Wednesday, September 30, 2015

OS-X El Capitan

Upgrade.-- After working with the new OS-X I've found a few more problems.

First, Mail doesn't work with with the smtp server for my ISP so I can't send mail. This happened with Yosemite and was quickly fixed by Apple, but we'll see what they do now as there's a lot of people reporting problems with Mail.

Second, the automatic Time Machine backups doesn't work. It just keeps reseting the time for the next one does nothing. I have to manually run backups.

Third, the installation turned off iCloud sync for a number of apps so they had be reset.

The problem with Safari 9 and Blogger is fixed, a reboot solved whatever wasn't working before. So it's a, "Huh." response, and on the good side, they fixed Tumblr using Safari. It's loads and scrolls without problems or issues.

Anyway, that's the status so far. Mostly good but some really bad dumb failures by Apple.

Original post.--I upgraded the Mac Pro to OS-X 10.11, El Capitan this afternoon and here are my first notes and impressions. First, it took 4 hours from the start of the download to the final restart, the last 40 minutes doing various checks and restarts to get the initial state memory to stablize.

First impression is that it's slower and takes longer to start and do anything than any previous OS-X version. But that's the norm for Apple and OS-X now as each version increasea the time it takes to do anything anymore.

In short the new spinning rainbow wheel is still the most common response to any command or click.

Second, the initial state takes about 500 MBytes more than Yosemite with the same login and apps, increasing from about 1.2 GBytes to 1.7 GBytes for me. This seems to be the norm for OS-X too, more memory to work.

Advice about the installation.

First, use the command + L to show the log(s) with the installation because the time stalls at various times during the installation and the log(s) show it's working.

Second, open mail first after logging in the first time to convert the old mail to the new mail. This eats memory that's not fully recovered.

Third, get Apple's Java as they don't include it in OS-X anymore. You can click the "Get More" button to open the Web pages to download it. I would get and install Oracle's Java to use as the default if you need and use it, but it stays in the installation if you already have it.

Fourth, restart at least 3 times so everything gets loaded and doesn't need reloading to consume memory on the startup, and stablizes the startup memory.

Fifth, don't forget the purge command to recover the cached file memory which is used after startup and not released. This is about 2 GBytes. This takes adminstrator rights and the terminal window.

That's the initial impression and notes. Otherwise, so far it looks the same to me.

Tuesday, September 22, 2015

Multi-Care

I'm not a fan of Multi-Care, but I use them because they have the only health and urgent care clinic in the local area which is covered under my health insurance. I won't go into details over the experience and issues I've had with them, but for a for-profit health care company, they're far from the best.

For one, they've been caught billing patients first even when they have health insurance which covers them and their healthcare services, and often more than double the rate they bill insurance companies, and threatening legal action if the patient doesn't pay.

I was caught by this when they billed $5,400 for a MRI on my lower back when I pinched my Sciatic nerve. It took several visits to get them to bill my insurance company, whom they billed $2,700 who paid the maximum under the contract, leaving me paying $1,000 for the MRI and specialist diagnosis.

But today was a big, "Huh?" Last year I stopped by the the urgent care clinic for a flu shot. They said the main healthcare clinic provides them. So I went there, made an appointment, and got a flu shot. I never saw the bill because it's a mandated coverage and cost by insurance companies.

So today I stopped by the clinic for my flu shot, and after a 20-minute wait a nurse informed me they won't give me a flu shot because they're not my Primary Care Provider (PCP) and they need a doctor's referral for the shot. A flu shot!

My PCP is in Seattle and they don't give flu shots. They don't give referrals either because it's unnecessary since the flu shot is recommended and covered by insurance without question. Then the nurse said I can get the shot at the urgent care clinic (downstairs).

Yeah, upstairs you need to have a doctor's referral, but downstairs, just walk in the door, show your cards and get a shot. And that's what I did, in 5 minutes, in and out. Now I'll see if they bill me or my health insurance company. I'm not holding my breath with them anymore.

Sunday, September 20, 2015

Bill Maher

“Look, this kid deserves an apology, no doubt about it, they were wrong, but can we have a little perspective about this?” Bill Maher asked. “Did the teacher really do the wrong thing?”

Yes, the teacher over-reacted. All the teacher had to do was stop and ask the student who their teacher was and what it was? And then take the student to the science teacher to verify it was a homework assignment and the teacher knew what it was.

It could have easily been handled quietly without reporting a teacher's fear and arresting the student. Now the student has a juvenille arrest record for no reason than a teacher's bad judgement and over-reaction to a clock.

And yes, I might think if the student was white, black or Asian, the teacher might have not acted the same and been more inquisitive to ask the student first than simply over-reacting out of fear of the student's ethnicty.

Wednesday, September 2, 2015

MSNBC

Do the executives at MSNBC news realize their low viewer ratings has to do with the fact the vast majority of TV viewer don't care about the early primary, especially the republican one? Really, almost everytime I turn to the MSNBC channel during the weekeday, it's about the Republican candidates, and just as quickly I turn to another channel.

And on top of that many of the news pundits on MSNBC talk about how much the American people don't follow and don't care about "beltway politics", meaning Washington D.C., but then they talk about nothing else but beltway politics and the Republicans.

What don't the executive realize we don't care. There's a whole world of news out there and we want to understand more about the world than the leading republican candidates in the field of 16 or so candidates. The election doesn't really start until spring of next year for many and not until the summer before the conventions.

So leading news shows with more stories of the same poltical BS doesn't get the attention and viewship. It just turns viewers, like me, off. I don't watch MSNBC very much now because they're a political channel, not news channel anymore.

And so with that, I'll continue to ignore MSNBC and stay with reading the daily newspapers. At least I get to chose what I read (or listen), than being pummeleld by needless, mindless political stories, interviews and commentaries. I'll pay attention when the election really starts next year.