My Desultory Blog

Posted By RichC on December 23, 2018

After my recent issues with my overheating iMac, I’ve become a lot more fastidious about what software I keep running and tax the quad core 3.4 GHz i7 chip. Frankly I still don’t think the relatively light computing demands asked of this aging Mac are all that much, but Apple has sardined in a lot in this tight little package. I continue to monitor temperatures and run my own set of rules on controlling the fan.

Admittedly running Parallels on the iMac with a matching 27” Apple Thunderbolt Monitor is probably asking a lot … especially since it is used primarily for a couple real time browser-based online broker platforms AND a Java-based trading station from yet another vendor. Still, the idle CPU demands are not all that significate during morning start-up, even if they do heat up by the end of the day or when the office gets warm (I still suspect the cooling inside the iMac is not the best … and that the thermal paste between the processing chips and heat sinks degrade over time?)

Back to “fastidious” … I’m now also more focused on my Time Machine back-ups than before, but really don’t want it performing a back-up in the “heat of the day” when I want to keep the CPUs cool and available. So, enter TimeMachineEditor (screenshot at top of post) as a way to prevent back-ups from occurring during the day. So far, so good … you might want to give it a try (it seems to be working with MacOS Mojave).

Category: Advice, Apple, Computer, Productivity, Software, Technology | No Comments »
Tags: app, apple, cpu, java, mojave, overheating, parallels, recommended, Software, time machine, timemachineeditor

Posted By RichC on December 22, 2018

They are not the cheapest, but the cast iron US made Zoeller pumps are now my go-to for pumps when replacing our “way too many” pumps. They are definitely superior to the big box store brands. Although each time I need a new one, I inch up the line as to quality … this time opting for the Zoeller M63 PREMIUM SERIES with a 5-year warranty … although I am expecting to get far more life out of it, since the last one lasted 11 years (the M57 had a 3-year warranty and lessor quality impeller).

As for number of pumps, we have two outsides to handled drainage issues, one in the sump of the pool house (plus the actual pool pump!) and 2-sumps and one macerator in the house. I’m starting to think I should be invested in a pump company?

This M63 is going into the drainage pit in our backyard as it collects water from a French drain along with a second back-up pump. We notice water building up quicker than normal last week and so I pulled the lid and stuck my backup sump pump in the pit in order to help out (it was a replaced pump that had a failed switch … seemingly the weakest point on every pump I’ve replaced over the years).

My advice if you have a sump pump … replace them before they fail.

Category: Advice, Misc, Personal, Shopping | No Comments »
Tags: advice, drainage, pump, pumps, quality, repair, replacement, sump, water, zoeller

Posted By RichC on December 21, 2018

This content is restricted.

Category: Archive, Holiday, Personal | No Comments »
Tags: annalyn, archive, brenda, Corbett Christmas Letter, drew, katelyn, pdf, rich, taylor

Posted By RichC on December 20, 2018

Who knew something as simple as ordering an Mann air filter ordered from Amazon would delay getting the Mercedes Benz 300D Turbodiesel back on the road?

I order a new battery “online” with free delivery since it was $20 cheaper than picking it up at the auto parts store (crazy!) and figured since I had to take the air cleaner parts off in order to replace the battery, I might as well order a new filter from Amazon assuming it would be here before a very heavy battery. Nope … battery is here, but the Mercedes is just sitting waiting to be buttoned back up. (Interesting, I still had to take the core back to the store to get my $22 core charge back … would make more sense to just have me pick up the battery at the store???)

Category: Automotive, Diesel, Mercedes, Shopping | No Comments »
Tags: 300d, air filter, amazon, battery, benz, hassles, mann, mercedes, shipping, turbodiesel

Posted By RichC on December 19, 2018

On the political front, special council Robert Mueller has been digging into President Donald Trump’s campaign and practices since May of 2017 (officially: coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the Trump campaign) . His department has unlimited resources and likely can turn over rocks that are not flattering to anyone associated with Donald Trump or the businessman and president himself. The deeper and longer the investigation goes, the more significant a case can be built to impeach President Trump … and likely almost any politician serving in Washington DC. Personally, I doubt the original “Russian collusion” will be the charges that will stick, but likely the many other activates associated with running a New York City worldwide company, a campaign for president as well as all the arm-twisting and talking associated with many who climb to the top, that will be used to make a case. One wonders just who could survive  if the government spent over $20 Million building a case on them? The article is worth reading just to know what is likely coming with a Democrat control congress likely to look at impeachment next year.

A Complete Guide to All 17 (Known) Trump and Russia Investigations
— Garrett M. Graff

(more…)

Category: News, Politics | No Comments »
Tags: collusion, impeachment, investigation, mueller, News, Politics, russia, trump, wired

Posted By RichC on December 18, 2018

Here’s a “near the end of the year” update on my 2010 BMW X5 35d with a few modifications. Quite a bit more power, but probably not much of a fuel economy improvement. Nevertheless, it is a heavy SUV and I do tend to drive a bit above the speed limit. Unfortunately we’re back to the wider split in gas vs diesel retail pricing, so no savings there either … but I still love driving the diesel and the loads of torque. 

Category: Automotive, BMW, Diesel | No Comments »
Tags: BMW, diesel, economy, fuelly, mpg, tracking, x5 35d

Posted By RichC on December 17, 2018

How about a classic … Merry Christmas from the Family … first recorded by the “alternative country music” artist Robert Earl Keene in 1994 (below is a live version from 2006 still on YouTube).

It still makes me smile even if in today’s world it is probably not PC … nor was it appropriate to play in my mom’s house or even in our house!

Category: Holiday, Humor, Music, Video | No Comments »
Tags: country, Holiday, Humor, merry christmas, music monday, musicmonday, robert earl keene, youtube

Posted By RichC on December 16, 2018

If you can get 7 years out of a car battery, that pretty good. I usually start watching them in my daily driver after 5 years, but this hefty 950 cold cranking amp AutoCraft Gold battery doesn’t have to work everyday … although sitting might be even harder on a lead acid battery? In any case, it started the car every time up until about a week ago, and then it didn’t. It went completely D-E-A D showing only 9.05 volts on my tester. Shocking as sort of expected a little more warning.

What was really surprising is that even sitting overnight on a charger and with a 400 amp jump-starter pack, the Mercedes 300D Turbodiesel wouldn’t start the car (heavy old diesels are hard to turn over, especially when it is a bit colder and need to also heat glow plugs). Eventually I did get it boosted after fully charging the battery, jumper pack and setting my charger to a 50 amp booster.

Whew … I think I need to find a new battery. Should I go traditional lead acid again, an AGM or should I retrofit one of those fancy spiralcell Optima batteries? I do have plenty of room in my fairly new battery tray.

Category: Automotive, Diesel, Mercedes | No Comments »
Tags: 300d, advanced auto parts, autocraft, battery, benz, mercedes, optima, tray, turbodiesel

Posted By RichC on December 15, 2018

Although Brenda and I are making steady progress in getting things ready for Christmas, the iMac surgery mentioned yesterday did not go as smoothly as planned, but at least I do have backups to rebuild things from.

Currently the “way too many” cloud services that I’m using are working overtime as my Time Machine archive failed to property handle the virtual drive for Windows 10 running on Parallels. I was able to somewhat reconfigure the same way earlier this year, but it is never as simple as editing a little bit of code and seeing everything magically appear. For my part, I’ve also decided to update the iMac to Mojave OS, Apple’s current operating system and so far so good. The computer is running but only taped together while pumping data to and from Dropbox, OneDrive, Google Drive, iCloud and oDrive (which now handles only Box and Amazon’s AWSCloud).

It’s just Fun, Fun, Fun.

Category: Cloud, Computer, Holiday, Personal, Photos, Software | No Comments »
Tags: apple, christmas, Computer, Holiday, house, imac, lighting, mojave, parallels, surgery, time machine, update

Posted By RichC on December 14, 2018

"Hey Rich, should I wait for a 5G phone … and by the way, what is 5G?"

One of these days I’m just going to say, "I don’t know," but until then, I bump along pretending I know more than I do … that is until I get in too deep to walk away.

This past week I was asked about the upcoming 5th Generation wireless soon to make its way into bigger cities and likely the standard for all wireless for the next decade — yes, it is that big of a deal. But what I didn’t know was how it differs from the previous wireless standard or at least the lingo we have all grown accustom to … so I had to do a little reading … while my iMac puttered along at pitiful 60/Mbps (or less) to restore my data from my Apple Time Machine archive on a painfully slow USB 2.0 external hard drive (photo of the surgery on my iMac).

As for the new 5 Generation standard, the two early players in bringing 5G to the US are Verizon Wireless and AT&T, although all are working on it. Verizon launch its version on October 1, 2018 as a home service in Houston, Indianapolis, Los Angeles and Sacramento. It is currently not to the "accepted" global standard, but according to the company, all they will need to do is switch out their equipment when it is available next year. AT&T says they will be "live" at the end of 2018 in some cities, but that has yet to be seen. In my opinion … if you have a relatively modern LTE device, don’t rush out to by the first one on the market (they will all be Android initially).

According to Sascha Segan writing for PCMag …

5G stands for fifth-generation cellular wireless, and the initial standards for it were set at the end of 2017. But a standard doesn’t mean that all 5G will work the same—or that we even know what applications 5G will enable. There will be slow but responsive 5G, and fast 5G with limited coverage. Let us take you down the 5G rabbit hole to give you a picture of what the upcoming 5G world will be like.

1G, 2G, 3G, 4G, 5G

The G in 5G means it’s a generation of wireless technology. While most generations have technically been defined by their data transmission speeds, each has also been marked by a break in encoding methods, or "air interfaces," which make it incompatible with the previous generation.

(more…)

Category: Cellphone, Cloud, Computer, Innovation, Technology | No Comments »
Tags: 4G, 5G, at&t, cellular, imac, internet, lte, network, of things, pcmag, t-mobile, tech friday, techfriday, techology, timemachine, verizon, wireless