family | At Home with Tech

November 10, 2019

One Father’s Journey to Introduce “Star Wars” to his Son

If you’re a parent trying to figure out when’s the right time to expose your kids to the Dark Side of the Force, here’s my story as a parent and a “Star Wars” fan…

I’ve been waiting for this moment since the day my son was born. And please grant me this nerdy pleasure… My boy and I watched “Star Wars” together this past weekend in our family room.

He’s nine years old, and I know that many younger kids have watched all of the movies already, including the newer ones. And it’s not like I haven’t tried a couple of times before. In fact, I did technically screen some of “A New Hope” with him two years back. But he didn’t really like it.

Thank you, Harry Potter
He simply wasn’t ready. I think it’s because of the plot’s suspense and the Dolby-infused mayhem of blasters and light sabers. But mostly, it was the suspense. At the time, he was still enjoying Lego movies and “Ice Age” flicks.

But then, he caught the Harry Potter reading bug, and he tore through all of the books. And when he found out there were movies, of course he wanted to watch them. To date, we’ve gotten through the first five. And as much as there was plenty of intensity and suspense in those flicks, he already knew the stories. So, I think it was a wonderful way to comfortably ease him into consuming more serious storytelling. And I hoped it would be a bridge…

If at First You Don’t Succeed…
We sometimes have ‘family movie night’ at home, and I’ve recently begun suggesting “Star Wars” again, but he still wasn’t interested.

Then, last Saturday, it was my turn to choose a movie. (We rotate between the three of us.) Without any big set up, my son and I sat down on the couch. Usually, he wants to know what we’re going to watch, but not this time…

I powered up our Apple TV and scrolled down to the “Star Wars” thumbnail grouping.
(I’ve previously purchase the first six movies.)

He saw what I was doing, and he didn’t object. I kept going…

I hovered over “The Empire Strikes Back,” since we technically had already seen “A New Hope.” But my boy helpfully suggested that we play “A New Hope” since he barely remembered it.
(Whoa! Was this actually happening?)

What’s the Right Order?
Before I could tap ‘play,’ he noticed “A New Hope” wasn’t listed first, and then we got into the discussion of order…

I explained the whole two/one/three trilogy thing, and I could tell he was trying to understand why anyone would make a series of movies out of order. After thinking about it a bit more, he asked if we could simply start at the beginning with Episode 1.

I looked at him, and knew I that needed to make the call. I explained that I wanted him to watch the movies in the order that I had watched them as I was growing up. He took another beat and happily said, “Okay.”

We were on!
Cue the John Williams soundtrack…

The Question of Luke’s Father
What can I say… It was glorious. The two of us were finally watching and enjoying “Star Wars” together.
(My wife took a rain check on this particular screening.)

He really liked “A New Hope.” When it was over, he proclaimed that R2-D2 was his favorite character, because he was such a “cool robot.” (He had laughed at all of the little droid’s antics.) Then he quickly chose Obi-Wan Kenobi as his second favorite character. (It’s hard to ignore the amazing Alec Guinness.)

Then my boy said, “I bet Luke’s father is in the first three movies.”
He waited for my response.

Wow. I and many others had a lukewarm response to Episodes 1-3. But this pop-up focus group of one fourth grader immediately identified the strong desire to know the back story.

I smiled at my son.
“Is Luke’s father in the first three movies?
Yes, I think it’s a good bet that he is…”
(Cue the famous breathing sound effect.)

Parenting 101
It’s a long journey to “The Rise of Skywalker,” and as much as I’d like to take my boy to watch it on the big screen, he likely won’t be through the other movies yet. Plus, there’s a reason why this new trilogy is rated PG-13. The films are intense.

My wife has sometimes had to remind me that as a parent, I should observe the cues from our son to better understand when he’s ready to experience something new.

What’s the right age to start watching “Star Wars?”
Of course there’s no one-size-fits-all answer. As a parent, you’re supposed to make that call.

Should I have been pushing “Star Wars” for the past two years? Probably not. As a father, I’m admittedly sometimes still just a Padawan.
(At some level, aren’t we all students in the art of parenting?)

But now that he’s ready for a galaxy far, far away… I can’t hide my own
child-like glee.

The Force is with him.

November 3, 2019

Which Bulb Should You Buy for a Porch Light?

If you’re not sure which light bulb you should be using in your outside porch light, you’re not alone. Here’s the story of my journey to a solution…

My house has an porch-light fixture above my front door. The long, cylindrical fixture’s bottom is technically open to the outside elements, but the bulb is protected.

You can spot the bulb if you look deep into the fixture after you ring my doorbell. If I take my time getting to the door, and if you’re a tech geek like me, you might wonder what kind of light bulb I use. Funny you should ask…

Every six months or so for the past ten years, the bulb has burnt out, and I have to replace it. Each time, I’ve found myself faced with the dread of not exactly knowing which one I should be using. And that has usually led me to a moment of self-reflection and uncertainty about my place in the universe.

Because I’ve come this far in life, and I can’t quite figure out what it takes to screw in the proper light bulb. It blew out again last week. So I decided it was finally time to figure this out…

How Many Words Does it Take to Screw In a Light Bulb?
First off, it’s not like I’ve been entirely oblivious in my past attempts to choose the correct bulb. Previously, I’ve used GE outdoor incandescent postlights with bent tips. I’ve assumed that because they’ve carried the name ‘postlight’ they’re designed to weather the outside elements as long as they’re protected from rain. They’ve operated just fine, even though they must get a little damp now and again.
(I hope I’ve not been tempting fate.)

Unfortunately, I can’t find these GE bulbs anymore on Amazon. Plus, they’ve always been difficult to unscrew, because my fixture is so long and I can barely get my fingers in far enough to get a grip on the bulb. So, I’ve always wanted to find a bulb that’s a little taller.

And did I really mention the word ‘incandescent” earlier? What an embarrassment.
Yes, you’re right… I should have found an LED replacement by now.

Amazon Stumbles
So I went back to Amazon and began searching for ‘LED Postlight’ and ‘Porch Light’ bulbs.

Strangely, nothing popped up that talked about outside use or all weather construction.

Frustrated with my inability to use Amazon for immediate gratification on a Saturday morning, I invited my fourth grader to go with me on a light-bulb adventure to our local The Home Depot. And we drove off…

The Value of One-to-One Human Interaction
You can easily find hundreds of conflicting product opinions online for just about anything you’re looking for. Call me old-fashioned, but I still value the opportunity to walk into The Home Depot, find someone wearing an orange smock and ask my question. Over the years, I’ve usually received great advice at The Home Depot. And this time was no different…

I found my expert hovering in the lighting section and told him my story. I held up my burnt-out incandescent bulb and waited for his response.

He stared into space for just a moment and then directed me to a ‘Philips F15 Postlight dimmable LED’ that costs $4.47.

Illuminating
The packaging displayed a picture of a glowing outside lamp post. The fine print said “Do not use where directly exposed to water. Only install in operating environments between -4 degrees and +113 degrees Fahrenheit.”

I figured I was covered…

So, I bought the 7-watt LED, and my son and I drove home. When I installed it, the bulb was much easier to grip, and it powered up just fine. So, what more is there to talk about…?

Well, I wondered why I couldn’t find this Philips LED on Amazon. So jumped back online and typed in “Philips F15 Postlight.”

And there it was…
Philips LED Dimmable F15 Soft White Light Bulb

But the description didn’t promote it as a ’Postlight.’
And the technical details listed “Indoor use only.”

Still, there was that same photo on the packaging with the outdoor light post.

And in the user reviews, several talked about successfully using this bulb as their porch light.

The Fine Print
So what should we make of all of this?

I’m detecting a certain industry ‘hedge’ when it comes to screwing in light bulbs outdoors. No, my Philips LED doesn’t have a “use at your own risk outside” warning label. In fact, on the base of the bulb, the fine print said, “suitable for damp locations.”

So what’s the problem?

Well, Philips still seemingly prefers that you use its ‘postlight’ indoors.

But lamp posts live outside. And so does my porch light.

This Philips LED model number is #9290011822.
I’ll let you know how it goes…

2 Comments

October 13, 2019

How to Help an Aging Parent Overwhelmed by 53,000 Unread Emails

The only reasonable way to help my father remove this unthinkable number of accumulated unread emails was to try using a mass-delete method. But I ran into problems. So, here’s what I did…

Clearly, the family IT Guy hasn’t been paying attention to his job. I realized this when I was having dinner with my father the other day at his favorite New York City diner. He asked me to take a look at his iPhone to track down the origins of a warning message he had been ‘seeing.’

Be Careful What You Look For
Everything looked fine, although the issue might have had to do with his iCloud account. So, I went to Settings and logged in. While I was doing that, I noticed that his old AOL email account wasn’t showing up on his iPhone. I might have originally forgotten to add it some years ago.
(1st warning sign)

I’ve always emailed my dad via his iCloud email. So I really haven’t been thinking about the health of his AOL account.
(2nd warning sign)

His AOL Mail had originally served as his main email on his iMac. However, over the past few years, as his iPhone has sufficiently taken on all of his online needs, he’s used his iMac progressively less.

But the family IT Guy didn’t realize how much less until I added his AOL Mail to his iPhone and saw that he had 53,000 unread emails!

Years of Abandoned Emails
No, that’s not a typo. Yes, there were over 53,000 unread messages. And that number probably reflects a few years of my dad not accessing that account.
(Clearly, I haven’t been paying close enough attention to how my 86-year-old father has been using email.)

Now, please don’t get concerned that my father’s life has been significantly impacted by ignoring all of those AOL messages. At a glance, they all seemed to be marketing-related. It’s possible there was something important buried, but I quickly decided that even if that were true, those emails would be nearly impossible to find.

How to Mass Delete Emails on an iPhone
So over our after-dinner tea, I decided that it was time to mass delete all of those messages for my dad.
(Manually deleting each message would take another couple of years!)

I’ve never needed to do this before, and after giving it a couple of tries, there didn’t seem to be an obvious way to accomplish it on his iPhone.

So, I pulled out my own iPhone to do some quick research and came across one extremely non-intuitive method for mass iOS email deletion…

Go to your Mail app’s Inbox
Tap ‘Edit’ on the top right
Select one email on top
Press ‘Move’ on the bottom, but don’t release your finger from the screen
Deselect the one selected email with another finger
Then remove your finger from ‘Move’

After that unconventional sequence, you’ll be presented with the choice of where to move (all of) your emails…

Select Trash
Then go to Trash and Delete!

“An Error Occurred…”
While the hack did work, it only allowed me to delete around 250 AOL emails at a time. This kept popping up… “An error occurred while attempting to delete the message(s).”

But in fact, some few hundred were being sliced away after each of my attempts. Yes, that’s much faster than deleting emails one at a time, but certainly not a solution for deleting tens of thousands of emails on your iPhone.

So I decided to attack the problem separately on my own iMac. While my mass deletion exercise went faster by just clicking the select-all box and then Trash, I came across similar AOL Mail deletion limits using my Safari browser.

Each time, I receive the error message. But then, 200-800 emails were happily gone.

Eventually, I ran across a different challenge… 16,000 of my father’s emails lived his New Emails folder, while the other 37,000 were in his Old Emails folder.
(Don’t know why since all of his emails were unread.)

When I began attacking his Old Emails folder, my modified delete-all strategy stopped working. The error message finally reflected reality.

Then, all that I could do was select some 100 emails at a time to delete. Attempting to include more by scrolling down the screen and shift-selecting just didn’t work.

Do the math.

Cautionary Email Tale
I’ve now got 36,000 emails to go.
Clearly, I’m not going to be done any time soon…

Yes, I know the other option is to just cancel his AOL Mail account and walk away. It’s not like he’s been using it lately…

I always try to end my blog posts with a helpful solution.
Sadly, that’s not the case today.

If anything, simply consider this a cautionary tale of what happens when you don’t clear out your email regularly.

Now, the family IT Guy doesn’t want to talk about this anymore…

Category: family

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: