nlbarber

I procrastinated. I'm not sure if I'm paying for that or if this was inevitable, but....

I read just about everything but email lists and the SFF.Net newsgroups in Google Reader, including all the LJ I still try to track. Facebook is also non-Reader except for the page for Lois where I'm an admin0, but that's one reason I don't keep up with FB much--I'm over in Google Reader. When the announcement came out about the impending death of GR, I did some research, then decided to wait for things to shake out a little.

Now, in a flash <g>, GR goes away next week. I whipped over to Feedly and signed in to have them grab my GR account directly, and quickly discovered that in their move to a cloud system and in the face of masses of people searching for GR replacements, they made the decision to drop 'history' from the list of things they will import. All my starred items, and more important for me, my read/unread flags, are not there, and Feedly declared everything 'read' at the switch-over. Apparently this is supposed to be something you view as a minor inconvenience....

Jumped to The Old Reader, who asked for the subscriptions.xml from Google Takeout to import my feeds. That went well....but they don't have the history, either (it's not in that xml file or elsewhere in Takeout AFAIK). The Old Reader declared everything 'unread' at the time of import.

Guess I could alternate between the two, marking blocks read in TOR and keeping up with the newest in Feedly, but I think I'll do some additional searching for a feed reader which can go to GR and get my feeds and the read/unread flags. Stars are less important, as I use them less and have an IFTTT action to move them to Instapaper, anyway.

Anyone got suggestions? Ideally a service which supports an iOS app in addition to a web page reader, but I'll be getting less choosy as the week goes on.

I made it to Denver yesterday with the MacBook Pro, which is operational if not fully well. Friday (recall that I don't work on Fridays....) I was in the office until 8:30 pm, mostly spent wrestling with the computer.

The saga: after the overnight effort, I had a disk image of the hard disk with the problem...and with all my data and applications. I did a system re-install but that didn't fix the problem--the startup process hung before getting to the login screen. I'd had consultations and hand-holding via IM with kd5mdk (thanks again!), but he was away at this point. I called the Apple enterprise support folks again and was told that the next thing to try was to erase the hard disk, then install a clean system. After that I could move stuff (i thought this guy told me both data and applications) from the disk image, and see what I had.

So, I erased the disk and installed a new system, then contemplated my situation. It was mid-afternoon, I had to leave for Denver Saturday, and I really needed the computer with some fairly complicated software pieces, not all of which I had to hand for new installations. I decided I really wanted to try to use Migration Assistant to move substantial parts of my old account over, and I made one more call to Apple and got a different support guy who felt I could only move documents from the damaged disk image--MA would be right out. kd5mdk (consulted for a third opinion) agreed that was the best procedure, but that if I wanted to try using Migration Assistant it *might* work, or I might go a step too far and have to repeat the disk erase and re-install.

I took a deep breath and did it--used MA to move Documents and Applications from my old account, and crossed my fingers as I re-started the computer. And it booted! Rather slowly, and shut downs are slow, so I desperately need to do a new set up properly when I'm home--clean install again, then do the software installs one at a time and discard the accumulated detritus from years of using the Powerbook G4. I still had to work on the VPN installation, and had to re-install AFS from scratch, but the rest of my critical applications are running.

I must mention the yeoman job the iPad did as my chat platform with kd5mdk. Office nannyware blocks all Web chats, the old IM installation I used to have on my Windows box got cleaned off a while back (and I wasn't using it anyway), and if there's a way to make Lotus Sametime talk to other chat systems through our firewalls I don't know about it. The iPad G3 connection avoids the nannyware nicely.

iMac: has arrived at the FedEx sorting center in Atlanta after its cross-country drive from California. Delivery is on for tomorrow.
iPad: order status shows "Prepared for shipment". According to the rumors, that means it will also be delivered tomorrow. Sometime tonight (they say) the status will go to shipped, with overnight delivery. [fingers crossed]
[added at 9:15 pm] I have a shipping notice! "Estimated delivery Apr 30, 2010 by 3:00 PM"

1. My iPad fever has been growing with the constant reviews, comments, and links I get in a newsfeed from TUAW. I knew I was going to get one, and realistically I wasn't going to wait for a second generation of hardware...though I am holding out for 3G.

Came in from the tax-mailing excursion, opened the mail, and found the Apple gift cards from the broker's promotion. That did it. My 64 GB iPad 3G is ordered, so I should get one in the first round of 3Gs at the end of the month.

2. My work laptop (a PowerBook G4, not with an Intel chip) was due for replacement, and I kept delaying in hopes Apple would announce a refresh of the MacBook Pro line. Finally gave up in the face of severely tightening budgets at work, and ordered one lest I get nothing. It arrived Monday, and Tuesday Apple announced the MBP updates. But the laptop was still in its shipping box in the computer section chief's office, so I got her to check if it could be returned. Yep! We pay the shipping, but I'll get one of the new models...cheaper than the other model even considering the return shipping.

3. Next up will be an iMac to replace my old home desktop--a "lamp" iMac. Must finalize what I want and all the peripherals: a new Airport Extreme, a network printer, maybe a network drive to share the music and photos between devices. It's the peripherals that need the research...I'm mostly set on the iMac itself.

The ag. show is over, after a last day that unusually stayed busy through most of the afternoon. I didn't start packing up stuff until after 3, when the official close is at 4. Some years, I've started packing before 2 because no one was stopping at the booth. Good week overall, but I'm glad it's done.

( exhibit teardown, dinner, and tales of woe on electronics )

I'll drive back to Atlanta tomorrow morning after Daddy and I tackle another one or two of the items on his to-do list. I'm hoping for a smooth trip with no mechanical breakdowns. I think I'm due...

Every year, every Federal employee has to take an "information systems security awareness" training class. DOI does this with online courses, which is great--take it when you want, self paced, pass the little 'mastery tests', and print the certificate when you're done as proof.

Except: they keep changing the system, and therefore things never go smoothly. Last year we had "DOI University" as the training system. This year, it's "DOI Learn", with a new login, new listings, new interface, etc.

I got a user ID and password, work through the course (I actually read it! I promise! Most people jump straight to the tests and do just fine), and pass all the tests with flying colors. About 45 minutes elapsed time, I think. But when I try to click on the "Quit" button to exit the class and get to the certificate part, it gives an error. Repeatedly.

Turns out that Javascript or VM must be running for this last step to work. Our PCs are configured by the computer section who apparently aren't consistent about Javascript, so some people can get this to work and others can't. I ended up moving to my Mac, going through the tests again, and getting my course credit.

The security awareness training material, of course, warns you not to run Javascript.

I set out to buy TurboTax 2005 today, in the hopes that I would at least start my taxes as I got ready to pay my 4th quarter estimated tax. In the ideal world, I'd get far enough along with the return to see if I really need to make that 4th quarter payment.

Found the TurboTax display at Office Depot, noted that the Mac and PC products are now packaged together on a hybrid CD, and took a quick look at the package. And found the big problem, from my viewpoint: TurboTax has dropped their rebate for online filing. Later research found the ostensible reason on their Web site: people don't send in for the rebate, so they dropped it. (But didn't lower the price of the product, IIRC.) Having gone through their rebate procedure many times, I certainly can understand why people don't do it...

I will strongly consider reverting to paper filing because of this change--I've always felt that the IRS should be subsidizing online filing because of the savings it gives them, and my expression of protest is to refuse to pay the third-party filing fees. I don't see why I should pay extra to save the IRS money, and as I don't generally get a refund, there's no incentive there either.

TurboTax is the only game in town for the Mac this year. TaxCut has dropped their Mac version, and recommends that Mac users go to their Web version--not an option for my fairly complicated taxes. Boo on Intuit!

The new laptop is here! Last night FedEx still showed the last scan of the package as Shanghai, but when I got to the office it was waiting.

( backups and moving files ) When I left at 5, the two laptops were communing over Firewire. In the morning I'll start to see how the migration worked out.

Meanwhile, I'm stuck with Web mail ('cause I didnt' think to sync my Eudora files with the iMac last night) and severely out-of-date newsgroup settings. Must start regular sync of that sort of stuff at home, once I get the office backups going.

My work laptop has been showing signs of impending failure, but I've been procrastinating about requesting a new one. Last week in Denver it gave me yet another scare, so I talked to my supervisor and got permission to go ahead. However, Government Purchasing Is Not A Simple Process in any case, and here is complicated by the fact that I want a Mac (replacing the current one), not the "corporate solution" IBM with Windows XP. ( what I want, Apple price changes, more fun with gov't purchasing )

So I wait. It will take at least 24 hours to get an answer from Finance at Apple, so I'll hold off on my order until I hear back. Meanwhile, I get a message that OpenAFS is not yet compatible with Tiger, so the old laptop will need to hang on for my Web work at least until that gets fixed--the new laptop will ship with Tiger, of course.

Multi-tasking...

On the iMac, a group of pifflers are chatting in AIM, in a window on top of the game of Snood that got interrupted when I got the chat invitation. Very multi-national--an Australian member was there for a while before leaving for Sunday brunch, a Brit appeared after getting home from the pub, and the U.S. and Canadians are variously coming and going to and from dinner. Discussion, as usual, is on food, with the added bits on diets, as several of us are on one.

Over on the laptop, I've got my livejournal client up (obviously), and just figured out how to upload a picture. It's the current cats: Fish and Agatha. This is on top of the Quicken accounts that I was reconciling this afternoon and need to finish, and the backlog of email. I did get caught up on Lois-Bujold, though. Not much happening on the sff.net newsgroups tonight--maybe Valentine's Day is slowing the traffic.

Tomorrow is the three-hour JazzerThon to raise money for the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. I'm car-pooling with some other from my center, and that means leaving at 11:30 for an event that doesn't start until 2. (Well, the doors open at 1, but the Jazzercising doesn't start until 2.) Must plan what to do about eating, so as not to wreck the diet and yet stay fueled for the afternoon.