By Malathi Nayak
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Verizon Communications Inc will launch a trial version of its new mobile video service on Tuesday, aiming to prove that telecom players can compete with mobile ad industry titans Google Inc and Facebook Inc.
Verizon said its service, a mobile app dubbed “GO90”, will be offered initially to a select set of its own customers, with advertisements from well-known brands, which it declined to name, but without newly acquired ad technology from AOL, the media company it bought in June for $4.4 billion.
Verizon is targeting young viewers or millennials with about 100 to 200 hours of exclusive content from online video networks such as AwesomenessTV and Machinima, said Brian Angiolet, Verizon’s senior vice president, consumer products. The free service will drive revenue from data usage and targeted advertising.
Verizon’s best chance to prove its advertising potential rests on technology from AOL, which has built tools to deliver targeted Web and mobile ads. That, combined with Verizon’s customer data, should improve targeting, analysts say.
The AOL technology is in the process of being integrated with Verizon’s video service, and targeted advertising tools will be available over time, Angiolet said.
The service will launch officially to all users as soon as later this month, a Verizon spokesman said.
Companies from Netflix Inc to Dish Network Corp already offer Web-based video services through subscriptions, but the No. 1 U.S. wireless company’s ad-supported, short-form video model is unusual.
Go90 pits Verizon against Internet advertising industry heavyweights Google and Facebook, and advertisers will take a “wait and see” approach to determine how many viewers Verizon captures, telecom industry consultant Tim Farrar said.
“Pretty much without exception telecom operators have not been successful as third parties in exploiting the Internet access service, whether it’s video or anything else,” Farrar said. “What percentage of people’s app viewing is going to be over a Verizon app versus YouTube or Facebook…That’s the biggest uncertainty.”
Verizon’s rival AT&T Inc has said it has mobile video services targeting young viewers in the works. Smaller rivals Sprint Corp and T-Mobile US Inc have said they are watching their competitors’ efforts closely.
Verizon is in talks with advertisers and brands about content sponsorships and original-content creation, Angiolet said. The service lets users post comments, form interest-based groups and clip and share videos in social networks, he added.
Verizon’s video strategy “holds genuine promise,” MoffettNathanson analyst Craig Moffett said in a recent note. Verizon is currently the only video service to offer advertisers customer data “based on location, at the personal level rather than the household level, with unprecedented knowledge of purchase intent and a wealth of demographic and prior purchase information,” Moffett said.
Verizon’s content portfolio will evolve in coming months, executives have said. Previously, Verizon said its upcoming digital video service will offer content from the National Football League, DreamWorks Animation’s AwesomenessTV unit and Vice Media.
As its trial period begins, content partners include Comedy Central, Food Network, ESPN, Discovery Network and VH1. From the web, it will offer videos from Maker Studios, Machinima and StyleHaul, among others.
(Reporting by Malathi Nayak, Editing by Peter Henderson and Ken Wills)
Chucky, remind me how you use your Mac Mini. My mom’s says her hard drive is about the fail. The fastest thing I can do for her without messing me up is probably just pick up a new one and Time Machine restore to it. Then I take her existing one (late 2012) and as time permits turn it into a little media server or something. Would it also take Time Machine backups on a partition or similar? Hm.
“The fastest thing I can do for her without messing me up is probably just pick up a new one and Time Machine restore to it.”
Yeah. For speed, that’s the option. But the OWC return option is sensible, if time permits. OWC has always done right by me, and has a great overall reputation. (And if you just move to NYC, Tekserve can do the job well, and at a decent price.)
Also, there is the option of getting an external Firewire drive, preferably SSD, just running the whole damn thing off that, and ignoring the failing internal drive. I can write you a two line AppleScript to automatically unmount the internal drive at startup, so it won’t confuse mom. Assuming she’s currently got a platter drive in there, Firewire + SSD is much faster.
“Then I take her existing one (late 2012) and as time permits turn it into a little media server or something. Would it also take Time Machine backups on a partition or similar? Hm.”
Damn straight. That’s real reason to buy her a new one.
It becomes your SAN controller, Plex server, TiVo offline server if you roll that way, backup server, etc, etc.
For Time Machine, yeah. Give TM its own partition. Running TM to a LAN connected Mac is by far the most reliable way to do TM. Just use an external drive for that purpose, in case things go multi-blooey, and you don’t want to hassle with fishing the internal drive out in an emergency. Also, best backup practices are to use both TM and cloning. Personally, I wouldn’t dream of relying on TM alone. TM can be very flaky, slow and unreliable to restore, and a few other problematic things, though its versioning is its advantage. But cloning is the gold standard for pure backup safety. As far as cloning software goes, SuperDuper! is just fine, but I personally prefer Carbon Copy Cloner.
Feel free to ask more.
I’m pretty crushed for time right now. I wonder if the simplest short term solution is use an external drive. But with a failing or failed drive, do I risk burning the system up? I suppose I can’t permanently dismount the drive in software – hence the startup script…
I’ve pulled the plug on OWC doing the drive replacement – one bonus of the service is they clone the drive. However, it took 30 minutes to start up today and who knows if it’ll ever start up again. If I’m doing the data restore, I may as well do the hard drive replacement – I figure maybe 40 mins and it’s cleaner than an external drive (cheaper, too).
I picked up an external 1TB USB drive yesterday after work and got her a Time Machine back up as something, versus nothing, and also did a 1-month Crashplan deal for another archive of just files. Most of her most important docs were already backed up, but given the opportunity to grab it all, why not.
If I change Startup disk to external or install a bare drive, I can boot into a sort of BIOS level that has Disk Utility and I can or cannot pull the OS from the cloud? Hm. If I can do OS from cloud, I’d just do specific file restoration from Crashplan as her machine seemed gunked up before this hard drive issue. (Disk Utility says SMART something error can’t be repaired, drive will fail soon, back up as much as you can. It’s pretty ominous, but I took it at face value.)
Thanks for your help!
“I wonder if the simplest short term solution is use an external drive.”
Well, of course, the simplest short term solution is just to buy mom a new Mini, which has the added benefit of getting you a Mini, which I promise that you’ll come to greatly appreciate.
But absent that, yeah, an external drive is the way to go.
“But with a failing or failed drive, do I risk burning the system up? I suppose I can’t permanently dismount the drive in software – hence the startup script…”
I can’t really see the bad drive would physically damaging the machine, though it is theoretically possible, but just incredibly unlikely. But I’d definitely auto-dismount the drive on startup for various reason. Really shouldn’t be a problem in any way unmounted.
“If I change Startup disk to external or install a bare drive, I can boot into a sort of BIOS level that has Disk Utility and I can or cannot pull the OS from the cloud?”
Well, too late for you here, but going forward, this is reason #37 why all the pros use cloning as their core backup strategy, with TM as a nice supplement. If you had a clone on an external drive, you could just boot right off that, and your work would be done.
But it seems at some point after I stopped updating our OS versions to Apple’s newer, buggier, worse OS versions with Brawndo™, Apple did introduce such a feature.
I’m thus ignorant of the details of it, but if your mom’s rig is new enough, which I think it is, you can indeed internet boot off firmware and download the OS. Here is your friend.
“Hm. If I can do OS from cloud, I’d just do specific file restoration from Crashplan as her machine seemed gunked up before this hard drive issue.”
Hm. That’s only going to work well if you really knew what you were doing about what to backup, and what to restore. For example, assuming your mom has non-stock-supplied apps, did you back them up? And did you back up all their necessary support files, which are in places outside of /Applications? Did you back up her user account and app settings and prefs?
In short, unless you really know what you were/are doing, I’d be very, very wary of doing this as your first recourse, rather than doing a TM restore.
As far as her machine being gunked before the drive went bad:
– It could’ve been the drive slowly deteriorating. So I’d go with a normal TM restore first, and see if things are still gunked.
– Both a fresh OS install and TM restore will fix many kinds of gunking, each in different ways, just as long as the problem wasn’t inside your mom’s user account. So again, that’s the first thing to try.
– If both a fresh OS install on a bare drive and a TM restore don’t fix the gunking, then you have to get your hands dirty. First, I’d try using a new user account. just to make damn sure the gunking isn’t hardware related, separate from the hard drive. (Not very likely, but just possible enough to make it worth taking that step.) If that passes, it means it’s something in your mom’s user account, and selective user file backup to a fresh account is the only solution.
“Thanks for your help!”
No problem. I take this as a binding legal commitment not to shut down your blog. You’ll find ways to monetize. And if the kiddo is the issue, there’s always adoption…
I ended up ordering a mundane internal platter drive for replacement after looking at the procedure again. It’s not difficult, my challenge will be being patient and going slow. I paid a little more thru OWC and it’ll take a little longer to get here, vs Amazon, but their chat and online resources were useful and deserve compensation.
Restore method TBD. But her stuff is simple – software includes Safari, Pages, Mail, iTunes, Scrabble. I did back up all her personal Library folders, which I believe contain her email somewhere. Also obviously grabbed all her documents, which appear to be where they belong, and ripped CDs. I wonder if Time Machine has file restore vs everything else restore – that way I can start with a pristine system if the cloud OS thing works.
To make my life a little easier I’ll bring the Mini to my place and handle when convenient. I do like the idea of having a hub computer. But I need a computer-computer first. Need to unload my office desk, get a new office desk, and then stick a new iMac on it.
“I paid a little more thru OWC and it’ll take a little longer to get here, vs Amazon, but their chat and online resources were useful and deserve compensation.”
Good for you. OWC is a crucial piece of national infrastructure.
“It’s not difficult, my challenge will be being patient and going slow.”
If it’s labelled as ‘user accessible’, you’ll have no challenge at all. It’s like driving to Detroit. No challenge, but a task, and one that could well have fun aspects.
You’re just lucky in dealing with a Mini with a user accessible HD. Mine are of a previous generation, which has the disadvantage of not having a user accessible HD. (But they still have GPU’s capable of handing 1080 video without the CPU getting bothered. And they have the big advantage of being the last generation of hardware that that can run the last sane version of OS X.) But if a Mini HD ever died, I just run the thing off a small external FW SSD without a second thought. The enclosure would be cheaper than the HD upgrade service charge.
And why do hate your mom, Dave? Doesn’t she deserve the SSD experience? For a LAN hub device, fine, but as the first line of UX?
The main reason is this thing has been somewhat flakey since it arrived (12/12). Maybe the disk has always been bad and is just dying now. Or maybe there’s something else going on and I’ll be getting her a new one real soon. So limited my investment (in hardware, if not time). I think she’d more appreciate a newer iPad, but won’t let me mess with it. At some point, I’ll force the issue.
I have what I think is a 2007 or 2008 Mac Mini that she used prior. I think it’s OK, but I’m not sure. It won’t power up and my theory is my mom coiled the power cable too tightly when moving and that particular component is what broke. Not sure if it’s worth salvaging and the cord didn’t look cheap the last time I researched it.
“The main reason is this thing has been somewhat flakey since it arrived (12/12). Maybe the disk has always been bad and is just dying now.”
Yeah. Actually a possible scenario. SMART is a massively oversold technology that rarely reports failures. When it tells you something is wrong, you’ve really got a flesh-eating zombie on the loose in the box.
“Or maybe there’s something else going on and I’ll be getting her a new one real soon.”
You have a dev account, no? If so, can you download the “ASD” diagnostic bootup for that particular model there? If so, do. ASAP. They work. I’ve always gotten the ASD’s for our Mac models via semi-legal channels, but I heavily rely on them. They can really tell you what’s what. (ASD Stands for “Apple Service Diagnostics”, if that helps in any search, but they are named “ASD”.)
“I have what I think is a 2007 or 2008 Mac Mini … my theory is my mom coiled the power cable … and that particular component is what broke. Not sure if it’s worth salvaging and the cord didn’t look cheap…”
Strongly assuming “mid 2007”, it’s got gigabit ethernet, FW 400, and Core 2 Duo. That’s a perfectly competent cheap-o headless LAN hub machine, with one significant exception to be noted. If you can somehow manage a way to find a few minutes with a working cable to test your theory, I can’t imagine it’s even remotely possible that replacing the cable wouldn’t be worth your while. They start at $250 (often sans cabling) at Powermax, which is a fair price.
(That one significant exception is that the ancient GPU makes transcoding for Plex, or any other purpose like physical discs, a fool’s errand. It’s all on the CPU in a box with limited cooling. You might get away with real-time transcoding working, but even if you did, you’ll cook the poor l’ll box and destroy the fan in no time at all. Other than that one task, it’s fine for everything else. If you want a GPU that can do transcoding, it’s just one more generation of Mini’s up, aka starting in 2009.)
“My wife says I need to pick out a baby monitor and she says no video. Ideas?”
You should really get an easily hackable model. Which I assume is all of them.
My intentions are entirely honorable. I’ll just want to play a combination of Finnish language lessons and specious promotional messages about the delights of the tropical paradise of Helsinki. No ill effects will results will occur, other than an utterly implacable desire to move to Finland beginning around the age of 13.
As the Pixies say, it’s educational.
Cool, looking forward to universal healthcare and a postponed paternity leave.
“My wife says I need to pick out a baby monitor and she says no video. Ideas?”
You should strongly consider using an Amazon Echo for this purpose. If the infant needs anything or has any problems, Amazon will promptly drone her the necessary supplies. Will save you and your wife lots of time, effort, and worry.
Also, consider creating a mobile hanging over the crib consisting entirely of various Amazon Dash Buttons as a supplement to the Echo. That way, she can take you out of the loop for 99% of her needs.
No matter what the question, tech is always the answer.
In retrospect, I should have just ordered the 500GB $130 Firewire drive. ;)
The good news is I’m now an expert at assembly/disassembly having done it a couple times. The hardest part was getting the WiFi antenna reseated – who knows if I did it this last time. Not hard, but an annoyance – one or both memory chips or slots are very sensitive and hit me with three beeps at boot twice. Had to open and reseat. (Having managed 1500 laptops at one point, I’m a pro at laptop memory – it’s Apple, not me.)
But what really messed me up is her Windows keyboard. Couldn’t launch into cloud OS download mode. The external time machine drive booted each time, but saw no internal drive. So I figured I broke something or didn’t connect something well or, less likely, the drive was bad. As it turns out, Time Machine is a little stupid and I had to manually open Disk Utility… which clear as day sees the drive. Once I added a partition to it, Time Machine was ready to play ball. We’re restoring.
So I probably didn’t have to redo my work. On the flip side, this last time I think I secured everything pretty well. Can the ASD check the temp and that the fan is running? Assuming the Mac comes back to life in a bit… :)
Time Machine restore was a failure. Finder quits, Settings quits, everything quits. Screenfuls of errors, can’t open anything. On the plus side, hey it boots up! Creating a bootable El Capitan installer now. Assuming I can get a clean OS on there, I’ll selectively restore stuff from Time Machine or Crashplan.
Argh, this wireless Windows keyboard is killing me. We just ransacked my neighbor’s basement (after I did mine) looking for a USB keyboard. No one has them anymore. Anyhow, I think I tricked the keyboard/machine so I could launch the disk chooser. Hold down Alt, as a substitute for Option, while tapping Cntrl to make sure the keyboard was awake and communicating before loading straight into internal drive. Fun times!
Next time we upgrade my mom’s computer, she gets a Mac keyboard and AppleCare.
“In retrospect, I should have just ordered the 500GB $130 Firewire drive. ;)”
:) (And I think you know how much I hate using emoticons in general. Let’s just hope the rest of the hardware is solid, and then your regrets will slowly melt away.)
“But what really messed me up is her Windows keyboard. Couldn’t launch into cloud OS download mode.”
Yeah. You do need the squiggle (Apple) key. But for future reference, you should be able to get an Apple™ compatible keyboard for $20 or so to have around for future emergencies. (Good for all kinds of pre-boot options, and there are a bunch of useful ones.)
“Time Machine restore was a failure. Finder quits, Settings quits, everything quits. Screenfuls of errors, can’t open anything.”
Yeah. Like I keep sayin’, TM is a nice secondary backup method. Clones are primary. TM too flaky; clones for the pros. Word to the wise moving forward.
“Creating a bootable El Capitan installer now. Assuming I can get a clean OS on there,”
You go girl! Personally, I’d just have just speed-ordered a keyboard from Amazon to do internet boot. But, really, six of one, half dozen of another…
“Assuming I can get a clean OS on there, I’ll selectively restore stuff from Time Machine or Crashplan.”
Correctamundo. And godspeed. Hope you kinda knew what to backup with Crashplan, if the TM angle doesn’t work.
(I really don’t remember precisely how TM machine restores work in a situation like this where you’re separately putting on the OS, and you might want to do a few minutes of google research. When I’m in your neck of the woods, I’m always dealing with clones, and sometimes Migration Assistant on the back of the clone, if it’s a different model machine. But my seat-of-the-pants advice with TM is to manually, selectively restore your mom’s non-stock-supplied apps from /Applications and /Library/Application Support, along with her entire /Users/mom. OTOH, maybe Apple designed TM smartly enough to make a one-click restore work in your situation. Really dunno.)
BTW, assuming I’m correct that you have a dev account, did you check there for ASD (Apple Service Diagnostic) images? Separate bootup image for each model. Gold standard for evaluating hardware. Personally, if it were me, I’d think it worth my while to run a series of fully automated tests for a few hours to make sure I was restoring onto solid hardware before I wasted all the manual time. If ASD’s aren’t available on the dev site, you can still find them out therre, but then the effort/reward equation is less clear.
“Argh, this wireless Windows keyboard is killing me.”
Yeah. Like I was just saying…
“Next time we upgrade my mom’s computer, she gets a Mac keyboard and AppleCare.”
Like I was saying, just get a $20 Apple™ compatible keyboard, if not now, then soon after this nightmare. Worthwhile to have around buried in a closet.
And given the 2012 date, wouldn’t the AppleCare have expired by now? Since a Mini should last more than 3 years, think different. Basic recovery here isn’t rocket science, though there is obviously a slight learning curve. Been there many times, and when following best practices™, it always Just Works.
Clones are your friend. They cure all software problems, either caused by disk problems, or by software itself somehow gone blooey. And they are even the most reliable way to move to a new machine.
Beyond that, ASD images are your friend for seeing what’s what with your hardware. Then can tell you if the logic board is bad, and thus let you make a decision on whether or not it’s cost-effective to replace. Or tell you if something cheap ‘n’ easy to replace is bad. Either way, you know what’s up when you deal with the repair place. Or just as importantly, they can tell you that your hardware is golden, and thus that you’re doing something stupid on the software side if you can’t get everything to work.
Also, things could’ve changed, but last I checked, even with currently active AppleCare, it doesn’t cover data recovery/restoration. And the additional cost for that is relatively hefty.
So good to know basic best practices™ for this kind of situation. Like I say, slight learning curve, but the Good News is that it’s doable for mere mortals. With the correct, quite basic skills/tools, it’s sorta child’s play. Been on OS X since 2002, done a bunch of recoveries/upgrades/migrations, never lost an iota of data, never not been right back up to the exact same desktop environment, never even really broken a sweat doing any of it. Nicely designed UNIX system to work with.
But TM is like the space shuttle. Incredibly impressive technology, but the sheer complexity, and that’s even before we get to the damn heat tiles, makes it, well, I trust you know about the space shuttle. Clones are easily comprehensible and workable for mere mortals. (In retrospect, perhaps there’s a recurring theme in my advice to you looking forward. Cold comfort at moment, I’m sure, but I do mean well.)
Available for actual troubleshooting.
Thanks for the cheerleading and offer of support. I’m mostly done, in real good shape. Will debrief later this weekend.
1) AppleCare was more about handling the drive replacement and checking other things out. Data restore would have been a bonus, but I can handle. Mini was purchased 12/12, so it’d still have been covered. Related, ASD is not to my Developer account. Maybe it’s specific to hardware sales and repair partners? I do see some torrents and such, but download a 3-day trial of Temperature Gauge Pro to get an idea of things — all looks OK.
2) In the old days, I would clone both my Mac (Carbon) and Windows (Acronis) drives. It’s an efficient restore in an emergency, but I generally take these opportunities to rebuild on a clean OS install knowing we tend to accumulate junk (processes).
3) As mentioned above, the initial setbacks were due to not realizing I had to partition the drive before anything would pick it up and overcoming this wireless Windows keyboard. This is the second time in the last year, I needed a USB keyboard around here for project. Which pains me knowing how many I’ve recycled over the years. Windows would probably be OK – most keys map, it’s the physical connection that is preferable.
4) Cloud OS restore takes hours and hours according to Dan Frakes and the preferred method is El Capitan (or whatever) via USB boot drive. Which is what I ended up doing.
5) After install, it asked if I wanted to recover from Time Machine, so I said what the heck, let’s try again. At this point, TM is not OS – it’s app, documents, and/or settings. I chose most of the stuff in the documents category and skipped the rest. Worked better than I could have expected, including her bookmarks and all her archived email (she uses the Mail client). She uses mostly native apps plus a word game and Pages from the App Store – no biggie to get back. I manually reinstalled LogMeIn, which is how I kicked off CrashPlan from iPhone (so tedious) before I could get a drive to her. My account is grandfathered and I retain full control from *mobile* devices. I tried installing Chrome Remote Desktop now, but it failed. Will revisit some other day.
6) Yes, I had grabbed everything I needed with Crashplan had I needed to go that route. When I unloaded my iMac last year, my master plan had been when I got my replacement that I backup my Mac to her and she backup her Mac to me. Peer to peer is free indefinitely. If/when I get our new iMac, still thinking that is a good solution.
7) Since she unsubscribed from Mozy and Crashplan expired like a year ago and I haven’t implemented the next thing, she has a 8GB USB stick plugged into the Mac full time where she periodically backs up her documents — as far as she’s concerned, that’s the only critical stuff. So we were never dead in the water. But I thought she’d benefit from many years of emails and those bookmarks. Although, since migrating from Firefox to Safari a few months back, I think iCloud has all her bookmarks too.
“After install, it asked if I wanted to recover from Time Machine, so I said what the heck, let’s try again … I chose most of the stuff in the documents category and skipped the rest. Worked better than I could have expected, including her bookmarks and all her archived email (she uses the Mail client).”
Hurrah! Like I say, TM is akin to the space shuttle. When it works, it’s a sight to behold.
Glad you had a happy ending here.
And now onto more educational matters:
“At this point, TM is not OS”
Well, not entirely sure if by ‘at this point’ you mean where you were in the restore process, or where Apple is in development, but FWIW, TM definitely does backup and restore the OS, along with everything else. I’ve used TM to restore a friend’s Mac onto a completely bare drive.
It didn’t work for you here to restore the OS, which is the downside of the space shuttle level of complexity.
“In the old days, I would clone both my Mac (Carbon) and Windows (Acronis) drives. It’s an efficient restore in an emergency, but I generally take these opportunities to rebuild on a clean OS install knowing we tend to accumulate junk (processes).”
Actually, you can do the exact same restore method using clones. You just use Migration Assistant to restore from a clone onto a rig with a clean installed OS. Same essential options as in a TM restore, same de-crufting, and same simplicity.
The beauty of clones / Migration Assistant over TM in a process like this is in the reliability. TM is flaky, as you’ve already discovered when you tried to do the full TM restore, which should’ve worked. You got luckier with the /User restore, but even that fails an alarming amount of the time. And this line of thinking is not just me. None of the pros trust TM. Read OS X dev blogs sometime, and they’re scathing about TM reliability. Lots of the failures are silent, and you don’t find out about them until the restore, when the heat tiles are revealed to be nicked.
And clones have a few other advantages, one of which you note.
“Crashplan … When I unloaded my iMac last year, my master plan had been when I got my replacement that I backup my Mac to her and she backup her Mac to me. Peer to peer is free indefinitely. If/when I get our new iMac, still thinking that is a good solution.”
Not an unreasonable cheap-o cloud solution. But remember to use it as a supplementary backup, not your primary.
(FWIW, one negative thing I’ve heard about Crashplan is that it uses an absurdly high amount of CPU and RAM. Might’ve been fixed lately, or not. But that’s been one thing that keeps folks I follow away from using it, along with a few other items.)
I’d still recommend the far more highly regarded Arq, which can also backup to another remote machine via SFTP. It’s what the pros use. But whichever you prefer. If the Crashplan software itself is free, you’ll save a few bucks going that way.
“Related, ASD is not to my Developer account. Maybe it’s specific to hardware sales and repair partners? I do see some torrents and such…”
Too bad. I assume you are correct about the limits of its distribution. It’s damn handy. I’ve always gotten mine from friends, or through the net.
Temp gauges and the like are nice, but are obviously quite limited. If you have any kind of intermittent problem, ASD can not only crucially tell you whether all hardware is working properly, with a damn high degree of confidence, but can also precisely pinpoint any failure to the exact component. And thus you can see if the component is part of the logic board, requiring an expensive repair, or elsewhere, requiring a cheap repair.
As far as safety goes in downloading via 3rd party sources and using, it used to be utterly safe from maliciousness, as you could just wipe the hard drive and restore after using it. But in the last year, firmware based exploits have appeared for Macs. However, I’d frankly think this is still incredibly low risk, as infecting individual ASD’s with firmware exploits seems like a vector that would hit such an absurdly small number of people that it wouldn’t conceivably be worth any black hats’ time.
I meant by using Time Machine at that point, post OS load, it wasn’t offering to wipe and install the OS, only layer stuff on top. Like you say, when it works, it’s obviously very clever. In addition to computer-to-computer backup, I think I’ll leave her that compact 1TB external drive for a local Time Machine copy. I assume under most circumstance, there is *something* usable in there. I feel like Crashplan used to require Java and no longer does, but my memory is rusty too. Also, now I got her pics backing up to iCloud Photos and syncing between phone/computer so good redundancy there and we have no privacy concerns. Not sure we’ll do the same with her docs and iCloud Drive.
Definitely will look into ASD. But I’ve invested enough time on mom’s computer this week. :) Would have appreciated it before I sold my iMac last year. It was sluggish and I felt like it had a bad drive but wasn’t part of the iMac drive recall. Unlike my mom’s Mini which said SMART drive error, disk will fail in five minutes, I had no intel other than it never “felt” right.
Dave. Dave. Why have you not done this already?
Wow, that is as impressive as it is ridiculous. Is she/he a real person? I see a bunch of retweets and now and then follow the account, but I don’t know what’s going on half the time.
“Is she/he a real person?”
This is obviously news to you, but it’s been conclusively proven through multiple scientific studies that on the internet, no one can tell if you’re a dog.
He/she is clever, funny, and informative. The feed is a good read. My guess is that it’s a witty IT security peon who may (or may not) actually be named Taylor Swift.
“Wow, that is as impressive as it is ridiculous.”
So, your ETA on completion should be Wednesday?
So, newbie twits question from a frosh to a senior. I’ve got a relatively new twits account under my non-tech pseudonym, (don’t want to get into details). Double-digit twits, double-digit follows, no followers.
However, except for posting twits, I do teh twits viewing via individual feeds on the mobile site with my no no-JS / no-cookies setup. So I get to see a ‘virgin’ look at things. And when I post replies to comments, they don’t show up in the ‘virgin view’ converstation. Why? Why? Why? Do the people I reply to have to follow me before my twit shows up in the conversation? That, while it seems dubious to me, is the only answer that makes sense. Otherwise, what newbie trick am I unaware of?
I know the folks I’m directly replying to can see me, as I’ve gotten ‘favs’ from them. I’ve even tried the non-kosher “.” leading trick. But still, my twits don’t show up in the ‘virgin view’ conversation. What’s the trick, senior?
Jeebus. Ad-free Hulu and YouTube charge extra to compensate for the Cupertino 30% tax? I quite literally thought that was explicitly against the Cupertino TOS. I thought you had the simple Procrustean choice to either charge the same price inside and out, or to not bill through Cupertino at all.
Unlike the Quisling you RT’d, I’m very much liking this trend…
Hm, not sure I know or have thought it about. Are you replying to people with tons of followers or just a few? The only time I think I’ve seen behavior like that is responding to like an Anderson Cooper where Twitter seems to cherry pick the replies on display – not sure if it’s based on time, number of faves in that reply during a time period before it vanishes, based on follower count and replier, etc. You could experiment on my feed, but then your cover would be blown…
“Are you replying to people with tons of followers or just a few? The only time I think I’ve seen behavior like that is responding to like an Anderson Cooper where Twitter seems to cherry pick the replies on display – not sure if it’s based on time, number of faves in that reply during a time period before it vanishes, based on follower count and replier, etc. You could experiment on my feed, but then your cover would be blown…”
Weird. I really figured there’d be an easy explanation.
All of the folks I’ve replied to have relatively high follower counts, but some are in your neighborhood, or even a few thousand less. And the threads generally aren’t jam-packed with replies. I’ve even posted a couple twits where I’m the only reply, but it still doesn’t show up in the ‘virgin view’.
And like I say, it’s even weirder, cuz I know via their favs that the folks I’m replying to can see the twits. It’s just that no one else but the original poster and me can see them in the thread.
I guess this is the universe’s way of telling me I shouldn’t bother with Twitter…
Weirder and weirder. For the first time, a twit of mine actually did show up in the conversation. Absolutely no difference in my style, or number of followers of whom I responded to, compared to previous twits. Just randomly happened.
Obviously, this means my account is about to be verified…
OK. So here’s a twit poster with 30,000 followers who had the same “twit doesn’t show up in the conversation problem” I was complaining about:
Matthew “trustfund scumbag” Yglesias posted a perfectly reasonable question for someone with little deep knowledge of American political history. And Jeet Heer promptly answers the question the question correctly.
But if you look at the original Yglesias conversation thread, the Jeet Heer twit simply doesn’t show up.
And like I say, Jeet Heer has 30,000 followers!
(FWIW, this comment has two links, so it’ll probably get stuck in moderation hell forever, but at least I’ve now found a good example for you to, perhaps someday, see of what I was confused about. What’s the twit’s criteria for how this all works? Damned if I can figure it out.)
It looks like his first reply was to a retweet, hence the two names in there? If so, maybe that’s filtered out? Regardless, more hearts in the timeline should help restore some order.
bump for me, to see Dave’s comment…
“It looks like his first reply was to a retweet, hence the two names in there? If so, maybe that’s filtered out?”
Hmmm…
Pretty sure that’s not the issue here. (Or at least not the complete issue.) But upon further review, I actually do have a seemingly correct theory as to why it actually did happen:
Jeet didn’t reply to the original Yglesias twit. Instead he replied to a second Yglesias twit in the same conversation, and his twits do indeed show up in that conversation.
Unfortunately, that still doesn’t explain what was going on with my twits, as nothing at all like that kind of situation was going on with me. But at least now that one of my twits showed up in a conversation, I’m sorta pacified. Plus, I got a fav from an ex-President!
“Regardless, more hearts in the timeline should help restore some order.”
All of your comments here get hearts from me, Dave. It’s Valentine’s Day 365 days per year!
“ToDoist, Wunderlist, Anydo, something else?”
Dunno if your primary PC is Mac or Windows, but if Mac, you should definitely check out OmniFocus. Syncs with the iOS client. (I suppose you could only use the iOS client if your Windows, but the real beauty lies in having the desktop client too.)
Unlike all the simple list apps, it’s got a bit of learning curve. But it’s not that steep. And once you’re past that, it’s got incredible flexibility and features for both simple and complex task lists. Incredibly customizable to whatever workflow is best for you. Once you get the hang of it, you’ll be hooked. There’s really nothing else that compares.
Everyone who uses it for a bit ends up loving it. I really can’t praise it highly enough.
I use Windows enough, that a client there would be preferable. Then again, I imagine the bulk of my list making stuff would be mobile. Hm.
“I use Windows enough, that a client there would be preferable. Then again, I imagine the bulk of my list making stuff would be mobile. Hm.”
Try downloading the Mac client direct from the site, which gets you a free trial period, so you can see what it’s like.
Again, there is a learning curve, but once you get past it, you’ll find easy ways to use it just the way you want to, rather than the way it comes configured. I use it completely differently than the way it comes configured, which I think it pretty common among users.
(Assuming you have a Mac you use at least occasionally, that would be helpful. Most folks tend to use it on mobile more than desktop – location sensing for tasks is a killer feature – but the desktop is useful for occasional organizing, clearing out old stuff, etc…)
Yeah, I frequently use a work-issued 11″ MBA at the kitchen table. But, no matter how good OmniFocus is, I think I’d have a real hard time coughing up the cash for both platforms. I did buy into Things a few years back. That may be worth another look. But my simple stuff is probably easily handled by Todoist or Anydo, which are cross platform.
I’m out of time to replace our office desk before baby gets here. Plan had been unload current desk, get new desk, then get new computer. Might move forward with the computer now and use in the basement or kitchen or dining room — need something to organize our photos, old and new. Our existing desk is bar height and wife can no longer mount the chair and it’s been pretty bad for my back from the get-go. Busted purchased, we chose form over function.
bump for me to read…
“I did buy into Things a few years back. That may be worth another look.”
Things : OmniFocus :: Channel Master : TiVo
In short, if it ain’t got the QoS, it ain’t no thing.
“But, no matter how good OmniFocus is, I think I’d have a real hard time coughing up the cash for both platforms.”
Ugh. For a guy who is willing to pay through the teeth for various needless hardware, not mention video games, the unwillingness to pay for quality software always befuddles me. It’s a one-time purchase price, y’know, not a monthly subscription. And believe me, you’re not alone! Really! But from my POV, paying for software that dramatically improves your productivity has always seemed a no-brainer.
We’ve all certainly been conditioned to believe that software should be free, or almost free. But I consider certain ‘expensive’ software to be among the best bargains out there. And OmniFocus is among those. How much is your time and effort worth?
(And OmniFocus may not be for you. Which is why I advise giving the free trial a serious shot. Everybody has different use-case-scenarios. But OmniFocus is the real dope. And if you can make it work for you, which you very likely can do, it’s a tremendous bargain at its pricing level. There’s actually a reason it sells well at that price. It’s a quantum leap. It improves your quality of life. I don’t do the hard sell lightly.)
“Or Mac Mini and 24″ Dell LCD with vertical stand adjustment?”
Oh, so, now you suddenly get smart?
But with a Mini, compared to an iMac, if one component dies you don’t get to give Apple so much more money for a complete replacement. Plus the Mini’s tend to last far longer than the iMacs. Won’t anyone think of poor Cupertino’s finances?
(Dunno about the Mac reseller you mention, but I’m partial to the highly reputable Powermax, since it’s in Oregon, and thus has no sales tax. Also, I’d actually advise getting a used mid-2010 Mini, since you could run Snow Leopard, the last sane OS X version, while also double-booting or VM-img into the current OS for modern tasks. Plus, you’d save money with FireWire accessories instead of Thunderbolt. But what do I know?)
Once again, my aversion to clutter comes into play. I like the idea of everything built in, but I did have a hard time getting comfortable with the last iMac. Adorama has Apple Care thrown in, plus $70 off, plus no sales tax.
“Once again, my aversion to clutter comes into play.”
Oh, well. Can’t just hide everything under the desk? The Mini is tiny, and if you’re really going the (sensible) NAS route, you’ll have some clutter anyway, which the Mini wouldn’t add much to. I’ve always tried to steer folks away from the iMac for a pretty wide variety of reasons. But, as always, every personal use-case-scenario is different…
“Adorama has Apple Care thrown in, plus $70 off, plus no sales tax.”
I’ve never heard of them, which doesn’t mean much. Apple has been regularly discounting certain Mac models at particular times through resellers for a while now. So if they’re running that kind of sale just on certain models, it really doesn’t raise any warning flags for me, despite the unusual scale of the discount. But if they’re pricing all Mac models that way, I’d be very, very suspicious.
Wasn’t sold on either the Mac Mini, which hasn’t been refreshed in 13 months, or iMac with 16:9 screens of sizes I don’t like, that can’t be adjusted. Ended up ordering the 24″ Dell U2415H – 16:10 with both height and tilt adjustments, also once in the final sunroom location should do better with glare. Will use with MBA in the short term (documents and photo organization), long term plan TBD… but, sadly, will feature more clutter than I’d like!
“Wasn’t sold on either the Mac Mini, which hasn’t been refreshed in 13 months…”
You do realize that I was utterly sincerely recommending you purchase a 5 year old Mac Mini, right? With SSD’s and user-serviceable RAM, the CPU and GPU processing power necessary for adequate performance of PC’s has long been solved. Specs are for suckers.
“Ended up ordering the 24″ Dell U2415H – 16:10 with both height and tilt adjustments … Will use with MBA in the short term”
Nothing wrong with that. The right display for you is far more crucial than is generally recognized. And keeping your components separated is the correct way to go. As they say in eXistenZ, death to the demoness iMac! Except, as always, it’s really nice to have to have that Mini sitting on the LAN permanently on, both for NAS/SAN, and for the multitude of other reasons you’ll gradually discover if you ever get one…
For NAS-esque duties and most day to day stuff, I’d be fine with an older Mac Mini. But one of the things my MBA struggles with is the rare occasion I edit video. Although I do like the idea of tricking it out with a SSD without overpaying for a “Fusion drive.”
My other thought was a newer, better MBA. Not to mention I’ve been skimming Apple’s refurbs for various models. But I may do nothing for now. The freelance writing is more lucrative than I’d imagined, but it’s a different sort of undertaking – feels a lot like “work” and consumes a good deal of time. Could have fired off six posts in the time I’ve been stressing out over my assignment. And Baby Zatz is coming…
“My other thought was a newer, better MBA.”
Yeah. But due the reduced heat dissipation on the MBA vs Mini, it’s really not the best choice for video editing, an always on device, Plex transcoding, etc, etc, etc, etc. Plus, it’s more expensive, since you’re paying for a screen and miniaturization you don’t need, and given the lesser lifespan, it’s also more expensive over the years. (And that’s even before we get into the massive resale value disparity.) Plus, there that whole ‘lack of ports’ thing…
But yeah, if you’re doing regular video editing, then you do want a modern CPU in your Mini. But I’d still feel quite comfortable with the 13 month old model. And note how the CPU on the MBA is dramatically throttled to better battery life and heat dissipation, at least compared to the ‘mid-price’ Mini.
(Though even the ‘low-price’ Mini would notably outperform the MBA, despite having similar specs, since once heat gets past a certain point, CPU activity gets throttled waaaay down to keep from frying everything. In the bad old days when I did video encoding with a laptop, if I put an ice pack under the laptop, the encode would happen twice as fast.)
“Although I do like the idea of tricking it out with a SSD without overpaying for a “Fusion drive.”
I’d walk a mile barefoot through broken glass before I’d ever work with a directly used PC with a platter drive again. (Nothing wrong with storing A/V files on a platter drive, of course.) Fusion drives are the bunk.
“And Baby Zatz is coming…”
Babies love Mac Mini’s. It’s their favorite thing in the whole wide world. Plus, as stated, it’s cheaper, both up front, and over time.
“Could have fired off six posts in the time I’ve been stressing out over my assignment.”
More link posts and Reuters reprints. Let your commenters pick up the slack while you’re busy…
“And Baby Zatz is coming…”
FWIW, if you legally name your firstborn child ‘Baby Zatz’, then I will donate twenty five dollars to your Kickstarter to use this gambit to dominate the fragmented mommyblogger space.
(I do expect equity during your IPO in exchange for this donation, as seems only fair.)
And don’t worry! I think the ‘Baby Zatz’ naming will cause her to experience increased social capital during her exchange student stretch in Helsinki. Actually, it’s about ethics in baby naming.
She does have a normal, human name. But my wife has sworn me to secrecy so most folks are calling her Baby Zatz. Except one guy at work who went with Snow Leopard as he incorrectly thinks I’m an Apple fanboy.
“She does have a normal, human name. But my wife has sworn me to secrecy”
Well, if I’d settled on ‘Zuzuzuzugaga Moon Unit Zatz’, I’d probably keep it a secret too.
“Except one guy at work who went with Snow Leopard as he incorrectly thinks I’m an Apple fanboy.”
I’m not sure I agree with you a hundred percent on your police work, there, Lou. (Either that, or the guy is dazed and confused.)
Snow Leopard is a cult only among ex-Apple fanbois, like me. We remember how good things used to be before the Dark Ages began in Cupertino…
Most of my work exists in a browser… so, if anything, maybe I’m a Chrome browser fanboy (despite its ability to crush most machines when running multiple tabs).
As far as Baby Zatz, when she’s a teenager she may hate us. Her initials are EZ.
“As far as Baby Zatz, when she’s a teenager she may hate us. Her initials are EZ.”
Yeah, that will be unfortunate. But to go out on a limb, I’d say she’ll likely hate you more for the ‘Elderberry’ name than for the initials…
Have been hanging out at one of our other offices this week and the guy I sold my iMac to a year or so back (for his wife) built himself a Hackintosh — could be the way to go! Well, if I hide the enclosure anyway. His is cool and see-thru, but significantly larger than the Mini. But I could get exactly the specs I want and probably save a few bucks in the process.
On my new monitor now. Amazon did not include sufficient packaging material so the box was pretty loose in a box 25% longer. No dead pixels with a quick look, but lighting appears a bit darker near the lower lip. Will let it burn in over the next few days and see how it works out. Otherwise, happy with the physical appearance and screen. Build quality is real nice and LCD can be precisely positioned (unlike an iMac). The bezel settings include Mac and PC profiles, to save me a few seconds. Also, this particular model has a three year warranty to include color accuracy and dead pixels. There’s nothing I hate more than a dead pixel.
I do appreciate how well and intelligently Mac OS handles multiple monitors, with minimal intervention. Also impressed this little 2011 MBA can power its own 768px display and this 1200px one. Apple’s always crushed Windows in this regard.
“Have been hanging out at one of our other offices this week and the guy I sold my iMac to a year or so back (for his wife) built himself a Hackintosh — could be the way to go! … I could get exactly the specs I want and probably save a few bucks in the process.”
Sure. But lotta, lotta work. And more work down the line when OS X upgrades come out. Makes a TiVo S3/S4 hard drive upgrade look like a walk in the park. Only if you think you’ll purely enjoy the whole process, both now and in the future, should you go for it. There is a reason that despite there being a lot of Hackintosh capable folks who want a hardcore Mac Pro that’s reasonably priced, very few bother going down that route…
“I do appreciate how well and intelligently Mac OS handles multiple monitors, with minimal intervention … Apple’s always crushed Windows in this regard.”
Cupertino has being doing its level best to totally screw up OS X since the post-Snow Leopard era began. But OS X was so solid that they’ve only been able to make partial progress so far. I’d personally love to leave the platform, but every time I re-investigate Windows, I back far, far away.
But far more importantly than any of this, you now have a simple way to instantly make EZ smart! It’s all right up your alley! And think of the blogging potential!
Chucky, give me an email address or email me at davezatz@gmail. Got a confidential tip for you. May change your thinking…
“Chucky, give me an email address or email me at davezatz@gmail. Got a confidential tip for you. May change your thinking…”
Ugh. I check my email once every three years. And you already got it! Also, can’t you just DM instead? But shall dutifully resend…
“I figured you’d appreciate”
Yes. Yes, indeedy.
We’ve both predicted. Although deriving our predictions from very different rationales.
You’re an Elliott Gould-worthy Philip Marlowe, sir. Do it up proper.
Calculated risk, stirring the pot.
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=10713069#post10713069
“Calculated risk, stirring the pot.”
A bit of a risk indeed, assuming you do want to Scoop The World. (I’d advise using the Drudge siren gif.) But then again, it’ll take a single person on a WWE thread who is willing to do tech sleuthing, which seems somewhat iffy…
“Yeah, can’t use my own router with MoCA from ONT. Have to hang router off their router as is if I want better WiFi.”
First off, I’ve never understood why you’d hang a full-blown router off the Actiontec. Why not a simple WiFi access point? Cheaper, thus more upgradable, and simpler, with less to go wrong, and fewer hassles. (I imagine the Actiontec doesn’t function as a ‘genuine’ passthrough, without zero hiccups, though I could be ignorant.)
That said, as we both know, ditching the Actiontec for a cat5 wire connected to your own full-blown router would be optimal.
But, Jeebus. You can’t get them to run a wire if you upgrade your service and pay more? Are you sure you are negotiating properly? If that’s really their policy that can’t be worked around, my emphatic advise for you is to use your next contract renewal to actually negotiate to get a tech out to run the wire. You can do it! Really. If you do 10 minutes of research on their competitor, they’ll make you happy rather than letting their expensive fibre go dark. A small bluff is all that’s needed. If you’ve ever played poker twice in your life, you can do it!
And pour a 40oz out for Flash.
I mean, I know he’s been in hospice for a long time with liver failure, and I know we’ve all pretty much forgotten about him. But still, was around forever, and started strutting his stuff when we were but spring chickens. Ah, nostalgia.
Back in the day, he was a real innovator.
(I actually had a close college friend who lucked his way into being an exec at Macromedia on the Shockwave/Director account. And I don’t know if he ever fully knew, but since I was an A/V guy with web savvy, I sure as hell knew that stuff was true dynamite. The Adobe buyout was very, very good to him.)
I’ve tried it a few ways, with a Netgear extender and by repurposing a second Actiontec as an AP. Both were problematic, whereas the full fledged routers (ASUS at this address, Airport a few years back at another) were a better solution.
I thought 150/150 required Ethernet, but instead of rewiring Kevin’s house from the ONT, they did something with two wired bridges when he got his “Quantum” speed upgrade. I guess you don’t know the plan until the installer gets there. As far as contract renewal, I’m stuck on this budget plan – no compelling offers to upgrade (for kids programming, ESPN, and such) and no real leverage given a 12/16 renewal. Next time I get one of these Xfinity mailers with $300 gift card for switching, maybe I’ll call retention and see what I can work out.
“As far as contract renewal, I’m stuck on this budget plan – no compelling offers to upgrade (for kids programming, ESPN, and such) and no real leverage given a 12/16 renewal.”
You do have leverage, merely through a small bluff.
You just tell them that the plan/pricing is fine by you, and that you’re willing to re-up under those circumstances. But you also tell them that getting a tech out to re-wire for ethernet is a deal-breaker, and that you’re planning to switch to Comcast unless they comply. You do 10 minutes of online research to find the Comcast deal for new customers, cite the price, and lie to FIOS and tell them you’ve already had conversations with Comcast about scheduling an appointment.
At that point, they transfer you to retention, and given the extreme modesty of your request, the retention person does the math and quickly signs off on sending out a tech. Easy-peasy.
I’ve made incredibly obscene demands to FIOS during each of my contract renewals, and always gotten retention to give me 75% of what I want. And we’re not just talking about massively discounted plan/pricing, but also substantial cash/gift cards. This is value miles beyond a comped tech visit.
Your worst case scenario is that you waste 45 minutes of your time, and have to back off your bluff. But they will be utterly amenable to comping you a cheap tech visit for a contract renewal. Compared to me, you’re asking for peanuts. I’ve got experience here, and their Prime Directive is to move heaven and earth not let that expensive fibre go dark…
Also, has LaserShip misplaced EZ? Seems about time, no? Perhaps you should check around your home to see if they left the package in some obscure location…
We’re in real good shape as far as her development and timing. As of tomorrow, we’re 37 weeks which is considered full term. Our “due date” is 12/24, but the latest we will go is 12/16. So sometime in the next two weeks she’ll be here. Probably too old and too anxious for the path we’ve chosen… :)
“Probably too old and too anxious for the path we’ve chosen”
Now, if you followed my advice, and implanted the IoT chips prenatal, rather than post-birth as you are planning, you’d feel much more reassured at the moment.
Regardless, you might still want to keep a close eye on the LaserShip guy. My knowledge of biology may be slightly out of date, but you can never be too safe.
“Our “due date” is 12/24, but the latest we will go is 12/16.”
Kudos on the planning to you both. Sagittarii rock. Capricorns don’t.
And, hey, look at me!
I had a tweet go minimally viral. ProfJeffJarvis retweeted me.
Please don’t link it up here. I like to keep tech pseudonym and world pseudonym separated. But now you can find me, should you want…
In case the joke is too inside baseball, it did worm itself all the way to the WaPo…
OK. I did some research on the biology involved, and it’s not going to be the LaserShip guy. Instead, this is apparently how it works.