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Tag: technology

Leaving 1Password

Recently, 1Password announced early access to version 8 of their new Mac App. Things did not go well from there.

You see, the problem with the new 1Password app for many Mac users is they switched to a technology called Electron. If you are not familiar with Electron, it's a technology that allows businesses to more easily make cross platform apps. Great, right? Not exactly. Electron is the bane of many Mac users' existence. It's slow, heavy, bloated, and does not integrate with the OS. Instead of looking like an app that belongs on the OS, it looks like you're running the website in a container... because that's what you are doing. Needless to say, Mac users were not happy and expressed their frustrations on Twitter, Reddit, and the 1Password Community. Many posts from users cancelling/leaving are still up as of writing this post.

1Password tried to hide the fact that they were using Electron for the new version. When people would ask, point blankly, if they were using Electron, they would deflect and say the back end is written on Rust and it's super fast. When people would push back and again ask if it was using Electron, they would ignore the question and not respond.

When users started to install the app and call their bluff, they weren't ready. There were instances where users were actually showing how much worse resource usage in 1Password 8 is compared to 1Password 7 by posting screenshots. Resource usage for most users were 3-4x higher. One event went as high as 6 times higher resource usage. 1Password employees responded with wrong screenshots that cut off multiple 1Password 8 processes to make it look like it was behaving better than it actually was.

They then set up a Reddit AMA that was scheduled for a 3-hour period. In the first 2 hours of that AMA, only 1 employee showed up. When asked where everyone else was, they responded that the others forgot. Forgot the AMA that they were advertising on Reddit and Twitter the previous day and all that morning? Sounds unlikely.

To give credit, some employees did eventually show up, but I'm not sure why. Every single question was evaded. Take a look at this example below.

1password reddit AMA The lovely non-answers given by 1Password employees

Every single response is similar to this. Instead of addressing the issues that Mac users have with Electron and how it impacts them as users, 1Password could only post about great Electron is for them as a company. Totally tone-deaf.

Next up, we have instances where 1Password actively lied to users. When asked in June if 1Password would continue to use native (non-Electron) apps, they replied, "Don't worry, we love native apps."

Multiple posts I've made in the 1Password subreddit and the 1Password Community pointing out these issues have been removed. Other posts have been removed as well. Because they can't (or won't) address these issues, they pretend like they no longer exist. This makes me wonder if they knew this would be the response from the community. If they didn't know, that's a pretty scary proposition for a company to be that out of touch with their user base. If they did know, I wonder if their new investors at Accel were aware of the potential pushback that would come as a result. If they weren't made aware, that makes it look even more shady on 1Password's end.

We also have 1Password admitting that they used devs who have never used this technology before. This sounds kind of scary for a company that holds all of my passwords and credit cards.

Come be our security guinea pig!

The fact is, in the three days since the announcement that 1Password would be moving to Electron, not a single user concern with Electron has been addressed. They've completely ignored the concerns of Mac users and no longer care about us as users. They have mishandled this (maybe intentionally) from the start and it doesn't appear that they have any intention of fixing it. Instead, they continue to ignore the complaints of users that are still appearing hourly.

1Password recently received a huge valuation and an influx of cash from investors. The enterprise market is now their customer. That's fine. That's their decision to make as a company, but I can no longer recommend them to friends, family, and coworkers. With the amount of gaslighting, ghosting, outright lies, and condescending responses employees have given, I don't know how anyone could trust them again, especially since they are a security company. I will be leaving for another service, but the damage to 1Password's reputation is just getting started. What a fall for a once-great development company.

Edit: Jason at Six Colors has a great post about how Mac users are no longer important to 1Password.

1password, accel, agile-bits, technology

Add iCloud to the Dock in macOS

dock

Recently I’ve been wanting a way to launch iCloud directly from the Dock on my work Mac and couldn’t figure out a way to do this. I know it’s not difficult to launch finder and navigate to iCloud, especially since it is an option in my Finder’s sidebar, but I still wanted to save a couple of clicks by launching directly into the iCloud directory. It turns out, there is an easy way to do this. Thanks to a DuckDuckGo search, I found an older article on OSXDaily that explains exactly how to do this.

  1. Go to the Finder of Mac OS, then pull down the “Go” menu and choose “Go To Folder”
  2. Enter the following path exactly, then hit Return:
    /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/Applications/
  3. Drag iCloud.app to your dock.

That’s all there is to it. Now you can open your iCloud folder directly.

apple, icloud, macos, technology

Prevent Dock Following in macOS

I love macOS, I really do, but sometimes there is a feature that exists that makes me wonder what Apple was thinking. The current frustration I'm facing is Dock following. It is horrible and the only way to disable it is to turn off other useful features. For those not familiar with Dock following, it is a feature that allows the Dock to move to external monitors when you move your mouse to the bottom of the monitor. This may sound useful, but let me tell you about my setup to show you why I hate it.

My Mac setup at work is a 13 inch MacBook Pro connected to two external monitors. On the right side of my desk, is the Macbook. On this display is Outlook. I usually do not display anything else on this monitor since it is only 13 inches. In the middle display is a 22 inch display that houses the applications I use most throughout the day. This includes web browsers, SQL Operations Studio, One Note, and others. On the left most display (another 22 inch monitor) I run Skype for Business (don't get me started on how horrible this app is) and Jump Desktop. Jump Desktop is a remote connection manager that is the best RDP manager I've found on macOS. Because my work has historically been a Windows-only shop that is only just now starting to support other platforms, I have to do quite a few tasks on Windows. When I'm using Jump Desktop, I want my RDP connection to my Windows machine to be as large as possible so I can perform my Windows tasks effortlessly. This is where the annoying Dock following feature comes into play.

Five or six times a day I will move my mouse to my left display to click on either the Windows Start menu or the task bar and as I do that the dock pops up on the left monitor because my mouse went to the bottom of the monitor, close to where the Windows Start menu and task bar live. Not only does the Dock just appear there, but often times gets in the way of what I was trying to click. Very annoying. Today, I found out there is a way to prevent the Dock from following your mouse. If you go to System Preferences and into the settings for Mission Control, there is an option called Displays have separate Spaces.

mission control

After unchecking this box, Dock following was disabled. I thought my problem was solved, but I quickly found out that this option has several drawbacks as well. By unchecking this, the menu bar no longer spans across displays, so any time I want to do a menu action, I have to do it on the MacBook's main display, which means sometimes I have to traverse three displays in order to get to the menu action. Also, while not a heavy user of spaces, I do use them from time to time when I'm heavily multitasking and during those times I want displays to have their own spaces. So, I'm back to the original issue of wanting a way to disable Dock following. I've done several Google searches and the only option to disable it that I've found is via the Mission Control setting. It boggles my mind that Apple does not provide a way to disable this. If anyone has a way to do this, drop me a line.

apple, dock, macos, mission-control, technology

Removing Public Beta Updates in macOS Sierra

Because I love shiny new things, I enrolled in the macOS Sierra public beta to play around with it before its general release. Once Sierra was released, I no longer wanted to receive public beta updates. In the past, I've gone to System Preferences -> App Store and disabled beta updates. Normally, this would remove the updates from appearing in the App Store's Software Updates, however, this time I was still getting notified of new public betas. That's when I found this thread on Apple's forums. The solution, opening up Terminal and typing the following command: sudo softwareupdate --clear-catalog

Running the command removed the beta updates from the App Store and now all is right with the world. I thought I'd post this solution in case anyone else runs into this issue as well.

apple, macos, sierra, technology

Update on iCloud Automatic Backups

I previously wrote how iCloud automatic backups were killing my internet connection and thought I'd provide an update, but first I want to discuss my experience with Apple support.

People who know me know I'm a huge advocate of Apple and their products. So, when something goes wrong, it is a bit disappointing. When I was troubleshooting the issues I was having with my iCloud backups I noticed that my iCloud storage was shrinking at a rapid pace.

[caption id="attachment_2555" align="alignleft" width="423"]phone backups The amount of space my phone says I was using for backups.[/caption]

It appeared that every time iCloud tried to back up and failed, the data that was backed up prior to the failure stayed in iCloud and there was no way for me to access it or delete it. Even after turning off iCloud backups, there was still over 50 GB of backup data that I could not remove.

When looking at the settings on my phone, it showed how much backup space I was using. According to the phone, I was using 8.8 GB of space on backups. This seemed correct and about what I was seeing before the trouble started. However, if I looked at the iCloud settings on my Mac or in iCloud.com, I would see something completely different. There, I would see over 50 GB of space being used for backups. This is obviously incorrect. Each time I attempted a backup and it failed, the number would grow.

[caption id="attachment_2564" align="alignleft" width="393"]iCloud backup storage The amount of space iCloud said I was using for backups.[/caption]

I contacted Apple about this, and while all the employees that helped me were very nice, none actually comprehended the issue and could provide me with a way to delete this backup data. I tried explaining the issue to several different techs, but none could give me an adequate answer. Finally, after a week of going back and forth via email with an Apple tech, I gave up and just told them to close the case. This was not going to get fixed because 1. They really didn't understand the issue and 2. It was being caused by iCloud backups failing, which they also couldn't solve. I was extremely disappointed by the support I received but there was nothing I could do at this point. I even had to upgrade my iCloud storage to 200 GB just so I wouldn't get the space warnings on the 50 GB tier.

Fast forward a couple of months to the release of the iOS 10 Public Betas. I installed the beta because I'm a nerd and love to have the latest and greatest. After the third or fourth beta, I noticed that the 50+ GB of backup data no longer existed in iCloud. Everything started showing correctly on my phone, my Mac, and iCloud.com. Furthermore, backups were running without killing my internet connection. In fact, I am now able to stream media, backup my Mac data to CrashPlan and perform an iCloud backup all at the same time without an issue. I also noticed that my iPad, which backs up a lot less frequently, is backing up without issue now as well. Something with the way iCloud backups work must have changed with iOS 10. I'm really hoping that this continues through the public release and that backups continue to work. Otherwise, my phone will be stuck backing up at work only again.

apple, icloud, iphone, technology

Automatic iCloud Backups Killed My Internet Connection

For the past few months I've been experiencing intermittent connection issues with my home internet. The internet would stop working completely, on every device in the house, for a period of 10-15 minutes a couple of times a day. After a few months of experiencing this, I decided to finally start investigating. It was this past weekend when I finally noticed that about a minute after I plugged my iPhone into a charger, any charger, the internet would quit working. I was able to consistently recreate the issue. If I unplugged the phone right away, the internet would come back right away.

I figured out it was due to iCloud's automatic backup when plugged in and on a known wireless network. So, when the phone starts to backup, the internet connection dies for all other devices while the backup is taking place, or tries to take place. Most of the time, iCloud backups on my home network fail [1. Most successful backups I see are being made on my work's network when my phone is plugged in during the day]. I did some searching on the internet to see if others have had similar issues and found a couple of posts, but no real solution. For a few days I thought I had fixed it by resetting the network settings on the phone. It looked like the small, but annoying problem, was finally resolved. Or so I thought.

While working from home yesterday, the problem returned. Plugged in the phone and the internet would stop working. Unplug it and internet is back. I'm not sure what the exact problem is. Is it a problem with the modem? The router? iOS? Last night I decided to update to the latest iOS 9.3 beta to see if backups become more reliable. So far, it does not look good. The phone was not able to backup to iCloud overnight. I will have to test more at home tonight to see if my connection dies the next time it tries to backup. I'm not sure what else to try at this point, besides disabling iCloud backups, but I'm not giving up yet. Suggestions welcome [2. shep@iamshep.net or @shep on Twitter].

EDIT: Check out my update on iCloud backups killing my internet connection. iOS10 seems to have fixed the issue.

apple, icloud, iphone, technology

Aerial Screensaver for OS X

aerial

John Coates created a screensaver for OS X based on the new Apple TV screensaver. It is beautiful. You should check it out. The only problem I have with it right now is that it doesn't support energy saver, so if you have it as your screensaver, don't expect your monitors to turn off.

aerial, osx, screensaver, technology

Office 365

I've recently been looking for a replacement for Google apps. I wanted something that had reliable email and calendar. While Google does provide both of those things, I find myself wanting to be controlled by Google's services less and less. I also wanted something that was reasonably priced (comparable to the monthly price of Google apps). That's when I decided to give Office 365 a shot.

Now, I'm no stranger to Office 365. We use it at work and I interact at a daily basis. The web mail and calendar are good (or good enough to replace Google), but the real power is with my devices. Because Office 365 is hosted Exchange, mail, contacts, notes, and calendar events sync instantaneously. With Google I would often have to wait several minutes for the data to show up, especially with events. This always left me feeling a bit uneasy wondering if my data was actually there. This is not the case with Office 365.

The setup of Office 365 with my domain was incredibly simple. They walk you through every step of the way, even verifying that your DNS is set up properly. With Office 365, you also get more mail and OneDrive space than you get with Google (50 GB mailbox and 1 TB file storage for the Business Essentials plan). So far, a week into my trial, everything is running smooth. I never thought I'd say this, but I may actually not only use, but choose to use willingly, a Microsoft product.

google, google-apps, microsoft, office-365, technology

2015 MacBook Pro

My work recently adopted a flexible work policy in which employees could work from home at certain times. I get to work from home on Wednesdays. When the policy was announced, I knew I'd want to work from a laptop so I wouldn't be chained to the Mac Mini on my desk at home. I wanted the ability to work from bed, the couch, or wherever I had a consistent internet connection. The problem was, my white plastic MacBook from 2007 was really slow and old. It only had 2 gigs of RAM and the battery wouldn't last more than 2 hours. That's when I decided to start looking for a replacement.

When I started looking for a new laptop I was unsure of what to get. The company I work for is a Microsoft shop, so our software and tools were developed for the Microsoft ecosystem. That made me consider buying a Windows laptop for the first time in over 10 years. So, I started looking at the higher end laptops that ran Windows and couldn't believe how awful they were. On top of that, when I would build them with custom specs, the price wound up not being far off from Apple's line of notebooks.

I started thinking about what specs I would need in a MacBook. I figured I'd need a virtual machine to run Windows. Needing a virtual machine also meant I'd need a bigger hard drive in order to house both OSes, as well as the Windows software I'd need to install. I would also need something really fast so I can multitask in both OS X and Windows. This immediately ruled out the new MacBook with Retina Display. It was just too slow and not worth the price for the specs at this point.

The next machines I looked at were the MacBook Air and the MacBook Pro. The MacBook Air was pretty tempting. I really liked the lightness of the Air and I read plenty of posts about running VMWare and Parallels on it. Overall it seemed to perform well. The problem with the Air is that I wanted a Retina Display. If you've never looked at a MacBook with a Retina Display, you have no idea what you're missing. The display is so crisp. I knew that I would be disappointed if I got an Air, especially since they are bound to be updated/replaced with Retina Display models within the next year.

That leaves the MacBook Pro. I immediately ruled out the 15 inch due to weight and size. I no longer need a laptop with such a large screen. If it was my only computer, I'd consider it, but not for a secondary machine. Also, it had been a while since the 15 inch Pros were updated. The 13 inch model, on the other hand, was updated this year and includes faster SSDs and the new Force Trackpad. [1. Force sensors detect how much pressure you’re applying, and the new Taptic Engine provides a click sensation when you press anywhere on the surface.]

I went to the Apple store and played around with a 13 inch MacBook Pro and immediately knew it was the machine for me. The size and weight were great. I loved the display, and the keyboard made typing fast and fluid. I decided to order one online with the specs that I wanted (16 gigs of RAM, 256 GB SSD, and 2.9 GHz dual core i5 processor).

I've now been using the Pro for 3 weeks and couldn't be happier. This machine is unbelievably quick. The Force Trackpad really is amazing. It's hard to explain how great the trackpad is until you actually use it. The display is bright and crisp, and I love other things that my previous MacBook didn't have, such as the backlit keyboard. The battery life on it is amazing as well. After 7 hours of use one day without being plugged in, I still had 37% of the battery left.

So how is it with my work? Well, interestingly enough, I never installed Windows. We use Citrix at work and any work I need to do on a Windows machine I can do via logging into a Windows server via Citrix. Our ticket system is managed through the web browser, and if I really need to, I can remote into my work machine. Everything else I can do on my Mac. Tools such as Text Expander, Notes, Evernote, and Outlook make it quite easy. Even though I'm on a Mac working with Windows-only software, I am just as productive, if not more, when working from home on this laptop.

This is, by far, the best Apple computer I have ever purchased.

apple, macbook-pro, technology

Companies can track what diseases you look up online

Well, this is terrifying. From Vice:

Tim Libert, a researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, has discovered that the vast majority of health sites, from the for-profit WebMD.com to the government-run CDC.gov, are loaded with tracking elements that are sending records of your health inquiries to the likes of web giants like Google, Facebook, and Pinterest, and data brokers like Experian and Acxiom.

From there, it becomes relatively easy for the companies receiving the requests, many of which are collecting other kinds of data (in cookies, say) about your browsing as well, to identify you and your illness. That URL, or URI, which very clearly contains the disease being searched for, is broadcast to Google, Twitter, and Facebook, along with your computer’s IP address and other identifying information.

It seems like every day I see a new article showcasing what little privacy we really have.

google, health, technology

Ripping DVDs and Blu-rays

Jason Snell at Six Colors wrote up a great article on how he rips DVDs and Blu-rays.

This article came at the perfect time as I've been contemplating getting an external Blu-ray drive for my Mac Mini. Currently, I've been ripping some DVDs (using Handbrake) as I've been converting my gigantic collection to files that I can play back on my TV via Plex and my Roku. It takes about 20-30 minutes to rip a DVD on my Mini and the fans blow like crazy almost the entire time. That has been one of my biggest concerns with getting a Blu-ray drive. My concerns seem to be valid after reading this from Snell's article:

Video files take a long time to encode. Even on my 5K iMac, this three-hour HD baseball game will take more than two hours to encode. Be patient, or let your encodes run overnight.

Now, I'm not ripping three-hour baseball games, but I do have some movies that go on three hours, or even longer. If my fans blow like crazy for 10-15 of the 30 minutes of a DVD rip, I can't imagine what will happen if I try to rip a Blu-ray and encode the video for a couple of hours [footnote]Or longer as Snell was doing it on his new, suped up Retina iMac and I have a 2012 Mac Mini[/footnote]. Should I even bother or should I just re-purchase (or otherwise acquire) those movies in a stream-able format? I'll have to browse around and see if there are Mini owners that are ripping Blu-rays without long term negative consequences to their Minis.

apple, blu-ray, dvds, handbrake, mac-mini, technology

The '90s Tech Industry is Back

The Verge has an interesting article, Facebook is the new AOL, that discusses how the tech industry of the 1990s is back.

The 90s were a decade of excess and mistakes and excessive mistakes. The rollicking good times of the 90s ended with the dot-com collapse of the early 2000s, the memories of which continue to shape the industry today.

So it's worth noting that the broad outlines of tech in 2015 look surprisingly like the late 90s. The major players are set up the same, the fights are the same, and the mistakes will almost certainly be the same...

2015 will be defined by the Revenge of 90s Internet: media and tech giants flirting with each other, dominant players throwing their weight around, and portals, portals everywhere.

The article does a good job of comparing the major tech giants today with the ones of yesteryear. Facebook as AOL. Apple as Sony, Qualcomm as Intel and Google as Microsoft. The two that really hit the nail on the head for me are Apple as Sony and Google as Microsoft. That being said, some of these comparisons may just be skin deep. I think companies like Apple and Facebook are in much better positions than there predecessors. Perhaps that's the point of the article. The companies of the '90s could do no wrong and no one saw the downfall that would be not far off.

aol, apple, facebook, google, intel, microsoft, qualcomm, sony, technology

Stopping Data at the Border

Another article in the never-ending war against net neutrality and the fight against privacy.

The ITC recently gave itself the power to rule on data as it crosses US borders, as a result of a complex 3D printing case. If the ruling holds, it could have huge implications for the way data moves across the global web, and give the MPAA the site-blocking powers it’s been grasping at for years...

If you shipped in a boatload of Expendables DVDs, the ITC would have no problem stopping it at the border — so why not an ISO file? The technical mechanisms for blocking that file in transit would end up looking a lot like site-blocking, and the memo goes on to explain why targeting consumer-facing ISPs would be their best strategy in the wake of a favorable ruling by the Federal Circuit. It's still unclear whether copyright would fall under the same rules (the current ruling may only apply to patents), but if it does, it would be Hollywood's best legal channel for blocking sites in transit, supporting the same ISP-based blocking regime that was proposed by SOPA.

Giving the MPAA power to block sites because of the content on the sites is a slippery slope, one that should make everyone uncomfortable.

internet, mpaa, net-neutrality, piracy, technology

Dropzone 3

dropzoneOne of my favorite Mac apps over the years has been Dropzone. It's a simple app that sits in your menu bar and allows you to perform a variety of actions with ease. It was recently updated to version 3 which brought a lot of new features.

Some of the coolest new features include more actions, the organize your actions how you see fit, and Drop Bar. Drop Bar allows you to drop files to the Drop Bar and then drag them to use in other apps/folders. It is a great way to move files around the Finder without having multiple Finder windows or tabs open, something that comes in very handy if you're using a Mac with little screen real estate.

I was sold right away on the new version of the app. That being said, I was a bit disappointed when I installed it and saw my most commonly used actions, Install App, was no longer available. What Install App did was allow you to drag a zip or DMG file to Dropzone and it would install mount the DMG, move the app to Applications, unmount the DMG and delete the zip or DMG file. It tools a multi step process and shrunk it down to one step. So, why was this action missing? Sandboxing. Apple's sandboxing will not allow you to run scripts like the Install App, for security reasons.

This is where Aptonic, the makers of Dropzone, really come through. They realize that these other scripts are huge parts of a user's workflow and have allowed you to download the non-sanboxed version (meaning, a non App Store version of the app) and install these scripts. All you need to do is purchase the App Store version (or simply buy the version from their store) and run it once. You can then open the non-sanboxed version and it automatically imports your settings from the App Store version and recognizes that you have purchased the app. It was a seamless transition away from the App Store version and now I have my Install App action back.

I can't recommend this app highly enough. If you're looking for an app that will make your life easier, I strongly suggest you try it out.

app-store, apple, apps, dropzone, mac, mac-apps, technology

A New Mac

I'm beginning to look for a replacement for my 4 year old iMac. The current specs of my iMac suit me fine, 8 GB of RAM, 256MB video card (I don't game), Intel Core 2 Duo processor. I haven't really run into any issues with the tasks I need to perform... Until recently.

I have been experiencing quite a few issues with kernel panics that seem to be caused by the video card (according to the console and crash reports). They will either freeze the computer or restart it. They happen at random times. Sometimes the screen will freeze on the screensaver (with very few apps running). Other times they happen just browsing the web (in Safari).

Back in June I was had some issues with the video card and luckily the iMac was still under Apple Care and they replaced the video card and the logic board. I thought that would solve all my problems, and for a while it did. Now I experience panics and freezes on a daily basis. I even did a fresh install of Mountain Lion, just to be sure it wasn't due to something I installed and also because I haven't done a fresh install since I got the machine. I may take the machine to the Apple Store for diagnosis, but I doubt they will find anything (they didn't "find" anything the last time either, but wound up replacing the two components that were likely causing the issue). The Apple Hardware Test did not find anything wrong, but obviously, something is. The problem is, if I do need to replace the parts, the cost will be close to half the cost of buying a new machine with no guarantee that it will fix the issue. Then I will be out of that money and back where I started.

So that's where my dilemma comes. Do I buy a new Mac (and no, buying a PC is not an option. I adore OSX and love the apps I use on it and do not want Windows 8) and if so, what model?

I currently use my iMac for web browsing, Photoshop work, web development and, most importantly, as my media server. I have Plex Media Server running and stream all my media to my Roku. I would really like a Retina MacBook Pro, but I would not want that running at all times in order to stream media to my Roku (and what's the purpose of a MacBook if it has to stay on my desk connected to several external hard drives?). So, in all honesty, I have 3 options, a Mac Mini, an iMac or a Mac Pro.

The Mac Pro has not been update in forever and is really expensive. Not to mention, it is overkill for my needs. I'm not processing raw image files or doing a ton of video encoding. I don't need server-grade (and outdated) Xeon processors. I don't want to go with another iMac because of Apple's move toward soldering the RAM directly to the logic board. I also don't want to be stuck where I am now with my current iMac. That being said, any Mac I choose will face the same issues that all new Macs have with user-swappable parts (besides the Mac Pro, which I've pretty much ruled out at this point).

So that leaves the Mac Mini. I can upgrade the RAM on it, but that's it. Everything else has to be done by Apple or an Apple certified repair shop. Also, the Mac Mini has integrated graphics and not a dedicated video card. I don't do much (any) gaming, but it does worry me that I may need that extra power. I'm not sure how well the transcoding that Plex does or graphic intensive applications (Photoshop) will work on it. I imagine they will run fine, but I really need more information on that.

The Mac Mini is definitely the cheapest alternative. Building one online (without upgrading the RAM through Apple) will run about $1500. Not bad, but how will the machine handle in 3 or 4 years? Will I need a better machine by then (I like to keep my machines running as long as possible, in fact, I'm typing this on a 5 year old white MacBook that is also on its last leg, but with the iPad, I rarely use it)? Will it start to die on me like my iMac is? If I get the Mac Mini I will upgrade the RAM to 16GB, probably from Crucial, but the integrated graphics gives me some pause.

I feel that Apple's tight control over their products and slow update cycles is hindering me here. I really wish they had a computer for people like me that were more tech-geek friendly. An iMac that users could open and swap parts would be ideal, but that is not Apple's style, unfortunately. A cheaper Mac Pro would work too, if it were cheaper and not reliant on server-grade hardware. I don't think I can wait to whatever mystery product Tim Cook hinted at for Mac Pro users in 2013, especially since I can't go on using the iMac with it freezing every day.

So what do I do? I'm not sure.

apple, imac, mac-mini, mac-pro, macbook-pro, plex, technology

The Never Ending Saga of iTunes Launching Itself

Two years ago I reported how iTunes would launch itself on my iMac. After tons of research trying to find the cause, I think I found it.

To recap what was happening, iTunes would launch by itself and (about half the time) start playing music. I thought there was an issue with the Logitech mouse I was using at the time (because any time I would touch the wireless dongle on the back USB port, iTunes would launch), but that didn't seem to be the case because plugging in the normal Mighty Mouse did not solve the issue.

I continued to troubleshoot and do my normal testing and found that touching any of the plugged in devices to any of the USB ports could trigger it. If I shut down the computer and changes which ports the different devices plugged into, the problem would go away temporarily. Eventually, iTunes would launch by itself again. One of the most ominious times iTunes launched by itself was one Halloween while I was not at home. I came home to find Slither, a song about vampires by KC rapper Tech N9ne playing. Weird, huh?

For the past 6-9 months the problem went away so I assumed an Apple update fixed the issue at some point. Then, I installed Mountain Lion and after a few weeks the problem presented itself again. This time, I noticed that the problem only reoccured when I was troubleshooting another issue in which I was constantly moving my Mac to access the USB ports in the back. I started searching again. That's when I found this thread on a Mac forum.

This problem is related to the microswitch located at the very bottom inside the speaker jack. Whenever you get this problem, make sure your speaker cable is fully inserted into the speaker jack. Even the slightest depress on the microswitch can create interference, causing itunes to start and random songs to start playing.

This made sense when I thought back on all the times the problem arose. Every time I would move my Mac to access the USB ports, I would move it in a way in which the speaker plug could have come lose from the jack, even if just a little bit. The tug on the speaker cord as I moved my jack made sense because the cable was taught enough to create the disconnect. After placing my Mac back where it should be and making sure the plug was in firm, I haven't had the issue reappear. It looks like I have finally found the cause. Hopefully the countless other users experiencing this issue can use this information to help them rid themselves of this annoying problem.

apple, imac, itunes, technology

Unified Folders in Thunderbird

When I decided to leave Google Apps for Rackspace Email for a couple of my domains, I switched from a webmail user to an IMAP user. I set up the new email accounts in Outlook and within hours decided to remove them. Because Outlook pretty much sucks I decided to use Thunderbird as my IMAP client at work. There was one thing that wasn't working correctly, one of the things I liked most about Thunderbird, unified folders.

I love that you can have a unified inbox but for some reason my copy of Thunderbird was only showing me the contents of one inbox. After a quick Google search I was able to find the solution. If you are experiencing the same issue, simply follow these instructions.

**1.** Launch Thunderbird and right click on your unified inbox folder and click properties.

**2**. Click on Choose for which folders Thunderbird should search for the unified inbox. 

**3.** Select which IMAP folders should be included in the unified folder. In this case, I'm going to choose all Inbox folders.


4. Click OK to save the choices, then OK to exit out of the folder properties. Your unified inbox should now be working (you may need to restart Thunderbird to see the changes).

Of course, this can be done with any folder that you want to make unified (unified sent folders or draft folders, for example), you would just need to select the IMAP folders you want to include the same way as we did the Inboxes.

email, imap, technology, thunderbird, unified-inboxes

Leaving Google Apps

I love Gmail. I think it is the best webmail interface out of any of the major providers. This is why, along with great spam protection, I decided to set Google Apps for domains up on some of my domains. After several years using Google Apps with some of my domains, I think it's time to call it quits.

Google Apps has grown by leaps and bounds and they really consider themselves an alternative for Microsoft's offerings. I think they may be growing faster than they can handle though. I've been having several issues on multiple Apps accounts and because it's Google, there is no help to be found. Sure you can search their help center but that just gives you a bunch of people complaining about the same issues. You have no way of knowing if and when Google is going to fix an issue. Some of the major issues that have literally made some accounts unusable are:

  • Permanent redirects when logging in. On one account I put in user credentials and the browser redirects over and over until the browser realizes it will never end and stops trying. This issue goes back a couple months with no one finding a solution that works. This makes logging into the control panel or the mailbox completely impossible. The only way to get email on this account is via IMAP.
  • Unable to edit groups. On a domain where I am actually able to log in I can't edit groups. I click on the group name and I'm redirected to a Google 404 page. Again, I found people having this issue dating back to the beginning of summer. No fix.
  • Unable to delete groups. Another group issue comes when I go to delete a group. I select the group and click delete. The page refreshes and it tells me group is deleted. But it isn't. It is still listed in my account.

So, I think with these errors it is time to leave Google. I need to go someplace where things work reliably and when/if they don't I can actually contact a support person for an answer and a fix. You may be asking why I don't use the email service that comes with my hosting. Well, it's shared hosting and anyone on a shared hosting account knows that they have issues with major ISPs blocking shared hosting IPs, plus spam checking is subpar, so I need to find an alternative provider.

Today I started a 14 day trial of Rackspace Email on one of my domains. Their webmail looks good, but I probably won't use it that much. Since Google enabled IMAP all my domain email has been accessed via IMAP most of the time so it's likely that will be the same at Rackspace. Some things they also have which makes the move easier are excellent spam and virus protection as well as superior support. We shall see how it works out.

Edit: Despite being told in the comments that I needed to upgrade to premium for these issues to be looked at, they are now miraculously fixed. One of the many Google employees that have visited the site today must have had a hand in it because I highly doubt that these issues just happened to fix themselves today. To the Google employee that helped me out, a sincere thank you.

Edit #2: Setting up a Google Apps account for a friend and I decided to download and install Opera. It had never been used to log into any Google accounts or services. It had completely empty cache and cookies. I set up the account then tried to log in and got the permanent redirect. This was on a brand new instance of Google apps. Something is wrong with their system and no one seems to know how to fix it and Google doesn't care.

email, email-hosting, google, google-apps, rackspace, rackspace-email, support, technology

Set a Sleep Timer for Pandora on Your iPhone or iPod Touch

One of the things I've often wanted in some of my music apps is the ability to put them to sleep using the built in sleep timer. I've been waiting for Apple to release a public API to harness the timer in the Clock app. It appears they have, just not many developers know about it or use it. One of the best music apps, Pandora, does. From their FAQ:

How do I put Pandora to sleep after a certain interval of time?

To do this, exit Pandora and enter the native iPhone "Clock" app. Touch the "Timer" option in the lower left corner. Set the amount of time you want Pandora to play, then set the "When Timer Ends" option to "Sleep iPod" and touch the green "Start" button. Choose the desired Pandora station and leave it playing. Pandora will shut off when the specified interval is up.

I tested some other apps to see if they harnessed this API as well and it appears they don't. Last.fm will shut off when the timer is done but then it will start right back up. Same thing with the Sirius XM app. The AOL Radio app hasn't been updated in forever so I didn't even try that one (which is a shame, it is a good app). I'm not sure why more developers aren't using this. Do they even know about it? It should be noted that I tried searching for the API in the docs and could not find it but this was the first time I've ever even looked at the docs so I wasn't sure what I was looking for.

apple, apps, ios, iphone, last-fm, multitasking, pandora, sleep-timer, technology, xm-radio

iTunes Launches Itself

Over the past year or so I've had issues where iTunes would launch (and even play) by itself. I could never figure out exactly what was causing it nor could I find any type of solution. I did find that whenever I would touch the receiver for my wireless Logitech mouse iTunes would launch. That made me believe that the issue was with the Logitech mouse interfering with the Mac. That especially seemed like the case when I removed the Logitech and replaced it with the Magic Mouse and didn't experience the issue again... until recently.

iTunes started launching by itself all over again over the past couple weeks. Knowing that it had something to do with the USB ports I found a quick fix to the issue. If I would shut down the Mac and unplug all the USB devices and plug them into different ports everything would work fine. Then today I saw this article. It seems that there is an update coming out that might fix the issue. The article talks about one known issue involving USB devices not operating properly after waking from sleep on machines with VMware's virtualization products installed. This might be the very fix I will need. I have VMware Fusion installed to run Windows. I know the problem happened on Halloween last year (which was creepy, especially since the song playing when I got home that night was a song about vampires) and I didn't buy VM Ware until November 11th so it still might not be the cause, but I do remember downloading a trial of VM Ware beforehand so that still might be the root cause. Let's hope it is and it gets fixed.

apple, imac, technology