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MacThump: Naked Emperor Trips & Falls

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Ten endless hours. That’s how long it took to get my MacMail account back up and running. That marathon was punctuated by two trips to the Apple store, neither of which was especially satisfactory. As beautiful and kewl as the Macintosh’s hardware is, in the software department sometimes the MacEmperor has no clothes.

Damn. Timing couldn’t have been worse. I’d planned to spend an entire day working on a client’s project. After a godawful techno-day, along about 10 p.m. we got an email bitching about our slow performance, for which there are several reasons. One of them is that the client thinks I’m going to write a book in seven weeks, an entirely unreasonable expectation. The other is…episodes like yesterday’s.

Ever since Apple migrated  my MacMail over to iCloud, which is required when you upgrade your operating system to Lion, I’ve been getting pop-ups that demand that I re-enter my password. Over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and… Until I force-quit the program in both computers. That usually makes it stop. For a while.

Speaking of for a while, this has been a known issue for quite some time, but it seems to be worse with iCloud, one of the most useless inventions yet to cloud the technohorizon. When I went in to complain about it several weeks ago, I was told it was a server problem, nothing to do with my machines. Ohhhkkaaayyyyy…. How’s about we fix our servers?

Yesterday, the minute I sat down to open said client’s mountain of e-mails, up popped one of these messages. NOTHING that I did would make it stop. Infuriated after half an hour of dorking with this, I tossed the MacBook in the car and drove down to the Apple store. Of course, by the time I got there, the phenomenon had stopped. However, 14 files, most of them graphics, were sitting on the server, and if the damn thing started up again—which I figured it would as soon as I opened either computer at home—I would never be able to get at them.

Plus really. This had been going on altogether too long. I already have a .com e-mail address for my business through Bluehost. Now that MacMail has proven itself to be utterly unreliable, I asked myself, why on earth aren’t I using the Bluehost account? And more to the point, how am I going to get at this stuff if I the system chokes again?

From the Apple store, I e-mailed all 14 client files to Tina for safekeeping, figuring she could send them back to me if they again became inaccessible on the Mac. Since 13 of them were graphics that not only had to be numbered and stored coherently but also entered in a directory of cutlines and credits, downloading to disk seemed infeasibly time-consuming while I was standing at a counter in the Apple store.

Back at my house, I checked out the Bluehost account, decided it’s not great but it will do, and started the work of transferring my business and personal e-mail from mac.com/me.com to mybusiness.com. Once this was set up, I sent out a blanket e-mail to all my clients telling them what the new address was. I also created an auto-respond message sharing the new address with people who send e-mails to the mac.com address.

{goddamnit! As I write this, MacMail is bouncing at me AGAIN to demand that I fill in a password.}

To set up an auto-respond, you have to use the same function that allows you to make MacMail move certain classes of messages into the trash or into other folders, as desired. This is, on the surface at least, radically different from the auto-respond function in Outlook.

Backstory:

The community colleges and the community college district blitz employees, 24-7, with a constant hailstorm of irrelevant messages. Somehow I got on Phoenix College’s mailing list; I’m on Paradise Valley’s because I contract for that campus, and everyone is on the central district mailing list. Every day something upwards of 100 messages come in, telling me what is being served at the Phoenix College chow line today, not to forget to turn in my PeopleSoft time sheet (contract adjuncts do not turn in time sheets), that someone on a campus 30 miles away is having an anniversary, that somebody in some office is trying to get rid of some used bookcases…and on and on and on and on. This stuff floods my in-box.

But in amongst this trash are messages that I need to see: messages from the departmental chair, for example, or announcements of policy that actually applies to adjuncts. So rather than derailing ALL messages from PC, PVCC, and the two huge mailing lists at the district offices, I’ve been blacklisting offenders as they send an irrelevant message.

As a result, I’ve written scores and scores of “rules” sending messages from specific sources to “Trash.” I lost count of the number at 200.

The auto-respond adds another “rule” to this overstuffed closet of horrors. And apparently that was just one. rule. too. many.

I gather all my contacts into a BCC line, put my own e-mail address in the visible “To” line, and send out a message telling all my cronies and business contacts where to find me henceforth. So I’m sitting there configuring the new e-mail client over at Bluehost when I hear a couple of “bings” from the MacMail. Looks like bounced messages from the notice of the new e-mail address. Figures—some of these folks, I haven’t heard from in years. I think it’s rejected messages.

…heh heh heh heh heh heh heh…

385 incoming messages later, I’m on the way to the Apple store.

In the 20 minutes or so it takes to get there, another 3,000 messages cascade into MacMail. No. That’s not a typo. By the time I walk into the Apple store seeking help, well over three thousand new messages reside on the server.

I can’t make them understand what the problem is. Either they really don’t understand, or they’re working very, very hard to pretend not to understand. Since they deny knowledge of the password denial issue, I suspect the latter. This seems not to be atypical of Apple consumer policy: pretend it’s not there, and maybe it’ll go away. Finally I find a guy who realizes the 3,000++++ messages are the result of an infinite loop. The thing is sending thousands of copies of the “change email” message I sent out to my surviving contacts an hour or two before.

SHE: Generated by what?

HE:: Dunno. It’ll take an Apple Genius to figure that out. Wanna make an appointment?

SHE: You do understand that I need to use my system to do business with a client whose commerce is worth about two grand, don’t you?

HE: How about Friday afternoon?

Yeah. So I accepted an appointment at 1:15 and left, just freaking FURIOUS, and my fury having been stoked to a high pitch by the patronizing jerk who told me the solution is to turn off MacMail, as though the command to “send” or whatever it’s doing would magically go away from the iCloud server if my computers here were shut down. Right.

Anyone who’s ever hit “send,” watched it grind away interminably, then quit MacMail, gone to bed, and got up in the morning to see that MacMail sent the message during the night knows very well that turning off the program resident on a local terminal is not going to turn off whatever resides on Apple’s servers. I’ll refrain from calling the man a moron, only out of misguided courtesy.

By the time I get home from the Apple store, another 20 or 25 minutes later, something over 5200 messages from myself were crammed on the server. That’s after I deleted te 3,000-whatever off the server while was arguing with the Apple nerds.

Studying the issue, I realized this didn’t start until after I built the Auto-Responder command.

Must…delete…autorespond…rule…

So go into Preferences > Rules. There I find that all but a half-dozen of the 200+ rules I’ve written to derail nuisance e-mails from the colleges are disappeared. And of the few I can see, NONE of them is the Auto-Responder message rule.

Sumbitch.

Command-A, goddamnit!

Hm. It selected all of something.

DELETE, for the love of Gawd!

Well. Nothing remains in the dropdown menu. Could it have deleted all those rules?

Open Macbook; Preferences > rules. Command A. Delete!!!!!

Whatever was in there is gone, but it’s not all gone because some trash from the colleges is going into the “Trash” file. Oh well.

Command-Q! Command Q!

It seems to have worked. At least, it worked on my end. The endless loops of messages from me to myself, growing fuzzy subject-lines of Re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re’s like some digitized mold, have quit elbowing their way into my inbox. They’ve pretty well stopped.

On the other end? First word came in from La Maya, who’s hiding in Yarnell while she writes a book. Forty clones of the “change my e-mail address” message alit in her inbox. At this morning’s meeting of the Scottsdale Business Association: incoming armies of clones ranging in number from 15 to 40. From KJG: about 40. This means that every single message to the hundred or so “contacts” in MacMail have been showered with re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re:  messages.

Jeez.

Started this post this morning. It’s now 11:20 p.m. I’ve been up since midnight the night before last, with a three- or four-hour nap in the nighttime hours between Wednesday and Thursday. Yesh. That is a 42-hour day.

Hard though that may seem to believe.

 

Getting an Insurance Checkup

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Have you checked pricing for your homeowner’s and auto insurance lately? If you haven’t, you probably should.

George Fontaine, one of the guys in my business group, is an insurance broker. Every week when we each give a five-minute pitch, he tells us he can save us money on our house and car insurance. So…naturally, when The Hartford’s bill for the homeowner’s policy arrived this month bearing a $50 increase to $848 (on top of the $1125 I’m paying for the car and the umbrella policy), I gave him a call.

He thought about it for a couple of days and then called back with some quotes. By moving from The Hartford to Safeco, I can save $506 a year AND get better coverage!

Wow. I knew those AARP policies, much touted for being the best deal on earth, aren’t always the most cost-effective or even the best insurance—their Medigap policies, for example, are substantially higher than identical coverage from other highly rated insurers. But good grief.

The Hartford was selling me $500,000 worth of umbrella coverage; Safeco’s costs less and gives me a million bucks worth. The Hartford’s personal injury coverage was less, and it didn’t include rental for a car should mine be rendered undriveable. Nor did it include roadside service—you have to buy that separately from AARP, and it ain’t very good. The new homeowner’s policy increases the amount needed to rebuild my house, should it ever burn down or be blown away, and it provides for replacement of furnishings (at what I paid for the stuff, not at depreciated prices that will buy me stuff from Goodwill). Should the palace ever have to be rebuilt, the Safeco policy provides not the usual few months but two years of temporary housing.

If that doesn’t accommodate Contractor Standard Time, nothing will. 😉

So, for a lot more coverage I’m paying a lot less money. Since I self-escrow the amounts needed for annual insurance and tax bills, in theory that $506 should put $42 back in my pocket.

In theory.

However, the Medigap policy went up by $235 this year.

Can you imagine? A two hundred thirty-five dollar increase! For something you can’t get out of. Did I get a $235 increase in Social Security? Well, yes…more like $420, actually. That’s $35 a month, which I happen to need desperately to make ends meet.

So the wonderful $506 savings will be much reduced by the health insurance bite. However, all is not lost:

Overall, then, I end up with an extra $23 a month that will NOT have to be transferred from cash flow to tax & insurance savings—reducing the monthly transfer from $445 to $422 a month.

Damn…what I couldn’t do with that $445 a month in spending money….imagine the groceries I could buy! Ohhhh well… At least I’m not having to choke up an extra $24, for a total monthly self-escrow of $479 a month, as would have been the case if I hadn’t asked George to look into this.

There’s no way I could have found this pricing on my own. For one thing, my days are chuckablock full. Trying to break loose several hours to get on the punch-a-button merry-go-round, get estimates for policies that don’t really cover the same things, and try to figure out which apples and oranges are what—just beyond the pale. That’s why I’ve stayed with the Hartford for lo these many years as they’ve slowly pushed up the rate until I can no longer afford it: hassle factor.

Well. That and their excellent service…couldn’t have asked for any better service after the late, great hailstorm misadventure.

It’s very convenient to go with an agent who has all the figures at his fingertips and knows how the system works. Not only does he have a good feel for what policies should cost and for what coverage is and is not needed, he will automatically review coverage every two years and will run interference with a company if you run into any headaches.

If you don’t have time to call a half-dozen companies and then try to figure out what coverage they’re offering and how it compares with five other policies each of which is slightly different, you really should consider finding a broker who can do the work for you. Google “insurance broker” in your area; then google the brokerage’s name with “reviews” added to seek customer comments. Or subscribe to Angie’s list and do your search there. Or ask your friends, lawyer, realtor, accountant, or money manager for references.

Cruising the Web for Fun and…Profit?

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So…while contemplating the workings of flammable barbecues and commenting, yesterday, to the effect that it’s too bad propane grills aren’t built so the tank would be carried outside the unit rather than inside, underneath the burners, it occurred to me that maybe Weber actually makes such a contraption. Out of idle curiosity, I cruised on over to the Weber site.

No, Weber doesn’t seem to have hit on this peculiarly ingenious design. But what should we find, in fine print, at the bottom of the homepage but this link to a class action settlement.

Hot dang! Is it possible? Could it be that mine was not the first grill to flare up in the backyard? Dreams of dollar-shaped sugar-plums danced in my head!

Heh.

Possibly not.

Turns out some outfit sued Weber, claiming that because one of the company’s many lines is assembled in China, Weber broke the law by advertising its products as made in America. The fabulous wealth awarded to members of the class (which includes just about anyone who’s bought a Weber grill since 20-ought-seven) comes to $2, $5, or $9.

Hey. It’s enough for a MacDonald’s, eh?

It sounds like an extraordinarily stupid lawsuit, the sort of thing designed to enrich lawyers and greedy speculators (the plaintiff’s firm has asked for $995,500 in fees). And while it’s not nice to claim your products are made in America when one of them is made in China, whose workers take jobs from Americans and whose policies make it possible for American firms to sidestep safety, health care, and common decency, still… It rings of harassment.

Would you take $2 from this suit? $5? $9? What if the return were more substantial…say, the entire amount you paid for the grill? Here in Arizona, with its 9.3% sales tax, that would come to $436.11.

It’s the principle of the thing, you say…but what is the principle? Is it or is it not OK to lie to American consumers? Is it or is not OK to offshore our jobs and then sell us products at made-in-America prices?

Actually, two bucks would let me join the weekly pool at the Scottsdale Business Association twice in a row! A win will return $13.

Not a bad investment, as investments go.

😀

 

Feeling Short on Things to Be Thankful For?

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FirefighterOkay. Then sit there and be thankful for firefighters. Firepersons. Firemen and firewomen.

Today’s drama: instead of spending the afternoon reading real estate, I decided to spice up my life by trying to burn down the house.

Some days ago, M’hijito and I cooked up half a lifetime supply of chicken thighs for Cassie the Corgi by setting them over the lowest possible heat on the ’Cue. This causes a great deal of fat to render and drip down into the rendered-fat container beneath the metal thingies that emit smoke when hot grease drops on them, thereby faking real charcoal. And, as a bonus, whenever you cook chicken slowly over propane, you get gummy icky stuff sticking to the cast-iron grill grates. The stuff is not easy to scrub off said grates.

This can be dealt with in either of two ways:

a) the correct way (take the damn grill apart and CLEAN it!); or
b) the slacker’s way (turn the heat to “high” and let the damn grill self-clean).

Quite possibly the slacker’s way is not the desired way.

After tossing a little piece of defrosted steak on the grill by way of cooking up a large noon meal so’s I could have a light salad for dinner, I turned up the heat and closed the lid.

Bad move.

As Cassie and Charlie were begging food from the backyard table, as I was transporting about the sixth bite of food from the plate to my mouth and elbowing aside the adolescent golden retriever, I happened to smell a smell.

Smoke!

And we do mean smoke! Black, swirling clouds of smoke. Black. Smoke. Swirling.

The barbecue was on fire. And we do mean fire.

Flipped the burner handles to off, hollered at the dogs to follow me, and RAN through the house to the front door, grabbing the phone and hitting 9-1-1 on the fly.

“Get everyone outside the house,” said she. “Do not go back into the house!!!”

Man. Building that enclosed front courtyard was one of the smartest things I’ve ever done to this shack. The dogs were locked outside the house but still confined in a relatively safe place. I didn’t have to get back into the house to enter the garage, open the garage door, drive the Dog Chariot outside, and wrestle two excited animals into it. If I had to let them outside the gates, they could run off and still have a chance of coming back alive.

Fire-individuals (all male individuals, coincidentally) showed up forthwith.

A firefighter does not walk to the scene of a billowing propane fire. He runs. He runs while decked out with pounds of equipment and protective clothing that you and I probably couldn’t drag across the yard.

By the time the men got to the scene of the crime, the fire had more or less burnt itself out, thanks to my having shut off the burners. Barbecue was still hot enough to burn a man’s hand, but mercifully there was no danger of explosion and no danger of setting fire to north wall of the house. (How do we love block construction? Let us count the  poorly insulated ways). They turned off the propane tank (which I was afraid to touch) and pronounced the emergency over.

“Is the grill ruined?”

“We don’t think so.”

They suggested that I go so far as to, yes, clean it. Take it apart. Clean. It. Sounds extreme. But it could be well advised.

You know a firefighter?

Call him now. Tell him how much you love him.

Image: TSUGI, Japan (July 30, 2008) A Commander, Naval Forces Japan firefighter douses a fire on a dummy aircraft during the annual off-station mishap drill at Naval Support Facility Kamiseya. Emergency response and rescue teams were tasked with putting out a simulated fire, and rescuing two personnel from a plane crash scene. U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Seaman Barry Riley (Released). Public domain.

On the Fly Friday

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Loved readers’ idea for post: lifetime best/worst financial decisions. Will work on that when a moment presents itself.

Just jetted in from estate sale, halfway to Yuma—had to be there at 6:45 ayem to get entry number. Worth the drive. Pix to come.

Now must spend the rest of the a.m. and afternoon studying real estate. Way behind. But cheered: got halfway through the take-home mid-term last night and was surprised to find the questions nowhere near as hard as expected.

Later!!

$mall miracle shaping up

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Only 8 more days to go in the budget cycle, and despite the $475 bill for the brake job, I’m only $13 in the red!

Amazing. Still will need to buy a half-tank of gas to make it to the end of next week, and probably will need to make one small grocery run. About $30 or$40 for gas and, say, $40 at the outside for groceries? Wow! Less than a hundred dollah over budget despite that unholy bill!!!!!

Because I haven’t run the heat or AC all month, the power bill is only $71.68. So there’ll of money left over from the nondiscretionary budget to cover that $100 shortfall.

It’s been a mighty boring and straitened three weeks. But at least the bank is not busted—I won’t have to draw down from savings to cover the car repair, after all. 🙂