Be a HERO

Daddy bought a new toy—a GoPro HERO7 Black. Woo hoo! I upgraded from my HERO3+ Black to take advantage of the following features in the HERO7 Black: waterproof body, 4K60 video, HDR photo mode (and an enhanced HDR option which they call SuperPhoto), image stabilization (which they call HyperSmooth), a touch screen interface, and GPS tagging. There are other nifty features such as live streaming and voice control, but I don’t expect to use them much. However, while playing with the settings in the GoPro iOS app, I was pleasantly surprised to learn of 2 more features that were not well advertised on the GoPro website.

The first feature is RAW image file format. When browsing the touch screen interface, you’ll see a RAW option in the photo settings that you can toggle on or off. Note that this setting does not appear to be available in the GoPro iOS app. When toggling the RAW setting to on, the GoPro stores both a .JPG and .GPR file. The .JPG file allows you to view the photo in your camera, while the .GPR file can be processed like any other RAW image file in Photoshop or Lightroom. One of the things I like most about RAW image files is the ability to reduce noise from images taken in low light as well as the ability to adjust highlights and shadows (to a much greater degree than .JPG files). The .GPR files averaged 6-7 MB for 12 MP photos taken at 4000x3000 resolution. Interestingly, unlike the GoPro HERO3+, there is no option in the HERO7 to save photos in smaller resolutions (not that I’d use those options, which is probably why they no longer exist). See What is RAW Format? for more information. For a nice overview of photo features, see this article.

The second feature is H.265 video compression, also known as high-efficiency video coding or HEVC, which basically means that videos are compressed more efficiently than ever before. While this setting does not appear to be available in-camera, the GoPro iOS app lets you toggle between “Most Compatible” (H.264) and “High Efficiency” (H.265) options. With H.265 video compression, files are approximately half the size as compared with H.264 for the same recording quality. See HEVC Explained for more information.

So far I’ve just been experimenting with my new GoPro at home, but I’ve been impressed with all the new features that have been added in the last several models. I can’t wait to start shooting actual events with my new toy.

Delayed Voice Messages

It happened again today. I received a notification that I had received a voice message on my iPhone 6 Plus running on the Verizon Wireless network. Strange, I thought, since I was using the phone at the time, and it did not ring, nor was it silenced. Looking at my voice messages, there were 3 new messages. One message was recorded right at that time, but the other 2 had been recorded in the past, one as early as January 4, 2019 (17 days ago).

Something similar also happened to me in December 2018 after an airplane flight from Los Angeles to Indianapolis. I thought at the time that maybe switching time zones and synchronizing with another Verizon tower might have triggered the display of several voice messages, some of which were recorded weeks prior.

This forum appears to address an issue that sounds similar to mine. The user's issue was resolved by resetting the network settings. I reset the network settings on my phone, and after a short pause, it force-restarted the phone. FYI that it had also erased my WiFi networks and passwords, so don't do this unless you have to. Fingers crossed that I'll be receiving my voice messages in a timely manner. If I haven't responded to one of your voice messages, please text me or call me again!

Earthquake Alerting

About an hour ago, I felt a small earthquake and found details on the USGS website:
https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/ci38423128/executive

While I felt only a small jolt, I did wonder if the shaking would continue to increase in intensity or if the worst was over. Fortunately that's all I felt.

Recently I downloaded ShakeAlertLA and wondered why I did not receive an alert and if the app even registered the quake at all. Launching the app, it looks like this particular earthquake did not register in its system:

I do understand that there are many "small" earthquakes that are detected every day, so it does not make sense to alert users to every single one that is detected. However, I could not find a setting where I could set an earthquake magnitude parameter, above which I could get an alert and visualize it on the map. I suppose that would be nice, although I am also guessing that alerting capabilities might vary depending on the magnitude and other features of the earthquake.

In doing some research, this article states that ShakeAlertLA will issue alerts for all earthquakes and aftershocks in Los Angeles county of magnitude 5.0 or greater. In any case, it is also clear that the early warning system is still undergoing research and development, and I applaud the work in progress which I believe will eventually save many lives.

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.