Starbucks

Update III.--After filling out a survey about my experience with Starbuck reps., I still didn't get my lost earned reward restored, but along with the 50 stars I got a $5 credit to my account on the app. I was honest in my answers to let them know I'll still be a customer for my normal $2 drink and spend my earned reward on more expensive drinks, but I won't be buying the more expensive drinks when there are several cafes where I live that make better ones.

If you're in Tacoma or Gig Harbor, those cafes are the Divesions Cafe on the University of Puget Sound campus, loud being students, but the best coffee drinks in Tacoma, and you don't even have to be a student, although the drinks cost a little more. After that the cafe in the Metropolitan Market in the Proctor District is a very close second, and they have a rewards card (buy 12 get one free). Third is the Cutter's Point cafe in Gig Harbor near Fred Meyer market, equally a very close second.

It's hard to decide which of the three is the best but the Diversions cafe is just slightly better tasting for the coffee they use. All of the cafes (above) use a better coffee than Starbucks, which probably explains why they're better than Starbucks, at least for mochas, the only flavored drink I buy except a rare chance to taste something different.

Update II.-- Starbucks responded to my two e-mails with a 50 star gift, which under the new rewards progam is 40% of a reward of the old program. It's all they'll do. They won't restore the missing reward I earned on the day of the release of their new app.

Since it takes me 31 visits and just over $62, compared to 12 visits and $25 under the old program, to earn a rewards problem I doubt I use Starbucks more than the usual coffee drink, a Doppio con Panna, and the rewards for other drinks. There are cafes locally and in the area which make better flavored coffee drinks and have better rewards programs. None, so far that I've tasted, make a better Doppio con Panna.

I understand the reason for the new rewards program, it favors people who spend money than those who just visit for a regular coffee or espresso drink, especially with the break even point at $5, which is about the price of a venti or larger drink, or a tall with food item.

It's their company and their policy, and I'll adapt, just not spending as much there as elsewhere now. As I told them, customers always have the right to exercise their choice with the feet and their money.

Update.-- They restored the two lost rewards but not one reward I eraned on the day the app was released. I've sent two e-mails to them and all I get in response is  words about patience and they're working on ("tweaking") the app to improve it and get all the users' information available.

Orignal Post.-- I don’t know how many here are Starbucks customers, let alone regular ones like me where the Starbucks is at the turn-around place on my morning walks (3-4 miles there and 3-4 miles home), so a doppio con panna is the everyday drink. 

As some may know Starbucks introduced their new rewards program Tuesday with the new mobile app. The new rewards changes from where you earn 1 star per visit or purcha and 12 stars earns a free drink to where you earn 2 stars for every $1 spent and 125 stars earns a free drink.

For me it went from a free drink for $25 spent to a free drink for $62+ spent. Yeah. The report is that about $5 is the break even point for the old and new programs, meaning the same purchases earns a free reward. It also means a free drink, which used to take 12 purchases, now takes 32 purchases of $2, the price of just coffee or espresso drinks.

I can live with that, but the app they introduced has had problems from the beginning. It lost the earned rewards for many users, like me, along with all the saved messages. And the desktop display doesn’t work. The company said they plan to compensate customers as they work on fixing the problems which could take a week or so.

Yeah, really, about a week to fix it, during which time some will lose some of their free drinks to the time limit. The only things that works is that it still takes the money people put in the app, which is their real focus, generating revenue, not customer satisfaction.

Mac Pro HD

I have a mid-2010 Mac Pro (bought late 2010). I bought it with four 1-TB Hard Drives (HD's) but it shipped with only 3 (revised purchase order too), so I bought the fourth from the Apple store then. The HD's have been running near continuously since December 2010, over 5 years.

This last week doing routine tests of the hard drives one of them, the extra one I bought, wouldn't optimize and a surface scan test crashed the application. An application which is supposed to test for, find and report bad blocks crashes when it finds one.

Really, the company said the error message showed it's a rare failure of a hard drive, one they didn't design their application to find, so when it does find one, it crashes. The company got an e-mail full of WTF's, and they said it was on their to do list for the software.

Anyway, that's the first HD I've had fail. I still have two 500 GB HD's from the 2006 G5 PPC working and a 2008 1-TB HD from a Time Machine (removed) working, all in external boxes connected to the Mac Pro for overnight backups and work space. I also have a 2012 2-TB LaCie HD still working.

So the work progressed on the old and new HD. The old one has two recent complete backups on separate HD's, the LaCie and the new Time Machine. The HD was erased and removed, and the new one installed and formatted, and then the content restored.

After that it was the test of applications, mainly iTunes since the HD was dedicated to music files, mostly iTunes but other music applications. And then back to work as usual. I bought two HD's so I have an extra one when one of the other 3 internal HD's fail.

I had thought to replace the logical HD (OS-X) with a 1-TB SSD but at $350 that's not cost effective since the real issue now is replacing the Mac Pro with a new Mac Pro in the next few years, something I don't look forward for the price, because with the price of the configured Pro, I'd have to add an 4-HD external box for the current internal HD's.

I've looked at Mac Mini's, and for much of my work, a Mini would suffice, but for some of the work with applications it wouldn't work as well, and with the number of peripheral equipment (three printers and two scanners), there just isn't enough ports on the Mini.

The decision to replace the Mac Pro will be when Apple releases a version of OS-X which is only backward compatible to later model Pro's, 2012 or later. This will freeze this Mac Pro for OS-X and applications.

This happened with OS-X 10.8 which was not compatible with PPC's or 2006-08 Intel Pro's. So I suspect OS-X 10.12 maybe and 13 definitely, will be the one which excludes this Mac Pro and forces the decision to upgrade or keep it. I delayed the upgrade of the PPC to this Mac for about a year.

That's the story to date. The first HD to fail. At least it wasn't the logical HD with OS-X on it. I have a clone  HD to boot the Mac if that happens. Time will tell.

Food

Food is my enemy. The enemy of my digestive system. I've been seeing gastroenterologists for over six years now after nearly two years of problems. I won't get into what I think of gastroenterologists, except it's fair to say some are good and some aren't, but all of them can't solve many problems with anyone's digestive system.

I've been through nearly every test available to gastroenterologists to diagnose physical and some bacterial problems, all of which found a lot of related problems, but nothing about what's  been causing the problems, which has been a series of bacterial issues.

I use the word infection or overgrowth because it fits the symptoms, but hasn't past any of the tests for known infections and overgrowths, but I've learned those tests only focus on known problems, to which everything else is call Irritable Bowel Syndrome, or IBS.

Which to me translates to them saying, "It Bets the Shit" out of me. And for all the conversations I've had, they, or some of them, recognize the symptoms are consistent with a problemd. The rest just dismiss them and me and prescribe probiotics, like it's the wonder drug on the digestive system.

[Note.-- Have you noticed the doctors and companies selling probiotics, never tell you the side or adverse effects of probiotics? They're not the cure-all for digestive problems, and too often exacerbate problems, as with me after trying 4 different ones.]

Even when they've had sample of the bacteria which clearly is the problem, the best they can do to identify it from the sample is call it "aggregate bacteria", meaning it's one of the many in your digestive tract which likely isn't normally there and they don't exactly know what type.

Anyway, long story, and not wanting to bore you, so I'll bore you with an example. As part of living with the problem I live on a restricted diet. a list of foods you can write on a 4x6 postit note with room for doodles. And every week or so I try a food experiment, some food off the list, and judge the reaction.

This last week's food experiment was small, a snack-size box of raisins. Yes, raisins. And as most, probably over 90% of them, go I was sick for 3 days. One gastroenterologist pretty much said since I took penicillin from age 3 to age 18, the age your body starts (at 2-3) and establishes the "normal" bacteria in your digestive tract, that mine was essentially shot.

Shot in terms it never fully established what is normal and from for the rest of my life since then have had problems with food, and worsened starting about 20 years ago, more so since 2008 after a long bout of the flu.

The gastroenterologist worked with me to find a way to have a diet I can eat and my body won't reject or have advere reactions, hence the postit note list. It's a balanced diet, and one I like, but also changes now and then, usually after the flu or simillar illness.

The hardest thing for me is socializing since food is almost always the center of the group, at some pub, restaurant, event or someone's home. Food is always there and pushed at people. The hardest thing is telling folks I can't eat anything there (that's a near 100% certainty now), and why I only drink coffee and on rare occasions, one beer.

My point? Nothing really, except to say, as others say, IBS is real and very personal to the person with it. It's nothing to make fun of or tell them it's not real. It is for them, they live with it. Respect it and what they say.

Domain Name Scam

I've owned my domain name since 2000 with the same Website host and the same domain nane host. Every now and then I get an e-mail from some domain name host company demanding I pay them to keep my domain name and information current and accurate, and threatening action if I don't.

This is in part because the information on the registration appears dated, but in truth, nothing has changed in the last 5 years, so following the rules, I review it once a year to ensure it's complete, accurate and true, which means nothing to update.

The latest round of threatening e-mails is from a company called accountsupport-inc.com, or accountsupport.com, which is one of the many names used by Endurance International Group, Inc, see the Boston BBB for more information and the list of subsidaries they use to send these e-mails to domain name owners.

It's a scam. Pure and simple. Clicking on the link sets up and account for you with their company they charge you for doing nothing for you or your domain name. I usually just delete these e-mails. Today I almost replied with a cease and desist e-mail, but changed my mind and deleted it.

This is because once you respond they know you read their e-mail enough to act. That's what they want, so that they can engage you to believe they can act against your domain name and they can protect it with a subscription to their service. They can't do the former and won't do the latter.

That's why it's a scam. Make sure your domain name information is correct and only do business with the Website host and domain name host about your domain name. Anyone else is bogus and a scam if they want your money.

Safari Browser Cache

I've always used Safari as my main browser because it was, and to what I know so far still is, the most W3C compliant and least robust browser, including Google Chrome (long story there where I've removed it and Google's Software Update software), Firefox, Chromium, Omniweb, Sea Monkey, etc.

Recently, after removing Google's instrusive software, I removed all of the other browsers except Ominweb which can mimic the others. I've always designed my Web pages for Safari, but tested them with Chrome and Firefox. I've always ignored Microsoft's Internet Explorer since it was the least compliant, most robust, and often used noncompliant, proprietary features.

What I want to say now is something I've done over the years because it helps when testing Web pages, and while I only use it for Safari, it should be used on the other browser if possible. That's turn off the browser's cache.

The cache is used to store Web pages so when you go back it simply reloads the page in cache than retrieves the page again. This is good for static pages, but bad for dynamic pages, or when you want to reload the page, and then have to force the reload to write a new version to cache.

In Safari you don't normally see this setting because it's defaults to storing cache. You have to set it each time you open Safari but it's a simple click before you load any Web page, but there is one thing you must do first.

You have to enable viewing the "Develop" dropdown menu and Safari's menu bar. This is a permanent setting so it will always appear when you open Safari. After that, just open the dropdown menu and click "Disable Cache". It will not store any cache for the time you have Safari open.

The downside is that you have to do this everytime you open Safari, but I do it out of habit. This is important if you don't clear the cache routinely if not before you close Safari. There is a command you can use in Terminal mode to remove the cache files anytime whether Safari is open or not.

Why is this important? It's not if it doesn't bother you or you don't worry about the cache files. They'll just keep piling up on the cache folder. The advantage is that no application can access them or use them because they aren't created in the first place.

Anyway, just a thought. It's the user's choice, but it simplifies my work and I'll always get a fresh version of any Web page.