On fixing a computer

I had some problems with my computer yesterday, an email account that i have had since I first went onto the internet is being discontinued, so I wanted to change the username for my iCloud account. 

Suffice to say I hit problems, which I partly resolved, but it was clear that I needed more technical advice. A quick check on the Apple User Forums generated the usual mixed bag of out of date suggestions, that usually seem to recommend using Terminal and deleting plist files. I have been using Mac computers since the early nineties and have never used Terminal, and certainly do not intend to start using it now. 

I started up an online chat with Apple Support, got escalated to a phone call, and eventually escalated to a senior support person. 

Throughout the people helping me were unfailingly polite and helpful and this was a call that lasted for three hours!

As the call was about access to iCloud, which is pretty much my entire online digital life, public and private, it was commendable that they were rigorous in checking my identity and were not offering to wave a magic wand to get me past the hurdles I was facing. They also seemed to have faith in the logic and dependability of the underlying operating system, trusting it to behave in a sensible manner.

It was also interesting that they were not asking me to use Terminal, or indeed anything particularly high tech. It was just a patient working through, if you click a button and it does not work, click it again, if you are stymied try a reboot, or a reboot in safe mode. 

It was a very gentle approach, no deleting or reinstalling from system disks, just working patiently through the issues in a calm and methodical manner. 

And if that is the sort of approach that experienced support staff adopt, then perhaps it is as well to follow their example.

Cloud options

Although I have long experience with computers, I studied an HNC in computing in the last century, and have bought countless Apple Macintosh computers over the years, I would prefix this short piece with an admission that I have no special knowledge of this subject, I have certainly not done any research, and it cannot be relied on as any sort of authority. I am however offering my observations for what they are. 

Using computers is built on metaphors, they drive everything. You are presented with a virtual desktop, because that makes it easy for you to understand. You are presented with a folder hierarchy, even although the data is spread about all over the place. The computer interface encourages you, indeed compels you to make false assumptions to conceptualise what is going on. 

It strikes me that some of our current understanding of how computers work is being stretched, and perhaps a new understanding is required. 

A few examples. 

when is an application not an application - well often applications seem to sit as a gatekeeper for information or data. So Word is one thing, but the Word documents are another. Or Evernote, Dropbox, or iCloud are they an application, they offer access to documents. But then Dropbox has no real menu bar as such on your computer, nor does iCloud, there is some functionality accessible on your desktop, and other functionality via the internet in the Cloud. But where is the application, or is it an application at all. Although the software wants to be trouble free, so you don’t have to think about it, what does happen when you lose your wifi connection, what is actually left on your computer, what is out of reach in the Cloud. 

when are you logged out - the traditional model is that you log in, like putting a key in a door, and then you can Quit, or log out, or even switch off the computer, and you are logged out. However now that passwords are buried in Keychain and the like, you never actually enter those log in details. So to all intents and purposes you are perpetually logged in. I got an email from Dropbox suggesting that I update my password, which I did. But it just seems to leave all my existing accounts open and running. Are they running with the updated password, or an old one, I have no idea and no idea how to find out. 

the easiest way to breach your IT security - it was assumed that malicious hackers would be seeking to log into your accounts online, and lay your whole life open. If you were determined to hack someone now the easiest way to do it would be to steal or clone a device, and with people’s devices all syncing to each other all the time, you could just sit there and all their data would appear before you. With a stolen laptop or phone, it would be far easier to get past a few passwords than trawling through different usernames and passwords for various online services. 

with digital you only ever rent - increasingly software is moving to a subscription model. But even where you own something digital, in reality you are only ever renting it. The succession of formats we have seen for music, vinyl, cassette, cd, digital, is not going to stop. Similarly for movies, software, fonts, or anything else with digital content. It seems unlikely that any format would stay accessible for twenty years plus, so we all just need to resign ourselves to buying everything we own, again and again and again.  Modern technology wants to be invisible, remove any obvious distinction between what is on your device and what is in the cloud, but when the wifi signal falters we might just find ourselves with dumb terminals that know nothing.