August 2014:

I don’t use Safari (much) because it doesn’t “pin” tabs. I often have a lot of tabs open, and pinning high-use tabs is helpful.

I don’t use Internet Explorer (much) because I run on Mac and Windows, and there is no (recent) IE for Mac.

I use Chrome instead of Firefox because the Chrome edition of AdBlock allows me to select individual page elements and block them. The Firefox AdBlock (from the same developer) doesn’t support this. I use it on many sites, to remove distractions – not just things which are ads, strictly speaking. Yes, the AdBlock feature list determines which browser I use. There is just so much distraction on most web pages that I consider AdBlock essential.

Note that I for sites I like a lot, I will un-block some ads, so that the provider get his/her ad revenue.

There are a few sites that have bugs when run in Chrome. I really wish there were an extension which would automatically move a site in Chrome to Firefox. Note that I know there are several ways for me to ‘conveniently’ move a site from Chrome to Firefox. The effort of the move isn’t the issue. The issue is that I don’t want to have to remember which sites have to be moved to Firefox. I want the extension to remember and auto-move. The closest I can come to this now is to use Note Anywhere to put a post-it on web sites that don’t work in Chrome, telling me to reopen the site. Ugh!

Update of July 2017:

Chrome now prevents blocking of HTML5 video auto-play. There is an extension called Disable HTML5 Autoplay, but it doesn’t block sites such as https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2017/07/11/majority-republicans-say-colleges-have-negative-impact-country-poll-says/468869001/.

The closest I can find is a site to block the audio of the video.

Chrome also consumes way too much Mac battery.

I’m seriously considering moving back to Firefox. getadblock.com appears to support blocking individual ads on the page.

There’s a news story about some Russian group that has amassed a database of 1.5 billion IDs/passwords. We’re all supposed to change our passwords, just in case our data was stolen from an insecure host. Can’t. Not feasible unless somebody pays me. A lot.

I have 574 passwords in my password manager. 51 of them are “critical,” meaning that they either provide access to

• Financial accounts
• e-Commerce sites that have my credit card
• Medical records
• High-value targets (e.g. the account that can reset passwords for a big collection of email accounts.)

At 10 minutes each, I can do 51 sites in 510 minutes. Where the hell am I going to get 8.5 hours to update all my passwords just because some idiot can’t keep his server secure?

So it is time to improve the situation.

• I’m enabling 2-factor authentication everywhere I possibly can.
• I’m canceling lots of accounts. If an account doesn’t add major value to my life, it is gone. (And your rinky-dink customer loyalty program does not add enough value to be worth maintaining another account.)

Oops! Have you ever tried to cancel your online access to Discover Card? You can cancel the card, but the online account lives on. What about your Buy.com account? Nah, it is now owned by someone else, with no way to cancel.

I’m going to have to write up (or have a lawyer write up) a letter to the effect of, “If you elect not to close the account, you assume all liability associated with this account and you agree to indemnify the former account holder against all costs associated with any past or future breech.”

ID/password security is BROKEN.

I set up Google 2-factor authentication for some of my accounts. Some useful pointers:

• Add another phone to the list Google will call: https://accounts.google.com/b/0/SmsAuthSettings#devices
• Assign a password for an app on a device: https://accounts.google.com/b/0/SmsAuthSettings#asps
• Show/edit computers that 2-factor authentication knows as yours: https://accounts.google.com/b/0/SmsAuthSettings#registered
• Print/display offline/backup 2-factor codes for when you don’t have phone service: https://accounts.google.com/b/0/SmsAuthSettings#registered

A man died. He had lived a bad life, so he went to Hell. Upon arrival, he went through orientation with a minion. At the end of orientation, the minion explained that there were three doors, and that the man could choose which fate would be his for all eternity.

Door number one was opened, and the man saw people in agony, being boiled in oil. “No thanks,” he said.

Door number two was opened, and he saw people having their skin peeled from their bodies. “Ouch! No thanks,” he said.

Behind door number three, he saw people standing in excrement, up to their knees, sipping coffee and tea. “Well, that looks pretty unpleasant, but it is much better than the other choices. I’ll take door number three.”

“Are you sure?” asked the minion.

“Yes,” replied the man.

So the minion shoved him through the door and slammed the door behind him. Just then, the man heard the public address system announce, “OK. Coffee break is over. Back on your heads.”

My laptop failed recently. I had a backup. The backup was good, but I still couldn’t get to my data for about 3 weeks. First, there was the week while my laptop was sorta failing and I was figuring out that it was a hardware problem and not a software problem. Then there was the week while it got shipped to be repaired. Then there was a day while it got repaired. Finally, there was the 5 days for it to get shipped back.

During all of that time, my backup was comforting, but otherwise useless, because I had no practical way to access it. I certainly wasn’t going to buy a new laptop for 2-3 weeks. I had no way to access my backed up data, except to restore it somewhere. The only other computers I had access to were my employer’s laptop (where I’m not going to put personal files) or my Linux file server (which runs in text mode).

I want to be able to use my data from any computer. That sounds like a cloud solution… maybe Google Docs or Office Online for word processing and spreadsheets. But Google has demonstrated that it sometimes drops products, and they are not unique. If my data is only usable in the cloud, there’s a risk of losing access to it. At a minimum, I can’t get to it when my Internet connection is down (and that does still happen). A pure cloud solution is no good to me; I want cloud and local access to my data.

Oh, and not everything is a word processor or spreadsheet document. I have important GPS data and Quicken data.

I thought about putting everything in Google Drive (or the Microsoft equivalent, OneDrive). You can even edit .docx and .xlsx files via Google Docs now, if you have the right Chrome extension. I tried it. Don’t. For non-trivial Word documents, making a minor edit via Google Docs can really mess up the formatting. Think of Google Docs as a useful way to view/print Word docs when you can’t use Word, but for heaven’s sake, don’t try and edit them.

Google Drive / OneDrive aren’t going to let me use my GPS data or my Quicken file. Worse than that, the data is not stored encrypted. I’m not putting my medical or financial documents on an unencrypted service. I’m only marginally willing to trust them to Evernote, and Evernote takes data security pretty seriously. I’ve confirmed that I can export my data out of Evernote, even when offline, so I’m not trapped in Evernote if they go out of business.

Here’s what I think I’m going to do.

• I’ll store static documents as PDFs in Evernote (my file cabinet). For simple, linear ‘live’ documents, those will go in Evernote notes. i.e. Things I could do in Markdown, I’ll do in Evernote’s editor, which stores them as HTML.
• Evernote is no good for documents where presentation is important (such as my info-dense SOTA activator crib sheets). Those still go in .docx files. Spreadsheets go in .xls files. Although Microsoft Office formats are not really a standard, everybody who is anybody can import them, so I’m not trapped in them when MS stops activating my old version of Office.
• I’ll set up a shared folder on my NAS and use Unison to sync my laptop to my NAS. If I lose access to my laptop, I’ll boot a Linux live CD on a borrowed laptop, and access my files on the NAS. When my real laptop gets repaired or replaced, I’ll Unison them back. The thing that Unison buys me that backup doesn’t, is that I can update the files while they are not available on my laptop.
• I’ll continue to use CrashPlan for backup. If the house burns down, I’ll have to buy a new laptop quick and restore my files.
• I want to stay with standard file formats (or defacto standards, such as .docx), because they give me maximum options across Linux/Windows/Mac for my plan-B access. (See also http://kleinfelter.com/content/why-i-do-not-use-pages-mac.)
• When I’m in Plan-B mode, I won’t have access to my Quicken or my GPS data, although I could install Quicken on my wife’s laptop and use that to update the Quicken data on the NAS. (Or, I could Unison the data to her laptop and Unison it back.)

It isn’t a perfect plan, but it is an incremental improvement over my current state.

bbcp is a handy cp (copy) command that works across the network. It runs about 3x faster than Finder for large binary files on my home wired LAN.

bbcp -P 10 filespec filespec2

• -P 10 says to give status every 10 seconds
• filespec = user@host:filepath

See handy tips at http://pcbunn.cithep.caltech.edu/bbcp/using_bbcp.htm

The discrete graphics subsystem on my early 2011 MacBook pro failed. (See I Hate My MacBook Pro.) I sent it to PS3Specialist to have it “reballed.”

Reballing is an operation where they de-solder the chip, remove all old solder, and re-solder it. It is called “reballing” because the chip has flat pads on the bottom, not traditional side leads. They put a ball of solder on each of the pads. Then they put the chip in place and hit it with hot air, until the solder melts and the chip is back in place. It is absolutely amazing that the process works, but it does indeed work.

I had to ship my laptop from the east coast to the west coast location of PS3Specialist. FedEx sold me a $20 shipping box, designed specifically for laptops. Then they charged me about $30 for shipping. It took a week to get it delivered, a day to get it reballed, and just under a week for FedEx to deliver it back. Reballing cost $160, box plus two-way shipping was another $70, for a total cost of $230. Ouch!

But it definitely works and since the laptop was about $2000 new and it had lasted only 3 years, that’s about $700 per year, so if it lasts another 6 months, I come out ahead.

I have to say that I am very pleased with PS3Specialist. He received it, fixed it, and shipped it in a single day. … and it works.

I recently had a hardware problem with my Mac. Effectively, I was without a laptop for 3 weeks. This has left me contemplating the fallibility of computers, and seeking a solution.

I’d like to be able to edit my files on one machine and, if it fails, just pick up at another machine where I left off. I’d also like to have local, editable files, to protect me agains some online provider suddenly disappearing, and I’d like to be able to read these files in 50 years. Tall order…

Google Docs: Seems like a nice idea, except that your local files aren’t editable if Google Docs vanishes. Yeah, I know about offline editing mode. Per Google, “Drive stores at most 4,000 items or 5 GB of data offline.” I’d like access to all of my files if Google vanishes (or drops support for Docs). Google Drive has great prices though. Could use Office locally, and if you ever need to get to the online edition you can convert it to Docs format. That’s OK for read-only online access; you have to convert back to Office format or else you have 2 copies of the file. Converting/read-only might work to bridge a period while your laptop is getting repaired. As of June 25, 2014, Google claims, “both the web and mobile apps for Docs, Sheets, and Slides let you edit Office files—without conversion—so you can now edit and send back files in their original format.”

I want to emphasize that .gdoc and .gsheet files in your Google Drive folder are just special URLs that point to your online document. Your content is not safely backed up to your local computer.

Office Online: Very limited versions of Word/Excel/etc. Can edit the files online/offline, if you have a local Office. Fidelity when you mix edits between online/offline editions is poor unless you stick with the simplest features.

iWork: Only available when I have a Mac. I do have a Mac, but if it fails, I’d like to be able to get to my documents via a web browser on a borrowed Windows PC. But the deal-killer for iWork is that you can’t open a 3-versions old edition of a file with the latest version of Pages/Numbers. I don’t want to have to convert all of my Pages/Numbers files, every time a new release comes out.

Markdown: You could manage all your files in Markdown and use Markdown viewers/editors. You’ll be able to read unformatted editions of those documents in 50 years. But there are 11-teen versions of Markdown, and the original Markdown doesn’t support tables (unless you jump to HTML). Oh, and I regularly need tables that can do inter-cell calculations (e.g. like a spreadsheet). [Dillinger] (http://dillinger.io/) is interesting, in that you can use it to edit your Markdown files on Google Drive.

HTML: I could use a text editor or a GUI editor to edit HTML files. That ought to be readable in 50 years. But I regularly need tables that can do inter-cell calculations (e.g. like a spreadsheet).

OpenOffice/LibreOffice: Could edit locally. Can’t edit online unless you use Google Drive and you convert them to Docs format. Could use xxxxOffice locally, and if you ever need to get to the online edition you can convert it to Docs format. That’s OK for read-only online access; you have to convert back to xxxxOffice format or else you have 2 copies of the file. Converting/read-only might work to bridge a period while your laptop is getting repaired.

Writing a Book:If I decide to write a real book, I’ll use offline Word and all of its features. That’s a special case. 99.999% of my documents will be only a few pages, and I’ll optimize my planning for the most common case.

Offline Office: I really like OLE. I want to have a master document, with reusable ‘facts’ in it, include those facts in multiple documents, and be able to have them all change when I change the source. Only Windows Office offline supports this. (Mac Office does not. So far as I can tell, none of the online or offline office suites do this except for Windows Office.) I think I’m going to have to live without this if I want pick-up-where-you-left-off on another computer.

Conclusion: OK, maybe my vision of seamless online/offline/multi-computer access to Office files isn’t fully available in August 2014, as I write this. What would be an incremental improvement on my current situation, taking into account my experience with hardware failure? Although Word/Excel format isn’t an official standard, almost every Office-type application can import most Word/Excel documents with pretty good fidelity. I’m thinking I’ll use offline Office to edit my Word/Excel files, sync with either Google Docs or Office Online, and treat the online edition as a viewer (mostly) or to make simple edits to a simple document, with import/export/convert as required. I’m going to start with Google Drive and Office 2010 (offline).

I found this on the web somewhere. It does NOT work for applications added by VMware Fusion.

• Navigate Finder to ~/Library/Application Support/Dock
• Delete all *.db files in that folder
• Restart your Mac

OS X will rebuild the Launchpad from your Applications folder