Replacing the iPod Video Battery

First of all, if you are still using one of these things and are not using Rockbox, look into it.  It turns your iPod from an annoying exercise of futility to an external hard drive that happens to play media like your MP3.

Second, this is the second time I did this.  It works.  But, I have to give you the official Internet Warranty:

Ramblingmoose.com does not warrant any missteps or broken hardware.  You do this procedure at your own risk.  If you are unsure of your own capability of this repair, don't do it.  It really is a simple repair but it is possible to do wrong.

Step 1:  Get the battery from online.  (Package is unopened in the left of the picture above)  This is the second time I did this with a 650mAh battery and it is now a 18 year old device.

Step 2: Tools needed are a Spudger.  Basically it's a guitar pick that will allow you to pull the back off your iPod.  These are scattered all over the picture above.

Step 3: Use the Spudger to pry the back off the iPod.  The long side where the headphone jack is connected is where I was able to break the seal and get the back off.  I used light pressure and twisted the Spudger back and forth until the steel back comes loose. 

However... the first time I did this years ago, I used the Spudger on the bottom as there is a plastic support piece that will hold the back to the iPod.  Be Flexible as to where you are working on the iPod.

Step 4: Warning: there are fragile wires and ribbon cables connecting the battery and the headphone jack and both are glued to back of the iPod.

Step 5: At the bottom of the ipod, and on the opposite corner of the earplug connector is the battery connector.  This is at the lower left of the picture.  The wire is routed to the board via a connector that has a lock on it.  The lock needs to be released toward the bottom of the unit.  It can be clicked down with the Spudger.  Once released, you can gently flick the wire out of the connector.

Step 6: The battery itself can be removed at this point.   It is held in place with some double sided tape.  Lift it out of place. 

Step 7: Remove the cover on the double sided tape from bottom of the new battery, if tape exists.  Set the battery in place so that the wire is free. Attach the wire into the connector and flip the lock in place to hold the wire in place. The wires have metal colored connectors on one side.  Those are to be inserted in to the connector and locked in place with those connectors pointing toward the hard drive.

Step 8: Place the steel back in place and close up your iPod.  You are done.  Charge the battery before use, it took me 3 hours to get a full charge.  Rockbox reports that I have 12 hours of play time on the iPod after a charge.

This is why I will never actually BUY a new Apple product.

Strap yourselves in, it's going to be a rant.

I am fortunate in that I have someone who occasionally gives me fairly current, but not new, iPhones.   They are still quite usable but not brand spanking new.

Mind you, had they been Androids, I would have rooted them and neutered the "google spying" on me with a hosts file but that's besides the point. 

I prefer to be in control of my own technology devices and not have to trust in a walled garden whether it be iOS or Android or Mac or god forbid, Windows.

A Walled Garden from any manufacturer does not benefit you, the end user, eventually.  It starts as a curated set of experiences that are for "your best experience" and eventually get corrupted into a spyware or commercial nightmare, or both (See Windows).

This is being written on a Debian Linux based computer that just purrs and does what I want. 

My current "daily driver" is an iPhone 12.  The problem is that the battery has faded to 81% health.  Whatever the blazes that is supposed to mean.  The end result is now that I wake up and the phone that was at 100% battery at 8:30 at night before the dog walk and sleep, is at 56% at 5:15 AM. 

Who are you talking to while I am asleep?  I don't know, I don't know why you are using battery other than to poll my sport watch.

At 56% at 5:15 in the morning, when I have to immediately top off the battery to be able to take Rack the McNab SuperDog (TM) for a first walk of the day gets very complex because I need this blasted phone to count my steps.

Levels of crap happen around me, usually sports related.

Bottom line is that the phone is "old" and failing to hold a charge.

So I went into the drawer that holds my "Inventory" of new-to-me phones and stumbled across the last phone that I moved off of before.  It was actually at a newer battery strength than the one that I am trying to move off of but I have others that are better.  Newer, with a stronger battery.

That means that my old-old phone is a candidate for "Erase and Remove" any trace of my self from it.

Here is where Apple truly earned my anger.

I told the phone that I did not want it. 
It immediately began a backup.
I hit "Skip backup".
It refused and demanded me to enter in a password for iCloud.
"Why?!?!?"
I typed in that password that I have on a spreadsheet and it rejected it.
FOUR TIMES.

Mind you, any other NORMAL operating system would have a little eye that would show you what you typed in clear characters but this being Apple, no.

"Hey Apple, you are Stoopid!" you may have heard me yell, or "similar".  Instead of it immediately giving me some sort of notification that it "got" what I was trying to do with it, the software simply sat there as if it were continuing on with its task.  No feedback, no way to verify what was happening.  Why would I need feedback?

After the fourth time, I used a normal laptop, this one, and a normal browser, Firefox, and logged in to iCloud with my password of record from the spreadsheet I keep.

So here I am an hour into this process.
iCloud logs me in and demands that I consider upgrading the account. 

No.  I am free, it gives me a whopping 5GB of storage.  Never mind that the phone has 256GB of storage on it that I can't access except by jumping through hoops, it wants me to spend more.  NO!. 

Nonsensical way of doing business, nag your customer until they go to the competition. 

Seeing that I have a rooted android phone on the desk, I am considering it.

The entire time that I am proving to this stupidly small, underpowered, and fragile device that I am using the correct password but it refuses to accept it, I'm feeling myself get more and more angry.

I simply wanted to get off the phone.  I did not care what was on it.  I did not want to save anything from it. 

It would not allow me to do it gracefully so what did I do?

With an evil grin I did what many technology users would love to do.

Still wanna know?

I took it to my porch.
I put it on the porch where it was concrete.
I went back into the house in a fit of pique and...
I got the sledge hammer.

It felt great to pound the damn thing.
In fact it felt so good to do that, I did it a second time.

Why on the porch?  Because I was able to get the garden hose and saturate the phone.  It was now bent on a jaunty angle, and I saw that it was starting to smoke.

Good.

I hosed the thing down and it made many sad Apple noises as it released the magic smoke.

In case you think I should have sent it off to be destroyed, securely, I will.  There is an electronics recycling event that I will take the accursed device to in the future along with some other old iPhones so old that they were orphaned by the accursed Apple.  Iphone 5 was the oldest, the newest being an 8 that is going to go to a new home in another state.

So if you have a Mac Book Pro?  I can fix it for you by installing Debian Linux on it.  In the case of the iPhones?  I hate them myself, find yourself an e-recycler and go for it.

As for Apple?  You will never see a penny from me, your practices seem to be designed for me to need blood pressure medications, and your websites are crap.

Add a button to enter passwords in the clear.  If I click on it, it's because I am feeling safe.

As Red Forman says in That 70s Show... Dumbass.
As Red Forman says in That 90s Show... Dumbass.

Maybe putting Sports Tape over the Check Engine Light will work but Apple Broke My ODB II

Like all Blog postings, this is my opinion.  Take it at its face value.  I may be full of garbage and misinformation, but I don't think so.  I am certainly glossing over the details as I am just too annoyed to dig too deeply.  Your Standard Internet Warranty Applies.  Your mileage may vary. 

---

So at one point Apple made the decision to use a newer protocol.

This is not a new story, they keep doing that and they get their hands slapped by the Europeans.  It creates E-Waste and forces people to bend to their will by getting a new i-Thing.

Remember when all i-Things had that wide connector?  Go to any thrift store and you will be able to find, most likely, all sorts of iPod Docks and electronics that sold for upwards of hundreds of dollars when new for under $10

I guess my own Open Source mindset does not fit with their Proprietary mindset.

This may read like an episode of James Burke's Connections, a fine TV show in its own right, and I highly recommend it even if it is 1970s era color.

You see I have inline skates.  In fact I am under 100 miles of a career total of 24,000 miles.  My goal is at least 25,000 miles because that is the distance of the equator plus a comfortable margin.

With that sort of distance, I measure my skates in seasons and multiple thousands of miles.  If I can't get at least 3 years out of them, I consider them junk and get new from another brand.  I tend to get Rollerblade Brand skates.  I have been on their skates since the early 2000s.

No, I am not sponsored any longer but if someone wanted to get me to review skates, I am certainly capable of putting out an unbiased review.

Blatant begging aside, Skates tend to be expensive if you are using them as a recreational sport instead of pro or semi-pro as I was.  There's that whole debate between Soft and Hard Boot for distance skaters and I learned early that the reason why a Soft Boot is only $100 where a Hard Boot of any quality starts at $200 and doesn't get really good until you hit a minimum of $300, as a rule of thumb.

I will wear through a Soft Boot skate in about a season or between 1000 and 2000 miles.   Same with a Skate Liner inside of a Hard Boot but I can replace a Liner for about $100 in the secondary markets.

Since I had a credit at a skate shop the last time I wore down my liner, it made it cheaper to go with a new RB Cruiser.  My net was under $50.  YOINK!  I'm not competing against anyone or anything but "yesterday" so why not go with something a little less spendy.

I'm still breaking the thing in.  Heat Bold the Hard Boot Shell with an industrial strength hairdryer looking thing (Heat Gun) and skate.  Repeat until comfort is achieved. 

I am down to one hot spot.

Here's where James Burke's Connections come in.

New Skate has Hot Spot.  Last workout I raised a blister on the tip of the right ankle.

That means I need Sports Tape.  This is a tape that is easy to find and commonplace in many sports.  If you move your body against anything abrasive, you will eventually get a blister if there is slop.  Put the tape against you and it gives you a thick skin.

The Tape is in the back of the Drug Store as well as online.  "Sports Tape" or "Athletic Tape" is seen most normally in a Football Trainer's Room or Boxing Ring.

But for me it was a mile away at the store so I had to get in the car.

 
Someone at one point had to build the Jeep but that's a much different level of connections.

Since the last time back from the Park I noticed that it was being a typical Jeep and threw a Check Engine Light.  Many Jeepers will fix that by covering it by a bit of electrical tape, but my own New Jersey German Italian heritage demands I find out why instead of hiding it.

 
The perfect use for the ODB II adapter.  Plug it in, sync it with the phone, it gives you the reason.

No.  Apple I hate you.  You changed the spec on the current phones and it broke my ODB 2.  I have to either get a new Low Power adapter or find the older phone the software is installed on and that should sync.

See, Apple ticked me off.  That is the connection. The end result is I have to spend more money.  Bad. Apple is breaking compatibility.

Apple's walled garden is why I love Linux.  Oh sure, Mac OS is shiny and based on a bastardized version of BSD which is a cousin of Linux, but it is just that weird OS that promises to be more secure but ends up being weird and while promising that it is more secure, the Europeans have found that the derivative that became iOS in your shiny little iPhone is phoning home information whether or not you tell it not to.

GAH! I hate Apple Products.  I use them because I get them as cast-offs.

Don't even get me started about how when you open one up to replace the battery it mucks up the GPS so that you now go from a 1% or less error over a 2 hour workout to a 10% error over 15 miles.

Yeah, no thanks.  Even if I can go to a Mall (remember those?) and have a "Professional" at the "Apple Store" replace the battery for an ever increasing fee.

Please don't miss my typed in sneer, it's there.

When I got into my car here at the house, I looked it up.  If you are getting your OBD II adapter, they now specifically say for Android vs Android and IOS.  As the picture above says, make sure that it is at least compatible with Bluetooth 4.0 or newer.

There's your connection.  Apple Broke it.

Sure, the adapter is only $12 but now, instead of having the reason why the Check Engine Light glowing amber on my dash, I have to wait until I get a new ODB reader.

Bite Me Apple, you're Rotten.

End of /Rant.

A New iPhone Means I Still Dislike Apple

I have a very strong dislike of Apple products and their walled garden full of weeds.

So why am I using an iPhone, along with its stupid rules of capitalization? Since the hardware, gorgeous though it may be, has the life of a Mayfly, I won't be for long and I am extremely careful with technology.

Well it's a long story.  I was given one many versions back and I have to say that I will not buy one on my own.  I truly dislike how their hardware begrudgingly works with the rest of the world.

I also am begrudgingly using a smartphone at all.  I have very little use for them and the intense spying that goes on in almost all of the software makes me question why anyone uses them.  I am listening to a stream of music that keeps getting interrupted because their software can't get back to their ad server.  Tough.

There are many stories of people having a conversation with their phones in their pockets at a party and the next day they get ads for the topic of conversation.

Mind you, I never experience that because I block every single ad I can manage to in my own personal life.  Web pages run better, load faster, and are much less "creepy" when you figure out how to block ads.  

I'm not against people getting paid for what they put out there, but there is way too much risk of having "bad things" happen to you since ads are now a vector for all sorts of nastiness happening.  Viruses, spyware, and Trojans have all been found pushed in an ad and since I'm not buying, I'm not having them.

Since people have been lulled into complacency with Apple's mantra of "Join us in our walled garden and we will protect you", they also block you from maintaining your own phone.

What I mean by this is that that iThing in your pocket is a computer.  Apple was fond of saying it's a supercomputer which may or may not be fair.  But when they created it, they did some   things that change how they work.  They now do not work well at all as a computer on the network.  You certainly can buy an app that will allow you to read what you have on your network, I have written about that in the past.  But "normal" tools to do "normal" things are something that they seem to want you to pay for and do not work "out of the box".

For example, the hosts file does not exist in a normal form on the phone.  Hosts is simply a list of urls, addresses, that are being redirected to a different place.  There are reasons to stop you from doing that such as an app going in and writing its own information at the top of the file thereby directing all traffic to where the app intends.  This happens for various reasons, almost none are in your benefit.

So I run software to stop such nefarious activities.

Next when you get a new phone, you have to go out and relearn how to use it.  The processor is newer/faster/better, the camera is newer/faster/better, just go and enjoy.

I went out and took a bunch of pictures.  They came back in a newer format called HEIC.  Not old fashioned JPG or PNG which is what all my current tools are.  So I got torpedoed and had to find a tool to convert them to the older format so I could work for them today.

Am I being a Luddite and staying with the old formats?  Probably not permanently.  I have my way of doing things, and Apple is getting in the way of it.  Torpedoed me.  It won't matter much, if this does not go viral it won't get read by more than a room full of people.

One of the first things I learned in Software Development is never "force" a change without allowing the old workflows to exist.

They allowed them, but they made you try their way first.  To go back to the old and comfortable you have to opt out of their change.  

For now, I've opted out.  Back to making JPGs on the phone.

No home button on the phone because the dead guy in the black turtleneck would appreciate the minimalism.  You have gestures, use those. I have a gesture right here, extending middle finger and ...

No headphone jack because of the dead guy.  But it's better he would say, and so would Apple's management.

No.

It.

Is.

Not.

Bluetooth audio is not as clean as a cheap wired headphone unless you buy their expensive high end headphones and I would wager that they still are not at the level of the $5 plug in headphones that you used to be able to get back to the days of the Sony Walkman.

Oh and you can buy a leash so that the multiple-hundred-dollar high end ear buds don't get lost and you end up with one with you and another one that had fallen under the Blarney Stone when you bent over to kiss the thing on your trip to Ireland.  Now you have the "wire" without the benefit of the clean connection and with added expense too!

Can you tell I'm not a fan?  I have lost an earbud or two during a workout and found them all, but as active as I am, having to stop my workout and hunt will break my work flow.

 

Have I missed the point?  No, technology exists to serve you and I, not the other way around.  When I go to put the boots on to do the next workout, the boots will get me to do my 27 miles, and if the headphones don't work or I am served ads on that phone, I am reassured that the phone will work under the water hazard that I skate past because I flung it in there.

But hey the headphones can still get to the phone in the pond because it's water resistant and UN-repairable because that's the way that the minimalists want it.  

And I can skate around that pond because someone decided that an old school asphalt trail goes around it and my cobbled together Rollerblade boot mated really nicely to some Solomon 5x80mm frames for some interesting cruising skates.  None of those specific things were made during the same decade let alone during this one.

Interoperability?  Interconnectivity?  Open Standards?  

Wow, what a concept!

The phone is completely optional.   End Rant.

Debian Linux and iOS - Taming the iPhone with Documents By Reddle to use YOUR data on YOUR iDevice

Let me get this out in the open, unlike any iPhone or unrooted Android...

I hate Apple's iOS.

They took a product called BSD, cut it down to suit, then locked it down so hard that if you truly know what you want to get done, you are hamstrung.

I used an "Ancient" Samsung Galaxy S4 from 2013 from 2014 until November 23, 2020.  Rest in pieces old friend.  When I fell off my skates after 22,217 miles I finally broke my first bone.  I also broke my S4.  It boots, but won't "Hold The Tower" and disconnects due to sim error.  I may revisit this later, but for now I have bigger problems.

Over the years I have been given a bunch of "extra" iPhones as every year, Apple forces their sheep to Buy! New! Shiny! And! Not! Use! Old! Crap!

Yeah, right.  A year ago that Old! Crap! was New! Shiny!  Isn't planned obsolescence wonderful?

Did I say I use Linux?  Almost Always.   I have someone in the house who insists that I do my taxes on Turbo Tax, and that's the only time I ever boot a dusty Windows 8.1 computer.

I had to set up my latest iPhone, an iPhone 7 Plus.  Rather pretty hardware, I will say, but all that experience configuring the phone gave me some stiff requirements.

I author Video,

I author Audio,

I author Photography.

You have seen all of these if you follow my blog.

I require the phone to be open as another computer share on my network, and fully accessible to my user and others in the house.

Apple has locked me out of all of that.  The LineageOS I used on the S4 allowed that and the ability to block any ads with ad blockers in Firefox plus a hosts file that I could edit at will. 

While iPhone won't let me block the ads with a hosts file, I did find a work around.

I needed a new work around because I had this nonsense working on the iPhone before but they broke compatibility with my software.  There's an active contempt in Apple's hive mind for anything not aligned with their view of how anything iOS is "supposed" to be used.

Step 1.
Solution: For ad blocking, install and use "DNSCloak".

It pushes all your traffic through a piece of software called a VPN that is configurable.  I can even import my hosts file from the computer I am using right now to write to you.  This is what I did and I almost never see an ad.  In fact, it is quite jarring when I do.

I did select "doh.tlarap.org" and I changed that easily plus enhance it with my own rules.

Step 2.

I require the ability to read from and write media to my network computers at will.  Apple says you can't do that because the Dead Black Turtlenecked God decreed utter simplicity.

(Ooh! Was that Thunder?)

What a crock.  Every app now needs a back button.  Some depend on your home button if it exists.  Others have a "Back" link at random places in their apps.  Lax standardization.  Really just freakin' give me a break!

If I ever get the chance, I will find his grave and poop on it.  My Phone, My Rules.  If there are any limitations I will remove them.  Linux says everything is a file.  I expect the same full access and I demand compliance.

Solution:  Install and use "Documents by Readdle". 

What Documents gives you is a "file manager" to access your files (Pictures, Videos, Music, PDF, whatever).  You tell it to find the data. It imports it into iTunes.  You use your data however you want, it won't judge.

It is a trivial program to use.  Assuming you have your data somewhere it can reach, it's a matter of setting up the "Connections" to your data.  That can be on a local Windows SMB share, on iCloud, Dropbox, Google Drive, Box, One Drive, SharePoint, or Yandex Disk.  

It makes connection, shows you what you have there, and allows you to import it or do whatever you want.   Play and Delete I am particularly fond of.

It saves me a heck of a lot of time doing surfs to Spotify/Soundcloud/etc and playing the music I want to play from the web.  I really don't want to launch Firefox to surf radio.garden to play some obscure to the US station in Port of Spain, Trinidad or Ensenada, Mexico to get some music to jam to when I get back on my inline skates.   Having my own content locally is so much easier, and I can park things anywhere I have access to.

I Hate Apple Or Reclaiming Local Access to Pictures in iOS 14 Or How Linux People Think Too Much To Live In A Walled Garden.

If you are looking for a bit of help to set things back to the way that the phone was on pre iOS 14.0 try these things.

In Settings:

Camera - Change  Formats to "Most Compatible"

Apple ID - iCloud, Photos should be Off to leave the photos on the device.  

iCloud Drive - I turned this off to retain control of my data.

General - Airdrop should be contacts only so you don't get "weird stuff sent to you on a bus".

Photos - Turn off iCloud Photos, My Photo Stream, and Shared Albums.

This allowed me to have full access to the photos locally when I plug the phone into the cable to the laptop.

The Long Story:

Maybe this all started before the phones.  Maybe I should be blaming it on T-Mobile, I am not completely sure.

I've had T-Mo since before I moved to Fort Lauderdale Area, say back to 2003 when I got my first cell phone when I was on vacation on a Florida area code, and went back to Philadelphia.

I have been quite fortunate that a very good friend of mine gave me a couple of his old Android phones over the years.  One "stuck".  It's an 8 year old Samsung Galaxy S4 and I have been able to root it gaining full control, then install an "alternate" version of Android called LineageOS when true to form, Samsung stopped supporting the thing after two years.  That particular eight year old phone has a fresh 8 day old operating system that is still supported.

If it isn't rooted, you don't fully own it.  It is like having a car that you can only drive on Northbound roads. 

T-Mobile will be switching to a new network connection protocol called VoLTE.  Voice Over LTE.  5G to the rest of us.

But it is uncertain whether that beloved S4 phone will still be supported.

I am waiting for Q1 2021 to see which of these phones will actually work on the network.  I vastly prefer Android since I know more than a little bit about the Linux operating system that they are based on.

A Smart Phone Is A Computer That Makes Calls.  If I can't use it as a computer, its use is highly limited to me.

That brings me to Apple and my complete disdain for the company's design practices. 

You see over the years, I've been given iPhones.

Currently, working are an iPhone 6, and 7.  I was told that I should have them because the 6 "Is too old for me" and the 7 "has the better camera and you need it for your blog and for skating".

Generous, but still, iOS does not like me.  They have a nasty habit of hiding things from me.  Microsoft is doing the same thing these days with Windows 10.

You see the 7 came without any way to use a NORMAL pair of headphones.  You know, that little plug thing that we have all been using since the 1980s?  Those dozens of headphones that you collected over the years?  Yeah they are worthless on an iPhone 7.  Go get an adapter.

Some clueless designer decided that thin and gorgeous is better than useful and compatible.  I guess that is a pretty good view of how Apple designs things. Consider that using an iPhone without a case is dangerous, and now I have a case on that phone that weighs about a half pound and definitely is not thin and gorgeous.   242 grams because you actually want an extra battery to be able to use it without thinking about Range Anxiety.

Mind you if I am trying to take pictures or video while I am about town the camera works, and the phone has 128GB of space on it.

But I still can't listen to the headphone of choice while I am skating because it does not fit.

The other reason why I was given the 7 was so that I could do Facetime with my sister on her birthday.

I am sure you folks have done many more video calls than I have, I use the phone for internet radio and photos for this blog... when I have the headphones that work.

After a rough night sleep last night I took a pre-dawn picture of Rack the McNab SuperDog (TM) on the floor near my foot and thought nothing of it until after a successful Facetime test call with someone here.

Anyway, I said that I had some pictures on the phone that I needed to get off the thing and copy to my laptop.  You know what?  They were not there.  My pictures were no longer on the phone.

You see the iPhone cajoled me with a red dot that said I should upgrade the phone to iOS 14.0.1 NOW.  New!  Shiny!  FasterSaferBetter!

Rule One of Project Management.  Never force a major change to a system without getting permission from the main user.

You or me.  We are the users, we own the system.  They need permission from us.  It isn't the other way around.

Except.  If it isn't rooted you don't own it.  Welcome to Apple, do as I say, not as you need.

The theory with Apple is you live in a walled garden.  My theory is that the only thing that the Walled Garden has a lot of similarities to a Prison Exercise Yard.

You see, they have disdain for the open world that I personally subscribe to.

Where they say they have "upgraded" the phone, my pictures vanished.

Where they say they have "upgraded" the camera, my pictures came up in a strange format.

It took me about an hour of hunting to find the hidden tick box that allowed me to make the pictures visible when I plugged the phone to the side of my laptop, then another hour to find another way to get the pictures back into JPEG format.

Mind you, the version of Linux I use, Debian, is known to be "conservative".  They take their time and do very measured updates.  When I do an update to my laptop, it is a novelty and on my schedule.  Things Do Not Break.  It Just Works.  I use it and enjoy it, and it does what I want, not what That Dead Guy thinks it should.  If I want to change something, I can and do.

It also means that when Apple decided to change the format of the pictures to a weird format, I had to go into the camera and change them back.  Then launch the weird format pictures into a program one by one and copy and paste them into another piece of software to put yesterdays dozen or so back into JPEG.

Why?  I Was Not Asked.  The reason seems to be storage and that there is a newer standard for DSLR use that is supposed to be more better-er for video.  Well, just throw out your old toys and make new E-Waste, you won't mind will you?

The problem is like someone went to your garage, switched the engine out on your car while you were not watching, put in a Diesel engine and left you with enough fuel to get to the filling station... without telling you.

I hope you noticed that the filler cap is now green.  You didn't?  Car won't go now will it?

I don't care if the standards have shifted, mine have not.  Not yet, later.

The moral of the story?  Let go of my ears I know what I am doing. 

Or Linux People Think Too Much To Live In A Walled Garden.

As my good friend in Atlanta says, with a shrug, "It's Just Apple and Apple Just Sucks".

Personally I think that there's a worm in that apple called a fetish for mimimalism and it needs to be excised. 

It used to be "Think Different".  Now, It seems to be "Don't Think At All".

Sorry but Momma Didn't Raise A Fool.

Firefox Security Hole Is Why You Need An Adblocker And An Update

Windows:

• When I clicked "Help" then "About Firefox" it immediately downloaded the patch.  
• Click on the "Restart Firefox To Update Button"

Linux (Debian)

Assuming you have "real" Firefox installed and the sources in place.

• Open Terminal as Root.
• Smile because you have Root.
• apt-get update
• apt-get upgrade
• Restart Firefox when you click on the button that appears.

Other Linux Distros will vary, of course.

Mac apparently does not have the problem.

What happened?  Hackers.  Simply put, a Hacker exploited a hole in Firefox so that advertisements could push some code onto your machine to take it over.

Now, this business about ad blockers.

I run one and I use it very aggressively. It is for this reason.  It is also that I truly hate being pandered to and watched.

The latest trend is to watch what you are doing via "tags".  A 1 pixel "dot" of a picture will be pushed to your browser as an anchor for them to watch what you are doing.

The best thing for you to do is to run an ad blocker.  You tell it what to block, and yes, it gets very technical because you have to take responsibility to block these things.  For the most part, an ad blocker with (free) subscriptions will block most, but never all, of these nasties.

When you run an ad blocker you will also notice that your browser runs much faster since it isn't trying to paint all those ads for all those products that you will never use.

Lets be honest, have you ever actually clicked on an ad intentionally?

Me neither.

Heck, I don't even see youtube commercials because I run an ad blocker.

The easier one to use is Ad Block Plus.  It is controversial because they allow certain advertisers to pay *them* to be allowed past the blocker.  I would recommend this for basic users because unless you want to learn how to use it, it's pretty simple.

The one I am using is called uBlock.  I'm still learning how to use it.  It removes the ads, but I haven't figured out how to make it remove the blank space the ad created.

It's up to you.  Ads and Hackers, or a better browsing experience.  I know what I chose.

Now, if you will excuse me, I have a browser to restart.

Getting Your SMS Texts Back on Android After Leaving the IPhone

This is something I usually don't do.  A Reblog.

I'm doing it so I have the info later on and will have to repeat it.  Now you know why I have so many recipes on here - so I can bake and not have to go digging through the "Recipe Box of Doom"!

The backstory is that when Kevin went to The Isle Of Man, I borrowed a shiny old or "new to me" iPhone 4s for two weeks.  The reason is that iMessage on the iPhone will do what passes for an international text for free.  Google's Hangouts works that way too.  But either way you have to have two people on the same hardware.  Either Android or iPhone - but not mixed.  Both systems are proprietary, and I believe that both will not play well with each other.

Since he had the loaner, I went off my beloved Samsung Galaxy S4 for two weeks.   I came back to the S4 because I use the phone like a computer and create content on it like pictures and videos mainly for my own entertainment and use here.   The camera on that iPhone has thankfully been improved in later versions, it was too saturated and too poor and grainy in low light situations.  The software was rubbish since HDR didn't work well at all, but this is also iOS 6 when the current phones get iOS 8.

Got all that?

Anyway, here are the steps - and if you're coming here and want the original, here is the direct link.  I have no pictures here since I followed the steps and it worked first time immediately.  The steps were beyond annoying when I got to iCloud since Apple wants you to stay on their services.  Removing the phone number from iCloud required hunting around in every nook and cranny of the site in order to delete the number from wherever you find it.

Steps:

1)  Before you leave your iPhone, turn off iMessage.  This is done by going into the Settings app, selecting Message, then flicking the slider to off on iMessage.

2)  Remove yourself from iCloud.  On the Mac, there is (or was) an iCloud app that you could do this from.  Since I am normally using Linux or Windows (in that order) I had to go to the website for iCloud.  Start on the settings link (icon) and go through every single aspect, link, and sublink on there.  If you see a phone number, delete it.  It also argued with me to disable "Find My iPhone" in order to proceed with some of this.  I did and chased my tail around until complete and I was dizzy.

I'm sorry I can't be more specific.  I had to go through all of the account details manually myself.

3)  Have all your iPhone friends delete and readd your contacts.   Good luck.  As annoying as the iCloud step was, this one may simply be impossible.  Luckily for me, I had few people iMessage me during the two weeks.  If your contact used iMessage to talk to you, they will not be able to recontact you until Apple's servers all realize that you have dropped off of iMessage - that could be as much as 45 days, however with me it was instant.

4)  Ask your readded friends to "Send Message as Text Message" on their iPhone.  Yes, seriously.  They're going to wonder if they really want you as friends at this point.  Hopefully you don't lose too many as a result.

5)  Wait 45 days before using your new non iPhone on this number.  I had to ask myself whether they were serious about this one, but apparently either I was lucky or this particular bullet is old news.  It was in my case.

6)  Text "STOP" to 48369 .  That's the Apple support guy's hint.  It worked for me immediately.

After running through all of this, my S4 is working fine.  I SMS Text everywhere, I am not using iMessage anywhere. 

I have read that some people on iPhones hate green text bubbles, and SMS is green while iMessage is blue.  All I have to say to that is grow up since there are worse things to hate.

First world problems, really!

Thanks, Apple, But I Think I'll Pass on Yosemite

I have computers on Windows, Mac OSX, and Linux.  Various levels and flavors of all of the above actually.

There's always the question as to when or whether to upgrade them.

Linux is pretty simple - when your distribution changes, give it a week or so and listen to the chatter.  If the chatter is clear, go for it.  I've never had a problem here.

Windows.  I have a Windows 7 machine that won't get upgraded because it's an old Core 2 Duo machine.  It will either die before Windows 7 does or it will get given away.  Windows 8 became Windows 8.1 as soon as it was offered to me.  Windows 8 was an abortion, Windows 8.1 is manageable.  Just add Classic Shell and it cleaned up almost all of that Modern/Metro hideousness and pushed it aside.  Classic Shell made that ugly block land go away and replaced it with all the desktop land goodness that I need to get things done.  It's still there, lurking under the hood, but I couldn't tell you the last time I had to use one of those ugly blocky programs that Microsoft mistakenly thinks I need to slice, dice, and make julienne fries.  Other than network access which the Modern/Metro interface gets in the way massively and then drops you back to a desktop app to actually get the job done to disable and enable things.

I don't.  'Nuff said about that.

Then there's the Mac.  I always liked the sleekness and the design of them.  Beautiful hardware, a well thought out interface.  When I need to use my Mac, it is almost always a pleasure.  I got the thing, installed Snow Leopard, and it purred.  When the Mavericks upgrade was offered, it was free so why not?  I noticed no real problems there, and since I am a lightweight user of my Mac it's fine.

I've heard reports that Mavericks slowed memory access from the prior version, Lion, but like I said: I'm a lightweight user so I don't notice.

They put out a new operating system, Yosemite.  Since I knew about the memory speed issue, I thought I'd wait.  Let the experts go after it.

I'm glad I did because there are some privacy issues that made me uncomfortable with things.

Everyone likes having search functions on their computers and generally don't think twice about how things are done.  What happens is that that information you are looking for is sent back to the program to check its indexes and report back to you when it finds what it thinks is the right answer.

That was all well and good back in the good old days when it was enough just to search this current computer.  Some smart people decided that they'd go out and do a search on the internet to give back more content.   It's a built in function on the desktop called Spotlight that phones home to Apple and does that search. 

Fair enough if you're actually doing an internet search.  But why do you need that search to go back to Apple if you're just looking for a file on "this" computer?  If you are searching for movie information or maps, it's going to send back your current location, as well as the current device you are on, and anything else that it thinks is pertinent such as language settings and what apps you have used.

To be fair to Apple, you can turn this off, but I have done enough support to know that unless someone turns that sort of thing off for you it won't get done. 

The flip side to that is that if you have turned it off, location services are one of those things that get rather naggy to have turned off.  Your searches get a helpful prompt asking you to turn on location services and eventually you wear down and just leave them on.

Checking my Android phone, location services is turned on there, and we know that all that sort of thing goes on there with Google.  If you want a smartphone these days, you are either going to have Apple or Google put their hand in your pocket and watch over every move you make that they believe they need to, it's part of the game.

The idea of having big brother was scary enough when I read 1984, but the reality is that we all now have that big brother in our own pocket and don't think too much about it.

Nothing to see here, keep moving on.

All this was reported in the Washington Post's technology blog a while back, and apparently Apple has been taking heat about their decisions to make these changes. 

There is a website called fix-macosx.com that promises to give you information how to take back some privacy and turn off some of Apple's data collection.

This all is a change of heart since the old days where the Mac was more privacy friendly.  Now, they're going all in and sucking down all this info while you happily go along with it.  Since Apple is notoriously tight lipped about what they do internally, I suspect that it will be a long time before we find out just exactly what they're doing with all that data.

No thanks, I'll pass.

How Do You Protect Your IPhone From Wirelurker When They Don't Know What It Does?

I'm reading the tech news.  In reality I read it about every day and far too much of it is out there.  Your mind may haze up from time to time, and that's normal.

There's a new virus out there that they're calling "Wirelurker".  The big problem is with this one is that they are still figuring out how it works and what it does.

The group that discovered the virus, Palo Alto Networks, let out a rather gloomy press release.  Basically, it said that you're probably already infected and even if you didn't get infected it will get you anyway through use of chargers or your Mac.

Huh?

Apparently it started as a rather fringe infection vector.  People who Jailbreak-ed their iPhones and connected up to a third party app store called Maiyadi, in China got it first.

Chinese third party software.  Probably not the safest out there.

What it did was to rewrite the apps that ran on the iPhone and add code to it that caused the virus to replicate and move onto the next victim.

So someone stepped out of the Walled Garden that Apple made and they got caught, end of problem, right?

Nope.

It infected their Macs, and moved on.  It also infected any other iOS devices plugged into the machines such as iPads and iPod Touch.

The recommendations are one of the broadest that I have ever seen for avoiding this virus.

This is the first time I saw a third party app store used as an illustration of a safer app store.  They recommend that if you do use third party apps, make sure it is the Cydia app store and only go to trustworthy sources.  Problem there is that you never really know since those third party app stores aren't really looking into the source code like Apple does.

They say don't even plug it into a charger that you don't know about and don't use any non approved sources.  Since the virus is so stealthy you won't know that your charger is infected until later - but basically that lets the rest of the windows world in.

There's a vulnerability with the USB devices that you have in your house.  More accurately the USB devices you will buy to replace the ones you have now.  Plugs, cables, and chargers.  It can be rigged to push a virus into whatever it is connected with.  While this particular threat hasn't been seen in the wild, yet, give it time.  Yes, it's doom and gloom and fear mongering, but give it time.

Thinking about a new charger?  Better make sure that you spend the extra money and get it from a recognized source. 

If the whole charger thing is questionable, their stated concern is that if you have an infected iPhone on your network, the virus will walk back to the next phone that is connected to the network via email servers and the like. 

Once it is in your phone, it can theoretically grab your address book and spam your contacts thereby sharing the fun.  This is one of the first "traditional" viruses to hit the iPhone platform.

The Apple Myth of No Viruses Here was built because they have the reputation of "vetting" or looking over and analyzing the software that sits on their own app stores.  If you remain in the Walled Garden, all will be well.  That is the theory and for the most part, up until now, it works.  However since the infection vector is from outside of the walled garden and you have to go outside the garden to update or charge the phone, you will have a vulnerability.

The solution will be that Macs and iOS devices will need to run a virus scanner.  Once the virus definitions are kept up to date, this will clean out the problem. 

If it sounds familiar, welcome to the Windows world. 

Once the signature to the virus is found, it will get out to the Windows based virus scanners and that should clear it up as well.

But it isn't there yet, so stay tuned.

Bottom line is that if you have an iOS device, make sure you stick with Apple's App Store and stay tuned.

iPhone6 Killer Feature? They Bend.

A lesson for you tech buyers is to wait at least a week or three before you buy.

Standing in line from midnight the night before outside of one of the few tech big box stores is all about the social aspect as well as being able to say "Look What I Got".

Boring, but I understand it.

Those people have already stood in line, got their iPhone6 in shiny metal flavors and are using it.  They probably found out about the major flaw.  The phones are so thin that they bend in normal use in a trouser pocket.

Apple has yet to make a statement on the defect, but it's clearly not Suitable For Intended Use - you know, the old English Common Law Warranty of Merchantability?

I'll leave the law to the Lawyers, but you might want to stay tuned. 

If you did buy one of those phones, make sure it is in a shirt pocket or a caddy on the belt.  

If you didn't, wait.   They will probably have to do a quick redesign on the back of the thing, most likely going to Tungsten or some other more durable metal.  Sure it won't be as light as the current Aluminium, but it also won't bend like that foil you used to wrap your baked potato last Sunday Dinner.

I learned that it wasn't the best to buy first a long time ago. This kind of risk that you take when you buy first is a major annoyance to me.

I had bought a 1986 Ford Taurus.  Beautiful car, in cream with a tan interior.  One of the first ones out of the factory.  I almost immediately had problems with the front end of it.  A front wheel drive car that pulled to the left.  After two trips back to the shop for a replacement of the rack and pinion, I traded it in on a Chevy Nova.  I didn't have that car for more than a year, and I haven't considered a Ford since.  The Nova was a great little car, but as sexy as a toaster.  Maybe it was the Sexy that was the problem.  Sexy in machinery breaks.  It's fragile.  Durable is best.  The Nova also lasted 10 years before it started to rust out in the New Jersey and Pennsylvania Winters. 

I stuck with Durable but wanted something different.  That's why I drive a Jeep Wrangler that is 12 years old.  It's my third Jeep.

So wait a bit, you don't want a lemon car like the Ford I had, and you surely don't want a bendy lemon like the iPhone 6.

So how DO you know when your phone is obsolete?

I have a friend who visits about once a year.  I have a standing request that he brings his "Daily Driver" computer with him when he comes.

He calls it a tune up.  What I generally do is go through the machine, run a virus scan, uninstall spyware, and send him on his way.  It runs much faster because I've cleaned out the junk.

He's also been using that machine for longer than even I have expected.  He's gotten newer machines, but he keeps coming back to that beast of a 17 inch "laptop" because I'm able to keep it going.

Eventually, he'll have to stop using it, and then it will have a second life as either a table leveler, something to hold a shelf down in the linen closet, or I'll put Linux on it and it will be good for another 5 years of use.

I'm leaning toward Linux, but that is because I actually do like using the environment.

Computers have a longer life than the manufacturers want you to believe because they exist to make money by selling you new.  It's Planned Obsolescence.

With a phone, it appears much more clear cut.  Especially with a smartphone, things have a shelf life.  The vendor puts out a new model, it can do more, but does it really warrant you getting a new one?

Again like with my friends beast of a laptop, to me, it appears that it is software driving the decision.

There are two schools here.  Apple and Android.  Not looking at this as a fanboy of either set up, I have a preference for Android because I can do things with it like use the phone as a multimedia computer much easier than I can with iOS.  I look at it as a use case to form a decision as to which works best for me.

Your Mileage May Vary.

With Apple, there is a clear end of life with their phones.  When you can no longer run their current operating system, it is time to consider moving on.  Apple has always done this with their computers as well.  For a while their PowerPC computers were supposed to be the best thing out there.  Then they came out with Intel based computers that made their old computers look horrible and they stopped supporting them after one more upgrade.

My iPhone is an old 3GS.  It will still make calls, but as a computer, Apple is actively pushing it away.  I have software that ran on it until I updated it, then all the sudden the older software is gone, and the newer one doesn't work because I don't have the current operating system.  One after another app is going away and eventually that will be the end of it.

Of course if you have the latest iPhone 6, it's obsolete when you drop it on the ground on the first day it's out because you just broke the screen.



Android is a different animal.

Android support varies with the company that made the phone or tablet.  Typically, an Android phone will get updates within the operating system version that it was bought with.  After that you are on your own.

My tablet, a Samsung Galaxy Tab 2, got updates until the current OS came out.  That doesn't mean that the tablet is unusable, it merely means that it will get more behind the times as I run into the same problem that my old iPhone had.  Software won't be written for it.

There is another problem with the older versions of Android.  The browser that shipped with every version of Android except the current one has a rather nasty bug in it.  The short of it is that if you have an older Android device, do not use the default browser.  Disable that browser, and install another.  I did that at the start and I use Firefox which is the suggestion that is made by most security groups.

Why is that a problem?  Because if you don't have a current device that runs the current Operating System, you aren't going to get an update and you are on your own.  That means you have just hit the wall with using that phone, it's now obsolete - if you want to be secure.

It all seems a bit alarmist, but considering how many people use their phones and tablets as their main computing devices these days, it really does pay to be aware of what that device is capable of doing.  It is a computer and they do need to be kept up to date.  But when you can't do that any more, you have to be aware what not being up to date can mean.

Weird Browser Stats

There are Lies and then there are Statistics.

I'm sure we've all heard that before.  I was going through statistics on this blog.  Not really sure why, but occasionally I do check it.  Other than realizing that people in far flung parts of the US, China, The Ukraine, and others like to look at recipes, pictures from the Florida Keys, and read cute stories about cute dogs, it does help inform me as to whether I should continue this exercise of writing something each day.

Even if it is a copy and paste exercise on the weekends.   Bad Joke Saturday and Bad Joke Sunday have to get their Bad Jokes somewhere!

All statistics are approximations, your mileage may vary...

Some of the hits are obviously false, such as those from crawlers and the like.  I've been told to ignore those, and I won't be even saying who they are here because I don't want to encourage them.

Yes, it's like the misbehaving child at the family table - ignore your bots and they'll behave.

If you do look at your statistics and see something coming from a Vampire or a Zombie site, ignore it or you'll get spiked as well.  Google Analytics is correct, Blogger is not.

But within that stat page, I also get reports on what kind of technologies that are being used to look at the blog.  

Someone is using something called "NS8" to get here.  I had to follow that one up.  I mean, it's not like it's one of my Linux readers, or someone using their iPhone or Mac to surf here, I can tell what that is.  I know that when someone surfs me with Iceweasel, they're on Debian Linux since that is what I use on my Linux Machine.  Stability, thy name is Debian.  They really should use the slogan "Debian, It Just Works!".  Even on your 10 year old computer...

Anyway...

Not having ever heard of NS8 I looked it up.   NS8 is "most likely" a copy of the old Netscape Browser version 8.   To give you an idea, that's equivalent to Firefox 1.0.   Firefox is on version 25 at this date. 

Congrats, you are using the latest version of Firefox!  is what you should see when you click on that Firefox link.

PSA - Upgrade your software when you can.   Or some blogger will be waggling a finger at you for not doing so.

I'm looking at you Windows XP People.   You're almost as bad as I was when I got my Mac - it had OSX Leopard on it, and I immediately upgraded a month later to Snow Leopard.

My Mac Peeps will know what I'm talking about.   How's your Mavericks?  Kewl?

Immediately, a month later.   Er... well they do say that Macs have no viruses and well...

Not content to just wonder about this NS8 thing, I also got a visit from someone using something called "OS;FBSV".

Er, wha?

The best I can tell is that somehow, someone, is using their iPhone in Facebook to follow through. 

Hey, it may not matter to you, but I am a curious type.

I did after all have a person surf my blog from something called "Windows NT 6.1".  Most likely someone got bored while working on a server somewhere in a noisy server room and surfed my page.

I just hope I didn't bore them or the rest of you too much with all that.

Browser Basics - Where Do I Type The Web Page?

Some of you will look at this discussion and wonder why someone would do what I'm going to describe.

I was looking at the statistics for this blog and thought I'd lend a helping hand.

Most browsers, when you start them, will put you at a search page.  Typically that is Google for Firefox and Chrome.   I think Safari drops you onto www.apple.com on the Mac.  I try hard to forget anything connected with Internet Explorer these days.

So you get a big helpful page with a box to type in your search query.  You typed in Ramblingmoose.  Hit enter.  It gives you a list of articles I wrote.  It should have the base web page at the top - http://www.ramblingmoose.com .

You used your mouse/trackpad/trackball to move the cursor to the link and clicked on it.  

If you did all that before I put this article up on the web page, you would see the picture, minus my writing and the little yellow box.

We all start somewhere, and if you aren't told how to do something basic, you will figure it out the best you can, and repeat it until someone whispers in your ear an easier way.

That would be me.

The little yellow box is where you should be typing that address, unless you really did mean to do a search.   It is called the Address Bar, generically, although I've heard other "Marketing Friendly" terms used.

In Firefox, at least, if you type in the majority of the name, it will try to "make" the most likely URL for you.   URL is the web address like www.ramblingmoose.com or some other website. 

So if you just type in ramblingmoose in the address bar, you may get here.  At least I just did when I tried it out on Firefox 25.0.1 on Windows 7 on this day in 2013...

Why is that important enough to warrant a blog posting? 

It saves you time.
About 10 percent of you do a search each day to get here.
I wanted to help.
That's why you came here.

Now I'll go back to finding Just The Right Font for this blog and annoy everyone with changes every couple minutes until I'm satisfied.  I just don't like Arial or Helvetica.  Bleah.

Beginning of the end for Flash?

Steve Jobs famously would not allow Flash on his "iDevices" like the iPhone and the iPad.  It used to be a major annoyance.  It slowly became less important as newer technologies replaced it like HTML5 which does not require messy solutions like extra software.

You know, Plugins?

Flash has just been removed for Android.  Today, it no longer shows up on the Google Play store.   There is something called "Open Flash" that promises that it will play flash files on your tablet.

That means that effectively Flash is dead on phones and on tablets.  That's important because many people really could get away with only ever using a tablet to do their normal computing.

I found myself wondering whether it was a big deal or not.  I reached down and grabbed my tablet, swiped to unlock, then did a little digging.   It turns out that I never bothered to install Flash on the tablet.

At all.

Flash is on my Windows machines.   Flash is on my ancient hand me down Mac in the back room that is gathering dust.  I went through the painful install procedure to get Flash on my Linux machine. 

It's just not on the tablet or the phones.

I guess it's not going to make the transition to the "Post PC World".  It's always been a minor annoyance on Windows, demanding that it be installed if you go to Youtube to watch a video like the one below of a Golden Retriever in China guarding his owner's bike from being stolen. 

Totally safe for work, by the way.



So you can consider that as a test, I won't tell the boss.

Actually it will be nice to not have Flash on my Windows computers.   Flash is constantly demanding to be updated, almost as frequently as Adobe's other software, the PDF readers are.  It's at least once a week I get a notice telling me that there was yet another exploit that is being plugged by this particular update so please don't uninstall the software because we really do want you to use it.  

Now if we could only get Java to actually install correctly on an update, we might have a more pleasant experience.   I just can't seem to remember why I even keep Java on my machines...

Your Android Is A Little Safer With Google's Changes

Ok, fair enough, Android is pretty popular.  It's 68% of the Chinese Market for whatever that's worth.  Since people tend to do what their friends like, it may just get better since that means more people writing apps for the platform.

You know, that whole social aspect of life right?   Facebook?  Blogging?  Asking that nice teenager down the block what he uses to do things on his computer, once he crawls out of Mom's Basement that is.

The problem is that Android has always been more open to viruses because the whole software experience has been less rigid.  Apple forces a developer to submit their software so it can be deeply analyzed.  Google hasn't required that yet.

What they have done is to lay out new guidelines that say basically if we don't think you're playing to the rules, we'll pull your software.  No Rude stuff, No Hate speech, no spammy apps, no illegal apps.  

I guess that Chic-Fil-A App should go...

It doesn't say that they are forcing the backyard programmer to hand over the source of their work.  That's that code review thing that Apple does on their iPhone and iPad.  But it does say that they're watching what goes up on the "Google Play Store" now. 

Who knew they weren't?

Well for you and I, the safest way to get a new app is to wait for it to be a bit older and make sure it has a lot of positive reviews.  Make sure your virus protection is up to date.  Have fun...

If you want to read their guidelines, and they read like guidelines to me instead of hard and fast rules, click on this link. They do seem to do a good job of writing things people can actually read instead of something intractable.  Some of the technical documents that I have read in the past to do my web development work have been amazingly clear even when my mind wasn't focused on the task.

Now if I could find a decent free web alarm clock, it would be easier for me to wake up at 5:59AM.  A little BBC World Service News with the Pips at the start of the hour while I prepare to step over the dog on the way to the bathroom...

A Little Simple Security Makes an Android Go Further

Android is a strange beast.  

It's produced by Google, an advertising company, so you know that has it's own pluses and minuses. 

It's widely used, and widely rejected since many people get their first experience with Android, are confused and send it back for something like their kid is using. 

It is more configurable than anything Apple produces out of the box for the most part.  My phone announces that "You've Got Post!" by Joanna Lumley whenever my Yahoo email account gets something.  Can't do that without jumping through hoops and installing special software to do that on an iPhone.

It has about the same amount of free software as you would find on an iPad or iPhone.  Plus or Minus.  Roughly.

This is just my personal experience.  I have both Android and iOS here.  I'm currently listening to a Funk and RnB channel on an Android tablet using TuneIn, and that is available on your iPhone or iPad too.  Highly recommended.  In fact I was setting up a Linux Server and wishing TuneIn was there.

It's that new software thing that can be a wrinkle.  With anything with that half eaten Apple logo on the back running iOS, you have one place to get your software, iTunes.  Your software has been analyzed and is therefore expected to be safe from snoops and trojans and viruses.   Although it isn't warranted to be so, it is a pleasant little walled garden that has few of those weeds.

On the other hand, Android is more like a Nature Preserve.  You can install software pretty much from anywhere you like with a few clicks, you can unlock the device, "root" the device to gain full and complete control like a Mad Scientist (Boo!) and generally run wild.  Think "Jailbreaking" on iOS.

I will say that when I had Jailbroke my iPhone, shortly thereafter I installed an app that grabbed hold of the phone and began to do wonderful things for me like serve out spam.  It's unlocked but no longer jailbroke.

Every one of my Android devices are rooted.  It gives me complete control and allows me to use a program called Titanium Backup to completely back every last bit of that device up to a chip.  In fact I spent last night upgrading my tablet in order to have the latest software because it was nagging me to do so.

Am I on that proverbial Tightrope without a Net?  Why hasn't my tablet become a server for Russian Marital Aids?

I am not completely sure but I do practice some very basic security measures.  Those Security Measures are basic and form my safety net.

• I have a scanner on the thing called "Lookout Security".  It will even tell me where the machine is if lost and completely lock it down if stolen.  There are others, such as Sophos Mobile Security.  Check them both out and see which one is for you.

• I only install software from the Google Play store.  Think iTunes, but it is all web based.  There's a little shopping bag icon with a couple of abstract triangles that you tap.  Once launched, there goes a half hour as I'm looking for new "toys" and shiny objects to play with.  Amazon also has its own software library.  I'm avoiding that one since there are problems with changing devices using Amazon.

• I always, let me repeat this, ALWAYS check the reviews on the app.  If there are few reviews or the reviews are all positive I skip the app.  Here is a place it is best to step back and let "the other guy" take the bullet for you by testing the software out first. 

Like I said, Basic.  You can use a tablet just like your laptop, many do.  It just takes a little forethought to make sure that you're doing so safely.  When you're through you can relax, go play, and have a bit of fun with these things and not fret.  After all, making your life easier so you can have fun is what they're all about.

Got a Mac? Time to Upgrade or Else

Don't get me wrong, I have always been one of those PC users that have had a serious case of Mac Envy. 

When Windows was a kludgy mess of crashes and hidden DOS it barely ran.  Meanwhile, Apple computers tended to run and run fairly well with a simple but elegant design.

You must like it in the Windows World since there really isn't that much difference between the current version of Windows and Mac OSX on the surface any more.  Besides we're all running software on the web these days, and the software that sits on the computer is not completely unchallenged.

Of course I am summarizing greatly.  There are some significant design considerations under the hood.  To the end user, the differences are not really all that obvious.


On the other hand, the Mac had a significant problem with it.   The way Apple choses to orphan machines. 

You see an electronic device could conceivably work for decades or more.  There are plenty of antique devices.  There is a point after which they're not supported any more.  You can't get Vacuum Tubes at the corner Drugstore for example.

Things do wear out, and there is a point after which keeping that old machine running simply makes no sense. 

With Computers, they improve them on such a rapid pace that many times it makes sense just to get a new one.  Mind you, I've done quite well using other people's old machines for a very long time.  I would keep a desktop at the cutting edge and a second machine around that typically would be a year or two old.  That machine would be my daily driver and I'd use it to do all those tasks that I would want to bang away at quickly and move on.  The heavy lifting goes on the desktop.  

The desktop is gone now.  My 2 year old machine is sufficient.


That's because I'm running Windows on it.  I expect to be able to get a new version of Windows for this machine and run on until the battery no longer holds a charge or the dog knocks it off the coffee table.   I'll probably use it as a tethered machine to play music after that and squeeze a year more out of it.

That flexibility means that I'll be able to expect that I'll be safe and sound.  I won't be serving out advertisements for a Russian Porn Site or for "marital aids" because someone somewhere decided I wasn't going to be supported.   Sure, software gets dropped in the PC world, but generally you just don't get cut off and left to twist in the wind if you have a PC.

Now, look at the Apple Mac user.  It doesn't profit Apple if you don't upgrade so every so often. They will then make a decision that they will not support the older machines.  After all, those new machines are so Shiny you will just want to run out and get that new shiny object!

I have an old G4 Power Mac that I keep on my desk for "Mac Emergencies" and it hasn't been supported for quite a few years.  I hardly ever use that thing which is a shame because it runs about as fast as I would expect a fairly recent machine to run. 

It is however a security hole.   That is because it hasn't been supported by Apple for all that time.   When they made the change to "normal" Intel hardware like your PC uses, they decided that they would eventually stop supporting that aging beast after the next operating system is put out.  If you want up to date, you have to get a new machine. 

Not by my choice, but theirs.  That physical machine is still running happily, but at this point you really don't want to do too much with it because you may get a virus.


You see this sort of thing is happening right now in the Mac World.  Sure they are beautiful machines but Apple has decided that some not so very old machines won't be supported.  They won't be allowed to upgrade to the latest operating system because they are incapable of running the thing.   In this case it's their transition from 32 to 64 bit architecture. 

Windows is still supporting the older 32 bit machines, but because of the way Microsoft does its support, you won't be cut off from security updates and cause a problem immediately.

Apple has just thrown up a wall and said you're not supported, buy a new one.

More importantly, Apple is also not going to update the older versions of its application software.  The biggest security hole in all of this is their browser, Safari.  The browser will not be supported on the older platforms and security updates will not be issued. 

Browsers are the biggest problem in computing these days since they're used so intensely on so many different sites.  I have gotten "virused" before and I watch extremely closely what I'm doing.  I've had many friends call and ask what to do about a virus.  "Update your scanner, run a full scan, update your computer, and change your passwords" is the basic suggestion.

In this case, Apple users can't do that.  They're locked in on the older computers to an older browser.

The solution in that case is either get a new Mac or get new software.   My suggestion is Windows or Linux.  At least you don't have to give up your shiny hardware because of a design decision.

Yet.

After all, the browsers on Windows and Linux are being kept up to date.  The biggest security hole is safer there.  The application software like a Browser is being supported by another organization outside of the walled garden of the operating system and hardware vendor.   You're simply safer when control isn't so concentrated. 

That's the definition of a single point of failure.  Now go check your virus scanner and help "mom" get hers checked too.  You'll be happy you did.

Typing With Your Voice using Google Voice Typing

This would be the first time I've ever tried to write a blog posting without ever typing. This is also third time that I've ever tried use Google Voice Typing. It's all a little bit like 'Star Trek'.  Instead of sitting at a keyboard, you are staring at a small screen speaking clearly to the program, I'm sorry everyone calls them apps see that didn't work omation point delete. See it's not quite perfect yet.

That was because for about 5 minutes while I try to convince this machine to do some basic editing that I could of done with keyboard. Still, all in all, it works fairly well. It has a little bit of trouble with my accent, whatever accent it is that I have at the moment.  I have found that I can't speak in a normal fashion, I'm doing what the Voice of America used to call Special English.

For those of us who didn't have a shortwave radio, Voice of America had programming where they would speak slowly. Each word would have an audible gap between, and sentences would be spoken in discrete words, one after another. It made for a slow listening experience, but it would make for an easier learning experience for a non English speakers.

I can't say that it's perfect but it's better than nothing. I'm finding that Google Voice Typing is good for getting rough text in that I have to go backwards and re-edit.  It also works better with some programs than others. Having seen voice recognition software progress through the years as programs got better and computers got faster I could say that this would be a lot worse in your situation certainly would of been a lot worse a few years back.

It also would help if I had the documentation so I could read the manuals and figure out how to make it do simple things like a new paragraph or a blank space, you know very basic editing. I think this is basically the pig has already been taught to sing but not terribly well, like in the Robert Heinlein quote: “Never try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and it annoys the pig.”

Or something or other like that.  Clearly the pig that has to be trained is the one trying to make it sing, in this case, me.  I will have to go into the settings and tell the program to try to learn my voice.   It should be an interesting exercise of reading nursery rhymes into it and speaking. slowly. into. the. microphone. one. word. at. a. time.

If you do have an Android device, find Settings, then click Language and Input, Voice Search, Personalized Recognition.  That promises to make it a little better at predicting your "turn of phrase".

I'm rapidly learning that I'm not going to be able to do list without hitting the keyboard here and there, and this text will have to be edited on a different machine. I never learned how to use on screen keyboard with any efficiency.  I am a touch typist and I'd strongly would prefer to use a clicky key keyboard that annoys the neighbors in the room any day to touching a dead cold glass service. If you saw some of the errors this was making you be laughing along with me.

I've been told that it's better on an iPad then it is on my Android tablet. I'm not that concerned about the comparison since I don't have an iPad, and the software will only get better as time goes on.  I was told that by an Apple fanboy (you know who you are!) that Siri on the Apple platform is pretty much hands free and you can do anything you wish simply by talking to the machine but that Android is not there yet.  Android is fairly good at what it's doing here, that is other than an occasional mistake it is able to put in text. I'll learn how to use the software better as time goes by.

After all I never did find that manual!  I guess they really haven't replaced the good old keyboard yet for some of us.  I see people hunting and pecking on their smartphones all day long, it just seems slow and a kludge for me, but then again I don't have to use that.  I can be entertained by talking at my phone and my tablet and when I make a mistake I can also watch the tablet type in a dirty word.  Remember, the first words you learn in a foreign language are typically the swear words!