Why Can't Stuff Just Work?

This morning I received a work e-mail indicating that something is broken with a system over which I am responsible. I quickly went to work troubleshooting the issue. I used AI to help me comb through our system documentation and found a number of possible leads on how to solve the issue. I threw it out to the people reporting the problem only to discover our documentation is incorrect. I had to go back to square one.

I'm trying to solve the issue at work when I get a text from my wife who can't get the new toner cartridges to work at the office. That shouldn't really bother me as I'm not paid to help troubleshoot her office computer problems. Unfortunately we have the same printer at home and I just bought the same toner cartridges for ours. While I don't need them to work now, I will in the future. Furthermore today is the 31st day after I received them from Amazon which means I am past the 30-day return window.

Now two problems to solve in the same day shouldn't be a problem. Any mother with a 4-year old knows that is the first 10 minutes of every day. However I try to ensure all of my technologies stay working and don't break down. Discovering you need to print something important only to have new toner cartridges not recognized might lead to panic and expletives. Fortunately my wife discovered that problem early.

To address the issue at work, I gathered more information and looked at possible solutions. Then I made sure not to commit to anything on the behalf of others. If I can fix something, then I can commit. If the solution involves others, I can't speak for their time. This keeps others from committing my time. It looks like we will need to have network engineers involved in the solution and so I need to make my notes available and let others solve the problem.

For the printer, I exchanged a number of messages with my wife. She was unable to get her printer working but succeeded in returning her work toner cartridges to Amazon. So I gave them a call. I explained the process she went through and how I have the same printer and would rather return unopened product which might be resold to someone that can use them. The Amazon customer service agent looked up the details of my purchase and immediately agreed to allow me to return them for a full refund.

Now the only problem is that my printer is almost out of toner and I need to order replacement cartridges. HP makes my printer and they have gotten wise to Chinese manufacturers selling compatible toner for half the price. To combat it, they require a special chip in new cartridges and regularly update printer firmware to reject any toner than their own. If you want to ensure your printer will continue to work, you have to buy new cartridges from HP. Yes they are more expensive but at least they should work, right? I sure hope so cause it is really expensive.

Still Not Done With the New Phone

Yesterday I felt so good getting my new phone completely set up. Little did I know I had more to do. I discovered that today during a meeting. I tried to log into a secure system and it needed my multi-factor-authentication (MFA) token. While some of the services got configured with the data transfer, some of them did not and I didn't realize it.

I use Microsoft Authenticator for most of my MFA access. I also have RSA and Okta set up on my phone but have done a good job of focusing using a single tool. For some reason my work account has some level of extra security. Copying the data from my old phone didn't copy the necessary information for my work account. When I went to log into a secure data system this morning, I never received a message with the MFA token used to complete the login. All I could do in my meeting was explain I updated my phone and would have to get the necessary information after the call finished.

All I needed to do is log into Microsoft Authenticator. When it came time to receive the MFA token, I made sure to turn on the old phone first as it could receive the token or 2-digit number to use. After that little dance, I turned my old phone off again and have MFA tokens being sent to the new phone.

Not wanting to miss something else, I logged into my RSA and Okta apps on my new phone. Neither of them are set up at all. I will have to use my old phone to fix that for my new phone. Right now it is not an emergency and so I can wait a day or two. The trick is not waiting too long as I don't want to have to use the excuse that I updated my phone months ago and never got around to getting everything installed. 

 

Time For a New Phone

Back in February I lost my phone on a roller coaster and miraculously retrieved it with the help of a bit of engineering. I wanted to replace the phone back then but then saw the price of a new phone and held off. Last week I finally got on the Apple website and purchased a new iPhone 17. Some people feel the need to have the latest phone with all the bells and whistles. I just need a smartphone that can be updated and takes good pictures. I didn't get the Pro model nor did I feel the need to wait 6 weeks for the iPhone 18 to come out. Besides the base model won't be available until around April 2027.

I ordered the phone on Thursday and it arrived at my house on Friday. Unfortunately I had to drive down to Southern Utah to see a play with my oldest daughter and so I needed to have a friend grab the phone off the front porch as I didn't trust an Apple box to make it through the weekend without a porch pirate running off with it.

I arrived home Saturday afternoon and knew transferring data from my old phone to the new one would take awhile so I put it off until Sunday. Until then I made sure it was fully charged. Then I got my old phone and new phone together to start the process of making the new one have all the software and data from my old phone.

I made sure to pair the two phones and started the transfer process. After about a minute, it stopped. I started again only to fail again. This happened two more times before I wanted to try something else. Unfortunately I initialized the phone without pulling any data from my old one. It transferred the SIM to the new phone in the form of an electronic or eSIM. The only thing my new phone had was my number but none of the data. I had to keep my old phone for all of the applications and needed my new phone to be a phone and text message receiver.

This morning I got up and had a number of meetings. I had to log into my company's VPN and fortunately I still received the multi-factor authentication token on the old phone. Once I completed my meetings, I logged onto Apple's tech support website and initiated a support chat session. They told me I needed to reset my phone to put it back in new-phone mode and try the transfer again. I told them I worried about erasing the eSIM and they said I could always contact my carrier and get it reinstalled.

I went to reset the phone only to be told I had to wait an hour. I guess that is a special feature for spouses that are tired of their partner doom scrolling and wanting to wipe the phone. It sort of upset me because I wanted to reset the phone immediately. I went and rode my indoor bike waiting for the hour to pass. Once again I am glad I had my old phone so I could listen to music while I rode.

It came time to reset the phone and so I did. When it came back up I expected it to be in new-phone mode. It wasn't. Apparently I needed to "Erase All Content and Settings." I clicked that menu option and expected to have to wait another hour. Fortunately it went into erase mode immediately. At this point I discovered something even Apple technical support didn't know: there is an option to erase everything but the eSIM. I clicked that and the phone came up as expected.

While in the chat with Apple tech support I learned another trick on how to transfer data from my old phone. The first time I tried it, I just set the two phones side-by-side and waited for Bluetooth to do the transfer. That didn't work and so this time I connected a cable from phone to the other. My old phone has a lightning port while the new phone has a USB-C. I couldn't find my cable like that and so I had to make one from an old lightning cable with a USB-A connector and a USB-A to USB-C converter. Surprise, surprise, it worked. The data transferred from my old phone to the new one in 16 minutes.

Unfortunately that is not the end of getting things working. I use a continuous glucose monitor or CGM to tell me my instantaneous blood sugar. They are good for 15 days and I am only halfway through the life of my current one. Without a prescription they are about $50 each from Amazon but I highly recommend getting one even if you are not diabetic. I didn't want to throw my current one away and start a new one. I looked at the website for my CGM and they had instructions on how to transfer the sensor from one phone to another. I followed them and the process worked perfectly.

The last thing I needed to do is connect all of my Bluetooth devices. I have some wireless earphones as well as a number of wireless speakers to connect. Oh yeah, I also needed to connect my smartwatch. That didn't take to long to get sorted and I felt successful. That amazed me because halfway through this whole process I considered ditching Apple products permanently. Unfortunately I still wasn't done though.

Apple engineers think they are smart and know what you want in a phone. While that may be true for Gen-Z and Millennials,  it is not true for me. The new interface has this concept of an "Always On" display. I don't like it. When I hit the sleep button on my phone, I want the screen to go black and not waste any battery. It is what I am used to. I don't need to see the time continually. That is what my watch is for. I turned that feature off and consider my new phone ready to use.

I am serious when I wrote that I almost ditched Apple products forever halfway through the transfer process. I have used the automatic transfer to move data from old phones to new ones in the past and thought it to be a time saver. If I had had to reinstall my eSIM, I would have boxed the phone up, sent it back to Apple, and gone back to my old phone until I could find a Android phone I could be willing to live with. That may have taken awhile. 

Planning a Family Vacation

I don't know how we planned family vacations before the ubiquity of the Internet and sites like AirBnB or VRBO. With tools like these you can quickly research family vacations and get a rough idea of what is feasible and what is not. Recently I had someone pay back a sizeable loan and so I have a little coin ready to spend. I thought I would take my adult kids and their families on a nice family vacation.

The first thing I did was quickly check on places I know we like to visit and got an idea of cost. Next I set a reasonable budget. I got some money back but don't want to spend the whole amount. I am preparing for retirement and want to make sure there is plenty for my wife and me. Some ideas I had include going to Hawaii, taking the family on a cruise, renting a large home near a National Park, as well as a few others. I talked to each of my kids and shared my thoughts.

Everyone likes the idea of Dad footing the bill for a family vacation but everyone has different interests. That is where Internet research can help. Doing a generic search for "Family Vacations" returns way too many results. Besides, while a family with young kids wants to do something like Disney World, my daughters who are single want to do other activities. We keep throwing out ideas but are still trying to decide what people want to do.

The other issue we have is getting everyone's schedules to coordinate. While we all love instant gratification and would love to leave right now for Hawaii, that doesn't fit everyone's schedule. My wife says I have too many trips planned in the next 2 months with a work trip to Japan, another to New York, a personal trip to Disney World with a grand daughter, and an October trip to Ohio to see our youngest son. Normally that wouldn't be a lot of travel for her but she is coming with me to Japan and New York so now it is.

I have always been a scheduler and my kids are too. That means all of my children have the next year planned. I guess we just need to find a time that works for everyone and commit it to the calendar. It may not be for a year or so but at least it will be planned.  

Google Maps in Dead Zones

My wife and I just completed a lengthy road trip to Glacier National Park. I knew we would put a couple thousand miles on the car so we rented one instead of taking a vehicle of our own. Besides neither my wife nor I have cars that get very good gas mileage. We purchase cars more for snow driving than summer and that makes them less than ideal for long drives.

As long as you stay on an interstate road, you are pretty much guaranteed to have mobile service the whole trip. What happens when you venture off into less-traveled paths? Well I can assure you that we had hours of travel in Montana with absolutely no mobile coverage whatsoever. I wondered what would happen in Google Maps and now I know.

I often complain that some software applications were written by people that never got full credit on their homework assignments in college. There are two companies where that is not the case: Apple and Google. Generally those guys know their stuff and this road trip proved that. Most of the time we would lose service and the app kept plugging along seamlessly. This became impressive when we could still see our car on the map. My guess is that the Google Maps app caches a number of map tiles in the surrounding area before you drive into coverage-less areas.

No it was not perfect. There were several instances in Glacier where the car appeared to be driving significantly to the right of the road. We seemed close enough I didn't worry about it. We also drove into some areas where the map showed nothing. For the most part it worked pretty well.

Google Maps turned into a lifesaver when we drove into Canada. The Toyota Corolla did not have a dual-unit speedometer. It only showed the current speed in miles per hour. That doesn't do much good when the speed limit is posted in kilometers per hour. Fortunately the moment we hit Canada, the units in Google Maps switched to metric and showed us our speed as captured in the GPS. I could see that 80 kph actually works out to 51 mph. I also kept track of the appropriate speeds for 60 kph and 40 kph. Those are the speed limits we encountered on the curvy mountain roads in in Waterton National Park.

The one letdown of trying to use Google Maps in dead zones is having it inaccurately provide your estimated arrival time over a lengthy drive. We started the drive with phone service and it had us arriving at home around 6pm. We drove into a dead zone and that time shot up to 6:30pm. We got back in service range and it came back down to 6pm. That happened a few times on the drive and so the second time, it didn't surprise me as much.

Overall Google Maps is a great application. We used it constantly to get around and keep from missing the turn on the small road to our cabin we rented. Without it we would have made quite a few U-turns. Furthermore it impressed us with how it worked even without mobile phone coverage. 

Planning a Road Trip

Last year my wife and I headed to Mt. Rushmore on a road trip. We did a bit of planning before we left but really had no idea what the trip would be like. We made reservations to ride an old steam-engine train and made sure to have hotel reservations when we got to town. Otherwise we didn't stress about filling every second with activities. The trip turned out to be wonderful and we had a great time.

This year we decided to do another road trip and will head to Glacier National Park. We made our hotel reservations back in March and will be staying in some cabins right at the entrance. While visiting Dinosaur National Monument a few weeks ago, we picked up our annual National Parks pass so we already have that taken care of. Last night we sat down and did a bit more planning so we have some ideas of activities to keep us busy.

First I pulled out our National Geographic book with information about all of the National Parks in the United States. That is a great resource to get an idea of what there is to do in Glacier National Park. As can be expected with physically printed media, there is a lot that is out of date. Fortunately a lot of information is still valid.

Next we pulled out the laptop and brought up Google Maps. That is such a great tool for looking at driving distances and times. We mapped the route from our house to the park. It will take almost 10 hours and so we will break up the first day and only drive part way. As with our Mt. Rushmore trip, we won't worry about hotel reservations that first night as we don't know when we will decide to stop driving. I don't know if I want to try to make it to Butte or will stop early in Dillon. There are lots of options in either location.

I have a cousin living in Somers, Montana and so I sent her a text message letting her know that we may stop in on our second day of the trip as it is on the way. My wife has an aunt living in Eureka, Montana about an hour outside the park so we sent her a text as well. It is nice to be able to visit extended family on such a trip.

Lastly we looked at all of the things to do in the park. There is a lot to see and some of it can be done in a car but the majority requires hiking. Then there are the option of horseback and boat rides as well. We created a rough itinerary of interesting things to do. As the park is combined with Waterton Park in Canada we decided we want to bring our passports to facilitate a border crossing, should we decide to do that. We also looked at the weather to help us decide the clothing to bring. Right now, highs are in the mid 60's and so we will be sure to pack appropriate jackets and pants, not just shorts and t-shirts.

I now feel prepared for the trip we will take in the next week or so. While I still have a printed road atlas for the United States, I appreciate being able to use the Internet to plan road trips. Furthermore after looking up directions, Google Maps wanted to know if it should send directions to my phone. After all, once in the car, that is how we will navigate. We still have some time though so I will pass for now. 

Putting on the Pith Helmet

 

 

Early in my career I heard the story of a software developer that had the unique practice of putting on a pith helmet whenever forced to debug his own code. I'm not sure how true the story is but it evokes the image of an early explorer trudging through the jungles of a distant continent. In my current role, I am often asked to search for system problems and help resolve them.

Last Friday I received a cry for help and immediately looked into the issue. My manager didn't like how I responded as he wanted me to find the source of the problem before bothering the group that reported it. I saw it differently as I wanted them to know that we immediately started looking at the issue and wondered if they had any more information they could provide to help diagnose the issue. Ultimately the only thing I could do was log a bug with another group in the company and have them research the root cause of the issue.

We told the group that reported the issue that we would work to get the issue resolved by Monday. Such is the luxury of working for a world-wide company like Sony. I can go enjoy my weekend and hope another team working in Japan or India has enough time to find the issue and resolve it before Monday even starts in the United States. Unfortunately sometimes an issue can be more difficult to troubleshoot and so it is important to get as much information as possible on Friday so we don't have any back-and-forth with questions.

Fortunately one of our excellent engineers saw the problem on Saturday and worked through the weekend to get it fixed. The root cause boiled down to "too much data." As this means the problem may arise again we have a two-pronged approach to solving it: The first is to monitor for larger-than-normal data sets. That will alert the operations team before the system users get a hint that something has gone wrong. The second is to modify the architecture to handle larger volumes of data.

This morning I came in and saw everything that had taken place over the weekend and could report back to the system user who noticed the problem. I could also share the resolutions that we plan to implement so it doesn't happen again. The user confirmed the problem fixed and I closed the bug appropriately.

While I like the idea of wearing a pith helmet to signify that I am trudging into the jungles of code, I am glad I have not adopted the practice. First, I work out of my home office so nobody would have any idea of the significance other than my wife who would just laugh at me. Second, I would have gotten a lot of strange looks and questions wearing the unique hat through the weekend.