Category: tech

tech

My Personal de-Google-fication Continues

Google Photos is no more for me. I deleted all the photos in that account, then cancelled my Google One subscription. I removed the app from my iOS devices.

I’m not totally killing my Google account and Gmail address, however, as much as I might want to. There is still stuff with Docs and Drive for podcasting collaboration I need to maintain an account for. I do have to think about others in that particular situation. But the Gmail app is coming off devices, too.

I believe this means the only Google apps I’m left with are Translate and Waze. I’m sure I could find a replacement for the former, but no other app gives me what I need for dealing with Dallas/Fort Worth traffic like Waze does. I’d like to be Google-free, but it’s just not in the cards as things currently stand. I’ll settle for now with this being the best I can do.

Apple, tech

This weekend’s positive Apple Store experience

We hear a lot in the tech press and on personal blogs about bad experiences with Apple’s support of it’s products, so I thought I would offer a positive experience my family had this past weekend.

A couple of days ago, our teenager’s iPhone 7—my old iPhone, and more on that another time—started losing its cellular connection. We could restart the phone, and after a couple of restarts, it would come back up for a few hours before disappearing again. It worked fine on Wi-Fi. When it became apparent that no amount of restarting and resetting networks was going to fix the issue, I made a Genius Bar appointment at one of the DFW metroplex Apple Stores, Willow Bend in Plano. I arrived on time for the appointment, and was seen within about three minutes of my arrival by the technician.

I explained to her all the troubleshooting steps we had taken. She ran diagnostics on the phone, then checked the model and serial numbers. This is when she informed me that Apple had become aware of an issue with this particular model of the iPhone 7 a couple of months ago. She shared there was a specific batch from a specific factory that suffered from the cellular modem failing.

Our iPhone 7 is still covered under AppleCare through May. The way she talked about it, however, led me to believe this would be a free repair even if it was not. A $319 repair Apple was eating the cost of for a new logic board, plus labor. When I had the opportunity to ask, I verified this was indeed the case. No matter when one bought the iPhone 7, if it was within this particular batch from that particular factory, you could get a new logic board installed, gratis. The only hitch is that it gets send to one of the repair depots, it’s not done in store.

So we were given a loaner iPhone 7. The SIM card was swapped from ours to the loaner, we started an iCloud backup there in the store on Apple’s wifi, and that was it. I will get emails about the repair status, plus a call when our iPhone 7 arrives back in the store and is available for pickup. All in all, we were in the Apple Store 45 minutes, and over half of that was spent waiting on the iCloud backup restoration. Kudos to Apple for a job well done in this particular situation.

links, Mac, tech, Tumblr

AdwareMedic

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AdwareMedic

“Removes all known adware from your Mac. It is very simple to use, and should clean up your system in less than a minute, from start to finish. Just open the app, click the Scan for Adware button, and remove anything that is detected. That’s it!”

links, tech, Tumblr

Privacy Badger

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Privacy Badger

“Privacy Badger is a browser add-on that stops advertisers and other third-party trackers from secretly tracking where you go and what pages you look at on the web. If an advertiser seems to be tracking you across multiple websites without your permission, Privacy Badger automatically blocks that advertiser from loading any more content in your browser. To the advertiser, it’s like you suddenly disappeared.”

Unfortunately, not currently available for Safari.

tech, Tumblr

How to ditch Google for more privacy and fewer ads

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How to ditch Google for more privacy and fewer ads

Nice workup on getting off the Google train. I still have a Gmail account, but never use it. If I didn’t have my own domains, and e-mail to go with them, I would be on FastMail. I have heard nothing but good things about the service, and US $40/year for 15GB of storage, plus all their other features, is a great deal.

I’ve been using DuckDuckGo exclusively as my search engine for quite a while now. The service has gotten much better from its early days, when I still had to go back to Google some times to find the link I was looking for. My backup these days is Bing. Microsoft is slightly less scary than Google only because they are not interested (yet) in selling my search data to advertisers.

Apple, tech, Tumblr

ifo Apple Store shutting down

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The site isn’t going away, but Gary Allen is ceasing new updates on the best tracking site of Apple retail sites outside (and possibly inside) Apple itself:

After following Apple retail for 14 years, I’ve reached a happy ending, and am gracefully backing away from the crazy world of following the company and its stores. No more stories or analysis, or flying out to far-flung locations to join overnight crowds,waiting for the excitement of new store opening (NSO). I began this Web site as simply a way of celebrating the fun of grand openings and the close friendship of the people I met when I arrived in a new country or city.

Gary was kind enough to include this shot of mine, of the original Knox Street (Dallas) storefront, on the store’s original page on the site.

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Gary still links to my full photo album of the Knox Street opening in the store’s listing (#52), and for that, I remain humbled and grateful for the inclusion of my photos in his grand work.

quote, tech, Tumblr

The Smartest Things Ever Said About Facebook

 

The Smartest Things Ever Said About Facebook

thislifeofleisure:

To commemorate the demise of my Facebook account, and the myriad of questions people usually have about why, here’s some of my favorite quotes on Facebook:

“Facebook seems like a terrific way to stay in touch with people who don’t have the sense to quit dicking around on Facebook.” – Merlin…

I really want to spend less time on Facebook. I really need to cull the people I’m following (not necessarily whom I’m friends with; see what I did there?) so as to tidy up the timeline. At least I’m still mostly reactive to Facebook. My posting of any original content has dropped dramatically, especially since I severed the auto-posting tether from Twitter.

Unfortunately, there are people I truly care about scattered about the land, and Facebook remains, for all its ills and evils, the only place to interact with some of them.