Bill Read, Charleston, SC

Google Apps Calendar Sharing

2012-02-06T13:30:00.002-05:00

I love Google Calendars. In particular, I love the ability to share a calendar with someone else, even allowing them to add items and/or update your calendar. Google Apps Calendars has this ability as well. This is invaluable for me in my organization as well as at home.

My wife and I share our calendars, and now our 17-year-old son does as well. We also share a set of family calendars. This helps each of us to understand how our individual time is used, as well as how our time relates to one another. If one of us wants to set up an appointment, a social event or some other time commitment that involves the other, we need only to consult our calendar in order to be reasonably certain that the time is available. This is hugely useful with our family of 5.

By default Google Apps Calendar sharing is limited to within your Apps organization. To get around this requires the ability to administer your Google Apps domain. If you need this ability, and you are not the administrator of the domain, consult your administrator.

If you are a Google Apps domain administrator, here is what you need to do:

1) Log in to your Google Apps dashboard ( www.google.com/a/yourdomain.com ).

2) Click on Calendars.

3) Change the default sharing to allow sharing outside of your organization.

That's it. Except for one thing: the change is not instant. Plus, the setting for this change seems to get cached into your local user browser cache. So, the following steps may be necessary if you don't have the ability to setup sharing outside of your organization even after making this change:

1) Log out of your Google Apps account.

2) Clear your browser's cache.

3) Quit and reopen your browser, and log back in.

You should now be able to change your sharing settings.

This raises an issue about how aggressive Google is about caching data locally. Ordinarily this is a good thing in terms of sparing you from long downloads every time your access your Google account. But it seems to go as far as caching domain-level settings, and this can be frustrating when, as an administrator, you are trying to push out changes to lots of users.

Just remember that even in today's world of very stable browsers, emptying your browser cache can do wonders.

Notes Made with Siri Don't Sync

2012-02-03T09:25:00.000-05:00

If you are syncing your notes between your Mac and your iPhone 4S, you have probably run into this. New notes created by Siri do not sync. At least, they do not sync without your separately opening the Notes App and making some kind of change.

I don't know about you, but for me, hands free note taking is useless without syncing back to my computer. If I have to remember to review and edit my notes just to make them sync to my inbox, it fails to be helpful as a reminder system. Plus, it is pretty clear that syncing notes is only done on a note-by-note basis. Thus, editing one note won't make the other non-synced notes sync.

Here is a method that works for me every time:

1) Tell Siri to take a note (memo, etc.) and give it a subject, so say something like:

"Take a memo that says 'Notes from meeting with Bob'.

Alternatively, just say "take a memo" and wait for Siri to ask you what you would like it to say, then just give it a short subject.

Now is the tricky part, after Siri is done, and while the Siri version of the note is still showing on the screen:

2) Tap on the note to open the note in the Notes App.

3) Immediately tap the "Notes" button in the top left, which returns you to your list of notes.

4) Then tap on the new note in the notes list to go BACK to your note.

5) Once it opens, tap anywhere below the first line to bring up the keyboard.

6) Tap the microphone button — dictate to your hearts content. (By the way, if you say "new line" as the first thing, your new text will start on the next line.)

7) When done, tap the Notes button in the top left.

That's it, when you return to your computer and open Mail, your note will be there.

If I skip any of these steps, especially the first one of tapping the Notes button to go to the notes list, the note does not sync. My theory is that the note as created by Siri, but Siri isn't actually "talking" to the Notes app so much as simply sending it a memo, which appears to Notes as already synced (or not needing to be synced).

If that is all too much for you, then just bypass Siri altogether and do the following:

1) Open the Notes App.

2) Hit the + to create a new note.

3) Tap the Microphone.

4) Dictate.

5) Tap Done.

6) Tap the Notes button on the left to return to the list of notes.

Both methods require require much more direct screen interaction than should be necessary, especially for quick notes.

Should I Use Google+

2012-01-30T20:09:00.001-05:00

If you have heard of Google+ and have an idea of what it is, you are probably a bit ahead of the curve with respect to the internet and social media technology. If not, you are probably a normal person who doesn't get very excited about new social media technology — maybe you don't even call it social media, since now-a-days that means FaceBook to most people, and Twitter to a few others.

Google+ is another social network, but the twist is that it is integrated directly into Google. This means that the searches you do and the things you post to Google+ are used to tailor your search results. Better yet, searches your friends do and the things your friends post to Google+ are used too. In addition, Google uses the +1 feature to enhance its search results — a +1 from a friend would increase the relevance of a website in your search results. All told, Google is out to learn more about you in order to do search better.

As you can see, Google is trying to do a lot more than mimic Facebook. Google already sells ads and has tons of traffic — competing with FaceBook on that level makes no sense. However, FaceBook, and Twitter, have been capturing something that Google has not: signals.

Oh, Google already gets lots of signals from your online behavior — they know what you search for and click on. What they don't know is what the people who influence you search for and click on. If they could know, by relationship, the people who help shape your opinions and choices, your online experience would be far more like shopping at the local boutique your friend owns, than shopping at Wal-mart. The signals your friends generate are an order of magnitude more useful in tailoring your online experience that just your own.

This is where FaceBook has been kicking Google's butt. They know your friends, and your friends friends — what they do, what they "like" and so on. The problem FaceBook has is that they don't have all of the internet — whereas Google pretty much has all of it. If Google can get some of the same signals and relationship information that FaceBook has and use it to tailor your search results and ads, well, you would like Google a lot better. Your entire online experience would get better.

If all this creeps you out, please close your computer now, reach around and unplug your network connection (or turn off your wireless router) and back away. Welcome to the internet. The promise of an interconnected web of data, where information flows freely and is easy to find and use, includes information about you, your friends, and family. It always has, its just that now most of the important players are finally figuring out that you are the product as well as the customer (ok, to be fair, they knew that all along, its just that it is now becoming obvious to more common-folk). But, in then end this is a good thing.

Our online signals plus our friends signals can be used to produce search results (and ads) that suit our taste. They make more sense. In the absence of these signals, every search produces the same results — and what you may mean by a certain search phrase likely will not be what someone else means. So it makes sense for our online services to incorporate this knowledge of our lives.

That leads to the privacy argument: collection of all of this data is somehow an invasion of our privacy. I say to that "poppy-cock." The internet is a public place. Even if you are no more than a consumer of information, you are requesting that information from companies, services, and finally servers owned by someone else. The way the internet works those servers MUST know at least your internet address to deliver the information. As a result you have no expectation of privacy with regard to your online behavior. Oh sure, you could take steps to protect your identity — but to do so you have to have excellent hacking skills (and potentially misuse someone else's systems) or use one of those anonymizing services (do you want to trust THEM with your info?). Face it, you step into the public sphere when you go online.

If you have read this far, you probably know where I'm going. In my opinion, the more info you give Google and other services, the better they are for you. You may have concerns about the kind of data they collect, and who gets to see it, but the reality is that you are far more likely to be the target of a random identity theft attack by using your credit card in a restaurant than you are from a data breach at Google or the like. (For that matter, your bank is probably not as secure, and certainly more of a target.)

The way I see it, the more people embrace the fact that they are leading public lives, and go with it, the better the internet will be for everyone. So, jump into Google+ with both feet.

eCommerce at a Phone Near You

2011-03-23T08:03:00.003-05:00

A while back I wrote about dropping our credit card processor. The fees and rules had gotten the best of me, and I decided to forgo the convenience. Online credit card handling has gotten much more expensive over the past couple of years.

Then along came Square. If you haven't heard of Square, it is a free App for your iPhone or iPad (and other smartphones) that allows you to accept credit cards anywhere you have an internet connection, including 3G or Edge. It even comes with a tiny, free, card swiper that plugs into the headset jack on your device. No more elaborate equipment required, just your phone and a 1" square reader.

Square requires that you sign up for an account, and pass a credit check. They are a real merchant account provider, and credit card processor all wrapped up in one, free App and service. They charge a very competitive 2.75% + $0.15 per transaction. Your money is deposited in 2-3 days.

To use Square, you open the App, fill in a description and amount, and swipe the customer's card. The customer can sign your screen using a finger. Receipts are emailed to you and your customer. The receipt includes a map with the GPS coordinates of where the transaction took place. You receive a follow-up email showing the exact amount that will be deposited to your account.

The coolest part? Not only can your business get this, but you can get a personal account too. So you can "Square Up" with your friends by credit card — no more excuses about not having cash.

Simultaneous to finding Square, I discovered AcceptPay, by American Express (AKA PaySimple.com). I am a huge fan of Amex, both as a customer and a vendor. If you accept credit cards online, Amex is often less expensive than Visa/Mastercard — ironic, I know, since the mainstream impression of Amex is that they charge more. Not true. Nominally, their rate is higher, but in reality, Visa/MC advertises the "Qualified" rate (as opposed to unqualified). The definition of unqualified, it turns out, is any card that has any kind of rewards or points plan — pretty much every card out there. In the case of unqualified, add as much as 1% to the rate.

AcceptPay allows you to accept payment online, against any invoice. It also allows you to create and send invoices via email. It costs $20/month if you are an Amex card holder (or $35/month for PaySimple, if not). They charge a little more than Square, but do not require that the card be present (swiped), so you can take payments over the phone. No more paper.

AcceptPay now offers an iPhone App, so you can use it at any time, and any place you have access to the internet. Two great ways to get paid, with little to no cost up-front, and reasonable rates long-term. We use both at Computer Consultants Group.

iCal Invites and Google Apps Accounts

2011-03-11T10:51:00.003-05:00

When iCal and Google Apps finally began to support multi-calendar syncing/access, I was excited. Finally I could sync my calendars over the air with my computer, iPhone and iPad. Also, I could share/sync with my staff, and more importantly, my wife. But the bloom quickly came off the rose the first time I tried to setup a meeting and invite another user.

Confusion set in when I was not able to send invites right from iCal. I discovered that this only worked when someone was in my same domain — which seemed mostly useless, since coordinating with my staff is already far easier than with clients. More confusion set in when I realized that my staff never got an email, but the appointment just showed up in their calendar. I don't know about you, but, for me, if something just shows up in my calendar, and I didn't put it there, I will probably miss it.

There is a quick and easy work-around. Simply setup your appointment as usual, but do NOT fill-out the attendees field. When you have completed the appointment, open a new email and drag the appointment from your iCal to your email. This will attach the appointment as an ics file. Then, go back to iCal, highlight the appointment and Copy it (Edit—>Copy), go back to Mail and Paste it into the body of the email. This will paste all of the relevant info into the body of the email, so the recipient will see what it is about, without having first to add the appointment to his calendar. Next address the email and send it. The recipient will receive an email with the appointment info, and be able to click on the attachment to add it to his iCal (or other calendar, such as Outlook).

You will not get notices back regarding the status of the attendees. For me, this is not a problem. Most people don't respond to these correctly anyway, so for me the whole attendee status is useless.

As an aside, good calendar etiquette is hard to come by. If you send a calendar invitation, please do not use the recipient's name or company, as the name of the appointment. If you are arranging an appointment with Joe Smith, don't make an appointment named "Joe Smith" and then send it to him. He will end up with an appointment in his calendar titled with his own name. If I see an appointment in my calendar that is my name or my company, I'm not really sure where I'm supposed to go — since I am automatically in attendance with me at all times.

Make the name of the appointment more descriptive. So, rather than "Joe Smith," make it "Website Planning, Joe Smith and Bill Read." It is longer, but there is no ambiguity as to whom is to be in attendance. Also, you will avoid the embarrassment of the other person forgetting your name. Additionally, include contact info in the "Notes" area — BOTH your and his phone numbers, at a minimum. I usually include an address in the notes area (or the location area). Use complete addresses, including zip code — this way, if one of you has his calendar on his cellphone, the address can be used as a map-link to give directions to the location.

Migrating Old Data

2011-02-10T16:24:00.003-05:00

Or, why we tech-geeks keep a bunch of old crap around even though our wives plead with us to dump it.

Ah, old hardware. <sarcasm>Fun Stuff</sarcasm>. You know that thing you threw away two months ago, the one you suddenly found you needed? I have a room full of stuff that would be like that — only I don't throw it away. 300 BAUD modem: got that; Newton battery charger: check; old SCSI enclosures: you bet; Mac OS 9 computers: yep. I even have an original floppy for Mac OS 1.0 — no joke, 1.0 was shipped for about 15 minutes before Finder 1.1 came out.

As an aside, if you want to be brought to tears, find an old Mac 128k (the original) and boot it up off of floppy: 10 seconds, I kid you not. Steve Jobs was said to scream at an engineer that he HAD to shave off 5 seconds from the boot time because lives were at stake. Because, with millions of reboots by millions of people per day, 5 seconds literally adds up to entire lifetimes. Oh, if only Apple cared that much about lifetimes now-a-days. Ok, I guess you could argue this to make a case that every Mac should have a solid state drive. But I digress. Back to (Ok, on to) migrating old data.

A client I hadn't heard from in OVER a decade called me the other day. He has a Mac G3, Beige, running Mac OS 8.1. He has upgraded to a new iMac with Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard and needs to migrate his data. Thinking I would be dealing with an old SCSI drive, I got out one of my PowerMac G4s, with SCSI, IDE and USB. I was actually getting excited about firing up an old SCSI drive and jury-rigging a way to migrate the data to 10.6.

Turns out that the Beige G3 had and IDE drive in it — a 4Gb one. So, I didn't need anything but an external case. Only, for whatever reason, the drive did NOT want to function in either one of two cases. So, we popped the drive into the G4 anyway, into one of the open IDE spots. Because the old G4 had only USB 1.1, we realized that it would take forever to migrate all of the data to an new drive via USB. Instead of using USB, we pushed the data over the network over to the new drive connected to another computer which had USB 2. Done in 14 minutes.

As my client put it, that's a year a minute (14 years worth of his data).

iPhone/iPad Text Editing Tip

2011-02-10T16:14:00.002-05:00

If you have had an iPhone/iPad for a while, this may be obvious to you. But since I have had both since each first came out, and only recently discovered this time-saving tip, it may help someone else out there.

When you are editing text, and you would like to move the insertion point to the beginning or end of a word, tap the word (not the space between words). No need to use the magnifying glass, just tap. Tap the beginning of a word if you want to move the insertion point in front of the word. Tap the end of a word if you want to move the insertion point to the end of the word. iOS will NOT put your insertion point within the word; rather, it will put it before or after the word based on where you tap the word.

If you want to put the insertion point within the word, you must tap and hold until the magnifying glass appears, then move your insertion point where you wish.

Old-School Troubleshooting

2011-02-10T16:03:00.005-05:00

If you have ever had to call a tech-support person, such as one of us, then you have been told to reboot your computer:

Macs: Apple Menu—>Restart
Windows: Start Menu—>Shutdown

This may seem like you are being told to click your heels, or jump though a hoop. But, trust me, the next time you need to call for help, save yourself some time and reboot your computer first. I can tell you, from more than 25 years of experience, this fixes almost half of the problems I am asked about.

In this day of very robust computer systems, rebooting seems optional. But if you are leaving your computer on most of the time (for backups, etc.), reboot it once a week. And if you are having a problem, whether it is trouble accessing the internet, not printing, or system slowness, reboot before calling for help. You might just find out that all of those little problems, that you try to ignore, go away with regular rebootings.

More Drobo Feedback

2011-02-10T15:09:00.005-05:00

http://www.drobo.com/

Believe it or not, this is actually going to be a POSITIVE post about Drobo. Bear with me. After my last Drobo post, if you read to the end, you will know that I think this technology is incredible, and I am really mainly disappointed in their lack of attention to customer details. I hold that same opinion, for the most part. However, I think the Drobo product is outstanding.

I have three complaints:

1) See this post regarding formatting Drobo on older Macs. Sadly, as of this date, this has not been fixed. I realize that Drobo can't go back and support every Mac -- but the 32/64 bit issue is one that should be addressed.

2) Drobo's warranty and return policy is lacking. I had a client's Drobo Pro die from a power supply failure at roughly 5 months of age. Because we had not purchased Drobo Care, our only return option was to ship the drive back, then wait for the return. The basic 1-year warranty only covers the hardware, and not shipping, etc. You get 90 days of shipping returns and premium support, but not for the remaining 9 months of warranty.

It's not that you need to buy Drobo Care to extend your warranty after the first year. I would be fine if that were the case. It is that you have to buy Drobo Care to get the SAME service during the first full year — this I object to. It changes after 90 days. Come on — give us the first year. Or, make the warranty only 90 days — I would find that more acceptable than having my warranty tarnish after 90 days.

3) Hard drives in the drive bays of a Drobo unseat too easily. I have a few clients who use pairs of Drobos as network backup. One is kept off-site, while the other is in use, and they are swapped weekly. When you pick up and move a Drobo, the drives can unseat quite easily — while seemingly still in place (ie: they all appear to be seated correctly on close inspection). This can happen even when the drive is handled with kid-glove care. I think the weight of the drives is too much for the design of the latches that hold them in place.

If this happens, when you next plug-in the Drobo, it will report one or more of the drives as missing. Firmly pushing the drive(s) back in corrects the problem — but the Drobo then needs to rebuild for many hours (as many as 40+). This is a vexing problem for one of my clients. So much so that now part of their routine is to re-seat each drive every time they have to change them out.

Now, on balance, I still love the Drobo product. There is room for improvement, but the technology is impressive. For example, despite having drives unseat, my clients have never lost data, nor had to erase and start over with a Drobo.

Now, on to my positive testimonial. For you tech people, this will be a little scary.

One of the cool things about the Drobo is that you can pop-out any drive at any time (assuming the system is working correctly, meaning that your drive status lights are all green). The Drobo will quietly go about rebuilding your data protection and you can go on using it as if nothing happened. I related this fact to client when making the recommendation to him for his backup.

My client purchased a Drobo S and five 2Tb hard drives. The Drobo and three drives arrived almost right away, while two of the drives were delayed a week. We decided to go ahead and deploy, because we had over-speced the storage needs by more than triple in order to provide room to grow. A week later, when the drives arrived, I advised my client that he could simply pop-in the new drives in the empty bays. As it turned out, the top bay of the Drobo wasn't working. Without going into detail, we carefully swaped the two new drives around to demonstrate that it was the Drobo bay, and not the drives, that was the problem. Data Robotics agreed to send out a new Drobo. It got interesting when the new Drobo arrive.

My client, taking me at my word (that you can pop-out any drive at any time), took it upon himself to pull out all four working drives from the old Drobo — without first shutting it down. HE then disconnect the old Drobo, connected the new one, put in the four drives and powered it up. It started blinking Red after it came online, but it came online and all of the data was intact. The red lights worried him, so he called me. I almost had a heart-attack when he told me what he had done. But before I completely panicked, he told me that it mounted and came up just fine. I advised him to wait a few hours to see if it would rebuild and the lights turn green. They did, so he inserted the last drive, it rebuilt itself again, and now his Drobo is fully populated and running like a well-oiled clock.

So, there you have it. This one Drobo recovered from a seemingly impossible event — losing EVERY drive. Granted, there was no data being moved to/from the drive at the time this was happening; plus, I seriously doubt that repeating this "experiment" would result in success; but, my confidence in their technology is high. Any other RAID system I know of, upon losing more than the requisite "safe" number of drives would be a total loss — or, at best, a nightmare to recover.

Life with iPad

2010-08-19T14:04:00.010-05:00

I have been living with an iPad (WiFi only, 32Gb) since April. My thoughts and feelings about it have gone through 3 stages:

Slight disappointment
I have a laptop?
Old friend

Disappointment

When the iPad first arrived, after the initial un-boxing and first-use rush was over, a twinge of disappointment set in. It took me a while to figure it out. This thing is just a big iPhone, right? So, I already knew how to use it. There was no sense of discovery of a new thing. (Non iPhone users would have a far more exciting first few days.)

With that realization, I was relieved. After all, if you have an iPhone, who doesn't want a bigger screen? The glory of the things I could do with a larger screen seeped back in. I actively re-compared it to the iPhone, and confirmed to myself that, yes, wow, this thing is great. I could see, and READ, all of a web page at once; I could use a full-screen remote access client and control client servers on it; I could type on a big keyboard; I could see screens FULL of info. Yes, it is wonderful.

I have a Laptop?

After a few weeks I realized that I was leaving my laptop on my upstairs desk for days at a time. What used to be a fixture on my downstairs desk over the weekends, was now leaving a dust-free print on my office desk. I began to have thoughts of leaving the laptop behind when I visited client's offices. Initially I didn't have quite enough confidence in the iPad to leave behind the laptop. But, after many client visits, where the laptop never got pulled out, I began leaving it behind for quick visits.

Wow, talk about traveling light! There is a huge difference between carrying a 1.5Lb iPad in one hand, and lugging a 7Lb laptop — in a bag, plus power cord, and other misc. junk.

Old Friend

Four months out, the love affair is over, and I have settled into a comfortable and rewarding pattern with the iPad. My laptop gets to come downstairs for photos and other editing/creation efforts. Email is still better on the real keyboard, and ALL of my email and file organization is still on the laptop. The iPad (and iPhone) serves as a convenient at-hand tool for quickly clearing my email deck. I check mail on both the iPad and iPhone far more often than on the laptop. However, I allow things to build up for later processing on the laptop.

The iPad has become my de-facto tool for reading, browsing and consuming on-line content. It is perfect for Google Reader, FaceBook, YouTube and Twitter — where I spend 90% of my non-working on-line time. Ok, 90% of my on-line time — hey, I work for myself, so I can't get fired for using Facebook during working hours.

Around the house, especially the kitchen and den, the iPad has made Google an integral and helpful part of my family's routine. During a typical day I carry the iPad from room to room. The larger screen and keyboard make it the perfect tool for looking up anything. From TV schedules to recipes, wikipedia to YouTube, we have instant and useful access to information. It has become such a normal item to have around, I can hardly imagine what things were like before having it.

As for WiFi vs. WiFi+3G, I regretted not getting 3G for the first week. After that, I have not run into a situation where truly the iPhone on 3G (and now the iPhone 4) didn't easily fill the gap. This is much to the disappointment of my wife, who was to get my first iPad as soon as I upgraded. That's on hold until the next generation iPad is out. I can't imagine the joy of an iPad with a retina display!

Backup to School

2010-08-19T13:24:00.008-05:00

So you sent your child off to college at the Citadel, College-of-Charleston, Charleston Southern, etc., with a brand-new computer. You did send them with an external hard drive for backup, right? Probably not. I know because I'm the one who gets their panicked calls after it's too late.

Do yourself and your child favor and get them a backup drive right now. Here's a great Western Digital external hard drive that can backup any laptop, and it's not too expensive. Go ahead, I'll wait.

Now that you have taken care of that, make sure they use it.

For Windows users, that drive has built-in software that will automate their backup. They just need to read the directions and make sure they plug it in — often.

For Mac users, of Macs within the past three years, they just need to plug-in the drive. The computer will automatically ask them if they wish to use the drive for backup. Confirm that, and they're good to go.

I recommend plugging-in the backup drive every time they have it at their desk in their room. I also recommend leaving it plugged in overnight — all that music and video can take its time backing-up.

Lastly, I recommend that they set their system sleep settings to leave their computer on when it is plugged in to power. This is so the computer won't go to sleep while backing up. But they should set it to turn off the display after a period of disuse, say 15 minutes. Windows users will find this setting under Control Panel Items > Power Options; Mac users find this under System Preferences > Energy Saver.

And, if the worst should happen, and their computer won't boot up, or they lose data, please call me, Bill Read at (843)722-7607, ext. 2. I may not be able to fix the computer or recover the drive, but I can assess the severity of the problem, fix it if possible, or direct them to a suitable data recovery company. The last thing they should do at this point is trust their data recovery to someone who might do more harm than good.

Macintosh Computer Technical Support and Repair, Charleston, SC

2010-03-25T13:18:00.004-05:00

I write about a lot of things on this blog that are Macintosh related. In case you didn't know it, Macintosh support is what I and my company have done since 1995. What you need to know is that my company, Computer Consultants Group, Inc. offers support for all kinds of Macintosh (and Windows) issues, including help with new purchases, setup and installation, and troubleshooting. We support individuals, small business and even larger companies that have their own IT departments.

What are your other options in Charleston? Here you go:

The Apple Store — well, not much to say here.

L2 Technologies — these guys are an Apple Authorized repair center, plus they can fix iPods. They do all kinds of hardware repairs, and they do sales of Macs too. If you have an in-warranty repair, they are a great choice. They are in Mt. Pleasant, but have offices in Beaufort and Columbia too.

Tech Plus — a small local firm in West Ashley (Outback Steak House Shopping Center), these guys are GREAT for OUT of warranty repair. Don't get me wrong, they are also Apple Authorized for in-warranty repair, but they have always been willing to go out of their way for my clients who have out of warranty equipment.

There you have it. If you want someone to come by and help you out, we are your guys. If you want to take your stuff in, try these other guys. Our phone is (843)722-7607, email@ccgnet.com

Oh, Drobo, How You Disappoint Me

2010-03-25T07:56:00.011-05:00

http://www.drobo.com/

I have been hearing about Drobos for over a year now. Many pundits I trust simply rave about them. The technology sure does seem appealing: a box that can hold multiple hard drives of different capacities, and wrap them all up in a better than RAID data protection scheme.

I have two clients who had Drobo-like storage needs at about the same time. I ordered two Drobo S models for one, and a Drobo S and a Drobo Pro for the other. I loaded all of them up with the maximum number of 2Tb (terabyte) hard drives. For those who don't know, that is 5 x 2Tb = 10Tb for each Drobo S, and 8 x 2Tb = 16Tb for the Drobo Pro. Because of the way Drobos use the drives to protect your data, that means that roughly 7.5Tb of data storage is available on the Drobo S models, and 14Tb is available on the Drobo Pro.

The S/Pro pair arrived first. I immediately ran into trouble formatting the drives. I followed the Drobo instructions exactly, but upon first attempted format, the Drobo software basically told me "try again." I had three consecutive failures, and almost gave up. But, instead I rebooted the computer (can't hurt, might help, but not something that the Drobo instructions suggested), and that worked for the first drive. So, on to the second.

The second drive did the same thing. Being a bit wiser, this time I just quit the Drobo Dashboard software, and tried again. That worked. Huh. "Oh well," I thought, "picky software, but stable hardware." The rest of the install went peachy, and I gave it no more thought.

The second pair of Drobo S models arrived a few days later. This time I was prepared for the formatting failure. However, no matter what I did, I could not get either drive to format. It was infuriating. I was using the client's server this time (an Xserve G5), and repeated reboots weren't going to be cool. So, I resorted to my laptop and was able successfully to format both drives, only after a couple of failures similar to above.

Then, after I reconnected the Drobos to the server, very strange things began to happen. At first they wouldn't show up, then they would disappear. I went through so many iterations of connecting them up to this or that port — changing cables, changing the order in which they connected, changing the configuration of the other drives connected to the server — so many that I finally gave up and told the office that the server was going to be down for the rest of the day.

Then I got on the phone with Drobo support and proceeded to spend a few hours doing the same thing with them. The server had gotten to the point that it would kernel panic with one of the drives. The upshot was I was told to upgrade my server software. Crud. The upside was that it did give me an excuse to do an upgrade that I wanted, but couldn't otherwise have justified — so I was Ok with that.

After installing Mac OS X 10.5 Server, and applying all the updates, the problems with the Drobos remained. By now the office was tired of no server, so I had to stop testing on the server, and resorted to testing exclusively on my MacBook Pro. I got back on the support site with Drobo, and eventually had a call with one of the techs. I had an idea that maybe my MacBook Pro, a Core Duo (NOT a Core 2 Duo) and my server (a G5) were too old for Drobos. The tech considered that for a moment, but assured me that this was not the case. He agreed to ship out a new unit to test. Upon arrival, it failed in similar ways.

At that point I began to cast around for other solutions. First, I rebooted my MacBook in Safe Mode. To my amazement, the Drobo worked without a hitch. So, something installed on the server and my computer was at fault. The only commonality between the two was the Drobo Software itself. Nah, couldn't be, right? I mean, if that were it, surely the Drobo tech would know about it, right?

I googled "uninstall drobo software" and the top article was from a site I read every day: MacOSXHints.com. Here: Fix a Drobo issue on non-64bit-capable Intel Macs. First, I literally slapped myself in the head for not going to google right away; second I kicked myself for not thinking of this site — it is one of my go-to sites, and I know I had scanned this specific article.

I found the uninstaller in /Library/Application Support/Data Robotics/Drobo Dashboard/. I used the uninstaller, instead of mucking around with deleting specific files. Bingo — everything worked flawlessly. So, my question remains: Surely the Drobo tech should know about it, right? Apparently not.

Moral of the story: don't think that just because your support tech is sharp and seems very knowledgeable, that he knows everything. Also, be suspicious of a tech who doesn't pursue a logical course of elimination when it involves his product.

I titled this "Oh Drobo, how you disappoint me" because I am disappointed that such a potentially cool company has totally missed what seems to me to be an obvious bug. Even cursory testing on some older hardware would demonstrate this issue. I have to assume that they have had tech calls on it as well. Note the date of the article above: November 2009.

Lastly, I sure do hope Drobo acts on this knowledge and fixes the software. I hate to say it, but I doubt it — it has apparently existed since November or before. After informing the tech of what happened, I never got a response. I did close the ticket, and left a note offering to help them troubleshoot if needed. So far, crickets...

I Ordered an iPad

2010-03-25T07:45:00.002-05:00

The outcome of my predictions about the Apple Tablet, which we now know as the iPad, were disappointing. No new method of data entry — just an onscreen keyboard. The novel way of viewing video was partially addressed by the incorporation of a stand into the standard iPad case — better than nothing, and I think probably smart in that there are no extras to carry around. The big surprise for me is that there is no HDTV output. There is VGA, which covers a lot of ground, but clearly this device is not being targeted at the living room entertainment market as a primary device.

All this leads me to believe that Apple has something new up their sleeve for the AppleTV. I'm thinking a beefed up version of it. Perhaps, and even better IMO, a Mac Mini Media edition. If they can ship a Mac Mini Server, why can't they ship a media edition? It would be a killer idea.

I have been learning how to write iPhone Apps, and have developed one and am working on another. The first one will probably never be put into the store, but it was a good exercise in learning. The second will follow the same fate, but only because the app I am stealing ideas from is improving at a rapid rate.

So, I ordered an iPad in order to be able to develop for that platform — or maybe I am learning to develop in order to have an iPad. No matter, mine arrives on April 3rd, right before spring break. So much for seeing the light of day. I ordered the 32Gb WiFi only model, plus the Apple case. I'll report back later.

On the Apple Tablet

2010-01-03T09:58:00.002-05:00

I have two thoughts about the rumored Apple tablet, both predictions of a sort, but neither based on anything but my own speculation.

Thought one: a tablet will have to be designed to be held by one hand and used with the other. This means a new way of keyboarding. I don't know what that would be, but standard keyboards are out, and two-thumb typing is out.

Thought two: along the same lines, a novel way of setting the tablet up for viewing video will be necessary. It can't lay flat, and a built-in picture-frame type stand wouldn't be flexible enough.

Other than that, I hope I want one.

Bye Bye eCommerce

2009-09-08T15:39:00.003-05:00

CCG has accepted credit cards for 10 years or more. Today we no longer accept them. The death blow came in two punches.

The first punch came months ago when our merchant account provider began to charge us an annual fee for Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standards (DSS) compliance. We had to prove to our merchant provider that we handled our client data securely. The only problem is that we can't do that. The reason we can't do that is that we simply don't collect client credit card data in the first place.

Our system has always consisted of a login to access your invoices. If you chose to pay an invoice online, we redirected you to Authorize.net, who collected your credit card info securely, then returned a success or failure code and an email. Our system never handled any of the required data, and only received a pass/fail notice in order to update the status of the paid invoice.

Now, in order to show compliance, in essence, we would have to begin collecting all of this data. Then we would have to store it securely and demonstrate that our security is robust. On the face of it this is ridiculous. Isn't it more secure never to collect and store the data than to do so in the first place? Still, that is not an option on the checklist. The upshot is that our provider began to hit us with an annual compliance fee and a monthly non-compliance penalty. Talk about your catch-22.

We interviewed other providers and were told that, while we would get hit with a one-time fee to prove (or disprove) compliance, we would never be hit every year and certainly wouldn't be fined monthly. Great, sign us up! Things went back to normal shortly after we switched merchant account providers, and our other fees went down too.

The second punch came this week. We got a compliance letter from the new provider. They are now charging us annually so they can check our compliance. And they will fine us monthly until we can prove we comply. How can you prove a negative? How are we supposed to prove we protect data we don't collect or store?

Oh well, so long credit card companies. I do truly appreciate your efforts to protect our privacy, really I do. But until you go about it in a sane manner, I can't be your customer any longer. Sniff... oh well, I don't need to pay you to get paid any more anyway.

Gmail IMAP Password Error Web Login Required

2009-09-08T15:25:00.004-05:00

I have migrated approximately 500 accounts and 40 domains over to Google Apps for your Domain. Most of my clients use the IMAP protocol to access their email accounts. One of the issues that I have come across is an error on password that occurs after a few days, weeks or even months of use.

The user begins to get a password error on login. If the user reads the complete error, it will say something along the lines of "Error on Password; web login required." The cure is simple, log in to the gmail webmail site for your account. Once the user logs in, the problem goes away.

Most users have no idea how to do this, so we always setup their domain to have a simple webmail login using http://webmail.CLIENTDOMAIN.com, where CLIENTDOMAIN.com is their actual domain. But others have to use the standard Google login, which is http://www.google.com/a/CLIENTDOMAIN.com.

The other day I ran across this issue, but logging into the webmail didn't cure it. In fact, the problem persisted through logging-out, rebooting, logging in from another computer, and everything else we could think of to try. Finally I just reset the password on the account to a new password. That worked right away. It wasn't that we had the wrong password -- we couldn't have reset the password otherwise. Somehow Google just didn't like the old password.

Finding Missing Desktop Items

2009-07-09T12:36:00.004-05:00

For a few weeks my dad had been complaining about odd things happening on his computer. Some things were missing, downloads weren't findable, and he was getting a few odd error messages. He was also having problems opening some Quicken files, which is what prompted me to take action. He uses Mac OS X 10.4.x.

In the case of the Quicken file, when you tried to open it, it would prompt for the password, which we absolutely knew we had correct, then give an error about not having permission to view the file. It was NOT rejecting the password, just refusing to let us in. This was puzzling. Before I went off to restore from backup, I started poking around. A behavior that tipped me off to the problem was his not being able to download/read PDF files. I tried this, and after downloading a PDF, which should have gone onto the desktop, I still couldn't find it. I figured that maybe his download folder had gotten set to some other folder, but upon checking that, it was definitely pointed at the desktop.

Thinking disk corruption, I decided to take a quick look at the directory from the terminal before rebooting and running Disk Repair. I su'd to root (bad habit, I admit, but things would have gotten stranger had I not in this case) cd'd into the Desktop folder ( cd ~/Desktop ); it was a good thing that I use ls -la by habit (list files, long attributes, show hidden). I noticed that the permissions on the Desktop folder were d-wxr-xr--. Woah, how did his account, the owner, not have read access to his own Desktop folder, yet still had write access? I quickly changed permissions ( chmod 755 . ) and in an instant dozens of lost files appeared on his desktop.

Wrapping up, I rebooted from the OS X CD and ran Disk Utility, doing first a Disk Repair, then a Repair Permissions. No other trouble seemed to crop up, but it's good to do this after weirdness, just in case.

Google Apps for Your Domain Groups Problem

2009-03-27T13:58:00.003-05:00

I switched my company to Google Apps for Your Domain, Standard Edition, not quite a year ago. There are many reasons to love it. There are many who are very wary about it, some with legitimate complaints, others not so much. On the legitimate side are concerns about privacy and security, most of which I think border on the ultra-paranoid. Don't get me wrong, some people have genuine reasons to be paranoid, and not all of them are pornographers. Still, for me and my clients, those concerns are in the realm of the extreme. Overall I have enjoyed being a Google Apps user. In fact, when there have been downtimes (4 hours one time), I have actually been encouraged that I have not been the only one who has had issues with hosting email!

Now on to my cautionary tale. About two weeks ago my wife and I realized that we were no longer getting faxes via email. My office accepts faxes and sends them to an email group that consists of my wife's and my email addresses. I checked the folder where the computer stores new faxes, and sure enough, there were several faxes we had missed. (Now, I know, I know, why in the world are we still getting faxes? Well, SOMEONE has to get the junk vacation, timeshare and benefits faxes, right?) For all intents and purposes, it appeared that the group simply wasn't working. Test emails were not going through to it -- unless I emailed the group directly from my (member) address. The group settings indicated that anyone could send it email -- so I was stumped.

Today I figured it out. In researching this on the web, I saw some comments about Google spam filtering group email BEFORE delivery to group members. Where do those filtered emails go? Nowhere. This is a change Google made, probably about March 1st. Prior to that, my faxes would sometimes land in my junk folder, but after that they just went off into la la land.

What is worse, is that my brother's company new-leads email address, you know the one the website sends new leads to, started doing the same thing. That has resulted in three weeks of lost leads, which is potentially 4 a day, which is potentially 84 lost leads. He is a realtor, so even if one of those leads converted, you are talking a lot of lost revenue.

Now, both of these email addresses were being used by web servers. The sending addresses were "legit," but Google seems to be cracking down on non-mail servers sending mail. I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I hate spam, on the other, it is unreasonable to expect the mail server of your own domain not to send email. There are DNS tools to indicate who are the legitimate senders of mail, and they are good things, but I won't go into that here, mainly because it doesn't address all of the potential troubles and won't until it is required for mail delivery, which isn't happening any time soon.

In the case of my fax problem, I simply have the fax computer send the faxes to our individual addresses. And we retrieved the "lost" faxes from the archive folder. In the case of my brother, well, he's hosed. I have converted his leads address to a nickname, so now it can only go to one person, but that's a lot better than going to no person.

The take-away here is that if you have emails going to a Google Apps group address, where those emails might come from your web servers, or they are mission critical, you need to have a backup. If nothing else, BCC the emails to a real account, as well as the group. You might get duplicates, but that is better than getting squat.

Chuck Norris

2009-03-17T09:43:00.001-05:00

Recently it was Chuck Norris's 69th birthday. In honor of this, here is a neat little piece of fun. Do the following:

1) Go to http://www.google.com/

2) Type in "Find Chuck Norris".

3) Click "I'm Feeling Lucky".

That's it. Courtesy Chuck Norris.

Ergotron LX Dual Desk Mount Arm Review

2009-02-23T17:09:00.006-05:00

I recently was offered an Ergotron LX Dual Desk Mount Arm for review. It was offered to me after I wrote my last blog entry, Sit Better, See Better. I have lived with the new setup now for a few weeks, and am ready to give an opinion. The short version is that the Ergotron has freed up a good deal of space on my desk, despite my unusual setup. It might free up even more space for you. If you find yourself with a desk crowded by a large display, consider one of the Ergotron Desk Mount Arm systems. Before I go further, some background on my setup is necessary.

For the past six years I have used an old Hamilton motorized drafting table (E-Sized) for my desk. It doesn't go up and down any more (needs a fan belt -- really), but it tilts and has a pen and pencil trough that is a great substitute for a drawer. I keep it tiled at about 10 degrees, which puts the keyboard of my laptop at a perfect level for typing.

I have a 17" MacBook Pro connected to a Dell 20" LCD Display (secondary display), and a Windows computer with a 17" Fujitsu LCD. The secondary display sits behind my MacBook Pro, both centered on my desk, with the display high enough so that the bottom is level with the top of the MacBook Pro display. The Windows display sits to the left of this.

My non-computer working area consists of the space to the right of my laptop in front of a file box, and to the left in front of the Fujitsu, about 3.5 sqft total out of 15+ available sqft. Most of the back of my desk is wasted space behind the displays. Clearly I am not making efficient use of my space.

My Mac desktop is set to span from the laptop upwards to the secondary display, so that the Mac menu bar is smack in the middle of the two displays. For Windows users who aren't familiar with the Mac menubar, it is a permanent fixture across the top of the screen. If I move my mouse above the menu bar, it pops up onto the secondary display which is sitting above my laptop display. This seemed odd at first, but makes for a compact working area.

The Mac controls the Windows computer via a VNC server. To control the PC, I move my Mac mouse pointer to the left of my Mac display, which kicks in the VNC software, and the mouse on the PC jumps to life at the corresponding location on the right of PC display. Thus, the PC acts as if it were a seamless part of the Mac Desktop (see this article for the setup). This setup makes the three displays seem like one oddly-shaped large display, and two computers seem like one.

When I am working on web programming projects, I drag my browser windows and other visuals up to the secondary display, and leave my email and text editing windows on my laptop display. I use the PC for testing my code against additional web browsers. In this way, each display serves its own purpose, and they all need to remain clustered together in order for my workflow to go smoothly.

Lastly, I am an oddball in that I prefer the keyboard of the Macbook Pro to other keyboards, and I prefer to use the trackpad over a mouse. This is not a good fit for Ergotron, in that most of their solutions seem to be targeted at getting your displays up off of your desk, including your laptop, freeing the space underneath. Such an arrangement would hang my laptop above my desk, and take away my favorite keyboard. The assumption they have made is that most people with laptops will want a separate keyboard and mouse on their desktop, taking up valuable extra space. I don't fit in that pigeon hole, but most of my clients with laptops do, and all users of desktop computers fit there too.

Ok, now that you have the picture of my setup, how has the Ergotron changed my working space? For the better? I have a dual-arm model from their many offerings. One of the arms has a VESA mount, and the other has a laptop tray. One of my displays, the Dell, supports the VESA standard mount, whereas the Fujitsu does not. So I decided to see if the laptop tray would support the Fujitsu, and put the Dell on the VESA mount.

While unboxing the Ergotron, the first thing I noticed was the build-quality. These are no plastic arms, but heavy, metal, arms with very strong springs to help them hold their position. The number of parts in the box is pretty daunting, but as you pull them out, it becomes obvious how most things will fit together.

The kit I received had three separate sets of instructions. I was confused at first as to which set I should use -- I still am, actually. Two sets provided English language instructions, plus some other languages, with one set of completely non-English language instructions. The two English sets appeared to offer identical instruction, but were also obviously different documents. A clearly marked "Start Here" booklet would have been nice. I guess I am too used to Apple who goes out of their way to make things clear, even at the opening of boxes level. At any rate, I picked one set using Eeny-Meeny-Miny-Moe and forged ahead.

It was fairly easy to put the whole setup together. The main parts of the arms simply slide one on another, and on to the base. Almost no tools are required, except for the supplied allen wrenches, which are used to tighten joints and fix the heights of the arms on the base. If you are not mechanically inclined, I could see how putting these together may be frustrating, because the arms are relatively heavy. But overall I found it straightforward, if time consuming.

If I had one comment about the assembly process, it would be to plan ahead where you will mount the base. Think about how the arms will articulate, and where the displays will go. And think about it for a while. In my case, shortly after assembling the entire thing, I realized that I needed to move one display to the other side, and move the entire assembly two feet to the right. I made the mistake of simply trying to duplicate my existing setup, which I assumed was optimal. I was wrong. By using these arms, I had possibilities that I had never considered. So I had to partially disassemble, move and reassemble the whole setup. Had I thought about it in advance, I could have saved some time. Total assembly time (first time): just over an hour. Add 15 minutes to re-do it.

I was successful in using the laptop mount for the Fujitsu display. It is not optimal, and I had to use the laptop stabilizers in a way they are not intended, but it is secure. This novel setup allowed for me to move the Fujitsu over to the right, instead of to the left, and off of the side of my desk.

The end result is that the Fujistu is now suspended partially over my trashcan, and not directly above my desk. This allowed me to shift my laptop and secondary display to the right, so that they are both to the right of center, leaving almost half of my desk totally clear. That's right: almost half of my desk is totally clear of gear.

So now my working area consists of two main areas. 1x2' (2 sqft) to the right of my laptop, where I now keep my coffee warmer, misc pads of paper and a photo desk accessory. It's perfect for misc items, including mail. I now have 2.5x3.5' (8.75 sqft) of area to the left of my laptop free and clear. I moved my filebox from the right back corner to the left back corner, which consumes 1.25 sqft of space.

I know, I spent way too much time measuring this stuff. But having a huge area of your desk free and clear is great. Of course, I promptly filled it with pads and junk, but at least it all can move. And speaking of moving, the two arms have a great range of motion. I can swing either of them up and totally out of the way, and the space behind my laptop, where the secondary display stand sat, is empty. It can now hold those items I like to keep on my desk, but don't use often.

Overall the Ergotron system is versatile and strong. The arms articulate easily, but stay put when you need them to. You can tweak away at display position with little effort. They do get things up off of your desk, but the space below is just that: space below something else. The usefulness of that space will largely depend on what you want to put under there. With a little creative thought, though, moving a display or laptop off of the side of your desk, instead of over it, will greatly increase your useful square footage.

Final thought: If I were the type of person who used a separate keyboard and mouse with my laptop, these arms would give me back much more space. As I said in the beginning, it might free much more space for you. Either way, if space is at a premium on your desk, and whose isn't, these arms are for you.

Sit Better, See Better

2009-01-07T09:12:00.005-05:00

I often hear complaints about neck, shoulder and back pain from my clients. Typically, they will have a very large computer display that is sitting on top of a stack of books or some item on their desk -- with the center (top to bottom) of their display even with their eyes. This is trouble. My advice is: the top of your display, not the center, should be level with your eyes, so that you are slightly looking down as you use your computer. If you have to look straight ahead, or worse, up, to see your menu bar, you will have constant neck and shoulder tension, which could result in long-term neck and back issues.

Don't take my word for it, here is a great tool to figure out how you should setup your workstation:

Ergonomic Workstation Planner from Ergotron.

This is not an endorsement of their products, and I really do not know much about this company. However, on first site of this tool I instantly recognized it as fitting within everything I have learned about ergonomics in my 20+ years of computer consulting.

Clients also complain about difficulties seeing their displays, or blurry vision after extended use. My advice to those using computer screens for long periods of time is to take hourly breaks where you stare off into the distance. Your eyes were not designed to remain focused at short distances for long periods of time. Just like trying to hold your arm out straight without moving it, keeping your eyes focused at the same distance causes tremendous fatigue. This results in eye strain and blurred vision, and can even cause harmful long term effects.

In addition to taking breaks once each hour, where you focus your eyes well beyond 10 feet or more, computer glasses are a great option. Reading glasses DO NOT substitute for computer glasses. Reading glasses are designed for reading books you are holding, which is a distance of about 18". Most computer displays are just outside of this boundary at 20" to 30" away -- some farther. The result of using reading glasses (and, yes, bifocals) is that you cause minor strain on your eyes in the opposite direction you are trying to correct.

Computer glasses are designed for use in the intermediate zone of vision -- right where your computer display is. It is a good idea to measure the distance first, so that your doctor can make the prescription for the right range of distance. Again, don't take just my word for it, here is a site that discusses this issue:

Computer Glasses for [correction of] Blurred Vision.

Again, I don't know this company, nor endorse them or their products. Their information falls within what I have learned over the years, and know to be true.

Disk Utility Bit Me

2009-01-02T12:48:00.002-05:00

I know you have had one of those days where everything went wrong. Even if you haven't you have probably had an experience where exactly the wrong thing happened. Mine happened yesterday (1/1/2009 -- doesn't bode well for the new year).

I was cloning a drive in a PowerBook G4 to a larger drive. I had booted from CD and was using Disk Utility to Restore the internal drive to the new hard drive, connected via an external FireWire case -- I do this type of restore all the time. For whatever reason it failed.

As a normal course of action, I erased the external drive using the Zero All Data option. After trying again, it failed again, but with a different error. I thought that maybe I should have rebooted between tries, so I did, then re-erased the drive. At that point the new drive had the same name as the old drive. They appeared under different device profiles, so I know I selected the correct one (FireWire), but I noticed that both drives disappeared when the erase began. The upshot is that Disk Utility erased the internal drive. All I can imagine is that somehow the clone worked well enough to make Disk Utility confuse the two volumes -- for that matter, it may have been one of the earlier erases (when I hadn't rebooted) that did it.

Either way, I was hosed -- total loss of data. At least we had backups to go back to. Still, it is a TON more work to rebuild from scratch rather than clone.

Moral of the Story: if you run into issues cloning a drive, do not go back and erase the new drive using the same machine. In the future I will remove the drive and use a different computer to erase the drive (booted from the internal HD and not a CD so that Disk Utility CAN'T erase the boot volume). Better to be safe than sorry.

Timezone Setting Won't Stick

2008-12-17T09:47:00.001-05:00

Yesterday I ran into a Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard computer that would not keep its timezone setting. The usual zap-pram trick didn't help, and a repair permissions didn't help. However, during the repair permissions I noticed an entry for a file/folder named localtime. I don't have the exact entry, but it looked something like this:

permissions on /etc/localtime drwxr-xr-x should be lrwxr-xr-x

The initial d vs. l jumped out at me. After the repair, when the setting still didn't stick, I went into the terminal to have a look. I found a directory in etc named localtime and it had a file named Eastern in it -- not knowing how the data should actually be stored, this seemed reasonable to me. I deleted the file named Eastern, but that didn't fix it. Then I deleted the entire localtime directory. That worked.

I assume that some time in the past Apple stored the timezone in a file in this directory, and whenever this system was updated, the updater failed to remove the directory.

The moral of the story: pay attention to the items that Repair Permissions throws at you.