Category: Apple

waiting for my iPhone SE

I will hopefully have my new iPhone SE tomorrow.

Figuring out the logistics of getting this phone has been a bit of a task. When I ordered it from Apple, in-store pickup would have been easiest for me, but wasn’t an option. Next-day shipping was free, but they didn’t say which carrier they’d use. It turns out they’re using UPS, which complicates things a bit for me.

There was an option (via Apple) to waive the signature requirement. If I did that, then UPS would probably have left the phone for me today, and I’d probably have it. But there would have been a non-trivial chance that someone would have stolen it, and waiving the signature requirement means Apple and UPS take no responsibility for that. So I kept the signature requirement.

Once I got the e-mail with the tracking number, I was hoping I could tell UPS to hold the package at their office in Bound Brook, so I could just pick it up. But you can’t do that with just a tracking #, unless you’re in their “My Choice” program. Which I can’t get into, since they think my address is commercial and not residential. I spent some time on the phone with them last year trying to straighten that out, but didn’t really get anywhere. And I checked last night, and the issue still hasn’t been fixed.

So I had to wait for them to make a delivery attempt and leave an info notice. Which they did today. With the info notice number, I can have them hold the package at their office. So I did that, and I can probably pick it up tomorrow. Of course, the office is only open from 8:30am to 6pm, so if I want to pick it up in the morning, I need to come into work late. And if I want to pick it up after work, I might not make it in time, if traffic is bad. Maybe I’ll go over on my lunch break. (And they’re not open on the weekend, so if I don’t get it tomorrow, I’ll have to wait until Monday.)

It’s kind of funny how many hoops I have to jump through just to get this package. But hopefully it’ll be worth it!

iPhone SE

I ordered myself an iPhone SE today to replace my old iPhone 5S. I ordered it from Apple (rather than Verizon), for no particular reason other than that the Apple Store website is nicer than Verizon’s.

It should show up at my home on 3/31, but it might turn into one of those things where the FedEx or UPS guy won’t leave it without a signature, and I have to go pick it up, in which case I probably won’t get it until 4/2. (I was hoping I could choose in-store pickup, but that’s not available yet.)

The iPhone SE is pretty much exactly what I want: a new phone that’s exactly like my old phone, only with a new battery, more memory (64GB instead of 32GB), Apple Pay, and a few other minor bells and whistles. I don’t want a bigger screen or that fancy 3D touch stuff. Heck, it should even fit in my old case (though I might buy a new case anyway.) And it’s been getting good reviews.

I’m planning on trading in my old iPhone, but I’m not sure whether I’ll go with Gazelle or Apple. It looks like Gazelle will give me $85 for it, while Apple might give me $150. Either of which is pretty good. (Verizon was only going to give me $15.)

I’m paying for the new phone at full price ($500), which is the first time I’ve done that, I think. Buying it on contract is apparently still an option for me. It would have cost only $50 that way, but my monthly bill would have gone up $20, so doing the math on that over two years, it would be slightly more expensive than buying the phone outright.

I keep thinking about leaving Verizon for another carrier, but I decided against that. My only real complaint about Verizon right now is that I’d like more than 3GB of data per month, or at least to be able to roll over unused data. But with more memory on the new phone, I can download more music to it, so maybe I won’t feel as tempted to use up all my data on streaming music, which is my usual problem.

Mac ransomware

I panicked a bit when I read about the ransomware that was attached to a recent version of Transmission, a Mac BitTorrent client. Thankfully, I hadn’t updated (or even launched) Transmission on my Mac in a while, so I’m not affected. I only use BitTorrent occasionally, usually to download a Linux ISO or books/comics from a Humble Bundle.

After realizing that I wasn’t affected, and calming down a bit, I started thinking about what I can do to prevent being affected by one of these things, both on my Mac and my PCs. Ransomware is a big problem, and has affected many individuals, companies, and even hospitals. As long as even a handful of people pay up, the bad guys will keep putting this horrible stuff out there.

For this specific Mac issue, there’s really not much I would have been able to do to prevent it. It wouldn’t have been detected by any Mac malware scanner initially, and it was signed by a valid Apple developer key. Transmission is an above-board, well-respected open source program that’s used by many people, so it’s not like I was using some sketchy adware-infested BitTorrent client.

Probably the worst-case scenario here would have been if the ransomware had scrambled all the stuff I had on OneDrive, and then the contents had replicated from my Mac to my two PCs. (And let’s also assume that the ransomware had scrambled my Time Machine backups too.) That could have left me with a lot of lost files. I should probably figure out a good way to make offline backups of my OneDrive files on a regular basis. (I miss the days when I could back up all my key files to a single 100 MB Zip disk.) And this also reminds me that I haven’t done a full backup of my new desktop PC yet.

Day One 2

I’ve mentioned Day One before on this blog. I bought the iOS version in December 2014, when it was on sale. Then, I bought the Mac version in December 2015 (again, when it was on sale). I really didn’t use the iOS version at all in 2015, other than to play around with it a little. But, after buying the Mac version, I’ve started to use it regularly over the last month. I’m not doing anything really amazing with it; just jotting down some random notes and thoughts. I still use Evernote for all my organized note-taking, reminders, and GTD stuff.

Well, of course, now that I’ve paid for iOS and Mac versions, and started using them regularly, they’ve gone and released Day One 2, which is a new app for iOS and Mac, and has no free or paid upgrades from the old version. But they are offering both for 50% off this week: $5 for the iOS app and $20 for the Mac app.

MacStories has a review of the new version. Most of the currently-implemented new features aren’t useful for me: multiple journals, multiple photos in a single journal entry, and stuff like that. But some of the stuff that they’re planning on implementing soon could be interesting, specifically IFTTT support. There are currently a few ways to hook up Day One to IFTTT, but they’re a bit kludgey.

And one slightly alarming new “feature” is that the only supported sync method is Day One’s own sync service. They no longer support storing your journal in Dropbox or iCloud. I completely understand that storing everyone’s journals on their servers is the only way to implement good IFTTT support or (for instance) a web client. But there currently isn’t much information available about how secure their sync service is. (In their blog post, they say “Day One Sync is comparable security-wise with iCloud and Dropbox,” but they don’t elaborate on that at all.) They have private-key encryption on their roadmap, but no target date for it. So about the only thing we know for sure at this point about their security is that there currently isn’t any private-key encryption.

Personally, I haven’t written anything important or incriminating in my Day One journal. Mostly, it’s stuff like “just got my oil changed” or “started reading The Windup Girl today”. But I’m sure a lot of people have private information in there that they’d like to keep secure, and I think Day One needs to make more information public about how they’re storing people’s data.

Having said all that, there’s a fair chance I’ll spend the $25 to get the new version for Mac and iOS both. It’s pretty good software, and I’ve been using the old version pretty consistently over the last few weeks.

random stuff

I noticed in my “On This Day” sidebar that I’ve written a lot of blog posts on January 20th. I’m not sure why, but I feel like I should keep up the trend and write one today too.

But I have nothing in particular to write about, so I’ll just dump some random stuff out of my head. Which will probably be helpful to me, but maybe not to anyone else.

First, I have a cold, I think. And, whatever it is, it’s been hanging in there since Christmas. I keep thinking it’s just about gone, then it comes back. I’m quite frequently sick at this time of the year, so I shouldn’t really be surprised. All this ridiculously cold weather this week isn’t helping either, and we’re getting ready for a possibly major snowstorm this weekend. I’d really like to take off for a week or three and go to Florida, or San Diego, or anyplace warm, really.

After several months of not touching any novels or non-fiction books, and reading only short form stuff and comics, I’m back on a long-form book kick. I’m currently reading Thunderer by Felix Gilman and First Things First by Stephen Covey. I’m enjoying the Gilman book enough that it’s putting me in the mood to read more stuff like it. Maybe some China Miéville or Paolo Bacigalupi. (I honestly don’t know enough about either of those guys to know if it actually makes sense to group them together with Gilman, but for some reason, I think it does.)

On an unrelated subject, I stumbled across a great article on MacDrifter today about Drafts. I’m using Drafts a lot now, much more than I used to, but I’m still not really using it to its full potential. Of course, I don’t really use my iPhone or iPad for writing much; I stick with a “real” computer for that. But Drafts is great for some stuff, including quickly dumping notes into Evernote. It’s just faster and easier than opening up the Evernote client itself, which is a great app, but kind of slow to start. Drafts opens quickly and lets you start typing right away.

I’ve also noticed that Things for Mac is on sale for $25 right now. I own the iOS version, which I bought a while back when it was on sale, and I tried the Mac version, but I couldn’t talk myself into using it regularly. I might go ahead and pay for the Mac version, and give it another try. I’m keeping track of stuff largely in Evernote these days, but it might be a good idea to use something more structured for some stuff.

Tomorrow will be my three-year anniversary at SHI. I don’t have too much to say about that, other than that it’s been a pretty stable job, without a lot of drama or stress, and I seem to be doing well there, based on my performance reviews. I’m occasionally tempted to shake things up and find something new and interesting, but for now, I’m content with what I’ve got.

Apple TV follow-up

I used my new Apple TV to watch a few older Doctor Who Christmas specials last night, and to watch the new one today, so I thought I’d post a follow-up to my last post about it. I have to say that finding individual episodes of Doctor Who through the Apple TV interface is pretty frustrating. I had hoped that Siri would help, but asking for “Doctor Who Christmas episodes” just gets me the standard “I don’t understand” answer. And even giving the specific episode title doesn’t help. It just doesn’t seem to be very good at exactly the one thing it should be really good at: finding already-purchased iTunes video content in the user’s library.  It can tell me the weather, or what time it is, which is nice, but I could just look at my phone for that. Well, anyway the new Doctor Who special was pretty good, and certainly worth the $5 I paid for it.

Oh, and I’ve stumbled across one interesting app: Pluto TV. It’s a service airing a number of channels, including one that’s showing MST3K 24/7, apparently.

Apple TV 2015

A friend bought me a new Apple TV for Christmas this year. I was perfectly happy with my old Apple TV box (the previous generation), so I wouldn’t have gone out and bought myself a new one. But it’s a cool new toy, so I’ve been playing around with it. (My friend also bought me a Nimbus game controller, which is kind of nifty, but I haven’t done anything with it yet.)

My main use for the Apple TV has always been to watch iTunes content, specifically Doctor Who. I don’t get BBC America, so I buy Doctor Who from iTunes and watch it through the Apple TV box, usually. For that simple use case, the new Apple TV might actually be a little less convenient than the old one. I’ve found the interface for browsing through purchased content is usable, but slightly less convenient than the old interface.

The new remote is interesting, but so far I don’t find the touch surface to be any more useful than just having buttons like on the old remote. The Siri functionality works well, though I feel weird talking to my remote, and I’m not sure how often I’ll use it. And I’m also not sure how I feel about having a rechargeable battery in it; it’s a nice idea, and maybe necessary to support the touch surface, but I’m wondering how often I’m going to have to recharge it. (And I’m wondering how long before it wears out, since it doesn’t appear to be user-replaceable.) With the old remote, I just had to stick a new watch battery in it once every couple of years.

The app store is a good thing, and I hope to see some interesting apps show up there, but so far, there’s not much I’m interested in, aside from stuff that was already available on the old Apple TV. The Netflix app is fine, and there are apps for the usual networks, like PBS, Disney, Comedy Central, and so on. I did use the Disney XD app yesterday to binge on a bunch of Gravity Falls episodes, and it worked well.

I haven’t tried playing any games on it yet, but I’ll get around to that eventually. I hear that Alto’s Adventure is pretty good, so maybe I’ll pick that up.

Sleep

I’ve decided recently to try to work on my sleep. It sounds weird saying that. Sleep doesn’t seem like the kind of thing you can “work on.” I have trouble sleeping occasionally, and I know there are some things I can improve. I’ve read a lot about good sleep habits, and the best things you can do to help get a good night’s sleep. And I’ve already done some of them. I use f.lux on my Mac (and my PCs) to tone down the color on my screen before bedtime. I try to limit my caffeine intake in the afternoon and evening. And I generally go to bed at 10pm and get up at 6am, so I’m in bed for a full eight hours. (Though I’m not always perfect about that. Or the caffeine thing…)

I decided this weekend to make one more change: I started to use an alarm clock app called Sleep Cycle that (supposedly) tracks your sleep so that it can wake you up while you’re in a light sleep phase. I have to admit that I’m a little skeptical about how accurately it can track my sleep; it uses the microphone to pick up the noises you make in bed, and tries to figure out your sleep cycle based on just that. So I’m not sure if it’s really doing anything useful or not. But I’m going to give it a try for a week or two at least. The basic version is free, so there’s no real down side. (Unless it turns out to be buggy, and just doesn’t wake me up at all, and I miss work.) Their FAQ says that it takes a few days to calibrate itself, so we’ll see how it goes.

On another front, I’m starting to think about buying a new mattress. My current mattress is about ten years old, so it’s time. I did a little online mattress shopping this weekend, though, and came away more confused than anything else. There are a lot of options and a lot of opinions out there. I may give up and just go back to Sleepy’s, where I got my last mattress, show them the receipt for it, ask for something similar, and hope for the best.

Black Friday: Fixing Things

I really wasn’t sure what I was going to do with myself today. I had a nice Thanksgiving yesterday at my friend’s house. And I have today off from work. And I’m mostly healed up from my surgery last month. So I considered going into NYC to check out the Jackson Pollock exhibit at MoMA.

But I decided this morning that maybe I should see about getting the speaker on my iPhone fixed. There’s a local store called Batteries + Bulbs that, I recently discovered, does iPhone repair. I don’t know much about them, but they appear to be reputable, so I thought I’d give them a shot. Alas, the repair guy had the day off, so I’ll have to come back tomorrow. But I walked there and back, so I got some exercise at least.

I read an interesting article on Vice this week about iFixit, and about computer repair in general, called How to Fix Everything. I’ve been thinking about this subject a lot lately, since all of the trouble I had with my MacBook recently, and since I’ve been on the fence about geting a new iPhone vs. repairing the old one.

I almost managed to replace the hard drive cable on my MacBook, but had to give up and let someone else do it. But, if not for those two pesky screws, I would have been able to do it, no problem. For the iPhone, I did check out iFixit’s page on speaker replacement. It looks a little too complicated for me to handle on my own, especially if I can get someone else to do it for a reasonable price. But I appreciate, in general, the idea of repairing existing hardware, and keeping it useful for as long as possible. It does seem like Apple, and other manufacturers, and going out of their way to make end-user and third-party repair and upgrades as difficult as possible. But Apple gear is still a good choice, since it’s so populat that you can always find instructions and parts via sites like iFixit.

I’ve managed to avoid blowing any serious money on Black Friday sales, so far, but I have spent a few bucks here and there. I ordered one of the 7″ Kindle Fire tablets that are currently on sale for $35. I’m not sure what I’ll do with it, but for $35, I’ll find something semi-useful. And I bought Commander One Pro from the Mac App Store for 99 cents. I’ve been using the free version, since I got my MacBook set up again, and I like it. I had needed to find something to replace Total Finder, which doesn’t really work with El Capitan, and Commander One seems to fit the bill.

It’s really nice out today, so, in addition to the walk to Batteries + Bulbs earlier, I also walked to Bridgewater Commons and back. I didn’t buy anything while I was there, but I wandered around and looked at what was on sale. I didn’t see anything I really needed, nor did I see anything I really wanted to buy for anyone else. (I really don’t need to buy many Christmas presents these days anyway.) But all this walking put me over the 7500 step threshold for the first time since the hernia issue arose. So I feel pretty good about that. And I now feel like I can spend the rest of day binge-watching Jessica Jones, if I want to, and not feel guilty about it.

The MacBook is back

Tekserve fixed my MacBook on Wednesday, so I decided to run into the city after work and pick it up, rather than waiting until the weekend. I got there about a half-hour before they closed, but I didn’t have any problem picking up the machine and getting it back home. And it turns out that it was just the hard drive cable, as I’d hoped. It seems to be working fine now.

Last night and tonight, I’ve been working on getting it set up again. I restored a bunch of stuff from my old drive, which I’d swapped out back in December. So I lost anything that I had on the machine since then, if I didn’t have it anywhere else. That turns out to be not much, really. I’ve been keeping important stuff in Evernote or Dropbox, or on my desktop PC, so there wasn’t much that was only on my Mac. (And I’m now looking at consolidating a bunch of stuff in OneDrive.) Still, I really need to get a better backup strategy going.

As part of the setup, I upgraded to El Capitan. I’m not having any problems with it so far. I’ve got the newest versions of all my applications installed, and they all seem to be compatible. The one app I haven’t reinstalled is f.lux, as there appears to be a minor issue with that.

So I’m hoping for no more problems with this MacBook for at least another year. I may think about getting a new one next year (2016), but not until the end of the year, if I can manage to keep this one going until then.