XP is dead. Looks like we're going to have some updating to do for a while.
Good times.
Not My Frustrations
The Verge writes:
This is the reversible USB cable that will end your frustrations
With support for USB 3.1, the new cables will offer bandwidth of up to 10Gbps, though their biggest benefit will surely be in eliminating the frustration of trying to plug devices in the right way round.
But the biggest frustration with USB, for me anyway, is the ridiculous assortment of different cable types.
Current USB Cable Types
Image: http://pc-level.com/2010/01/types-of-computer-cables/
Adding yet another cable style to the mix is just going to make things worse.
I've never had a lot of trouble figuring out which way to insert a USB cable. There are usually only two choices. Finding the right cable, on the other hand, is a frequent problem that now seems poised to get even more complicated.
People screamed bloody murder when Apple introduced the new lightning cable for iOS devices, after over a decade of 30-pin connectors. But somehow this new USB cable is trumpeted as a problem-solver. It is, in fact, a money grab, plain and simple, and does little to help consumers.
iCloud Authentication Fragmentation
Okay, now here's something I find confusing every time. If I've entered my iCloud account information in System Preferences:
Shouldn't I not have to enter it anywhere else, ever again? And yet:
It's great to have a single, central sign-on location for system-wide services, but it's really friggin' irritating when it only works for a subset of applications. App Store and iTunes ask for my iCloud password all the time as well. I suppose it's because I'm making a purchase, and it's probably a good security measure. But still, it's confusing and annoying.
Maybe there needs to be a distinction made between iCloud Syncing and iCloud Purchasing, because I think that's what's really going on. But iCloud authentication could really use some clarity, because right now it's all over the map.
A Squarespace Hat Tip
About nine months ago I switched from a hosted VPS running Wordpress to Squarespace for my blogging needs. At the time, Squarespace had recently made a major overhaul of their platform. I had tried it out for a few weeks and, overall, I really liked what I saw. So I decided to take the plunge.
The following months were hit or miss for me. Things started off well enough; I really enjoyed using the service and was quite happy using it for blogging. But gradually I started experiencing problems, and I even started to get a bit of buyer's remorse.
At one point I had a major performance problem that ultimately turned out to have something to do with the theme I was using. There have been occasional outages, one of which recently brought my own site, among many others, completely down for several hours. There have also been some rather annoying UI glitches, and scheduled posting has worked only intermittently. Lastly, the state of mobile blogging has been pretty abysmal, by which I mean practically non-functional.
The kind of amazing news is, Squarespace seems to have turned things around in the last month or two. I don't know if all the problems I've been having were a result of growing pains due to the platform update, but lately things have been much better. In fact, pretty much every complaint I just listed has been addressed in a way that makes me excited to use the service again, and that deserves mention.
Some UI glitches remain; hey, nobody's perfect.
Performance has been good again — not just acceptable, but really quite good. The majority of the UI glitches seem to be corrected. Scheduled posting is working again. And perhaps best of all. Squarespace has released new versions of their mobile apps which not only now work properly, but which also work extremely well. The new Blog app has gotten a complete overhaul, and it's really quite nice. I can now post blog articles with images from my iPad! This is just fantastic!
Squarespace still isn't perfect, but it's gotten significantly better over time, not worse as has been the case with every web hosting package I've ever used.
I know there are lots of people behind the scenes at Squarespace who've worked really hard to make all this happen. I just want to say to them, and to the entire Squarespace team, thank you, and well done!
And Happy New Year!
iPhone Touch ID Accuracy Drift
Yes! Yes! Yes!
Dr. Drang:
I’ve been using Touch ID since I got an iPhone 5s in mid-October. Generally speaking, I like it, and I find it faster than the old swipe-and-passcode method, but I’ve felt compelled to reteach it my fingerprints twice already. I know this sounds impossible, but its recognition of my prints seems to decay with time.
I rescanned my fingers this weekend, and Touch ID has been amazingly fast and accurate since then. Just as it was when I first got the 5s, and just as it was a few weeks later when I rescanned my fingers for the first time. Just before each rescan, though, I was so frustrated with Touch ID I felt like throwing the phone across the room.
Drang is not alone — I’ve had a handful of readers ask me about this recently. Makes me think there’s something to it. Me, personally, though, I haven’t noticed any drop-off in accuracy.
I've experienced this as well. Thought I was going crazy till I read this.
Al I can say is: WTF?!