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. 

Setting Up Christmas Gifts

It can be nice to see a large number of Christmas gifts under the tree on that anticipated morning. This year I received a number of presents that required a lot of work to set up. Back in September my youngest son got me a ski rack to install in my garage. My wife liked the gift so much, she got another set. The only problem is that I hadn't installed the first ski rack as it required power tools. This begs the question of how my wife knew she wanted more if I never bothered to install the first set.

The idea behind the ski racks is that they hold the skis in place close to the wall so that when someone walks by the skis, they don't accidentally knock them over, which has happened frequently in the past. My son gave me racks for 2 pairs of skis. My wife then got a pack for 4. I installed my son's and then discovered that we only had room on the wall for 2 more pairs of skis. Not to worry, I just installed enough of my wife's gift to hold 2 pairs of skis and it works great. Naturally I did that on the Saturday of the MLK 3-day weekend.

The next gift my wife got me, and the reason I am including it in my blog, is a set of bed-side lamps. Now what do bed-side lamps have to do with technology and computers? They are battery powered LED lamps and come with a remote to turn them on or off. Furthermore, they colored so that you can choose between any shade in the rainbow. If they had the ability to connect to my home WiFi, they would be considered IoT or Internet-of-Things devices. Fortunately they are not that complicated nor do they need to be. The only downside is that they need be attached to the wall. I attacked that project on the Monday of the MLK 3-day weekend.

Once again, I had to pull out power tools, in this case a drill, and spend some time planning out the project, executing the project, and cleaning up after the project. It left me asking if I really received a gift or if my wife creatively came up with a way to get me to do work around the house? I drilled a couple of holes in the wall for each lamp on either side of my bed and installed the lamps. The light unit is about the size of a soup can and is covered in LEDs. On the top it has a USB-C port so you can charge it. I have no idea how long it will last on a single charge but we have been using the lights all week and they work well.

I enjoy setting up certain Christmas gifts like Lego projects. Other gifts like the ones I received this year have felt like work. Furthermore they are what I consider golf-club gifts. You know, when a husband gets his wife golf clubs knowing she will never use them but he will. I admit I am using the ski racks and the bed-side lamps but feel they are more for my wife than for me. Next year I plan to ask for gifts that don't require drilling holes in my house. 

Preparing for the Wasatch 100 Ultra Marathon

Every year my wife and I volunteer to help with the Wasatch 100 Ultra Marathon. We drive our 4x4 up above Brighton and Solitude Ski Resorts where we build a small tent city complete with food, water, computers, and radio equipment. We then help runners as they work their way through a 100-mile running course through very rough terrain. We happen to sit at the 65.3 mile mark, so a lot of the runners are fairly well spent by the time they make it to us.

Our job at the race is to set up a ham radio connected to a computer and transmit the bib number and times as runners come into our aid station. That information is then used by the race organizers to let spectators know where runners are on the course. It is an amazing system but I only use it once a year and so I make sure to practice at home before I am remote and don't have all the tools available to me in my home office. Last night I tested the system and familiarized myself with it yet again.

The technology we use for the race is actually quite ancient. Sure we use nice laptops but we could get by with a 1985-era one. The modem I use to connect the computer to the radio has an old serial cable interface and so I had to get a USB-to-Serial adapter. Then we just use Telnet to connect to the server on the other end. Telnet is a fairly old program and when you do an Internet search the first thing that pops up is how it is no longer considered "secure" and should be avoided. That is fine for our application as we actually want people to know the data we are sharing and not trying to keep it secret.

This year I have to leave the race a bit early as I have another event I have to get to. While the race organizers prefer us to use ham radio to transmit times, there is also an Internet portal where we can get to the master server and interface with it. All we need is a telnet client such as PuTTY. Today I have been testing it out from my Chromebook and working with my buddy who will be able to stick around after I leave. Our aid station sits right underneath a mobile-phone tower and we get great Internet service. I imagine it is only a matter of time before the entire race course has Internet coverage and we lose the ham-radio part of the infrastructure.

Actually the more I think about it, the more I want to ditch the ham radio now. I could leave my extra car battery at home. I also wouldn't have to pack up my antenna nor set it up at our aid station. That could save a lot of time. Maybe I should bring all the radio equipment but not worry about setting it up unless it is needed. I'm seriously thinking about it. 

A Last-Minute Gift Idea

Today is the Saturday before Christmas, which will be on Monday. If you are still looking for a gift idea, you might be cutting it a little close. I have finished with all of my shopping but thought I would provide one last gift idea for those that might be searching for something useful but not have any idea of what to get.

Yesterday my youngest son asked if I had a computer with full-sized USB connections. I found the question funny because all of my computers have regular USB connections, also known as USB-A. He didn't bother bringing his laptop with him on this trip. Instead he is relying on his iPad. After all, it is vacation and he shouldn't need to do any work.

Interestingly I have a USB-C to USB-A converter I can loan him. Thinking about last-minute gift ideas, this would make a great one. Now I don't need to find a gift for him but perhaps you have someone in your life that could use such a device. It is one of those things that when you need it, you need it bad.

My 2015 Christmas List

Normally at this time of year I like to put together a Christmas list to give people ideas for the season. Last year I took a departure from the norm and wished for small and simple things that didn't have anything to do with computers nor technology. I figured it is only fair that I try to go back to a regular list and provide some good ideas for those last-minute shoppers:

New Video Games: There are 2 games that I can recommend this year: Star Wars Battlefront and Fallout 4. My recommendation comes from playing one of the games at home a lot and the other comes from talking with other gamer players and listening to what they are playing. Both games seem to be a lot of fun and will bring countless hours of entertainment.

Old Video Games: I have a huge collection of older video games and have seen these for sale at rock-bottom prices in places like Target and Best Buy. My two favorite games that I have played this year have to be Tomb Raider and Red Dead Redemption. Both provided hours of enjoyment. I enjoyed Tomb Raider so much, I returned the copy I borrowed from a friend and purchased a version for the PS4 at Game Stop during a Black Friday sale for $15.

Television: I hate to recommend any one brand or model as everyone has such varying requirements. However I think that if you are in the market for a new TV you should consider upgrading to one of the 4K models. A normal HDTV has a resolution of 1920x1080 pixels. The new UltraHD TV's are 3840x2160. That is the equivalent of 4 HDTV's. Furthermore they are coming down in price so that they are actually affordable.

There are a number of other smaller gifts that you might consider. In the past I have recommended USB thumb drives. I don't see a need for these as much simply because there are a number of online places to exchange large computer files. You can never have too many memory cards though. The only trick is making sure you get the right ones. While it used to be safe to pick up SD cards in the past, there are a number of different format cards for different devices. I would love to add a memory card to my Android phone and my kids are always running out of space on the cards used in their DSLR cameras.

Another small gift recommendation in the past has been USB cables. I now have a huge supply of them but find myself lacking HDMI cables. HDMI cables are not that expensive and I would definitely appreciate having a few extras.

Hopefully your Christmas shopping is done and this list is useless. If not, I hope I have given one or two good ideas to choose from. Merry Christmas.