An iMac and the Mojave Update

"What did you do to the computer?"  That question from my wife was the first indication that we had a problem.

We have an iMac that's two years old and had been running well.  The previous day, we had a notification from Apple that we should update to the new OS, called Mojave.  Earlier updates hadn't been much of a problem, so that evening, I started the update.  Several hours later, when we were calling it a night, I checked and the progress bar showed about 75%.  Slow, but these updates were slow sometimes, so no problem.

The next morning, though, it was still at 75%.  No progress at all over 10 or so hours.  I did a bit of research on my old Dell and there were recommendations on restarting the process.  So I shut the iMac down and restarted it.  And discovered major, major issues.  Boot time was about 15 minutes.  Once booted, it didn't recognize the keyboard and mouse for a long time.  When it finally did, the response time to a mouse click or keyboard entry could be 30 seconds or more.  I rebooted and it was the same.  So I started looking at how to dump the Mojave update and revert to the previous operating system and quickly discovered that it was going to be beyond my skill level.  I shut the computer down, unplugged it, and hauled it off to Charlotte Street Computers.  This is Asheville's best Mac store and repair shop and we've had super service out of them before.

Even our technician at Charlotte Street had problems with our computer.  First, he verified that our hardware was all working correctly.  Then he tried the usual assortment of tricks and fixes, but nothing worked.  The next step was to duplicate all our data, wipe the drive, reformat, and do a fresh install of either High Sierra (the previous OS) or Mojave.  I decided on Mojave, since it'll have to be done sooner or later, anyway, so why not have a pro do it?  Except this fresh install of Mojave didn't work, either.  It was still incredibly slow and acted up.  More research by the tech indicated that Mojave seems to have been designed for computers with solid-state drives instead of hard drives.  Hard drives are spinning discs and, while they operate extremely fast, they can only do one thing at a time.  Mojave wants to the processors to access the drive multiple times simultaneously.  No problem for a solid-state drive, but impossible for hard drives.

So I decided to upgrade to a solid-state drive.  Our tech did the installation, ran some tests that showed it was running as designed, then migrated all our data back onto the new drive.  While he was at it, he took our old drive and mounted it in an external case to use as our backup drive.  Great!

The only remaining issue seemed to be that all our passwords were gone.  I'd have to re-set our computer and application passwords, and we'd have to re-set all our internet passwords when we visited various sites.  A bit of an annoyance, but not a problem.

So I took the computer home and, over the course of a couple of hours, discovered that there were till two problems.  One was that my mail application didn't want to work at all.  It did for Janis's account and for the tech's, but not mine.  The other was that the computer didn't see the ethernet port anymore.  Wifi worked, but not the ethernet.  Back to Charlotte Street.  Our now-harried tech fixed the mail problem (a known issue with Mac upgrades), but couldn't for the life of him figure out why the ethernet port wasn't working.  So he gave us a Thunderbolt-to-ethernet connection (Thunderbolt is another port on Macs, apparently; I have no idea what it's all about).  I picked up the computer again yesterday and set it up again at home.  Knock on wood, everything seems to be just fine now.

According to our tech, this Mojave update has been fraught with problems.  It was really bad when first released a couple of months ago and has gradually gotten better, but it is still problematic, as we just proved.  This was NOT a well-designed Apple update.  They released it too early and didn't think some things through.  The hard drive issue, for example.  Apple's poor development work wound up costing me about $350, five days, and a lot of heartburn.  So for all the Mac users out there, think twice before jumping on the Mojave update.  Wait several more months before trying it, and be prepared to take your computer to a pro if it crashes.  So far, I haven't seen anything that jumps out at me as a major step forward from the older OS, so I can't say this was all worth it.

Electronic Gremlins

We had some gremlins set up shop in some of the electronics around our home over the past week.  I think we've mostly recovered to about the 95% level, but it has been a long and very annoying road.

It started early this week.  I was looking at my 4-year-old iPhone and thought it needed cleaning, so I took it out of its case.  Almost as soon as I did that, the front popped half off.  The battery, it seems, was well past its useful life and had expanded.  When the case was removed, it was able to push the front of the phone out.  Great: my phone is now an ex-phone.  Deceased.

After a quick talk with Janis, we decided to replace both of our phones.  Hers was a little newer than mine, but both were way beyond Verizon's "new every two" sales pitch.  So off I went to the Verizon store and came home with two brand-new iPhone 6 SE's with the cell numbers already activated.  These phones have all the iPhone 6 internals, just in the smaller iPhone 5 case, and they still have the earphone jack that Apple is trying to do away with.  All is well so far.

You know how Apple advertises how everything in Apple-land is seamless, and people can do stuff like transfer all their data from one phone or tablet to another with just a click?  Right.  Not here.  Not in this house.  I plugged our phones into our computers and got an error message saying that our new phones would not talk to our 8-year-old MacBook and iMac.  The older iPhones worked with the two computers just fine, but something about the new hardware says "nope, no way."  I spent a lot of time with Mr. Google, trying to find solutions, to no avail.  The new iPhones won't talk with the old computers.

So I had to find some workarounds.   One was really ironic.  I have a Dell laptop with Windows 10 that's used for my day job, so I paired my new phone with the Dell.  It wasn't as easy as connecting to a Mac, but it worked.  So then I was able to transfer some data from my MacBook to the Dell and then onto the phone.  And yes, you read that right: my iPhone will talk to a frickin' Windows machine, but not a Mac.  Is that hosed, or what?

I was able to transfer some data through Apple's iCloud, too, after quite a bit of struggling to make the "easy" system do what I wanted it to do.  And I was able to transfer photographs off my iPad (which, unlike my new phone, is still on speaking terms with my old MacBook).  Transferring apps proved impossible, so I had to download them all over again.  One side benefit, though, was that many unused apps, photos, and music just went away.  So now I have the contacts, music, apps, and photos I need on my new phone.  I think.

Getting Janis' phone up to speed was a similar exercise.  She doesn't keep music on her phone, so there wasn't any need to transfer stuff from iTunes, but she does have a bunch of photos, messages, emails, and contacts.  We got the contacts and the "keeper" photos transferred, but not the messages and emails.  Oh, well.

As we were getting the phones caught up to where we needed them, the electronic gremlins struck again.  On Friday morning, our internet went dead.  Turned out that our modem was kaput.  Our internet provider, Frontier, said they might be able to get a tech with a new modem out here by Wednesday.  That was unsatisfactory, since I work from home and was just completing a good-sized project due that afternoon.  Frontier said they'd "see what could be done".  By early afternoon, though, that answer appeared to be "nothing".  So off I went to Best Buy and came home with a bare-bones modem.  After a bit of finagling, it worked.  So now we have an internet connection and I have another piece of dead electronics sitting here in my home office.

So at the end of all this, we have two new phones, a modem that's getting the job done, two old computers on their way to retirement, one workable phone, and some dead electronics.  I've known for a while that we're going to need a new computer.  Since I'm not deploying anymore, we'll eventually replace this MacBook and the iMac with a new iMac.  But that's a big expense and I'm a cheap bastard, so that purchase is still a little ways off.

Messing with the Macs

One of the things on my "to-do" list before heading out of town is to get our two Macs in good shape.  That meant updating to the new Lion operating system, updating all our software, making sure the hardware is in good shape, and taking a few security precautions.  I am not a computer junkie - to me, they're a means to an end, not an end in themselves.  But just like cars, they need a bit of attention from time to time, and right now, it's time.

The first thing I did was to put a new backup drive on Janis's iMac.  Hers had died a while back and I'd been meaning to get around to replacing it but it never percolated to the top of the list.  I did a bit of research to find a good Mac-compatible drive, along with a place to buy one, and wound up getting a 1TB Western Digital "MyBook for Mac" on sale at our local Best Buy.  Plugged it in, turned it on, and it's working like a champ.  I've got a rugged little portable external hard drive for my MacBook that works just fine, so now both of our computers are safely backed up.

The next thing was to update to the new Lion operating system.  Now, Microsoft's handling of new OS's pretty much drove me out of the Windows community three years ago.  I got tired of getting buggy installations that crashed, acted weird, and needed new drivers or patches or whatever to run my old software and accessories.  It often took a lot of fiddling over a week or two before a new "update" would work correctly, and there were several times that I deleted the update in disgust and went back to the old system.  Apple's updates have all worked as advertised.  Install it, turn it on, and you're good to go.

This time, Lion is only available as a download.  And it's a 4GB download, which is a huge file, even on a DSL line.  We're talking maybe four hours.  So I started the download just before going to bed.  Next morning (yes, still with a bit of trepidation), I hit the "install" button.  After a few interactive screens, it started installing itself, and an hour later was done.  And it worked just fine.  I've noticed, though, that everything was a lot slower at first - a lot of waiting, watching the "spinning wheel of death" the first time a program was fired up, and so on.  After a few days, things get better.  Still, both of our computers feel like they're struggling with a lot more code than before, and normal operations are taking a bit longer.

As for new features, well, there are a lot, but we haven't used them much.  I gotta learn more of what they're about before I can take advantage of them.

One new feature that looks promising is FaceTime.  This is Apple's video chat feature from the iPhone and iPad.  The reason it looks promising is that it is designed to use a small bandwidth.  We already have Apple's iChat feature on our Macs, as well as Skype, which works on all kinds of computers, but both of those require a pretty good chunk of bandwidth.  When I was in Iraq, iChat never worked and Skype could be spotty.  I'm hoping that FaceTime will be more reliable when I head off to Afghanistan.

While doing all this computer tweaking, I also wanted to do something about security.  Macs have a reputation as being safer than PC's.  That's not really true - Macs are as vulnerable to intrusion as PC's, it's just that there are so many more PC's, the bad guys spend much more effort targeting them and leaving Macs alone.  But since I'm heading to A'stan, and we already know that bad guys target good guys in places like that, I wanted to be a bit better prepared.  After a bit of research, I discovered that there's a pretty capable malware protector called Sophos Anti-Virus for Mac.  Not only is it capable, but it's free.  I installed it and it did, indeed, find a bit of malware on my MacBook.  Found it and cleaned it up.  Janis's iMac was fine, though.

I also found a neat little app called Ghostery.  It sits in Safari and tells me who's tracking my visit to any given page.  Not only that, but it lets you determine which ones to block and which ones to allow.  For example, if I go to the CNN home page, there are six sites tracking me.  Four are for companies that provide or track advertising and two are for Facebook links.  I'm blocking all the advertising tracking and allowing the social media links.  Originally, I blocked everything, but then found that some sites, like Facebook, were acting screwy.  So I reset it.  Ghostery is a free application and available for PC's as well as Macs, so you can put it on your own web browser.

So now our computers are in pretty good shape.  I just need to learn more about what these new features are in Lion.  Maybe there's something really cool ...

Adventures with Macs

I'm a geek wannabe.  Doesn't sound quite right, does it?  You either are or aren't a geek.  You're born that way.  Women, in particular, can tell whether you're a geek with just a glance.  

Well, I may look like a geek, but being one requires that you have a good grasp of the arcanery involved with computers.  And I am the guy to whom my co-workers once gave a t-shirt that read "Bermuda Triangle of the ADP World".  The fact they used the term "ADP" shows that my computer-klutz roots go way, way back.  Years later, the Navy (in all its wisdom) put me in charge of a cutting-edge software technology development effort.  Yes, it's true.  One time my team and I went to our contractor's lab for a demo of the latest "sailor-proof" version of the software.  I crashed it inside of five minutes and it took them the rest of the morning to figure out what happened and get it running again.  I have more stories like that, but you get the idea.  Put me around a computer, and I'm as deadly as a three-year-old with a hammer.

What brought this discussion on is the fact that I now have in my home office not one, not two, but three computers.  First is our old Dell which we've had for about four or five years.  It's getting a little long in the tooth now and needs some TLC every now and then to keep it running.  With me about to be gone for a year, and with Microsoft doing everything in its power to get people to dump their old XP systems and buy Vista (according to all impartial reviewers, a pile of junk), it was clearly time to replace the old Dell.  So we bought an iMac for the home and a MacBook for me to take on my journeys.  

The differences between the two system's philosophies are subtle but significant.  It's like the difference between American English and the Queen's English.  Much is the same, but when you hit a difference, it's usually going to mean something big.  So far I've avoided anything really big.  One time, a new program locked up when I tried to launch it, giving me the Mac's "spinning wheel of death" and not letting me do anything with the computer.  A panicked phone call to a friend who's a long-time Mac owner resolved the situation.  

One oddity that hasn't been resolved yet is wireless access.  This MacBook, like virtually all built these days, has a wi-fi capability built in.  And I have a wi-fi network in my house.  However, my MacBook and network do not talk to each other.  My Mac talks to the wi-fi down at the studio, but not here.  And I know there is a network here because a 16-year-old girl who was dog-sitting for us was able to hop on the net with her Mac in about 2.5 microseconds.  I've been banging on this laptop for a week and haven't done it yet.  Good thing I've got this 14' ethernet cable.

Which brings up the next point.  I have an honest-to-God computer network in my house.  And it works!  That wi-fi network I mentioned above came courtesy of my Verizon DSL account.  They gave me a box that sat on top of The Old Dell and blinked (or not) at me for all these years.  When I got the Macs, I was trying to decide how to transfer all the information from The Old Dell to the new Macs.  (At the risk of incurring the wrath of a certain corporate monolith, I've dubbed them the Big Mac and the Little Mac).  A network was the easiest solution.  First, though, I had to determine if I had this thing called a "router".  So I crawled around under the desk to check out the Verizon box, and sure enough it was a router (the word "router" stamped on the side was a good clue).  After a bit of time connecting ethernet cables and stepping through instructions in my "Switching To The Mac: The Missing Manual" book, lo and behold, the three computers were actually working together.  Frickin' amazing.  Especially for me.

Another point.  The Apple Stores have a big buzz surrounding them that heralds them as The Next Great Thing.  I went into one while visiting San Diego and I was not impressed.  First, it was chaotic and a bit ostentatiously "latest thing".  Second, I wanted to see if they could tell me why my laptop wasn't working with my home wi-fi.  They couldn't.  Even after I told them that the MacBook was at home in North Carolina, they told me to "bring it in and we'll check it out".  Hello, are you listening?  Third, I found a book on switching from PC's to Macs and wanted to buy it, only I couldn't find anybody to actually ring me up.  They were too busy running around talking to each other on their bluetooth headsets to deal with an actual dweebish customer.  I went over to Barnes & Noble and found a good book there.  Score: Apple Store 0, B&N 30.

But I'm happy with the two Macs.  They work extremely well, once you adjust to their "intuitive" operating system (it's only "intuitive" if you think like Steve Jobs).  They're easier to set up and operate than The Old Dell.  And there's an elegance to their design that's really beautiful.  I'm gonna love the Macs.  Now, if I can just figure out this wi-fi thingie ...