Tag: Technology

In October, I purchased a 50″ Vizio TV to go in our freshly remodeled home. It had all the standard TV features, but 2 that interested me were the “apps”, in particular Amazon Prime streaming, as my Apple TV didn’t do that and the WiFi direct remote. the Amazon Prime app turned out to be such a dud that I ended up buying a Roku box primarily for that feature. However, the WiFi direct feature was one that I really wanted so that I didn’t have to aim the remote at the TV. This became even more important due to a poor design decision where Vizio basically put the IR receiver on the bottom left of the TV. Since our TV wasn’t mounted above a fireplace, the IR window wasn’t really visible, so the IR remote didn’t always work.

When we got the TV, the WiFi direct feature was promised in a firmware update. I waited and waited and waited. I contacted Vizio a few times and was told that they were rolling out the update in waves. I read on forums that some people had the newer firmware and some were still waiting. Newer TVs that people bought had the newer firmware.

This past Friday, I finally got real tired of waiting and called Vizio support with the same story. When the rep said that I’d just have to wait, I said that I’d contact the Vizio CEO and attorney general because they advertised a feature that wasn’t available. In addition, I’d file a suite in small claims court. Those would be drastic measures, but after waiting 7 months, I thought it was about time to resolve this. The rep was very nice and said he’d transfer me to executive services. After a few minutes, he came back on the line after talking to upper level support folks and walked me through a firmware update as they flagged my TV as getting it. We tried it a few times to no avail. He talked to another person who said to wait about 20 minutes and the TV will get the update and if it didn’t to call back.

I went about my business and turned on the TV later and almost fell down when I saw that the firmware update with the WiFi direct remote was enabled. Support had told me numerous times that there was nothing that they could do to get the update pushed to a TV which turns out to be a complete lie.

Now my TV has all the features that were advertised. It is interesting to note that Vizio is no longer advertising WiFi direct as a feature for the remote. I guess if companies are pushed hard enough, they’ll do what is right for the customer.

I’ve had a few run-ins (as I like to call them) with OS X Server in the course of my career. I’ve been very comfortable with UNIX/Linux machines for a long time (I compiled my own Linux kernels when I was right out of college) and found them to be quite reliable and highly configurable. The lack of a GUI didn’t scare me and I thought it was a plus as there are tons of options for services like Apache and named (DNS) and a there was no way that a GUI could expose all of them.

In one of my contract positions, we were using a Linux box until a new IT person came in and bought an Xserve with OS X Server thinking that since he was comfortable with OS X, the server was the next logical step. While OS X Server runs on UNIX, the friendly GUI hides lots of options, some of which are necessary to running a successful server and some of which are needed when the server does something stupid. So now you have the GUI modifying settings and devs modifying settings via the command line in order to work around deficiencies in the GUI. It was just a recipe for disaster. After awhile, we resigned the Xserve to specific tasks and put the more important services on a Linux box.

My next run in with OS X Server came a few years later when the company I contracted for and then went to work for already had an investment in 4 or so Xserves. They were chosen because the lead IT guy was more comfortable with OS X than with UNIX/Linux (he was more of a desktop support guy and not a server guy). In this setup, we had to use Open Directory and I managed to unify the boxes and spread out the services. Open Directory was a nightmare because sometimes it just returned errors with no way to fix them. Again, the GUI hid things (including ways to fix problems) that would have been simple using a command line. We eventually put a few Linux boxes on the network and ran more core services on those; the Xserves still handled FileMaker Server (that’s another nightmare for another day) and Open Directory. The only saving grace for Open Directory was the GUI for user management as sending LDAP commands to populate it was probably worse than dealing with OS X Server.

I had completely put OS X Server behind me when Apple announced Xcode Server at the last WWDC. It intrigued me, but I ignored it until last week when I went ahead and created a Mavericks virtual machine and put Server on it. It was quite painless and actually looked like it had some useful features. Xcode Server, VPN, and Caching were the primary things that I couldn’t do from OS X out of the box. (I already had FTP, for my scanner, and Apache going on my media center.) After I ran the VM for a day or so, I decided to take a leap of faith and install server right on my media center and not in a VM. I was reassured in this decision after seeing some articles on how to remove it. In the olden days, OS X Server was as a separate install and couldn’t be removed. I’ve been running Mavericks Server for about a week now and it has been great, unlike my previous run-ins with the product. While it is still not perfect (Xcode Server needs some work), it is looking good. I had have to hack on a config file for the web server to do proxying as my security system runs a local service on port 8000 and in order to protect it with SSL, I had to setup SSL on the web server and proxy it, but that was just a matter of adding:

<IfModule mod_proxy_balancer.c>
     ProxyPass / balancer://balancer-group/
     ProxyPassReverse / balancer://balancer-group
     <Proxy "balancer://balancer-group">
          BalancerMember http://localhost:8000
     </Proxy>
</IfModule>

to the config file for the site. The downside is that if I touch the site setup, my changes will get blown away.

While playing around with the Profile Manager today, I think I discovered the biggest problem with OS X Server in the past…Open Directory. In order to do MDM (Mobile Device Management) in Profile Manager, you have to turn on Open Directory. I quickly cancelled out of that and ended that experiment. I mentioned Open Directory to a co-worker who also used to do IT and he had the exact same feeling about Open Directory that I do; I hate it. I know that’s pretty strong, but that service has had many, many problems that I’m unwilling to risk my server to turn that on as I have no use for it. Maybe a company that has a dedicated IT guy has no problem with IT, but if you leave Open Directory out of OS X Server, I think Apple has a fine small business server product.

For developers, OS X Server is now free and if you’re like most geeks, you already have a machine running all the time, so might as well install OS X Server and take advantage of the caching and maybe play around with Xcode Server.

Over the last few years, I’ve read about a number of developers that have “gone indie” in that they left their jobs and are now independent developers. Maybe make it sound glamorous that they no longer have a boss. While this technically may be true, they still have to answer to someone, be it their clients or their customers. There is nothing inherently wrong with being independent, but thinking that doing this will make all of someone’s work problems go away is misleading.

People that are self employed swap one set of problems (e.g. working for a large company) with another. Being self employed means doing accounting, marketing, sales, support, etc. (or hiring someone for these positions and having to be a people manager). In addition, income is not guaranteed which could lead to stress and many people have a hard time separating work from home and thus put in more hours at their “job”. I’m not saying that working for someone else is better or that being self employed is better (I’ve done both), it is just different.

I personally had a good run being self employed (granted my independent software business was only about 20% of my income with the rest coming from contracting), but at this stage in my life, working for someone else brings stability and has actually reduced my stress over my job (I have other stresses, but work isn’t one of them). When I was self employed, I used to put in 70+ hours per week between my software and contracting. This was not sustainable for me.

I wish developers going indie the best of luck, but just because I work for someone else (a large company in my case), I’m not a sellout and have no regrets.

I few weeks ago I wrote about issues I was having with Bluetooth 4.0 interfering with standard Bluetooth, specifically my heart rate monitor was causing clicks on my Bluetooth headset while running. I filed an Apple Radar issue that was promptly closed as being a duplicate and the other one was closed as well, but Apple wouldn’t provide me any information about when it would be fixed. Typically when I report bugs to Apple it either takes years from them to get fixed or they never get fixed (I still have a number of open bugs).

When Apple released iOS 6.1, I checked the update information and nothing about this issue was mentioned. However, Apple never documents all the fixes which is a bit annoying for a tech person like me, but understandable as it could show what security holes were patched or could get customers saying “that was my bug, but you didn’t fix it”. Knowing that there were likely lots of little issues fixed, I went ahead and tried my previous experiment of running with my heart rate monitor and Bluetooth headset. So far on three runs, I haven’t noticed a problem! Was the issue fixed? I think it is still too early to tell, but so far it looks pretty good. Now if Apple had only told me in my bug report the OS version it was fixed in (since I’m a member of the developer program, they will tell me to test it in an unreleased OS version sometimes), I wouldn’t be wondering.

As many that read this blog know, I started scanning in all of my receipts over 6 years ago and pretty much every piece of paper (of some value) that comes into my house gets scanned and then shredded or filed (I’m still not sure why I file it; some places don’t accept copies of receipts, but a lot of paper doesn’t need to be saved). I use a Fujitsu ScanSnap scanner along with Mariner Software’s Paperless to store everything. I’ve used a bunch of scanners and still have a few lying around my house.

Yesterday I saw a tweet from Dan Frakes, an author at Macworld magazine about using an Eye-Fi card with a Doxie scanner to wirelessly scan. This got me thinking as I had an Eye-Fi card that was just lying around; my wife and I both have iPhones and use them for a majority of our pictures (the best camera you have is the camera you have with you). I also had a BulletScan M40 that was unused. Since the M40 takes an SD card, I thought this would make a great combination.

My plan was to setup the M40 and Eye-Fi card to send all the images to my media center (it is on all the time) and then use Dropbox to sync the files back to my main machine. (If this sounds familiar, I setup something similar two years ago with my Brother scanner.) This morning, I went to set everything up only to discover that for some reason the M40 didn’t recognize 8 GB cards, both the Eye-Fi one and one I had lying around. It didn’t have a problem with the 256 MB cards. I reformatted the Eye-Fi and tried lots of tricks and basically gave up. However, after staring at it, I realized that the SD card reader that came with the Eye-Fi was lying on my desk. I plugged the Eye-Fi card into the card reader and then the card reader into the M40. Presto, everything started to work.

To put the finishing touches on my new setup, I used Automator to setup a Folder Action that would rotate the images downloaded from the Eye-Fi and then move them to a folder on Dropbox. This offloaded the processing and saved me a step on my main machine.

My 5 year old son was so mesmerized with the scanner, all he wanted to do was scan receipts and see them show up on my machine. He has no idea all the magic that goes into it; he just knows that the scanner is not connected to my computer and receipts show up. Now all I have to do is recruit him to scan in all of my wife’s receipts!

(Yes the ScanSnap is much faster at scanning in receipts, but this setup will be much easier to use for my wife and she doesn’t have to take over my computer to enter her pile of receipts.)

One of the most popular ways to test Internet connection speeds is to use speedtest.net. The problem with using a site like this is that providers sometimes have a feature that increases the bandwidth for the initial part of the download. This allows for faster downloads of smaller files. Unfortunately this really messes with speed tests. For instance, I’m now getting 15 megabits per second down, but the tests are telling me that I’m getting 28-30 megabits per second. This would be fabulous if I got it, but I don’t. A more accurate test is to download a large file from a fast host. In my case, I download stuff from Apple and get about 2 megabytes per second which is 16 megabits per second. This is more in line with what I’d expect.

In the last few years, people have taken their frustrations dealing with customer service reps to social media. Companies, in turn, are reacting quite quickly to complaints and reaching out to customers. While I’m not sure I’m a fan of jumping on social media before giving companies a chance to fix the problem, it seems to be an amazingly effective tool.

Last month I returned my cable modem to avoid the $3.95 monthly lease fee that is now being charged and replaced the cable modem with the same model that I bought off eBay for $23. I had to goto a Time Warner Cable store to do this and got a receipt for the return. Like all the paper I collect, I scanned in the receipt and stored it in Paperless. When I received my next bill, I saw that I was still being charged for the lease (it is billed one month in advance), so I contacted customer service via the web chat and tweeted about it. I got a direct message asking if they could help, but I had already gotten it “resolved” via the standard channel. I thought my tweet complaining was legitimate as I shouldn’t have had to contact customer service after waiting at the store and returning the modem. Problem solved, or so I thought.

I just got my latest bill; it had a $3.95 credit on it, but the cable modem lease fee was still being charged. OK, so now I’ve gone through the official channel twice to fix this issue. I tweeted again and this time corresponded with their social media folks who said they escalated the issue. Awesome service on a Saturday by the social media folks, but this kind of issue shouldn’t have required me to do this.

So the moral seems to be, if a company wrongs you, they are much better at fixing the problem if you complain in public. I’m not saying that this is the way to go, but if the front line folks aren’t capable of doing their jobs correctly, then I’m not going to waste my time and will just use Twitter as my complaint board. While I’d like to say that companies will do a better job at fixing things the first time, social media probably isn’t going to change that.

I have my fingers crossed that I’ll not only get credited the $3.95 for the charge for the cable modem this month, but the recurring charge will be taken off my bill. However, given the track record, I suspect that I’ll either get the recurring charge taken off or the credit, but not both. If that is the case, I’ll be taking to Twitter again next month and possibly doing a chargeback on my credit card; I have very little patience for things not done right the first or second time. Yes, it is only $3.95, but it is the principal that matters to me.

In a post I wrote yesterday, I commented that the new display I got kept causing my UPS to click on and off. I got so fed up with it yesterday that I unplugged the display. The problem still happened, so I unfairly blamed the display. After considering getting a new UPS idea, I came across a (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bS4d-UNkE8o) which explains how to change the sensitivity on my APC BE750G UPS. I made the change and so far, so good. I even turned on my printer which normally caused the behavior and haven’t heard it clicking.

I’m not sure what changed to cause this new behavior, but I’m please that I may have found a solution.

Now that Apple has announced the iPhone 5, it’s time for me to upgrade! Yes, I did just get an iPhone 4S last year, but luckily for me, staying on top of iPhone technology is part of my job. Now that my wife has an iPhone, it’s easier for me to justify upgrading as I can give her my old one and get the discounted pricing. Would I pay full price for one? That’s a tough question that luckily I don’t have to answer.

I don’t think I’ve been so enamored with devices as I have been with the iPhone. Initially I was pretty ho-hum about it because I felt I had to be against it due to all my work centering around competing devices. While the improvements of each iPhone seem pretty minor, I can imagine them being quite useful to me. It isn’t cheap to keep upgrading devices, but as my wife puts it, I deserve it as I work hard.

Will I be first in line to get one? I won’t go out of my way to get one, but I’ll order when I can.

While it should come as no surprise to anyone, marketing departments usually aren’t very technical. Today I was reading an article about slow Internet performance and it sparked me to test my connection. I’m getting about 15-20 Mbps down and about 1 Mbps up. Unfortunately I have no idea what I pay for as the plan I’m on is so old, it isn’t listed on Time Warner’s website. I did, however, goto their website to see the current offerings and saw this table.

Obviously they want you to purchase the Ultimate Internet experience and getting 50 Mbps would be nice, but is it really true that with up to 10 Mbps you can’t watch streaming movies, video conference, or use multiple devices in your house? Netflix recommends 5 Mbps for HD streaming. We watch Netflix all the time, have a ton of devices connected, do video conferencing and do VOIP over our connection. According to Time Warner’s marketing department, we should have one of the top two tiers of service.

I’d love to get a faster connection, but is it worth the money? If I were in Kansas City, I’d sign up for Google’s gigabit service in a heartbeat, but going from about 20 Mbps to 30 or 50, would I be able to justify the cost? Time Warner won’t tell you on their website the exact cost, but if you build a bundle, the Standard Internet (10 Mbps) is $40/month and the Turbo Internet (20 Mbps) is $53/month. Currently I pay $50/month for my service.