technology | At Home with Tech

November 4, 2012

Fighting the Digital Darkness after Hurricane Sandy

I was powerless in the days after stormy Sandy. But an army of flashlights wasn’t my only available weapon against the resulting digital darkness.

Hurricane Sandy has brought great pain to millions along the East Coast.
But I was one of the lucky ones.

Living in Connecticut, I consider myself fortunate that the only real inconvenience was the loss of electricity.
The power snapped off at 5:30pm on Monday and my house remained dark until Saturday morning.

Still, my ‘Dark Week’ did create two significant challenges for me.

Meeting Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Survival is the foundation of Maslow’s famous pyramid of human needs.
At 5:31pm, this meant finding a way to keep my family warm.

Throughout the week, the nighttime temperature eventually dropped into the forties. And even though our house sufficiently held onto its ambient heat for the first couple of nights, it was clearly going to get pretty nippy as the week wore on.
I wasn’t sure how my toddler would handle these conditions.

Yes, we do have a fireplace, and I had firewood ready to go.
But when faced with uncertain estimates for power restoration, I began to lose my Grizzly Adams’ nerve.

Fortunately, on Halloween night (Dark Night #3), another family we know with a portable generator invited us to stay over at their self-sufficient abode.
(What a treat!)

They are really generous friends, and we spent the remaining Dark Nights with them in toasty conditions. Plus my son had a great multi-day sleep over with their almost three-year-old son. It ended up being their best extended play date ever…!

So the bottom line was… we didn’t suffer… at all.
(I won’t mention the gourmet dinners our hosts cooked up for us.)

That said…

Can I Borrow a Cup of Electrons, Please?
The second challenge Sandy left behind was figuring out how to stay connected with the outside world without electricity at home.

My home telephone line was, of course, dead.
(powered my now very-dark cable modem)

Internet access on my battery driven laptop – Negative.
(See dark cable modem.)

Keeping my portable devices alive meant being able to keep them charged.
And that became an immediate exercise in creativity.

Sure, all the emails came out later in the week from a variety of businesses (ranging from AT&T stores to the local health club) inviting me to come on down and charge up.

But twenty-four hours into the power void, it was clear I would need to quickly find my own battery recharging solutions or go totally dark.

This dilemma preoccupied me during Dark Night #2 as I ate dinner in a local Greek restaurant with my family.

As I looked about the restaurant waiting for my Chicken Souvlaki special, my eyes settled on an inconspicuous power outlet near an empty table.

A light bulb went off!
(Battery backup was still working in my head.)

I jumped back into the car and quickly returned home.
By the time we finished off the baklava dessert, my portable tech was charged up and ready for another day.

AT&T Keeps It Together
I began writing this post on my iPad on the morning of Dark Night #3 after locating more electrical refuge at the public library down the street.
I was happily hunkered down in the magazine section while my iPhone and work BlackBerry were topping themselves off at a wall outlet under the Dewey Decimal System.

But being fully charged wasn’t particularly useful if my devices couldn’t connect to a working network.

Remarkably, AT&T’s wireless network had continued to operate in my area after Sandy’s punch and served as my digital tether to the outside world via my iPhone.

That digital lifeline allowed me to make personal calls/emails/texts to family and friends throughout the Dark Week.

T-Mobile Falls Down
Finding a healthy network for my work BlackBerry was another matter.
The T-Mobile network was down and remained mostly offline throughout the week.

How’s a guy in this digital age supposed to work under these conditions?

Of course I had no Wi-Fi network at home.
No Metro North trains to New York City.
No way to drive into the city without recruiting a small army to join me.
(Mayor Bloomberg mandated three passenger minimums on Dark Day #4.)

And I couldn’t send or receive work emails on my BlackBerry.

Time to get creative…

The Wandering Begins
Fortunately, the gas shortages haven’t extended up into Connecticut.
So I felt comfortable driving about in search of a Wi-Fi connection for my BlackBerry.

As I’ve mentioned, my first stop of the morning had been to the library.
I sat there, all cozy… but not truly sated, because their free Wi-Fi was down.
So there was little point to staying.

While I contemplated my next move, several displaced workers wandered in, gripping their laptops, only to be greeted with the disappointing Wi-Fi news at the main library desk.
They compared war stories before heading out again on their own Wi-Fi quests.
I eavesdropped in the corner.

The consensus pointed to a nearby Panera Bread restaurant as the only place in the area with working Wi-Fi
(Not Starbucks?!)
But its parking lot was impossibly jammed. So I didn’t attempt it.

Optimum WiFi Hotspots to the Rescue!
Then, I remembered Cablevision had made a hefty investment building public Wi-Fi hotspots throughout the area for Optimum customers. So I headed out to the main drag, where I knew there were several strong Optimum WiFi hotspots.
But like an old trail horse, my car directed me back to my now empty Metro North train station’s parking lot.
I successfully logged into the Optimum WiFi hotspot and rejoined the somewhat disjointed email fragments from my similarly affected work colleagues.

Mission accomplished!

But I couldn’t realistically hang out indefinitely in the parking lot or at the Dunkin’ Donuts on Route 1.
(You can only drink so much coffee.)

Oh My! It’s MiFi!!
As I mentioned earlier, our friends had rescued us on Dark Night #3.
And yes, their generator and hospitality had addressed all our needs.
Almost…

Their generator wasn’t solving my quest for Wi-Fi.
That’s okay, because my friend has never encountered a tech challenge he didn’t like.
(Remember he’s the one with the foresight to have a portable generator)

He had also previously purchased a little Wi-Fi mobile hotspot generator, called MiFi.
It‘s shaped like a little hockey puck, and connects to your cellular network, creating its own Wi-Fi bubble.

Bam!!

So I linked my lonely BlackBerry to his magical MiFi, and I was back in business!

Lessons from the Lost Week
I woke up on Dark Day #6 to the welcome news that my house had juice flowing again.

Dark Day, cancelled!

My family and I returned home, thankful that we had a home to return to.
And we resumed our lives, pretty much where we had left off a week earlier.

For me, it was mostly just a lost week. No harm done.
With a bit of perseverance and a little help from my friends, I had even managed to keep my digital life from skipping a beat.

But the experience was also a cautionary reminder of how fragile the normal pathways of our lives can be.

If you take a direct hit from the brutal force of a hurricane, lost digital communications will be the least of your problems.

I feel truly blessed that a little digital wandering is all I’ve had to gripe about during my Lost Week.

To Whom It May Concern:
Thank you.
Really.

October 28, 2012

How To Fix Your Broken Email

What would you do if you or someone you love suddenly couldn’t send emails anymore? Don’t panic! It’s time for emergency email 101.

Last week, on the day the geek world was digesting Apple’s newest must-have tech announcements, I received a phone call from my father.

Surely he had heard reports of the iPad mini, or was blown away by the concept of the new iMac’s Fusion Drive. Maybe he wanted to discuss the controversial issue behind launching the killer iPad 4 only six month’s after its predecessor.

He normally would want to know all about this.
But not this time. He had something much more important to discuss.

His email had stopped working.
And now he was cut off from the world.
RED ALERT!

Of course, I am his home IT support.
So I attached my geek pocket protector to my shirt, rolled up my short sleeves, put on my thick black glasses and sat down at my computer.
Now what?

Fortunately, I was able to remotely screen share with his iMac via iChat and began diagnosing what was sure to be an easy fix.

Unfortunately, I quickly realized I didn’t know what it was.

Email 101
The problem with email is it’s usually a ‘set it and forget it’ tool. When it stops working, your memory may not be so clear on how it actually works.
Here’s a quick refresher…

You’ve normally got two paths to get to your email: web-based and client-based.

Web-Based Email
If you want to use a web-based portal, you simply have to access a working web browser and then remember your username and password.
(Everyone knows that!)
If you don’t, please see my spin-off blog – Never At Home with Tech.
(kidding)
The big benefit to web-based email is you can access it anywhere on any computer, as long as it’s online.

Client-Based Email
Here, your emails get downloaded to your computer, where you can access and work with them on a dedicated application whether you’re online or not.

To successfully use an email client like Outlook and Apple’s Mail program, you’ve got to get some settings right…

The two biggies are:

Incoming Mail Server
Outgoing Mail Server

These two settings direct your inbound and outbound email traffic to the correct mail servers that manage your emails.

The proper settings depend on whose email platform you’re using. And which version of the application you’re working with.
So the bad news is there isn’t a simple solution that applies to all situations.
The good news is there’s a simple answer. You just need to figure it out!

A Tale of two Email Accounts
My father has two ESPs (Email Service Providers) flowing through his Apple Mail application- AOL and his Apple iCloud account.

Both were broken.

A quick aside about the recent evolution/confusion surrounding Apple’s email addresses:
Once upon a time, they were punctuated with ‘@mac.com.’
Then Apple changed it up with MobileMe and updated their email addresses to end with ‘@me.com.’
Now… Apple is creating ‘@icloud.com’ addresses.
Confusing?

The good news is all three email address extensions work.
And they will continue to function in the foreseeable future as per this Apple support page-
About @icloud.com email addresses

So back to my father…
Technically, both email accounts weren’t totally dead.
Both were receiving, but not accepting emails.

I went to the Mail Preferences tab to review the settings.
My father had already done some troubleshooting. So I decided to double-check it.
(sorry, Dad)

Dad primarily uses his AOL email. (He’s so old school.) So I attacked that one first.

Tech Tips for AOL Email Set Up
Here’s how it should look:

Incoming Mailer Server = imap.aol.com
(IMAP stands for Internet Message Protocol.
This email system syncs your local files with the mail server.)
Outgoing Mail Server = smtp.aol.com
(SMTP stands for Simple Mail Transport Protocol.
It’s a communications protocol for servers to send/receive emails.)

Seems simple enough, right?

Yes, but you’ve also got a few other settings to contend with.
Here they are:

Under the Advanced Tab for Incoming Mail Server:

Port = 143
Authentication = Password

Under the Advanced Tab for Outgoing Mail Server:

Authentication = Password
User Name = Your email address without the ‘@aol.com.’
Password = Your correct password (sorry, Dad)

And Select-

Use default ports (25, 465, 587)
Use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)

That should do it.
(This AOL support page was useful.)

But it still didn’t work!

Connection Doctor to the Rescue
That’s when I launched Connection Doctor, which you’ll find under the Window drop down. When you do that, the program does a diagnostic to see if both your incoming and outgoing settings are correct. You can tweak them in real time to see if you’re making progress.

When I did this, I noticed that the AOL settings were green, but the outbound iCloud setting was red. That account seemed stuck in an eternal send mode.
So I disabled the iCloud account to see if the AOL email was somehow being affected by an iCloud bottleneck.

I immediately heard the familiar whoosh of a happy AOL email leaving the mother ship.
AOL email was fixed.
One down; one to go.

Tech Tips for iCloud Email Set Up
The iCloud settings were straightforward as well. Take a look below…
(Also, here’s a good Apple Support page on the topic.)

Incoming Mailer Server = imap.mail.me.com or just mail.me.com
(depending on which version of Mail you’re using)

Outgoing Mail Server = smtp.me.com

Under the Advanced Tab for Incoming Mail Server:

Port = 993 (Use SSL)
Authentication = Password

Under the Advanced Tab for Outgoing Mail Server:

Authentication = Password
User Name = Your email address WITH THE ‘@ME.COM!’
Password = Your correct password

I hate to admit it, but adding the complete email address for the User Name did the trick. (my bad)

Whoosh!!

I felt like I had cracked a huge safe.
My father thanked me big time and then went back to watching a Humphrey Bogart movie on AMC.

The Operation was a Success, but…
I should mention that part of my successful diagnostic process was to use my old MacBook Pro laptop as a canary in the coal mine, since that computer also uses Apple’s Mail.
My iMac uses Entourage, which I know needs to be upgraded to Outlook.
(Look for that nail-biting experience in a future post.)

So while I was doing a victory lap in my home office, I took a screen shot of my MBP’s Mail settings and popped it into a test email for my iMac as reference. The email would also serve as a confirming test.

I looked again at Connection Doctor; all lights glowed green.
I clicked the ‘send’ button and heard the satisfying whoosh.

I turned to my iMac and waited for the triumphant arrival… and waited.
Five minutes elapsed.
Ten.
Thirty.
It never arrived. (seriously)

I checked the MBP’s sent folder, and the email happily stared back at me as successfully sent…
(I felt like the young Scotty in J.J. Abrams’ ‘Star Trek’ when Scotty lost Admiral Archer’s prized beagle during an ill-fated transporter experiment.)

If anyone out there runs across my test email, please let me know!

So I simply tried again.
And this time it worked!
Done.

History is Written by the Victors
I suppose every road to home tech success is littered with a few setbacks.

I had fixed my father’s email, and then inexplicably lost one of my own along the way.
The little Winston in me wants to figure out where that email went.
But it was really time to move on. I’ve got bigger tech battles waiting in the wings.

Which leads me back to a simple truth for keeping your home tech humming.
If it works, don’t ask any more questions.

Whoosh.

October 21, 2012

My Cable Box Blurred my Political View

Pop Quiz: You’ve got 60 seconds to figure out how to fix your cable box so you can watch the big debate. Here’s a hint… pound away!

It was 8:59pm.
And I sat down in front of my Panasonic 42” Plasma TV as a proud citizen of the United States of America.

That moment could well mean one of our recent political smack-downs was on the immediate horizon.

Or “Dancing with the Stars” was on.

But in fact, the Vice Presidential Debate was about to begin.
Of course, my TV’s picture should have been perfect, as it was powered by Cablevision’s Optimum DVR box.

I Can’t Take My Seat in the Audience
As my TV’s glow grew brighter, and the image of Wolf Blitzer appeared, I noticed the typical text box at the bottom of CNN was partially cropped off.
Strange.

I looked closer at the entire picture, and all four edges were actually cropped off, as if the entire frame was zoomed in a bit.

That was really bad.
I didn’t want to watch the debate with half of Biden and Ryan’s faces cut off.
I wanted a full-on view of the spectacle!

So I immediately jumped into emergency diagnosis mode.
I ran over to a small glass case mounted on the wall next to the TV, smashed in the glass with my elbow, and pulled out a small piece of paper with the code-red check-list.
(That’s how they do it in the movies, don’t they?)

I quickly looked at a few other channels to make sure CNN wasn’t just fritzing out.
They were all displaying in the same zoom mode.
I checked the Blu-ray input on the TV. No problem there.
So the cable box was clearly the culprit.
I reviewed the cable box’s set-up menu.
All was still good. I even adjusted a few of the box’s output settings,
just in case. No luck.
I stared at the last item on the list.
“Pull the plug.”
Sometimes rebooting just does the trick.
Nope.

Optimum, We Have a Problem
Then my wife walked in and sat down. She observed my poorly masked frantic state and asked what the problem was. The debate was about to begin.

“Problem? What problem?”

I was stuck.
The proud home IT guy had to fess up that even though we were funding a small country’s operating budget with our monthly cable bill, I couldn’t get the cable box to behave.

She let me off easy.
“How bad could it be?” she said as she invited me to sit down.
(Even the home IT guy needs a break occasionally.)

So we watched half the debate.
We actually stuck it out for the full ninety minutes, but remember, we could only see half the picture.
Since the split screen of the two candidates exaggerated the zoom problem, I felt we really didn’t get the complete experience.
(I’ll have to assume the other half of their faces mirrored the portions I could see.)

Get to Know Your Remote Control
A few days after my humbling (hobbling?) tech glitch, I figured I’d better fix the problem. I figured I would likely have to replace my cable box.
I wasn’t too excited about this, because there were still twenty unwatched shows on the DVR, which would be lost after a box switcheroo.

But I had no choice but to call Cablevision tech support and so I dialed away…

I explained my problem to the friendly customer service representative.
I asked, “Have you ever heard of this problem?”
He replied, “Oh yes. Many times.”
“Really?”

He then told me to go to pick up my cable remote and press the “#” button on the bottom right.

What?! The pound button?
Bingo. The TV’s image returned to normal size.

“Do you have any other questions I can help you with at this time?”

I thought, “Why would anybody know about this button?!
It’s not labeled at all!
Why does it even exist?
There’s already an official screen set-up section in the cable box’s menu!
Are you just thinking of ways to ruin my cable television viewing experience?!!”

But I said, “No thank you. I’m all set.”

He said, “Please hold for a customer service survey.”

And then I hung up.
(Is that wrong?)

He was actually very nice, and I know he had nothing to do with the decision to create this disruptive remote control button.

And there was a silver lining. I got to keep all my DVR recordings.

Read the Manual
But I was really cranky that this simple problem had derailed my election central viewing experience. I just couldn’t accept that it was my fault. The blame had to lie elsewhere.

So I went online to see what education support Cablevision offered for their remotes.
On Optimum’s website, there indeed is a section that displays my infamous DVR remote and each button’s functionality.
(gulp)

And when I hovered over the “#” button, the following words popped up:
“Size the picture for some HD television models.”

All right.
So by the book, Cablevision is technically covered, and I’m the Luddite.
But come on!
I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s fallen into this trap.
(My Optimum buddy pretty much admitted that.)

Throwing Stones in Cyberspace
But we’re not quite done yet with my story… are we?
Yes, I’ve left out one important detail.

When I later explained to my wife that I had fixed the cable issue, she asked me how the problem began in the first place.

She correctly reasoned that someone must have accidentally pressed the “#” button to create my “zoom-gate.”

Well, I knew it wasn’t my wife.
She’s already joined much of today’s digital consuming population, finding most of her desired content on her laptop.
The operation of our hulking and under-watched TV falls under my watchful eye.

Well, then there’s my toddler.
Coincidentally, he’s done some other tech damage of late.
And he loves picking remotes up and pressing all the buttons.
But this one has typically been placed out of his reach.
I’ve considered blaming him, but under the circumstances (no proof)
I’ve decided it would be uncool to blame him.

So that leaves only one person.

Somehow… Mea culpa.
Wow, that hurts.

To dull the pain, I’d like to help others avoid my little ‘tungle.’ (tech bungle)
Please heed today’s tech tip:

TV Tech Tip for Watching Politics
Don’t press the “#” on your Cablevision DVR remote control.
Ever.
Don’t lean on it. Don’t point at it. Don’t look at it.
And keep it at least five feet off the ground.

You’re welcome.

Now that I’ve got the whole picture back in focus on my TV, I’m wishing the political picture could be so simple.

Fortunately, that’s a question for someone else’s blog.
I’ve got a few more tungles to work through…

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