I Resolve to Back Up My Files (BONUS: How to Start Up in Recovery Mode)

I recently wrote about how I nearly bricked an iMac while upgrading the operating system, but I was able to save the day by starting up in Safe Mode in macOS and fixing the problem. Well, it's been an adventurous year for me since I had another close call.

Normally I am careful to periodically back up my files, especially my photos and videos. While I often sync my "favorite" photos and videos to Google Photos where I have unlimited storage, I also prefer to back up my original RAW photos (in Canon CR2 file format) and AVCHD videos (in MTS file format) to external hard drives. Since February 2018, my 3TB external hard drives reached capacity, and I had a variety of excuses to delay the purchase of additional external hard drives: busy at work, looking for a good deal on higher capacity drives, etc. So I have copies of all of my photos and videos leading up to February 2018 on 2 external hard drives. From February 2018 to today, I have had only 1 copy of my iMac hard drive, and they could potentially vanish in the event of a hard drive crash.

Sometime in mid- to late-2018, I started getting SMART notifications that my iMac internal hard drive was showing signs of wear and tear. I also noticed that on startup, the progress bar would sometimes pause at about three fourths of the way to completion. Sometimes it would eventually finish the boot process, and at other times it would simply hang, and I would be forced to power off the iMac and reboot. All signs of impending disaster.

Black Friday rolled around, and I decided to finally purchase a pair of shiny new 8 TB external hard drives. They were back ordered but finally arrived the second week of December (i.e., a couple weeks ago). However, the 8 TB drives have been sitting in my office unopened ever since. Enter more excuses for not backing up my files: holiday shopping, family gatherings, catching up on paying bills, etc.

Today I wondered if resetting the PRAM would help fix some of those startup issues that I described above. So I went ahead and restarted my iMac while holding down the command, option, P, and R keys (warning: don't try this unless you know what you are doing). As expected, the iMac restarted once, detected the PRAM reset request, and restarted again. All expected behavior so far. But when it restarted the 2nd time, it booted into my TechTool Pro rescue partition. Hmmm, that was strange. But since I was there, I ran some diagnostics and with the exception of the SMART warnings that I already knew about, everything checked out OK. So I decided to restart my computer normally. However, in the startup volume selection dialog box, my Macintosh HD volume was nowhere to be found. That explains why the machine rebooted into the TechTool Pro rescue partition. I tried warm and cold reboots, but now each restart would arrive at the screen with the Apple logo, stop loading, and simply hang.

I spent the next several minutes in disbelief that I have preached to all my friends and family that they should back up their files and that every hard drive is essentially a ticking time bomb. Well, it looks like my hard drive's time bomb exploded today, with nearly a year's worth of photos and videos (304.28 GB to be exact) not backed up.

After 3 or 4 failed attempts to start my iMac, I tried restarting in Safe Mode (again, described here). No luck. However, restarting in Recovery Mode (restarting while holding the Command and R keys) did give me access to macOS Utilities:



From there I was able to run Disk Utility and run First Aid on my Macintosh HD volume. Among a variety of other usual tasks, I noticed that Disk Utility performed some "deferred repairs" on the volume. I think that did the trick, as I was then able to restart the iMac and get access to the Finder.

WHEW! I am backing up files as I write this post. Fingers crossed that I have not lost any precious moments. Normally I don't make any new year's resolutions, but in 2019 I resolve to regularly back up my files.

Lee Family 2018 Year In Review

Our Lee Family 2018 Year In Review is now available, with prior editions stored here. Depending on the device you are using, you might be prompted by Dropbox to sign in, download the mobile app, or continue to the website—you can simply select the option to continue.

As usual, our home movies are available on Victor's YouTube channel.

Fraud vs. Spendthrift

Apparently our family is doing its part to stimulate the economy this holiday season. A few weeks ago I received a fraud alert from Citi via text message and email just a few seconds after my wife made an online purchase:

It was easy to approve the purchase (I responded via text message as you can see from the first image), and we were back to our merry spending ways.

Thank goodness for this technology, even if it was a false alarm. According to this article, fraud detection is getting better with the application of artificial intelligence. However, keep in mind that fraud detection is a reactive measure and that you can and should take preventive measures to safeguard your financial data. Remember to always practice safe online shopping as summarized here. Happy online spending!

iPhone Performance Management

Today I experienced an unexpected shutdown on my iPhone 6 Plus (iOS 12.0.1). I do not recall the phone warning me that I had 20% battery life left, so it struck me as unusual for the phone to shut down. Rather than immediately charging my phone, I waited a few minutes, pressed the power button, and saw this message:

This reminded me of the Batterygate controversy that arose several months ago. Curious to learn more about the Performance Management feature that had been applied to my phone, I navigated to the Settings > Battery and found this:

Tapping on "Learn more..." took me to the iPhone Battery and Performance page on Apple Support. In my humble opinion, I think it does a good job of explaining how lithium-ion batteries chemically age over time and how iOS can manage performance peaks to prevent unexpected shutdowns.

As you can see, my battery's maximum capacity is at 83%, and I've noticed in recent months that I've had to charge my phone slightly more often than in the past. Also notice that there is a "Disable..." option that turns off Performance Management. According to the Apple Support page, if you disable performance management, you can't turn it back on, but it will be turned on again automatically if another unexpected shutdown occurs.

I'll be leaving Performance Management enabled, and I don't buy into the allegation that Apple has throttled iPhones just to get people to upgrade. Many years ago, my iPhone 5 had experienced frequent unexpected shutdowns as it aged (especially when my battery level dipped below 25-30%), and I even wish that performance management was available back then to improve my user experience.

Force-Refresh Data on iOS Health App

I use the iOS Health app on my iPhone from time to time to review my walking + running distances. I've written in the past about distance tracking accuracy here and about a strange issue here. I also want to highlight that I find it inconvenient at times when I launch the Health app, only to find that it has yet to update walking + running distances from the past several hours. Example:

      

In the screenshot on the left, notice that the time is 5:27 PM and that no walking or running activity has been registered since 7:00 AM. At this time, the total distance is 0.59 miles. Tapping on "Show All Data" yields the screenshot in the middle, and it shows that the total distance for the day is actually 5 miles. Tapping on "Back" takes us back to the original Walking + Running Distance screen which now displays recorded distances from 8:00 AM to 5:27 PM, including the 5 total miles spread throughout the day.

This issue has occurred on my iPhone for the past several months, and only recently did I discover that navigating to the "Show All Data" screen forces a refresh. Maybe this is a bug that can be fixed in a future release.

Inconceivably Regular Activity

The Apple iOS Health app on my phone (iPhone 6 Plus, iOS 12.0.1) suits my simple needs. It tracks my walking + running distance and lets me view my activity data in increments of days, weeks, months, and even years. Since I don't use any GPS-enabled apps to accurately track my distances, I've compared known running distances against Apple Health and have found it to be fairly accurate. However, something strange happened the other day. I noticed that Health was registering just under 0.2 miles/hour for every hour of the day:

      

On October 24 (left image), the Health app correctly logged the distances that I logged at 7 AM and 8 AM as I walked my child to school and walked back home. Then at 4 PM, it began recording distances of just under 0.2 miles/hour for the remainder of the day. This continued for all 24 hours of October 25 (center image) and lasted until 9 AM on October 26 (right image).

Obviously I did not really perform that activity at such a regular pace for 42 straight hours. I also did not place the phone on a vibrating surface or any other surface that was in motion for that time frame. In fact, I had a pretty normal routine where I left the phone on my desk while working and picked it up only to make phone calls, use mobile apps, or when leaving home.

The total distance of 4.5 miles on October 25 is a little on the low side since I walked my child to school (round trip of 1.75 miles) and ran/walked 3.75 miles (my usual route) which adds up to 5.5 miles, so maybe the app was simply not recognizing movement correctly for that 42-hour timespan. That being said, I suppose this could be within the margin of error of distance tracking without a GPS. Thinking about possible data corruption issues, I don't recall my iPhone crashing or being dropped during that time, nor had I experienced an unexpected shutdown due to complete battery drainage.

So I'm not quite sure what happened, but in the last 48+ hours (it's now October 28), the app appears to have returned to normal activity tracking. If you've seen this sort of strangely consistent recorded activity on your iOS Health app or even know why this is happening, let me know.

Selficide

A recent study explores the causes of selfie-related deaths and the distribution of deaths across age, gender, and country. Here are the tables figures:

Selfie-related deaths have become so common that "selficide" has been suggested as a new word to be added to the English dictionary.

While less specifically related to death, the 10th version of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) includes Y93.C2 which represents, "Activity, hand held interactive electronic device" and is written about in this blog.



Have fun taking selfies, and remember to be safe.

Presidential and Non-presidential Text Alerts

Yesterday I was in the San Antonio International Airport when suddenly I heard the sound of a loud alert resonate throughout the airport. I didn't realize it at the time, but my phone was producing the sound in concert with hundreds of other phones. This was the reason why:



According to an announcement from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, a nationwide test of the Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) and Emergency Alert System was scheduled for yesterday afternoon. The announcement says, "The WEA system is used to warn the public about dangerous weather, missing children, and other critical situations through alerts on cell phones."

I wonder why this was called a "Presidential Alert" and am guessing that it has to do with our president compensating for his feelings of inadequacy related to relief efforts in Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria. It would have been more appropriate to call it a "National Alert" or something similar.

Anyway, did you know that in addition to these national alerting systems, there are local emergency alerting programs too? If you live in Los Angeles, here are a couple that might be of interest:

Alert LA County: https://www.lacounty.gov/emergency/alert-la/
NotifyLA: http://emergency.lacity.org/notifyla

There are local alerting programs in other metropolitan areas too. Try searching Google for "text alert [city]" to learn more. Stay safe and be alert! After all, the world needs more lerts (rimshot).

How NOT to Update macOS (BONUS: How to Start Up in Safe Mode)

I perform routine maintenance on my parents' iMacs when I visit them. Yesterday I noticed that on one iMac running macOS High Sierra 10.13.4, an update to 10.13.5 had been downloaded and was waiting to be installed. In the "old days" of Mac OS X, it was often recommended to repair disk permissions before installing operating system updates or upgrading to a new operating system. That option appears to be no longer recommended nowadays, but I've still gotten into the habit of doing "spring cleaning" before updating an operating system. Since I was using CleanMyMac 3 to uninstall some old applications at the time, I decided to use the "Smart Cleanup" option to more thoroughly clean the iMac by deleting system junk, photo junk, iTunes junk, etc. Everything went fine, the iMac was as clean as a whistle, and I decided it was a good time to update the operating system.

When launching the App Store and electing to update the operating system, it immediately prompted me to restart the computer since it had previously downloaded the installer (possibly a month ago or more, based on its availability as of June 1, 2018). Having updated macOS many times before, I knew it could take a while to install, so I restarted and came back about an hour later to find a disturbing "macOS could not be installed on your computer" error. It went on to say something about being unable to locate a resource--I pressed command-shift-3 to take a screenshot, but I found out later that the screenshot was not saved (since the Finder was not running), so I don't remember the exact wording. I did successfully save the installer log, but it did not appear to have the same language as what I saw on the screen, which looked similar to, but possibly not exactly like, this screenshot (image grabbed from this site):



In any case, my only option at that point was to restart the computer. Restarting the iMac simply resulted in an infinite loop with the installer generating the "macOS could not be installed on your computer" error minutes later and then prompting me to restart. I noticed that the internet connection was down, so I was hoping that the installer was trying to download something and wasn't able to establish a connection to do so. I rebooted the router and got the internet connection working again, as verified on another device. Still no luck--rebooting kept resulting in the same error and providing no recourse but to restart.

I nearly crapped in my pants.

Did I brick the computer? Would I have to reinstall the operating system from a DVD or flash drive? Worse yet, would I have to service the iMac from a "professional" and drain half the money out of my savings account? Then I decided to reach into my bag of tricks by restarting in safe mode to see if I could bypass the macOS installer. This is done by holding the shift key while restarting. I was able to launch macOS 10.13.4 and get to the Finder. Bingo! From there, I opened the App Store and checked for updates. It said that a software update to 10.13.5 was available. Hooray! I clicked the "update" button and waited anxiously as it downloaded the 2.12 GB installer.



After restarting the machine, the macOS installer seemed to be working correctly, and a little less than an hour later, the machine rebooted into a working installation of macOS High Sierra 10.13.5.

Craptastrophe avoided.

Reflecting on this experience, I have 2 recommendations to share:

1. Install OS updates as soon as possible after downloading them. Specifically, in this case I wonder if cleaning up "system junk" with Clean My Mac might have stripped away resources from the mac OS installer which prevented the installer from functioning properly. I can't say for sure that this was the problem, nor will I ever attempt to reproduce the issue, but that's my best guess as to why the macOS installer failed. Downloading and immediately installing a macOS update is probably a safer thing to do in general.
2. Learn how to start up your Mac in safe mode. It could save your skin, as it did mine. Even if you can't completely resolve the issue in safe mode, the ability to launch the Finder will at least enable you to grab a copy of important files from your hard drive.

I hope you've benefited from this. Happy macOS updating!

The Answer is 10.5

In recent days (maybe weeks?) I've noticed that my macOS High Sierra 10.13.5 calculator widget in the Notification Center has been defaulting to a value of 10.5:

If I clear the value, it will display 0. If I perform a calculation, it will correctly display the result. However, once I close and re-open the Notification Center, the calculator widget will display a value of 10.5.

Do you think my iMac is trying to tell me something? Will Los Angeles County sales tax increase to 10.5%? Should I use the numbers 10 and 5 next time I play the lottery? Will the world end on October 5?

Expedia Price Match Promise

I recently purchased 3 plane tickets through Expedia for a total price of $877.20. During the checkout process, I was given the option to purchase a Price Match Promise for $5 per ticket ($15 for all 3 tickets) which, according to the program rules, would result in a refund being issued for the difference if the price were to drop below my purchase price between the purchase date and the date of travel. I decided to purchase the Price Match Promise, and I did in fact qualify for a refund:



A couple of things to point out… First, the Price Match Promise relies on the user to manually check for price updates. There is no automated process for Expedia to check on the purchaser’s behalf. After all, why should they make any efforts to refund any of your money?

Second, I started wondering when my airplane ticket price would reach its nadir before climbing in the week or two before the flight. Here’s a chart that shows the dates and prices:



In summary, the nadir of $793.20 occurred on Tuesday, May 22, 2018 which was 25 days before my flight. The prices rose in the last 2 weeks before my flight, and another sharp increase occurred 3 days before departure.

I’m sure that many people have performed more comprehensive analyses of ticket prices relative to departure dates and have stratified results by domestic vs. international travel, one way vs. round trip, day of the week of departure, and other factors. However, this was my personal experience. I hope it helps someone decide whether or not to invest $5/ticket on Expedia’s Price Match Promise.

A Thousand Miles

The other day I was planning a trip on Waze and wanted to see if Waze understood the coordinates for my destination in another state. Interestingly, I received the following response after looking up and selecting my destination:

Although it is unlikely that someone would drive 1,000 miles in a single trip, even my Garmin nüvi 650 GPS (which I purchased in December 2007) allows me to calculate routes in excess of 1,000 miles.

There are 2 main reasons why I'd want to program destinations that are so far away, even if I do not plan to immediate drive there. First, I like to plan my route and compare GPS recommendations from different sources (e.g., Waze, Apple Maps, Google Maps). There have been rare instances in which I receive very different recommendations for routes and estimated drive times across different GPS providers. Second, I like to pre-program my destinations into Waze so that when it comes time to drive, they are in my recently used items list. On rare occasions, in the absence of an internet connection, I am unable to program my destination because Waze cannot look up the coordinates--this is when it is very helpful to have my destination saved ahead of time.

I should note that even though Waze was unable to provide me with turn-by-turn route guidance, it did in fact save my selected destination under my recently used items, so I assume that when I am within 1,000 miles of my destination, I can simply tap and go.

LinkedIn Webpage Using Significant Energy on Safari

While on LinkedIn, I received a message from Safari (version 11.1) at the top of my browser window: "This webpage is using significant energy. Closing it may improve the responsiveness of your Mac."

I had just sent an invitation, and both the webpage and Safari were sitting idle for about a minute before the message was displayed. I am running macOS Sierra 10.12.6. I've never seen this message before. Does anyone know why the LinkedIn webpage would begin using "significant" energy, especially after being idle for a minute?

You Own Your Health Data, Now Go Get It

Did you know that the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (a.k.a. “HIPAA”) is a law that gives you the right to see and obtain your health records in paper or electronic formats, even if you haven't paid your healthcare bills? It also protects the privacy of your health information, but you as a patient can share your health information with anyone you want. Basically it puts each person in charge of their own health information.

A lot has changed since 1996. Namely, most hospitals and clinics now have electronic medical record systems that enable an increasingly large number of healthcare data assets to be stored and transmitted electronically. Two decades ago, a request for health information might have yielded a pile of photocopies after a long wait. Today it is possible that you can receive an electronic summary in a matter of minutes, depending on the capabilities that are supported by your provider. The bottom line is that many people are using technologies to manage their personal health information.

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology has announced the release of The Guide to Getting and Using Your Health Records. If you don't already know how to access your health information, this is a great place to begin learning about how to do that. So what are you waiting for? Get your health data now and take control of your own well being.

GPS Navigation Apps Should Let Users Avoid “Difficult” Situations

I'm a big fan of GPS navigation apps like Waze and others. One thing I've noticed in the Los Angeles area is that although Waze theoretically calculates the fastest route between 2 points, it sometimes fails to account for the degree of difficulty. For example, I am sometimes given routes where I am taken onto a small street and then expected to cross or turn left onto a busy 8-lane road during rush hour. While directions work well at a macro level (e.g., take freeway X, not freeway Y), when it comes to surface streets, sometimes you have to outsmart your GPS.

Today I saw an interesting Twitter moment that highlighted another limitation of most GPS apps: it fails to account for the steepness of streets. I was surprised to learn that some streets have grades in excess of 30%. For example, Baxter Street in Los Angeles has a 32% grade:

That's pretty steep, and unsuspecting drivers who are routed through such streets are sometimes in for a big surprise, if not a mishap. I am sure the makers of GPS apps have been thinking about this for a long time, but it would be nice if a driver could choose to avoid “difficult” situations, similar how there are features to avoid tolls or freeways. Even better, a user could select what kinds of difficult situations they wish to avoid: crossing difficult intersections, driving on steep grades (perhaps with options to avoid streets with grades more than a certain % threshold), driving on partially paved or unpaved roads, etc.

Overall it's pretty amazing how much we've progressed since the days of paper maps, and I often wonder how I found my way around without GPS technology. I realize that someday driverless cars will be the norm which will render this post obsolete, but progress occurs in steps. I hope we will see options to avoid difficult situations in the near future.

Replacing Your iPhone Screen

In case something like this happens to your iPhone, you may need to salvage your content and repair your screen.



I thought I'd share a few observations. First, obviously the iPhone was recording video at 1080p 60 fps when it was dropped about 5 and a half feet, falling face first, without any kind of protective cover, onto concrete. Despite the impact, it kept recording until I pressed stop. Second, in addition to saving the entirety of the video (3 minutes and 26 seconds, although video players incorrectly mark the duration as 6 minutes and 38 seconds), the phone seems to have saved 4 photos in 2720 x 1532 (16 x 9) resolution. I wonder if these snapshots are taken and discarded under normal circumstances but preserved in case of impact? Or maybe my wife (who was recording the video) unknowingly pressed the shutter release while recording...

I took my iPhone to the Apple Store at Fashion Valley in San Diego. Fortunately I came into the store early enough so that they were able to service my phone that same day before closing. The first thing they told me to do was to back up my contents (for me, this just means synchronizing my photos and videos from that day to Google Photos), as they will try their best to replace the screen, and if unsuccessful, they would provide me with a new phone, thus rendering my contents lost. The second thing they told me to do was to turn off Find My iPhone, otherwise they would not be able to repair the screen. I did not understand their explanation for why that was the case, so I don't remember exactly what the reason was. Since you need to enter your Apple ID password to turn off Find My iPhone, maybe they were trying to verify that I did not have a stolen phone in my possession.

I was told that a typical repair is estimated to require about 30 minutes (plus any time spent in the wait queue). Upon returning when I was told to check back, I was told that the replacement screen failed calibration, so they had to try a 2nd replacement screen. Eventually I got my phone back with a shiny new screen. Here are my itemized costs:

Display, Gray, iPhone 6 Plus   $149.00
   Part Number 661-00159
   Item Warranty Code: OW
   No Returns
Tax @ 7.75%                     $11.55
Total                          $160.55

Steep price to pay for a replacement screen, but I didn't feel like shopping around.

Accessing Your Facebook Data

Did you know that you can download your Facebook data? It's a simple 2-step process where you request your data and then wait for Facebook to notify you that your information is available for download. For me, the process took just a few minutes.



The above link describes how to request your data as well as all the categories of Facebook that can be reported to you. What's lurking in your Facebook data?

Apple iCloud Storage

I received this message the other day:

It was the first time I had reached 50% of my allotted storage space, so I was wondering what kinds of documents are stored in iCloud. Here's the answer from Apple Support:

• App data
• Apple Watch backups
• Call history
• Device settings
• HomeKit configuration
• Home screen and app organization
• iMessage, text (SMS), and MMS messages
• Photos and videos on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch
• Purchase history from Apple services, like your music, movies, TV shows, apps, and books
• Ringtones
• Visual Voicemail password (requires the SIM card that was in use during backup)

My guess is that photos and videos take up a majority of iCloud space for most users. Since I store my photos and videos in Google Photos (which provides unlimited storage space if you enable compression) and remove them from my phone, iCloud storage has never been a challenge for me.

Sleepless on a Redeye

On Monday, February 12, I was scheduled to fly nonstop from Los Angeles to Indianapolis on American Airlines. We were on track for a 10:00 AM departure when we pulled away from the gate and began our taxi to the runway. However, we experienced delays due to a malfunctioning flight computer, and after an hour we returned to the gate because the aircraft was taken out of service. Although it was announced that another plane would be brought in, the airline changed its mind, cancelled the flight, and rebooked me on a redeye flight with a connection in Charlotte. Thanks American.

It was difficult to sleep on the flight. Although I was not checking the time, it seemed as if I slept in 10-15 minute intervals because I recall awakening continuously throughout the duration of the 5-hour flight. On February 14, I happened to browse my sleep data on my Apple Health app, and this is what I saw:

   

It appears that during the redeye flight, I did not satisfy the criteria for being "in bed" for any portion of the night, as depicted by the absence of a purple bar in the "Tue" column. For some reason, my Health app does not appear to track "In Bed" data on weekends, at least not from the past few months of data that I reviewed, but perhaps there is a way to change that in a setting somewhere. Also, there is a pink "Asleep" legend, and given that I have no "asleep" data, I assume that I am missing either the software or hardware that is required to capture this information. In any case, it made me wonder what the criteria are for considering a person to be "in bed". If anyone has insight into this, please let me know!