Skip to content
TheTranscendenceDiaries

TheTranscendenceDiaries

Thoughtful musings for the unabashedly aware and ravenously curious intellectual and intelligentsia

  • About the Transcendence Diaries
  • About the Author
  • Subscribe or Donate
  • The Transcendence Manifesto
  • Ed Hale News
  • Videos
TheTranscendenceDiaries

Tag: laptop

Protecting Usernames and Passwords Sir Richard Style

September 4, 2013

        A while back on a visit to New York City, a buddy of mine, one Sir Richard, sadly relayed to me how his laptop/tablet/phone had just been stolen and through that slight the bandit(s) were able to walk away with all his usernames and passwords for nearly everything in his life, in effect stealing his identity and more than their fair share of his money and other assets. It was a fairly traumatic experience for the old boy as it would be for anyone. Like many I too kept a running list of my own usernames and passwords in my various devices. How can we not in this day and age?

        That evening, unable to sleep, I decided that I needed to take some preventative action in order to prevent the same from happening to me and mine. First I used an encryption app to mask all the data; but I also needed to change the name of the file I keep that data in. But what should I NAME this new file? Certainly “Passwords” wasn’t the smartest idea. So many people I know have a file or a Note in this phone called “Passwords”; just as poor Sir Richard once did. Probably not the smartest move. But as with all things negative in life, everyone is SURE that “that’ll never happen to ME”. Until it does. That’s life. Funny how that works.

         Nope. The name of this file needs to be something that no one would ever be the slightest bit interested in if my device were ever lost or stolen. In days gone by when wanting to hide certain personal or confidential communications from the wandering eyes of overly curious busy-bodies in college, I would name the documents something like to dat.bin.cache01901 or some other meticulously boring and random name. This is a particularly brilliant idea that I highly recommend to anyone who has something/anything that they would prefer to keep private… It might be personal diary entries, or it might be the key to unlocking the secrets of the universe that you’ve been saving for just the right occasion. The file name should be something that sounds as if it’s just a system file; that usually does the trick. Hell, I don’t even want to click on files with those types of names.

        But what of this new file name for all my usernames and passwords? It too should be cryptic random and boring and NOT contain the words “username” or “password” in it even once. But it also had to be something I myself would remember… In the end, I decided on renaming this file RichardElliot, HIS name. No stranger is going to click on some random name if they find someone’s laptop or phone… And best of all if I ever forgot the name of the file where I keep my usernames and passwords I figured, I would still be compelled to click on that Note now and then just to see why the hell I had created a Note called RichardElliot in the first place, in which case I would then be reminded what it was and where all my usernames and passwords were.

        A few minutes ago, after creating yet another new online account necessitating a username and password, this time on Basecamp (an excellent app if you aren’t yet familiar with it), I opened up my RichardElliot file to make a note of this new username and password and was reminded why nearly ten years later I am still typing data into a Note with the old boy’s name on it. It’s funny how one minor event in one person’s life can lead to another in someone else’s so haphazardly. And what an odd thing it is now, these words; to him they are one of the most personal things a person can be associated with, besides a body one guesses, his name. To me, those words have transcended nameness entirely. Without thought, they’re boldly etched in my mind now, solidly demarking a file I access on a a nearly daily basis, sometimes several times per day, ingrained in my consciousness as deeply as my own social security number or birth date. Yet in reality this is someone’s name. A living breathing individual 5000 miles away….

        An added bonus is that I don’t believe a day has gone by in the last ten years that I have not thought at least once about Sir Richard. In a way it might be construed as “cheating” a bit I suppose. When Sir Richard receives a seemingly random call text or Facebook message from me asking how he’s doing, he expresses feeling “pleasantly surprised” and thanks me for “always thinking of him.” Little does he know from whence the thought came… He might end up being that one friend on earth I stay in contact with the longest in my life simply due to this strange twist. But hey I can think of much worse things people could do with our name. So in the bigger picture it’s probably not such a bad thing. And if in the end it saves me from suffering the same fate as he all those years ago God love him, then I shall certainly be forever in his debt.

Like this:

Like Loading...
Uncategorized Basecamp, iPhone, laptop, New York City, Sir Richard, tablet

Answer? Using an iPad is Equivalent to Being in Hell

October 30, 2011

NOTE: I am writing this post the good old fashioned way: using a laptop. Yes I am aware of how “six-months ago” that is… but read on….

Well it was certainly a noble question, “Am I in Hell? Or just using an iPad?” One cannot be blamed for posing the question. It’s an innocent and justifiable enough question. It just wasn’t the right question. The right question it turns out was “Why do I feel like I am in Hell whenever I use the iPad?” And of course the answer is “Being in Hell and using an iPad are the SAME thing”.

See, it all started about a week ago. I received this incredible looking device for my birthday from my even more incredible looking wife. I had been talking about getting an iPad for months. I had gotten used to the iPhone — bear in mind if you do NOT have an iPhone that there is a VERY large learning curve to using one. iPhones do not have regular keyboards – they are virtual, not tactile; and because they are an Apple product they are just about incompatible with every known device, website, app, software in the known universe. But still… there is a feeling one gets from using an iPhone — (scientists have actually just finished a small clinical trial that showed that using an iPhone elicits certain endorphins in the brain that are similar to the feelings we get when we are in love or being loved or being made love to by another. This is true. Look it up).

So i had gotten used to the iPhone after about a year of using it. And no, the marriage still wasn’t perfect. To this day I still cannot use more than half of the applications or tools that I use on my traditional PC-based hot-rodded laptop (mind you this thing is a monster if you’re a tech-geek. Custom designed and hand-built with a quad-core processor, ultra-high resolution screen, more ports than a space-shuttle, more RAM than is humanly fathomable, the most expensive video card money can buy along with the best sound card humanity can invent). So it should be fine, right? Well for the most part it is. Only problem being that it is still, alas, a laptop. In other words, it’s significantly larger and heavier than an iPhone.

Seeing that my job entails hunching over some kind of “content creating” device for hours at a time, there was a real need for me to be able to invent some kind of system to still be able to create content and not do real damage to my health. My back and neck are already severely compromised due to how many hours I have hunched over this thing. A Vegas book-maker could gamble that “yours truly has spent 20 hours straight hunched over his laptop without moving except to take bathroom breaks” and win 100% of the time. Unfortunately the statement is easily true. It is the nature of how much the industry I work in has changed. The music-making industry that is. But that’s another story. So… over the last few months I had begun realizing that I could do quite a bit using my iPhone. No it’s not easy, and it’s certainly not comfortable. But once you’ve hit the bed at 4AM and you’ve just put in an 18 hour day and you’re dead tired to the point of your eyes being crossed, finishing up that “last bit of work before you wake up in 3 hours to start the process all over again” is best accomplished on a smaller device with a less trauma inducing screen than a laptop. Hence the iPhone. I could write a three page blog post in less than an hour on the iPhone. No kidding. I have mastered that virtual keyboard. But again, it just doesn’t feel that comfortable, nor healthy. Not much does anymore in this high tech world. But again, that too is another story.

So my mind began to fantasize about the iPad. Not as large as a laptop and not as small as an iPhone. Should be the perfect solution. Right? Well golly Wally how I wish that statement were true. But it just has not been the case. It didn’t take that long to set up. Only about an hour. (yes, laughter is perfectly acceptable at that juncture in our story). What would one want to do first with this sleek slick high-priced and fancy device? We can’t use it as a phone, and it turns out that we also cannot use it to text. (Yes I know, we “can” use it to text if we want to text from our google GMail account… but that isn’t texting if you ask me. That’s IM’ing or chatting. I’m referring strictly to good old fashioned cell phone to cell phone test messaging, and it’s just not something one does on an iPad).

Ok… so what about surfing the internet? It must be good for that, right? Well, yes and no. If you want to just poke around and look at stuff, then sure, the iPad is a very expensive way to do that. It’s also not a bad tool for video conferencing like we do with Skype. And yes they finally added a dinky camera so we can take pictures with it. (Far be it from me to be the last man standing over the last two years pointing out how ridiculously short sighted it was for Apple in release a tablet device with no camera as they did with the iPad #1. My God what a stupid move. But surprisingly many, many people still ran out and bought one. I’m not sure what they actually did with it… A reviewer journalist from Time magazine said it best when he said “I haven’t actually found a use for the iPad, so I still need to carry my laptop around with me everywhere for work. But the iPad looks so cool that I find that I always have it with me, usually just sitting on the passengers seat of my car.” And this is what I had already guessed about the iPad when I first read about it. Hence the reason why I never bought one.

But the iPad 2 was supposed to change that. And so here we are. I’ve now owned one for about one week. I tried going to Facebook. But quickly realized that the iPad doesn’t work too well with Facebook. There are so many problems with it that you just get fed up and leave. Worst of them being that you cannot upload photos from your iPad to Facebook. Nor to anywhere for that matter. Why? Well no one seems to really know. Apple employees seem to think that it’s Adobe’s fault. And if you go to Adobe’s website, they seem to blame it on Apple. As a “regular Joe” consumer, I could care less whose fault it is, I just want to be able to upload photos. The solution we are told by Apple and/or “Apple afficianados” (of which there are plenty — and for good reason — I also own a badass Macbook and I must say it is everything they say it’s cracked up to be. it is for lack of a better word, “the BOMB!”) as I was saying, both will tell you that “you need to download the iPad Facebook app” if you want to upload photos or do other things on Facebook that you are accustomed to doing on a regular laptop. The only problem is that the iPad Facebook app is about as functional as attempting to use Facebook using Morse Code. It just isn’t a viable app. No need to go into the details. Just trust me on this. You’ll bail on it in less than five minutes. It truly is that useless.

Well, ok… that’s a drag. What about blogging? I do plenty of that for my job. I personally use two primary resources to blog: WordPress for the majority of them, and Blogger for one of them. This post that you are reading here in the infamous pages of the long-running Transcendence Diaries is currently being hosted by Blogger and has been for about five years now. Before that we had tried numerous other platforms. (The Diaries, as they are often called, are in their ninth year believe it or not for those who’ve been with us from the very start). At first I tried the obvious. I went to the Safari browser and opened up Blogger, logged in, and started writing a new post. Within five minutes the fiery smell of Dante’s sulfuric Inferno was so strong in the room that it was obvious that I was literally steps away from falling into the pit of hell forever and ever. Why? Because writing a new post in Blogger on an iPad simply doesn’t work. You can’t upload photos. You can’t adjust your settings. You can’t view your blog in a non-HTML standard form. And worst of all, you can’t actually publish the post you’ve just written. Worse than that, once it tells you that and displays a giant ERROR message on its bright shiny screen, it deletes the post you just spent an hour writing. That’s right. GONE for good.

“Oh man, that’s because you need to download the iPad for blogging app bro” Apple people will tell you. It’s true. You can’t actually blog using an iPad on Blogger or WordPress in a browser. You have to download yet another app. OK fine. Done. I first tried the tantalizingly titled “Blogger for iPad” app. No dice. You can only blog for as many sentences that fit above the virtual keyboard. Then you’re screwed. Besides, that’s ALL you can do. No editing, no formatting, no photos, etc. I then tried something called BloggerHD. Big price tag, but it promised the moon. And remember, promising the moon in the world of the iPad just means that you’ll be able to do the normal things you do everyday on your laptop. Not much moon there. But worth a try if it works I figured. Unfortunately it didn’t work. I typed a respectable one page post on a subject that I cannot even remember now only to hit publish and see it disappear. That was last night. I gave up and went to bed early, discouraged and disillusioned with my original fantasy that the iPad might somehow hold some saving grace for me or my health.

Next up was an app that looked even more promising. They call it BlogPress. Meaning that it will enable you to use your iPad for both Blogger and WordPress blogs. Oh what a beautiful morning. I jumped up and paid the fee and download it, logged into my account and began typing away. As a simple safety measure I hit the “Save” button just in case when I went to Publish the post it disappeared, and the app proceeded to close. I tried opening it a few times and it will now not even open on the iPad. Frantically and desperately I opened Safari to see if at the very least it saved this post i had worked so hard on for a little over an hour only to be reminded that when you log into Blogger on the iPad using the Safari browser, you cannot actually see a list of your previous posts. Not kidding. You also can’t access your dashboard. It is as if the iPad’s operating system, something they call “iOS,” is only capable of seeing or displaying about 50% of any given website’s content. God only knows why, but unfortunately it’s the truth.

So with a long face and an even longer sigh, I got up and walked a few feet over to my trusty old laptop. Blogger opened fine. It opened fully. And it functions perfectly. Just for good luck, on the rare chance that a miracle may have occurred, I checked my posts, both published and drafts. Unfortunately neither the post I wrote last night, nor the one I typed this morning exist. It is as if I had never typed them. So that, as they say, is that.

There may one day be an iPad app for those of us who want to actually do something with our iPads besides look at pictures or watch videos on YouTube. But I’m not holding my breath. I’ve just typed a blog without any trouble or error messages using my laptop in a short period of time and that’s fine with me. As far as the iPad goes, the thing that bgles my mind more than anything else is how could something so useless become so popular, at least in terms of “topical”… not many people actually own iPads. It’s more that just everyone likes talking about them and dreaming of owning one eventually. But like many things, the dream is far more fulfilling than the experience. What’s puzzling is how a machine ten times the price of your average iPhone not even be capable of accomplishing the same tasks as your average iPhone.

Last night, after hours and hours spent trying to salvage aforementioned blog posts or tens of futile attempts to use Facebook on the iPad, I eventually gave up and just pulled out my iPhone to do said tasks. There I was, 2AM, in bed, comfortably interacting with people all over the world on Facebook, through text messaging, and yes, even blogging, on my two year old $100 iPhone; while the $800 iPad sat lifelessly on the floor next to us. The irony did not escape me. I stared at it for a few seconds and all I felt was disgust. Outrageously priced, sleek, slick, and fancy looking but no actual use and incapable of being trusted. A lot like the people we dislike the most in this world. For them of course there is hope. I always hold out that each and every one of us is evolving, slowly, at our own pace, but human potential is remarkably surprising. After one gruelling week of trying everything imaginable in hopes of discovering something useful about the iPad, I don’t hold much hope for it. Too little too late for far too much money.

But I will say this. The iPad for as useless as it is does provide one invaluable benefit. It shows us that regardless of how utterly worthless something is, with the right amount of promotion and hype, we can find a way to sell it to others and make a fortune. And as a lifelong entrepreneur, that idea inspires me. Like “the Pet Rock” before it, the iPad is an anomalous entrepreneurial success story. If Apple can profit from it simply based on its beauty and hype, so too can you and I and everyone else profit from things we invent and bring to market and no we do NOT need to concern ourselves with how well they work. Functionality is optional. Much like our Senate or Congress.



Like this:

Like Loading...
Uncategorized incompatible with Blogger Wordpress Facebook, iPad not functional, iPhone, laptop

A private little world for me… a private little world for you. The online journals and musings of singer-songwriter author and activist Ed Hale. The Transcendence Diaries have been posting regularly online since 2001. Comments are always welcomed. And so are YOU.

Recent Posts

  • The Most Important Thing To Know When It Comes To Trading and Investing Markets
  • The United States National Debt Hits 33 Trillion Dollars
  • Roman Writer Celcus Complains About Barbarian Christians Circa 170 AD
  • Understanding the Myths of Lost Tribes Of Israel
  • Was There A Historical Jesus?
  • On the New Rolling Stones Song “Angry”
  • Bored Angry & Unhappy Woke-Obsessed Gen Z’ers Are Intent On Ruining Everything, Just As They Ruined the 2023 Women’s World Cup Final
  • World War III Watch — Breaking: China-Led BRICS Alliance Adds Six New Countries
  • It Is Vital For the Future Of American Democracy to Ignore the Slave Staters i.e. Republican Party
  • People In Severe Pain In the U.S. Should Not Suffer Because of Bad Governance & Cowardly Doctors In the Opioid Epidemic

Receive Transcendence Diaries Updates

   
 

Subscribe

* indicates required
  
  
  
    Email Format    
 
  
  
 
       
   
   

Join the Ed Hale Mailing List

Ask Ed Hale a Question

Follow Ed Hale Online

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Spotify
  • YouTube
  • Apple

To Follow & Like us

RSS
Follow by Email
Facebook
Facebook
fb-share-icon
Twitter
Visit Us
Follow Me
Tweet
LinkedIn
LinkedIn
Share

Follow Ed Hale on Twitter

My Tweets

Ed Hale on Facebook

Ed Hale on Facebook

Listen to Ed Hale on Spotify

Tags

ed hale and the transcendence activism America American imperialism avatar course China Consciousness Donald Trump ed hale facebook Federal Reserve finding God gaza god intuition investing Iran Iraq islam Israel itunes living in new york Music music video music videos new album New World Order new york palestine peace politics Relationships Religion Russia Saudi Arabia social media songs songwriting syria the adventures of Fishy Transcendence transcendence diaries Ukraine United States World War III

Categories

  • Academics
  • Activism
  • Alternative History
  • America at War
  • American Terrorism
  • Ancient History
  • Anthropology
  • Archeology
  • Art and Entertainment
  • Being an Artist
  • Black Lives Matter
  • black people
  • Business and Entrepreneurship
  • Civil Rights
  • Consciousness Exploration and Expansion
  • Consumer Protection
  • Cosmology
  • Current Events
  • Economics
  • Environment
  • Evolution
  • Film and Movies
  • Friends and Family
  • Gender Issues
  • Government Governance
  • Gun violence Gun Laws
  • Health and Wellness
  • Human Rights
  • Iran
  • Israel/Palestine
  • Just Published
  • Language
  • Life Hacks
  • Literature
  • Love Sex Romance
  • Metaphysics
  • Music
  • Music Videos
  • Musical Instruments & Gear
  • Nature
  • New World Order
  • Paranormal and Supernatural
  • Personal Expression Age
  • Personal Life
  • Physics
  • Politics and Government
  • Psychology and Human Behavior
  • Race Racial and Racism
  • Religion and Spirituality
  • Science
  • Social Media
  • songwriting
  • Struggling artist lifestyle working for the man
  • Technology
  • Television
  • Terrorism
  • Trading & Investing
  • Uncategorized
  • Wealth Finance and Investing
  • World Affairs
  • World War III

Recent Comments

  • Ed Hale on Two More Executed In Iran This Morning For Protesting For Freedom & Equality — What We Can Do To Help
  • Ziba on Two More Executed In Iran This Morning For Protesting For Freedom & Equality — What We Can Do To Help
September 2023
M T W T F S S
 123
45678910
11121314151617
18192021222324
252627282930  
« Aug    

Archives

  • September 2023
  • August 2023
  • July 2023
  • June 2023
  • May 2023
  • April 2023
  • March 2023
  • February 2023
  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • February 2022
  • September 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • February 2019
  • December 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • September 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • December 2010
  • October 2010
  • June 2010
  • December 2009
  • September 2009
  • April 2009
  • January 2009
  • September 2008
  • May 2008
  • December 2007
  • November 2007
  • May 2007
  • September 2006
  • October 2005
  • September 2005
  • August 2005
  • July 2005
  • June 2005
  • May 2005
  • April 2005
  • March 2005
  • February 2005
  • January 2005
  • November 2004
  • October 2004
  • September 2004
  • August 2004
  • July 2004
  • June 2004
  • April 2004
  • February 2004
  • January 2004
  • October 2003
  • September 2003
  • August 2003
  • May 2003
  • November 2002
  • October 2002
  • August 2002
  • July 2002
  • January 2002
  • December 2001
  • September 2001
  • April 218

Subscribe

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org

The Transcendence Diaries is a property of Transcendent Media Group LLC (c) (p) TM 2001

Idealist by NewMediaThemes

%d bloggers like this: