is getting old...

New Blogger interface

The new blogger interface is terrible! Bring back the old look!!!

Some days

Some days I despise computers—well, maybe not the computers, but the way it is too easy to screw up with them. I've been working on our product file for about 2 weeks now cleaning it up and getting rid of bad data. We have about 31,000 records, which is a fair amount of work. Well, about 1/2 hour ago, I noticed that the titles and short titles (for internal use) aren't lining up. It's like a row was partially deleted at some point and everything shifted one row up in the title field...

The worst of it is that it is a network file, so I can't use Time Machine™ to go back to an earlier iteration...Arghhhh! Two weeks worth of work...

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.—James 1:2-4

Argh!

My computer died today. All the posts were on it...at first they thought it was the video card, which was under warranty. It's not :( It's the logic board...bummer. Ah well, in and for everything give thanks!

I'm up--sort of

OK, this is being posted from my new laptop, using Safari. I am gradually moving over to it. It will take a bit of getting used to. I haven't used a Mac for a goodly number of years, and things have changed—a lot!

The biggest problem is that I can't dial in to work. I get a funky error message, and then it hangs up. And, to make matters worse, the USB Modem won't work on VMWare Fusion. So, I am stuck with no access from home for now. Here is the error:

3/5/08 10:56:17 AM pppd[340] pppd 2.4.2 (Apple version 314) started by root, uid xxxxxxxxx
3/5/08 10:56:20 AM ccl[343] Apple Modems (V.92) script Version 3.0
3/5/08 10:56:20 AM ccl[343] CCLWrite : AT\13
3/5/08 10:56:20 AM ccl[343] CCLMatched : OK\13\10
3/5/08 10:56:20 AM ccl[343] CCLWrite : ATI4\13
3/5/08 10:56:20 AM ccl[343] CCLMatched : Apple USB Modem\13\10
3/5/08 10:56:20 AM ccl[343] CCLWrite : ATI12\13
3/5/08 10:56:20 AM ccl[343] CCLMatched : E1\13\10
3/5/08 10:56:20 AM ccl[343] CCLWrite : AT&F92E0S7=120\13
3/5/08 10:56:20 AM ccl[343] CCLMatched : OK\13\10
3/5/08 10:56:20 AM ccl[343] CCLWrite : ATS8=2\13
3/5/08 10:56:20 AM ccl[343] CCLMatched : OK\13\10
3/5/08 10:56:20 AM ccl[343] Dialing xxx-xxx-xxxx
3/5/08 10:56:20 AM ccl[343] CCLWrite : ATDTxxx-xxx-xxxx\13
3/5/08 10:56:46 AM ccl[343] CCLMatched : +ER:
3/5/08 10:56:46 AM ccl[343] CCLMatched : LAPM
3/5/08 10:56:46 AM ccl[343] Modem Reliable Link Established.
3/5/08 10:56:46 AM ccl[343] CCLMatched : +DR:
3/5/08 10:56:46 AM ccl[343] CCLMatched : V42B\13
3/5/08 10:56:46 AM ccl[343] Modem Compression Established.
3/5/08 10:56:46 AM ccl[343] CCLMatched : CONNECT
3/5/08 10:56:46 AM ccl[343] CCLMatched : 31200
3/5/08 10:56:46 AM ccl[343] Communicating at 31200 bps.
3/5/08 10:56:49 AM ccl[343] CCLExit: 0
3/5/08 10:56:49 AM pppd[340] Connect: ppp0 <--> /dev/cu.usbmodem
3/5/08 10:56:51 AM pppd[340] Unsupported protocol 'Compression Control Protocol' (0x80fd) received
3/5/08 10:56:52 AM pppd[340] Modem hangup
3/5/08 10:56:52 AM pppd[340] Connection terminated.

I have searched high and low on the Internet, but haven't been able to discover the answer. If you know the answer, please let me know. I appears to be a problem with *nix based machines trying to authenticate with a Windows server.

My new laptop arrived about the right time, too. The old laptop is starting to go into its annual "hardware is dying" mode: the Z key on the keyboard no longer works, and the CD-ROM has stopped reading burned CDs and won't write them.

Computers! Don't you just love them?

Arrgghh!

It happened again last Friday! Just a little over 15 months ago, my laptop died. At that time it took two new motherboards to get it fixed (the first replacement board was defective). Hopefully this time it will only take one!

Although I am normally not in favor of extended warranties, this laptop has more than used up the cost of one. I don't know if that reflects on the cost of the warranty or that the laptop is a problem. Seems it might be the laptop, since it has required a new modem, a new memory module, 3 new motherboards, and a new LCD screen. I asked them last time if it wouldn't just be cheaper to give me a factory refurb, but they said it couldn't be done.

So, I limp along...