Read Aloud

In my work life, MVP of all computer tools since my head injury is the Read Aloud function in Word. (Similar functions exist in other software, and comparable tools are also sometimes embedded in the OS or downloadable as apps.)

Since my head injury, I've had to work harder to focus visually, especially on text and especially on a screen. This makes the revision and editing parts of my job much harder! I can easily focus enough to read for comprehension, but the deeper level of focus required to catch the kinds of errors my brain usually autocorrects takes an enormous amount of work - and all too much of that work is going into buckling down and focusing, before I can even start putting effort and energy into the actual work of my job.

My saviour is Read Aloud. When it reads the text to me verbally, the kinds of errors my eyes and my brain usually gloss over come out sounding conspicuous and bizarre. Overly-French structures sound heavy and awkward, and basically anything that needs attention sounds jarring.

Because Read Aloud reads the text at a steady pace, I don't have to keep myself on task - the computer is doing it for me. Depending on the text and my eyesight, I might read along with the text on the screen, or I might look at the French while listening to the English to make sure every concept is present, or I might put a cold compress over my eyes or work on a vision therapy exercise.

Sometimes I correct errors as I go, sometimes I flag things for further attention with the Comments function. Then, once the readthrough is finished, I can put all my effort and energy into actually fixing the things I have flagged for attention, without it all having been drained on finding the things that need attention.

***

I've talked before about how audiobooks don't work for me because they go in one ear and out the other and I don't retain the story, so it seems super counterintuitive that Read Aloud would actually help with my revision and editing. I've been thinking about this a lot, and I've come to the realization that this is because I have a lifetime of experience reading for information.

When I read with my eyes, my brain is actively working to glean and assimilate meaning from the text, so it overlooks straightforward typos like public/pubic. When I listen, I'm not using the same mechanism as I've used my whole life to glean and assimilate meaning, so my brain isn't working to make sense of the text, and therefore isn't "helping" it.

I once read a book called Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, which helps you learn to draw by using your right brain to see lines and shadows. You learn to think "This line needs to be at this specific angle", rather than the left-brained inclination to think "I am drawing a hand." You think about the structure of the subject rather than what the subject actually is.

 

Using Read Aloud for revision works similarly. It doesn't trigger the functions in my brain that try to make the text make sense, so I can focus on the structure, on whether anything is out of place.

 

This does mean that I don't retain the content when revising. It goes in one ear and out the other just like audiobooks. (If it's my own translation, I assimilated the content during the drafting phase. If it's someone else's translation, I won't retain it.) But that doesn't actually matter! I don't need to learn the content or remember the plot, I just need to make the text work. If I ever need the information, I can look it back up! And if, for some reason, I need to actually assimilate the information, I still have the option of reading with my eyes.

Things the Library Should Invent: lend out external media readers

While rummaging through my box of 20 years of accumulated spare cables, I found some random unmarked floppy disks. I have no idea what's on them, and no longer have any computers with a floppy drive.

 

I pondered what might be on the disks, and tried to brainstorm ways I might get at a floppy drive. I wondered whether you can rent an external floppy drive. There doesn't appear to be any such thing. They're fairly cheap to buy, but I'd only need it for a few minutes to read and possibly copy the contents of the disks, and then I'd be done with it forever.

 

Then I wondered if the library computers still have floppy drives. Doubtful. Apart from the fact that floppy disks haven't been in common use for quite a while, I doubt the library wants to make it easy for people to run random programs on their computers.

Then I realized, this is a problem that the library could solve by making external media readers available to borrow - floppy drives, CD drives, maybe even cassette players and record players that can be plugged into computers to convert music to MP3s, if such a thing exists.

Surely I'm not the only one with some obsolete media that I'm no longer equipped to read or back up. Surely I'm not the only one who just needs a floppy drive briefly, with no need to own one.

An external USB floppy drive costs less than the retail price of a hardcover book, so it seems like the library should be able to afford a few to lend out. And if the library lends me a USB drive that I plug into my own computer, my computer bears the risk of whatever the contents of my mystery disks might be - the library's disk drive is just a conduit.

 

Q: But if you let people borrow electronic equipment, they might wreck it! 

A: Yes, just like if you let people borrow books, they might wreck them! I suspect libraries are accustomed to budgeting for eventual wear and tear on their items.

 

Part of the library's mission statement is to provide universal access to a broad range of information. Perhaps that could include the information that we have stored on outdated media?

Things They Should Invent: one-way mirror webcam cover

A challenge with video chat is eye contact. We're inclined to either look at our interlocutor's eyes on screen, or to look at ourselves on screen. This means we aren't looking at the camera, and therefore appear shifty and weird to our interlocutors.

Proposed solution: a cover for the webcam made of a one-way mirror. In other words, the webcam can see you, but you see the mirror. If you make eye contact with yourself in the mirror, you're looking directly at the camera, so it looks to your interlocutor like you're making eye contact with them.

This would also make it easier to modulate your facial expression. I know that if I leave my facial expression unmonitored during a video chat, I tend to look like I'm sneering. (Really, my lips are just asymmetrical). But if I monitor my facial expression on the screen, I'm not looking at the camera and therefore look like I'm not paying attention. A mirror over the camera would make it easier to perform up to expectations.

Analogy for app-only

An unfortunate trend that has emerged in the past decade or so is "app-only" - i.e. requiring a purpose-built app on a mobile device to do something (for example, make an online purchase) that is totally technically feasible over the web - and, often, was frequently done over the web before smartphones came along!

My shower gave me an analogy for why this is a problem:


Many devices started out being able to be used indoors only (or, at least, within a cord length of indoors).

Telephones needed to be plugged into the jack to have a phone connection.

Televisions needed to be plugged into the wall for electricity, and, once cable TV became a thing, into the cable drop for cable.

Computers needed to be plugged into the wall for electricity and, once the internet became a thing, into the phone jack and, later, the cable jack, for internet.

Then devices became smaller, batteries improved, wifi became common, data plans became common, and now we can do all these things outdoors on a laptop or tablet or phone.


But imagine if we could only do them outdoors.  Your laptop or phone or tablet won't work indoors. You have to step onto the balcony or into the backyard.

That would be inconvenient, wouldn't it?

Yes, it's convenient to be able to use it outdoors, but you don't want to have to use it outdoors. You don't want to have to step away from what you're doing, grab a coat or an umbrella, put on your shoes, and step outside just to make a call or read a text or watch TV. You still want to retain the option of using it indoors just like you always have.


Similarly, it's convenient to be able to do things on a mobile device, but once you have to use a mobile device, it becomes less convenient. If you're at a computer, you have to stop what you're doing and switch to another device. If your computer is set up to be ergonomic, you have to switch to a less ergonomic device.  You have to make sure another device has battery and connectivity. You have to use a smaller screen.


Adding options increases convenience, but removing options decreases convenience. An app is not convenient if it eliminates the option of doing the task with a computer, just like a device you can use outdoors is not convenient if you can't also use it indoors.

Wanted: emergency radio with long shelf life

Today I had a power outage for the first time in years, so it occurred to me that I should test my emergency radio.

And it turns out the battery doesn't hold a charge.  I keep the radio in a place where it gets direct sun every day, but when I turn it on the battery light blinks out after a second, before I can even tune it to a radio station.  The same thing happens when I crank it up - the battery appears to charge, but it doesn't hold the charge long enough to pick up a radio station, which, of course, defeats the purpose.

This happened with my previous emergency radio too. After a few years, the battery simply stopped holding a charge, rendering it useless.

Can anyone recommend an emergency radio that will retain functionality after years of neglect?

I'm willing and able to keep it somewhere where it gets direct sunlight every day for solar charging.  I'm also willing and able to keep it in the dark if constant charging is bad for battery life, but in that case I'd need it to charge fairly quickly (e.g. under 15 minutes) in normal indoor ambient light levels

Ideally, I'd also like to be able to charge devices with it. Alternatively, I'd be interested in any other gizmos that let me charge devices from solar and crank power - or even from the ordinary Duracell batteries I have sitting around in a desk drawer! - regardless of whether they have a radio.  A flashlight feature would also be a plus. (I already have multiple flashlights, but I wouldn't mind one that could charge by solar.)  But, again, these devices would need long shelf life, so I can neglect them for years and then they'll be ready for me in an emergency.

Interestingly, during this adventure, I discovered that the radio on my old middle-school Walkman still works beautifully if I just pop in a couple of the ordinary Duracell batteries that I have sitting around in my desk drawer.  So for an emergency device, I'd need better.

Things Roger Should Invent: check for signal issues before dispatching a tech

Since I moved into this apartment just over two years ago (!), I've had the same problem occur with my Rogers cable several times:

I get problems with video and/or audio quality on a seemingly random selection of TV channels.  I power cycle and/or reauthorize my cable box several times, and it doesn't resolve the problem.  I call Rogers, who check various things on their end then dispatch a technician.

The technician arrives, presses a mysterious combination of buttons that causes a bunch of mysterious numbers to appear on screen, and discovers there's a problem with one of the mysterious numbers.  (It might have something to do with frequency or signal - unfortunately, it didn't occur to me until I started writing this blog post to take notes.)  This problem has to be resolved centrally, so the tech puts in a report and tells me it will be fixed within a couple of days.

And then it's fixed within a couple of days.

It seems to me that they should be able to either check these mysterious numbers remotely, or have the tech on the phone walk me through the mysterious combination of buttons needed to produce the mysterious numbers and read them aloud over the phone, so they can confirm whether there are any signal issues that need to be fixed remotely before wasting my and a tech's time dispatching a tech to read numbers off a screen.  If there aren't clear signal issues, then they can dispatch a tech to see what's happening on-site.

Advanced option, since we do live in the future: when they detect that a customer is resetting their box (which my conversations with phone techs lead me to believe they can do remotely), Rogers computers remotely check that customer's signals, and if there's anything outside the norm they flag it for a human to look at.  Then, if multiple customers in the same area have signal levels outside the norm (which, as I understand it, has been what was happening in these past signal issues), they can detect it and do their remote fix before anyone needs to go to the trouble of calling tech support

How to make Google News RSS feeds once again work in The Old Reader

A couple of days ago, I noticed that my Google News RSS feeds in The Old Reader weren't working properly. The feed was getting served up to me, but when I clicked through to the article, it took me to the main Google News page.

It turns out this was happening because Google News automatically modifies the URL (similar to how Google search changes the URL from the actual URL of the page to a redirect starting with "www.google.com/url?..." with a bunch of tracking information in it.) Something about the redirect makes it now point to the main Google News page, rather than to the article in question.

After some experimentation, I discovered that a Firefox extension called "Don't track me Google" effectively eliminates this redirect, so I can once again click on the article in The Old Reader and be sent to the actual article.

I previously had another extension for this purpose called "Google search link fix", but for some reason it wasn't effective with the latest changes to Google News.

I have no idea if this works in browsers other than Firefox, or feed readers other than The Old Reader.

Things They Should Invent: customize the user-facing appearance of Word without changing documents' appearance

As I'm dealing with vision issues resulting from my head injury, I've been contemplating whether changes to the appearance of my computer interface would make things easier for me. Perhaps a light grey or beige background rather than stark white? Perhaps a different font might be easier to read?

The problem is that, as a translator, I'm expected to deliver my translations with the same formatting and appearance as the client-provided source text.  So if I were to change the background colour or the font, I'd have to change it back before delivering the text. Since some texts have specific and complex client-provided formatting, changing it back would be time-consuming and increase the likelihood of introducing errors that would make the client unhappy.

I would really like to be able to change the appearance on my screen without changing the underlying formatting - like imposing my own style sheet upon what I see.  Web browsers have accessibility options that let you override a webpage's formatting - I'd also like to be able to do this in a Word document.

Early versions of Word (circa 1993) had the option of making the interface look like WordPerfect 5.1, which many users at the time would have been accustomed to. However, the final document wasn't grey text in whatever font that is on a blue background - the final document was text in the colour selected by the user, in the font selected by the user, on the background selected by the user.

Word could do this in 1993. So why not also do it now, so people with visual issues can work on an eye-friendly interface while creating a document that meets the graphic and/or layout standards of their employer or their client?

The final score in the laptop battery management match-up

I bought my laptop in December 2010, and started indiscriminately plugging it in whenever possible, without regard for any battery management strategy. The battery stopped working in April 2013, for a total of 2 years and 4 months.

Then I started putting the laptop in airplane mode whenever it was plugged in, and completely draining and recharging the battery on the rare occasions when I needed to work from battery. The laptop lived until November 2017, for a total of 4 years and 7 months.

Shortly before the laptop died, the battery status said something to the effect that my battery wasn't working at top performance and it was time to get a new one, although I could keep using this one for as long as it lasted. (I don't have the exact message.) It didn't display this message before the previous battery suddenly stopped working. (I noticed there was a problem because the battery light was suddenly blinking orange.) I currently don't know whether the battery had anything to do with why the laptop stopped working.

Therefore, based on my one-person study, airplane mode is better for laptop batteries (at least the kinds of batteries computers used in 2010) than leaving it plugged in indiscriminately.

Note that this is the exact opposite of what all Dell online support said, but consistent with what every in-person tech said.

Things They Should Invent: manual wifi switches on cable modems

One of my many delightful eccentricities is that I don't normally use wifi. The vast, vast, vast majority of my interneting is done on my computer at my desk, so I connect the computer to the modem by ethernet cable. I do turn on the wifi when I need it, but I figure keeping it always-on would increase the risk of someone breaking into my network without benefitting me in anyway.

However, this could become a problem if my computer dies.  Currently, the way to turn my wifi on and off is by accessing the modem through my web browser.  If my computer dies so completely that I can't persuade it to cling to life for long enough to turn my wifi on, I won't be able to get online with an alternative device.

Solution: a manual switch on cable modems that can turn the wifi on and off.  In addition to allowing you to turn on your wifi when you don't have a computer, it would also allow you to definitively turn off your wifi and thereby control access to your network - for example if you suspect someone unauthorized is using it but don't have the technical prowess to confirm, or if you're a parent who wants to keep close tabs on your kids' internet use.

Wifi

When Eddie Izzard was running marathons across South Africa and periscoping his progress, I repeatedly saw people in the comments asking how he gets wifi way out in the middle of nowhere.

I've recently seen people call into question the authenticity of civilian tweets from Syria by saying that wifi couldn't possibly be working with all the war constantly knocking out power and infrastructure.

In both these cases, it's glaringly obvious to me that they aren't using wifi, they're using their data plan. They don't need a wifi hotspot (or electricity if their phone is charged), they're using...I don't actually know - satellites or towers or whatever it is that transmits cellular data.

My first thought was to wonder if people are now using "wifi" as a synonym for any type of wireless internet, even when it's clearly not actual wifi.

But another thing I hear about from time to time is the possibility of introducing free wifi in public places as a public service. And when I think about it, the number of places that offer free wifi as an amenity seems to be increasing - restaurants and stores and malls and even the TTC have introduced it, and the trend seems to be towards more rather than less public wifi.

All this time I've been assuming that everyone has a data plan (except me, because I'm frugal with my cellphone use). But could it be that far fewer people than I expected have data plans and far more people than I expected are dependent on wifi - to the extent that it doesn't even occur to them that people might have another method of connectivity?

Laptop battery progress report

In April 2013, I blogged about mixed messages I was receiving about laptop battery management.

I just realized enough time has passed for a progress report.

In April 2013, my laptop battery died at the age of 28 months, during which I'd been using the computer primarily plugged into the wall but with the battery still installed and active.

After I replaced that battery, I decided to try disabling battery charging when the computer is plugged in, meaning that the power cord is not charging the battery but is rather providing power directly to the computer, although the battery is still physically present. I've been doing that for 42 months, and it still seems to be working well. The battery does gradually lose power over a period of many months (I have to charge it an average of twice a year) but it has lived for significantly longer than it did with the computer plugged into the wall.

I intend to proceed this way for the rest of the life of this battery.  I doubt this computer has the life expectancy to also test it with removing the battery, but if it it turns out it does, I'll test that and report back.

Why do some plugs and cables wear out?

My earbuds stop working every few months. First one ear goes, then both of them.  It seems to happen whether I buy them cheap or mid-range. (Haven't tried expensive ones myself, but other people have told me they wear out too.)  This has been happening since I was a teenager using them to listen to a walkman, and it continues at the same rate even now that I work from home (which is relevant because I use my earbuds for far fewer hours a day and they also spend much less time being knocked around in my purse.)

The Mini DisplayPort to VGA adapter that I use to connect my external monitor to my computer wears out every couple of years. First the image doesn't always appear on the external monitor when I close the computer lid (I have to open the lid to get to the power button), then it starts taking multiple unplugs and replugs for the image to show up on the external monitor, then the monitor starts blinking out at random times, and finally it does this weird thing where the whole computer freezes when I try to switch to the monitor.  Then I get a new adapter, and everything goes back to normal.

I had the same problem with the cable that connected my cellphone to my computer, back when such a thing was possible. It would just stop working every few months.

Why does this happen?  These things are basically just plugs and wires. What exactly would cause them to stop functioning?

And why doesn't it happen with things like kettles and toasters and lamps, which also have plugs and wires?

Things Microsoft Word Should Invent (multilingual spellchecking edition)

1. Display all spelling and grammar errors, no matter how much it slows down the program

If your Word document has too many of the red squiggles indicating spelling errors as detected by the spellchecker, it gives you a warning saying there are too many spelling and grammar errors to continue displaying them.  Then all the red squiggles go away and, if you want to spellcheck, you have to select the spellcheck function from the menu and let the spellcheck program crawl the document rather than correcting red squiggles as you go.

The red squiggles are important to my translation process, and not just for spellchecking purposes.  They show me at a glance where I have and haven't translated, as the text in one language is going to be full of red squiggles when the spellchecker is set to the other language.  This is particularly relevant in very long documents (which I don't always translate linearly) and for bilingual documents - which are also the two kinds of documents that are most likely to involve a phase of the translation process where there are too many red squiggles regardless of whether the proofing language is set to the source language or the target language.

So I want a "Show spelling and grammar errors, no matter what, no matter how many there are, no matter how much it slows down the program" option. Just give me my red squiggles - I'll wait! And if I find it is in fact too slow, I can turn them off, and then turn them back on when I particularly need them.

(Yes, I know you're supposed to be able to mark different sections of the document as different languages or tell Word not to spellcheck a certain section, but in practice I find those functions are hit and miss.  Sometimes I tell it over and over again that the left column is English and the right column is French, or that I don't want it to spellcheck the first six pages, but it just doesn't take.  Same with turning the red squiggles back on after I've translated the whole document - sometimes it just says there are too many spelling and grammar errors without even recounting.  I suppose another option would be to make these functions work reliably.)

2. Add phrases to the spellcheck dictionary

In some circumstances, for certain combinations of genre, context and audience, I have to leave official names in the source language rather than translating them into English. Of course, this means they show up as errors in my spellchecking, even though they're not.

I want to be able to add these official names to the spellcheck dictionary, so it doesn't give them red squiggles and corrects them if I make a typo.  However, I don't want to add the individual words to the dictionary, because taken individually they would still be untranslated words and/or typos. I just want spellcheck to recognize the phrase. For example, I want it to recognize that "Ministère des Affaires municipales et de l'Occupation du territoire" is supposed to be there, but the individual words "ministère" and "affaires" and "municipales" and "territoire", when they don't appear in that exact phrase, are not supposed to be there.   

Computers can do this. Search functions have "whole words only" or "exact phrase only" options. And the error detection aspect of spellchecking is basically a search function (i.e. find all the words on this list, then put red squiggles under all the other words). So they should be able to create this option and thereby help reduce the risk of making typos when some words are in another language that hasn't lived in the user's fingers for as long.

What's the name for the way parts of my firefox interface are disappearing?

For the past couple of days, my Firefox has been occasionally having this weird graphics problem, where parts of the interface at the top disappear and occasionally black boxes appear over the browser window. Screenshot below, click to embiggen:

Does anyone know what this phenomenon is called so I can google it effectively?

If you have troubleshooting ideas, so far I've tried disabling hardware acceleration, updating my graphics driver, disabling Classic Theme Restorer (which was being used in the screenshot), and disabling transparency in the Windows interface. Each step except disabling transparency helped a little, but none completely eliminated the problem.

The problem can usually be made to go away by changing the browser window size (i.e. clicking the "restore" button on the top right), but that's never permanent. Sometimes, however, I have to close the browser completely.

There weren't any updates or changes that correlated with the arrival of the problem, at least not that I can dig out. A java update appeared in my tray shortly before the problem started, but I didn't actually install the update until after the problem started.

In any case, my real question is the name/term/standard description for this weird way various things are randomly becoming invisible, so I can google it and/or file bug reports.

Anyone know?

Update: Switching to 64-bit Firefox (to go with my 64-bit Windows 7 install) removes the problems of the blank areas, but 64-bit Firefox eats up memory like crazy.  At one point I left the computer alone for 2 hours with only 1 tab open (the weather network), and when I got back it was using 5 gigs of RAM. I'm currently working on the Firefox memory problem and have some avenues, but if I can't make it work I'll do a system restore.

Second update: It turns out the memory leak on 64-bit Firefox is specific to to the combination of The Weather Network website and the Adblock Plus add-on. It doesn't happen on any sites other than The Weather Network, and it doesn't happen on The Weather Network if I disable Adblock Plus.  So I've filed a bug report with ABP to see if they can fix it. They've proven responsive in the past, so hopefully there will be a solution eventually.

As for the random blank graphics, I still don't know what they're called or why they were happening. They don't correspond with specific objects or elements, and move or grow or disappear when I resize the window.  When I try to take an about:memory log while they're happening Firefox crashes (so there are some relevant crash logs wherever it is crash logs get sent to). And they aren't related to The Weather Network or Adblock Plus because they occurred on other sites and even when I had all my add-ons disabled. But the 64-bit Firefox seemed to solve that problem, whatever it was.

With thanks to @hermit8888 , @bwinton, @mike_conley and @gijskruitbosch for pointing me in useful troubleshooting directions via Twitter.

Things They Should Invent: the option to delete real words from the spellcheck dictionary

"Costal" is a real word. It means "of or relating to the ribs". And I very, very, very rarely have to use it in my translations.  However, I do have to use the word "coastal" with some frequency, and I tend to typo it as "costal" (or as something that autocorrects to "costal".)

"Pogrom" is a real word. It means "an organized massacre of a particular ethnic group, in particular that of Jews in Russia or eastern Europe". And I never have to use in my translations. However, I do have to use the word "program" quite frequently, and sometimes a combination of typo and autocorrect will change "program" to "pogrom".

I would like to have the option of removing these words and others like them from the spellcheck dictionary, so red squiggles appear underneath them as though they were typos. Because, despite the fact that they are real words, they are nevertheless typos. They're not supposed to be there, and I'd find it convenient to have them flagged as such.

I'd also like to have the option of having profanity, slurs, slang words for body parts and functions, etc. treated like typos. They most often aren't supposed to be in my work documents (I have had one or two interesting transcripts, but they were very much the exception), so it would be useful to flag them as such to avoid particularly embarrassing typos.  This seems like something Word could allow users to opt into or out of with a checkbox - and it would have the added bonus of pointing out potentially-controversial words to users who might be ignorant of the potential controversy (perhaps because they're sheltered, perhaps because they aren't writing in their first language), thereby allowing users to make an informed decision about whether to use these words.

The true purpose of spellcheck is not to provide a comprehensive list of "real words", but rather to help users catch errors. Sometimes an error can take the form of a perfectly valid word.  Allowing us to not just add words to the spellcheck dictionary but also to delete words from the spellcheck dictionary would enable spellcheck to better fulfill that mandate.

itunes deleted all the music off my ipod

The ipod: a 4th generation ipod touch running iOS 6.0
The itunes: itunes 11.0
The computer: PC running Windows 7


I added some new music to my itunes library, then synced my ipod (like I've done many, many times before) to add that music to my ipod.  But, to my shock, itunes instead deleted all the music off my ipod!

I tried to sync it again, but this didn't add any music to it. And, unfortunately, the second attempt to sync overwrote the backup of my ipod (itunes only keeps one backup and there's no way to keep others!), so I couldn't just restore the backup.

I went through all the usual disconnecting, reconnecting, turning stuff on and off, pressing both buttons to reset the ipod, but I still couldn't convince my music to go back on my ipod.  At one point about 400 songs (out of over 8000) went on the ipod, but when I tried to add more they went away.

Some parts of the internet suggested that this was a copyright thing, and music that wasn't purchased through the itunes store was being deleted, but that wasn't the case here.  I've never purchased any music through itunes, and the 400 songs that did end up on my ipod were from a mixture of CDs and downloads.

This discussion thread had some people experiencing the same problem. Some people suggested that this was a known issue and if you went to the Apple store they'd fix it, but they never specified what the Apple store did to fix it. I was slightly reluctant to do that, because the Apple store would probably update my iOS, and whenever my iOS is updated something goes wrong with one of my apps.  Also, since my computer is a PC, the Apple store won't even look at it, even if part of the problem is in the itunes that is on my computer.  So all I could see them doing was restoring my ipod, thereby forcing me to upgrade my iOS, and sending me on my merry way.

During the course of my research, I learned about the Manually Manage Music option in itunes, which allows you to drag and drop music onto your ipod rather than using the sync function. I tried to put my playlist on the ipod using this function, and it transferred about 500 songs (again with no discernible pattern) which is better than before but still only a small fraction of my 8000+ playlist.

Someone on the internet who was having the same problem mentioned transferring their songs album by album, so I decided to try to transfer the songs from an album that didn't get transferred.  I typed the name of the album into the search box in itunes, selected all, and dragged them over to the ipod.  It sat on the first step of the process (something like "preparing for transfer" - I'm not about to try it again just to get the exact name of the step!) for a really long time, leading me to believe it wasn't going to work.  Resigned, I contemplated whether to update and restore the iOS, update or reinstall itunes, go to the Apple store, or any number of time-consuming and no doubt fruitless steps that happen next in the troubleshooting process.

At some point during this contemplation, I idly backspaced the album name that I'd typed in the search box of itunes, so itunes once again displayed all the songs.  And, at some point during this contemplation, itunes started transferring the remaining ~7500 songs to my ipod!!

I have no idea if backspacing the album name out of the search box is what caused all the songs to transfer.  I have no idea if it was caused by something else I failed to notice.  But I haven't been that happy since the day my computer finally came back from the Dell depot!

So now I'm keeping my ipod in Manually Manage Music mode, so I don't have to do a full sync the next time I want to put more music on it. If I have trouble again, I'll try transferring just a few songs isolated by searching in itunes, then backspace the search out of the search box.  (I have no idea if that will work, but that's where I am in my testing.) However, I'm dreading what will happen when I have to sync the ipod again to update apps or something.

Things They Should Invent: emails that self-delete once they've expired

1. Sometimes I get coupons in my email that are only good for a limited time or on a certain day, or if I spend a certain amount of money.  Often when I get them, I don't immediately know whether I might be making any purchases that qualify. But then, a few days later, I realize that I might possibly have a coupon that matches a purchase I'm going to be making.  So I search for my email, but the results turn up hundreds of coupons (since I never delete anything) and I don't know which ones are still valid and have to open more emails than should be necessary to determine whether there is in fact a relevant coupon.

2. Sometimes I email someone and get an out-of-office message.  If I'm subsequently sending group emails that are only relevant immediately (as opposed to something they'll need when they get back from their absence), I like to leave the people who are absent off the email list.  The easiest way to see who is absent is to visually scan my inbox and see whom I've received Out of Office messages from. (They have a distinctive icon in Outlook, so I can tell at a glance.)  But, again, the problem is that I can't tell at a glance if the out-of-office is still in effect, so I have to open more out-of-office messages than necessary to determine who I should leave off the group emails.

Proposed solution: optional expiry dates in emails.  If the content of the email is expired, the email is deleted from the recipient's inbox.  This would apply automatically to out-of-office messages - once the recipient is back in office, the out-of-office message is deleted from the recipient's inbox.

Variation: recipients can have the option to turn off the self-deleting (either as for all emails in their inbox or on an email-by-email basis), but the default setting is self-deletion once the email expires.


Or if that's just too much to handle, a technological solution for the out-of-office problem would be for automatically-generated out-of-office messages to state the return date in the subject line. 

Things They Should Invent: cellular network detection device

My cellphone uses both the Rogers and Fido networks. The other day I was involved in a long texting conversation while walking around the neighbourhood doing my errands, and I noticed that in certain places I got the Rogers network but not the Fido network, and in other places I got the Fido network but not the Rogers network.

This makes me think that it might be possible for there to be certain dead zones for a particular cell phone provider even within an area that's supposed to get service from them.  Which could be an annoyance if you switch providers only to find that you can't get service in your apartment or in your office.

Proposed solution: some kind of a device that can tell you which cellular networks can be picked up in a particular place.  You carry it around, it detects networks, and it tells you which networks it detects.

These devices could be rented out by cellphone retailers for a reasonable price per day. I'm sure potential customers would be quite happy to pay a reasonable amount to confirm that a signal is available right where they need it, and I'm sure cellphone providers who try to compete on signal quality would be happy to empower potential customers to confirm the quality of their signal.

Currently, if you look on cellphone providers' websites to see where their signal is available, they give a rough geographical map. Since I live in the geographical centre of Toronto, all providers claim to provide service in my neighbourhood.  Nevertheless, there are pockets where the Rogers signal can't reach, and pockets where the Fido signal can't reach, which suggests that there may well be pockets where other signals can't reach.  Cell providers can't reasonably be expected to provide a map of all these pockets, but surely they could provide us with a device that would let us detect them ourselves.

Maybe someone could even make an app that would do this?

My second Dell depot repair experience

The good: Dell appears to have fixed my computer by implementing the solution I suggested

The bad: It took two months after I suggested the solution, two separate depot repairs totalling 13 days computerless despite the fact that the problem occurred under an on-site service warranty, and an assortment of additional stressers.

The details:

The problem was that, following an in-warranty replacement of a failed hard drive, my BIOS sporadically failed to recognize the presence of operating system on the hard drive.  This was a particularly stubborn problem, and had persisted through all possible troubleshooting and one previous attempt at depot repair.

I felt like they were grasping at straws when the best idea they could come up with was another attempt at depot repair and I was very reluctant to send my computer away and have to spend some time computerless, but the telephone technician told me it would be expedited since it's the second attempt (5-7 business days, rather than the standard 5-10).  Since my first attempt at depot repair had only taken 4 days all in, I reluctantly agreed to give them one last chance.

I received the shipping box on a Monday, which was the day before my grandmother died, and when I learned of her death I decided to postpone sending out my computer for a week.  Being computerless is very stressful to me, and I didn't want the additional stress when I was freshly bereaved.

So the next Monday, I dropped my computer off at the closest Purolator shipping office (a local print shop).  I decided to drop it off rather than having a courier pick it up so I could use my computer for part of the day on Monday and prepare it for shipping at my leisure rather than having to have the whole thing ready by 9 in the morning because I don't know what day the courier will come.

Unfortunately, there was a snowstorm on Monday, so the Purolator truck didn't show up at the store to pick up my package!

After a frantic Tuesday morning spent trying to figure out why my computer wasn't in the Purolator system, it was ultimately picked up on Tuesday evening, and arrived at the Dell depot on Wednesday morning.  I figured no big deal, last time around it arrived at Dell on Tuesday and was back in my hands on Thursday, so I'll probably still get it back this week.

The Dell tracker showed that they received my unit at 8:30 and began diagnosis at 2:30.  Okay, a bit more of a delay than last time, but still reasonable.  I was heartened to see the expected return day showing Thursday.

But on Thursday at 10 am, the status changed to "Customer Hold", which meant it was on hold until they got some information from me.  I waited and waited, willing the phone to ring, obsessively checking my email, but no one contacted me. 

As you might have noticed if you follow me on Twitter, this stressed me out. What was the problem?  Why did they need to contact me?  And if they so needed to contact me, why hadn't they done so yet?  Had they lost my computer?  Was it going to take months to fix?  What could possibly be going on?

I spent much of the day stressing and crying and catastrophizing, and when I hadn't heard back by the end of the depot's business hours I started emailing and tweeting at anyone I thought might have information.  I finally got a snippet of information from @DellCares: apparently, the depot hadn't been able to reproduce the problem.  But that just raised more questions.  Why did they need to contact me?  And why hadn't they? If you need information from the customer about how to reproduce the problem before you proceed further, what is gained by not contacting the customer?  It seems like in this case you'd either ship it straight back with "could not reproduce" to keep your numbers up, or you'd contact the customer right away so you could move forward.  Both @DellCares and one of the techs I'd been emailing with said they'd have the depot get back to me the next day, so I eventually managed to soothe myself to sleep.

On Thursday at 10 am, I still hadn't heard from anyone.  So I checked the tracker again, and it said the hold had been lifted at 9 am.  But no one had contacted me!  What was going on here?  From where I'm sitting, it looks very much like they wasted a day (thereby doubling my number of computerless days because of the weekend) for no particular reason! 

At 11, the tracker said they'd begun repair.  I was glad to see progress, but how could they be repairing if they couldn't reproduce the error?  I hoped this was just an interim step towards shipping my computer back to me.

Meanwhile, the email tech told me that the hold delay was due to the depot having to find out whether I have a complete or limited warranty.  How does that take a whole day?  And why did the tracker say "customer hold" when that wasn't information that they'd find out from me?  And what kind of strange crazy problem did I have that required them to double check the warranty?

On Friday, the tracker still said the computer was under repair and the next update would be Monday.  So I bolstered myself for the stress of a computerless weekend, exacerbated by all these questions about the mystery hold.

On Monday, I eagerly refreshed the tracker over and over, but it hadn't been updated despite the fact that it said Monday was the next update day.  Had the repair failed?  What if they couldn't figure it out and insisted on holding onto my computer for weeks and weeks?  Partway through the day I received an email the email tech, but all he had to say was that the computer was still in repair.  It seemed like the email was either automatically generated or he was blindly transcribing the tracker status into email without regard for utility.

Then, towards the end of the day on Monday, the tracker said the repair was complete and they were shipping my computer back to me!  I was half delighted and half nervous, uncertain if the problem would actually be fixed or not, and, because of the various horror stories I'd read online, partly dreading that my computer might come back in worse condition.  I'd already decided that if this repair hadn't fixed it I wouldn't accept a third depot repair because it was just too stressful for me, so I was also partly dreading having to be assertive to get my computer fixed without Dell marking me as a problem customer.

I received my computer on Tuesday.  I was so worried that something might have gone wrong that I videoed the unboxing and the first few boot-ups, just in case I needed evidence of any damage or evidence of the problem reoccurring.

The first mystery was on the slip that came with the computer, telling me what work had been done. Under "The unit was received with the following cosmetic issues which is not covered by Dell's HW Warranty", everything was checked (Scratches/Marks on top cover/Case, Scratches/Marks on LCD Screen/Bezel, and Scratches/Marks on Palmrest).  There were no scratches or marks when I sent it out!  I inspected it closely, and discovered...there were no scratches or marks on it when I received it back either!  Did the depot check all those off as a matter of course so they wouldn't be obligated to repair any damage they did???  Yet another source of distrust!

Dreading the prospect of having a damaged computer in hand that Dell would refuse to prepare, I booted up, still taking video.  On the first boot-up, it said "Setup is preparing your computer for first use", just like it did after my last depot repair.  Figuring that meant they hadn't tested it like I asked, I created an account, finished the installation of Windows, and decided to boot up a couple more times to see if the problem reoccurred.

On the first boot-up after the installation of Windows was completed, I saw that there were in fact two Windows accounts: my own, and one named "Dell".  Maybe this meant they had tested it!  I did two more boot-ups from complete shutdown, and the problem didn't reoccur. 

I looked at the device manager, and saw that the hard drive they'd installed wasn't Western Digital this time! The device manager said my hard drive was a "ST1000LM024-HN-M101MBB", which, according to google, is a Samsung hard drive - just like I originally had and I requested after the first round of hardware troubleshooting failed back in December!

That appears to have solved the problem (so far at least, knock wood).  Since I got the computer back, I've had 8 boot-ups from a power-off state and 3 boot-ups from a hibernate state, and it has worked every single time.  I sincerely hope this means it's fixed!

A squandered opportunity

This whole saga has been a squandered opportunity for Dell to delight me and win back my unquestioning loyalty.  As I mentioned in my post about how Dell needs to empower its employees, the telephone tech was not empowered to dispatch a Samsung hard drive as I requested, even after we'd eliminated every other variable.   

 If he had been empowered to do so, the whole problem would have been solved with the second on-site service call.  I would have been delighted with Dell for, once again, saving my ass in the dying days of my warranty, and would have blindly gone with Dell for my next computer purchase, buying the best gaming laptop they'd be willing to sell me with all the warranties and upgrades available.

Since the problem would have been solved before xmas, I would have told everyone at xmas (empty-nester baby boomers and millennial young professionals, most of whom have more disposable income now than they ever have before) all about how Dell saved my ass.  But, since the problem was still ongoing at xmas, I instead was telling them about how Dell was stressing me out by wanting to send my computer to a depot even though the problem occurred under an on-site warranty.

Since I wouldn't have had any reason to google up other people's Dell depot experiences, I wouldn't have seen other people's horror stories and therefore wouldn't have been stressing out nearly as much.  I wouldn't have been saturating my Twitter feed with worries about Dell.  I wouldn't have been blogging extensively about everything I found stressful about Dell.  I would simply have written one blog post praising their warranty service, and gotten on with life.

But, because the Dell telephone technician was not empowered to take my suggestion of using the original brand of hard drive, and because the first round of depot repair either couldn't or didn't this suggestion, my loyalty was not won over and all the word of mouth and social media I produced about Dell over the past two months was full of stress and worry.

They should be able to do better, and it's rather their loss that they didn't.