Just Computers

Okay, I've been playing with computers for 43(?) years, and I've been digitally editing audio for, what, 25 years now? and I've NEVER seen this before.

I have a 26-minute song I'm trying to identify highlights in, trying to document the transitions.

The timing keeps changing.

One time through an event will occur at 15:04, the next time through it's 14:34. Not just a few events either, but ALL of them. And not by a second or two, but up to a minute different!!!

The start (00:00) and end (25:17) of the song stay consistent, so it's not like the whole file is shifting. Just elements within the song. I can't figure out WTF is happening. I would think there's a digital timecode embedded in the file so the player always knows exactly where it is. But maybe not?

I played the song all the way through without stopping, noting the times as I went. They seem to be consistent when you do this.

My new theory is, jumping ahead or backward in the file confuses the counter. Although it shouldn't.

New Apple iPhone operating system has been adjusted to make facial recognition work with face masks.
https://www.macrumors.com/2022/02/08/everything-new-ios-15-4-beta-2/

NoCoPilot wrote:

Hmmm, I might be looking at a new desktop computer this year.  My existing 27" iMac was bought April 2015.  They don't make a 27" right now, I think all the iMacs are 24".  But supposedly "this spring" (2022) they're coming out with an all-new model which will be 27" and won't use the Intel chipset anymore.

It's called the Mac Studio and it is tiny, the size of the Apple TV or the Mac Mini, and costs $2000.  The 27" monitor is not included, and costs another $1600.

The 27" iMac is being discontinued.

I dunno.  $3600 for a Studio compared to $1800 for the equivalent iMac?  Not sure the 100% jump is justified.

I'm glad I never used Cafe Press.

Web vendor CafePress fined $500,000 for giving cybersecurity a low value

Quote :

In other words, even though the company was itself the victim of a cybercrime, it has nevertheless been censured and fined for what it did (and didn’t do), both before and after this cybercrime took place.

The breach, says the FTC, saw hackers make off with more than 20,000,000 plaintext email addresses and weakly-hashed passwords; millions of unencrypted names, physical addresses, and security questions-and-answers; more than 180,000 unencrypted SSNs (social security numbers); and, for tens of thousands of payment cards, the last four digits of the card plus the expiry date.

NoCoPilot wrote:

My 3Tb backup drive is acting up, won't back up, can't reformat it, it appears full when it shouldn't be.  Oh well.  It's about 5 years old now and backs up every hour(?) so it's had plenty of life.  Went online for a replacement.  4Tb same model $76.  Astonishing.

I have a 100Gb portable drive I use for all my misc non-permanent stuff (files I'm copying, pictures I'm using to make CD covers... plus all my porn).  It's only a little over half full, but it's starting to get fruity like the 3Tb backup mentioned above.

Thinking back, I bought this drive, used, when I bought my Apple laptop, to use when I started traveling as a Cisco instructor.

That would have been... lessee, 2007(!)

I don't feel bad about replacing it after 15 years of daily use.

Ordered a replacement from Amazon.  $32.00   500Gb.  Free shipping, arriving tomorrow.

This is really ugly.

Psychotherapy extortion suspect: arrest warrant issued

Explains a scam I'd not heard of, and left me almost impressed with the ingenuity (although still appalled at the cruelty).

CryptoRom “pig butchering” scam sites seized, suspects arrested in US

Chrome keeps releasing fixes for zero-day exploits. If you use Chrome anywhere, make sure it's up to date.

My wife had some blueprints pulled up on her iPad that she wanted printed.  I know that my HP printer is supposed to do Bluetooth printing, but it's hard-wired to my desktop computer so that's what I normally use.

Pulled up instructions for Bluetooth printing, which means I printed a page in the printers memory.  It says you connect your wireless device to the Wi-Fi network broadcasted by the HP printer.

Okay so I did that, but now the iPad can't see the blueprints.  They're online...

Reconnected the iPad to my online Wi-Fi, reacquired the blueprints... but now of course the iPad doesn't see the printer anymore???

Hmmm.

HIGHLIGHTED the blueprints, saved them to Photos on the iPad, and then connected the iPad to the printer network and printed from the Photos app.  Aha.  That worked!

Took me a minute...

NoCoPilot wrote:

NoCoPilot wrote:

Hmmm, I might be looking at a new desktop computer this year.  My existing 27" iMac was bought April 2015.  They don't make a 27" right now, I think all the iMacs are 24".  But supposedly "this spring" (2022) they're coming out with an all-new model which will be 27" and won't use the Intel chipset anymore.

It's called the Mac Studio and it is tiny, the size of the Apple TV or the Mac Mini, and costs $2000.  The 27" monitor is not included, and costs another $1600.

The 27" iMac is being discontinued.

I dunno.  $3600 for a Studio compared to $1800 for the equivalent iMac?  Not sure the 100% jump is justified.

Went out to dinner last night, and when we got home my computer had an error message onscreen. Could not find the operating system. Yikes.

Went through diagnostics, the SSD drive (where the OS is stored) came up clean. WTF?

Opened a Chat with Apple and spent FOUR HOURS trying everything they could think of, without solving the problem. It appeared to me that the SSD had failed, even though it passes diagnostics.

Made an appointment today for the Genius Bar to have an expert look at it.

Just as I suspected, the SSD Fusion Drive failed. I did not realize they're half solid-state device (SSD) and half mechanical drive (hence the name "fusion"). The mechanical side failed.

Unfortunately my 2Q 2014 computer was just over the line into what Apple calls "obsolete." They're not even allowed to work on obsolete products. Said I could take it to a 3rd party Apple-authorized repair store and they MIGHT be able to fix it... but it'd still be an obsolete product.

So all signs pointed to a new computer. The Apple Studio ($2k) is more powerful and runs all the newest software (which mine didn't). I asked if my iMac could be used as a display on the new Studio (since the screen works great) but the problem is, in order to turn on the display, you have to be able to boot the computer. Which is where we got onto this ride....

So, I had to buy a new $2k screen too. Heavy sigh.

Good news is, with my Time Machine backups, I should be able to reload everything quickly. That'll be my project for the weekend. Wish me luck.

Did the restore overnight (while I slept) and in short order this morning got everything working.  Boffo.

Upgraded the OS-X to the newest version, downloaded a couple updates to Apple apps, plugged in everything to make sure it all worked, opened a bunch of apps.  Everything's great.

In fact -- now I can't explain this, so take it with a grain of salt -- I printed out a CD cover and the registration, the placement of the image on the page so the back side printing lines up with the front side printing -- that was better than I've had in about seven years.  Probably coincidental?

Just out of curiosity I looked up YouTube vids on replacing the hard drive in an iMac.

I shan't be doing that.

Replacement 1Tb SSD drives to replace the Fusion Drive are only $140, but the iMac case is glued together--not screwed--and getting it apart without cracking the screen looks to be a nightmare.

I don't need another computer anyway.

Genuine old computer nerds may find this interesting.

BlackLotus Malware Hijacks Windows Secure Boot Process

My new Mac Studio has exceeded expectations for everything I've thrown at it, but I just discovered a weird little glitch.

Or maybe it's in the USB hub.

Anyway, I wanted to attach many many USB devices to the computer without having to pull something out to plug something in -- and four of the six ports are on the back -- so a few months I added a 5-port USB hub (5-in, 1-out). It works great for everything.

Except for recording digital audio. The file would record about a minute, then begin "bouncing" -- recording the same 1/2 second over and over. You could stop the file. Close the program, reopen the program and hit "record" again and the looped audio would still be there (that's why I suspect the hub). Anyway, bypassing the hub and plugging in directly seems to have fixed it.

Weird.

Apple Studio is about to get an upgraded CPU. I'm still happy with mine, so no plans to "trade in."

It still has handled everything I've thrown at it with aplomb. Never hiccuped, even when doing 2-3-4 things simultaneously (recording audio, printing, copying graphic files, etc.) The screen is still freaking gorgeous. Still 10x faster than my old iMac. File transfers & searches are almost instantaneous.

Yeah. No plans.

So I've never tried to print an envelope before, with my new printer.  The paper trays don't have an envelope outline in either one of them, nor does the paper feeder on top.  Hmmm, I wondered, hoes DOES one print an envelope?

There's a little screen on the front of the printer, with some shortcuts... nope, nothing there.

There's a help file included with the printer app... nope, nothing there.

I have another app called "HP Smart" with all sorts of certificate and greeting card templates... nope, nothing there.

Finally, inside HP Smart is a "chat with a virtual assistant" option.  "How do I print envelopes?"

Got an error message yesterday I hadn't seen in YEARS, running out of hard drive space.

Apparently adding a couple thousand LPs to my collection over the past 5 years is catching up with me....

I looked online to see if I could replace my 4Tb music drive with a 10Tb.  Yikes, they're still $280-350.  Cheaper to delete some old files.

While I was in there though I decided to check prices on another 4TB.  Under $100, delivered.  Click once and done.

That brings me up to 15Tb total.

NoCoPilot wrote:

I just discovered a weird little glitch recording digital audio.  The file would record about a minute, then begin "bouncing" -- recording the same 1/2 second over and over.  You could stop the file. Close the program, reopen the program and hit "record" again and the looped audio would still be there (that's why I suspect the hub).  Anyway, bypassing the hub and plugging in directly seems to have fixed it.

Further instances, and further troubleshooting, dispel the idea that it's either the computer or the USB hub.

For one, it "bounces" even when bypassing the hub.

For two, I can do anything I want on the computer -- open files, copy graphics, create and save covers -- while the audio is recording, without causing any "bounce."

What causes the bounce, reliably? Doing anything with my iPhone or iPad online while the audio file is downloading.

In other words, it must be a bandwidth problem with my Comcast cable, where sharing the bandwidth with something else, ANYTHING else, causes some kind of track markers to be lost. The download cannot continue seamlessly after giving a few milliseconds of bandwidth to another bit-stream.

So, good that I know how to prevent it. Bad that I can't do anything else, on any other device, while downloading.

NoCoPilot wrote:

While I was in there though I decided to check prices on another 4TB.  Under $100, delivered.  Click once and done. That brings me up to 15Tb total.

Finally got around to installing the new drive today, it came up immediately as I would expect with 4Tb of untapped storage.

But... it's "read only." WTF? It says to read and write to this disc it must be reformatted. I've NEVER had that happen, since leaving the Windows hellscape.

Hmmm, do I dare?

Guess I've got nothing to lose.

I've been getting error messages on my Time Machine, telling me my drive is almost full. But the "Back-up" drive dedicated to that shows 1.79 TB open, almost half its 4.0 TB capacity. And besides, the Time Machine software says "Time Machine backs up your computer and keeps local snapshots and hourly backups for the past 24 hours, daily backups for the past month, and weekly backups for all previous months. The oldest backups and any local snapshots are deleted as space it needed."

So, lack of space on the backup drive shouldn't be an issue, right?

My other drives are not overly full -- except the HD on the iMac itself. 123.97 GB available of the 494.38 GB total, with 385.7 MB purgeable. How do I purge? Is 1/4 of the drive not enough to be open?

Grrr. Installing new external drives has never been this complicated before.

I have cruised along happily virus-free since ditching Microsoft/IBM for Apple Macintosh gosh, oh, fifteen years now?  I've kept my defenses up, using Firefox instead of Safari, and turning off almost all tracking and location sending information.

But... last weekend I got hit.  Six files were infected.  They looked like low risk files, something to do with ads, and everything continued to function normally so I chose to ignore the warnings.  I kept getting pings from McAfee, telling me I had infections, and trying to get me to pay $80 for their stoopid software.  THAT sounded like a scam to me too, so I ignored it.

I mean, McAfee (the REAL McAfee) wouldn't give you three minutes and 22 seconds to "buy immediately." I have NEVER had a subscription to McAfee, so how could it have "expired" on the day I ran the scan? And one of the "viruses" identified is called "fakealert."  HELLO?

Then, late last night, some passwords didn't work for websites I know they should work for.  More than one.

That raised my hackels.  I downloaded a cheaper ($20) virus software, ran a scan, and came up with the same six infected files.  One of the options in my new software is to "Repair."  Clicked it, got a bing, now shows fixed.  Ran a new scan, came up clean!

Hopefully that'll be the last of that.

The anti-virus software is very well written, very intuitive, seems very complete, and seems to work very quickly and flawlessly.  Worth $20/yr in my view.

Everyone always said Mac viruses were rare because they're hard to write; the software is inherently more secure.  I guess I found a determined hacker.  Hopefully, it never went any further than this.

Now, to try to recover some passwords without any interference....

One of the things I like about the new software, when a new program or routine tries to go out to the internet, or come in from the internet, this software acts as a doorman. "Is this authorized?" If you don't know what the particular process or sub-routine is, it'll explain it.  Very tidy.

I feel buttoned up tighter than a shark's anus.

One thing I DON'T like about the new software is everytime I burn a new CD, it asks me afterward if I want to scan it for viruses. I have to say "no."

Also, I turned on an Apple option called FileVault which encrypts all your files, seamlessly, invisibly. The only negative consequence of THAT is when rebooting I have to give my password.

I guess, in the wider scheme of things, these are a lot less trouble than viruses.