Thunderbolt 2 Dock Smackdown: OWC vs Elgato. Also cheap UASP SSD enclosures.

This posts could go on for hours, but I’m racing a 20 minute timer [2]. I think it’s still worth sharing.

Until this year I used an ugly corporate Dell with a $35 dock. It could run 2 external displays and multiple USB-2 devices (now USB-3 I’m sure). I love my best-computer-ever 2015 MacBook Air, but I do miss that dock.

Ok, on to the Apple precious metal equivalent. When my 27” 2009 iMac GPU expired I executed a surprisingly painful migration to a relatively modern family platform consisting of two MacBooks, a Synology NAS for Time Capsule backups, and Synology “Cloud Station” LAN file sync. The latter replaced a traditional file server or the newly dying world of Cloud file sync. I could write a long post about why that migration was so hard but life is short.

As a part of the migration I stripped a 1TB Samsung SSD from the iMac. It needed a home, so after some research I bought a very (very) cheap Inatek SSD enclosure that claimed to support UASP [1]. UASP is one acronym for a somewhat neglected SCSI-like data interface that runs over USB 3.

The other part of the migration was a thunderbolt dock. I could have made do with a USB 3 enclosure but I wanted Firewire 800 support and a single cable for display and peripherals. I couldn’t find a trustworthy source so after some research I bought both an OWC Thunderbolt 2 dock (recent Wirecutter favorite, no UASP support, not sold in Apple Store, no cable in box, Firewire 800, lovely USB 3 port number) and an Elgato T2 dock (UASP support claimed, sold in Apple store, T2 cable, no Firewire, not enough USB 3 ports) from Amazon. I expected to return the Elgato.

I then did XBENCH performance scores. Despite lack of UASP support the OWC was roughly as fast as the Elgato. All the speeds are in MB/sec and, yes, they are all far less than the theoretical T2 speeds or even USB 3 speeds.

• Internal 2015 MacBook Air SSD: 900
• USB 3 direct cable connection: 600
• OWC dock: 320
• Elgato dock: 300 - 368 (varied with different tests, don’t ask me why)
• External Flash drive (USB 2 flash): 24 (just for comparison :-)

What stands out for me here is how much faster the direct USB 3 cable connection to the cheap Innatek enclosure was than either of the T2 connected drives. All testing was done with the Elgato cable. Nice cable, but too short. So it wasn’t worth much to me.

The lack of UASP support on the OWC didn’t make any difference in my crude testing. I suspect the T2 dock data processing is the bottleneck. The docks are so slow UASP support is wasted.

The OWC seemed fine so I prepared to return the Elgato. Then it dropped my drive connection overnight. So I returned the OWC and kept the Elgato.

The Elgato comes with a utility that is supposed to boost USB 3 port power output and provide the undock shortcut OS X doesn’t have (My Dell had it — but it tended to die when used). It’s a kernel extension. I mean, really, do I look suicidal? Clark Goble taught me how to use the far better AppleScript undock.app. I charge devices on dedicated 5 port chargers. In any case, the Elgato doesn’t have enough ports to spare.

I’ve been using the Elgato for 5 weeks. I bought an Apple 3 foot T2 cable and an Apple Thunderbolt-Firewire adapter (so both thunderbolt connections are in use). My 1TB SSD is on one USB 3 port, my 3TB drive is still Firewire 800. It all works, no dropped drives. I returned the OWC as defective (because, dammit, it is defective — and based on my research it’s a common defect) so Amazon paid return shipment.

Even though my external SSD is 50% slower on the T2 dock than with a direct USB 3 connection it’s still fine for working with a large Aperture photo library. I love SSD.

[1] They have many SKUs for a similar device and I suspect they change daily. On Amazon they all share one product rating. I got the one that’s aluminum, black, and seemed to have better heat dissipation.

[2] I lost. Took almost 30 minutes!

Update 2/27/2016:

The Elgato drops connection to the external USB3 drive when all USB ports are in use, even though only two of the ports require power. Looks like a genuine defect.

My $100 Motorola moto E Android phone - the startup experience

I needed an Android phone for a book project. I don’t have any other use for an Android phone, and my 2012 Nexus 7 experience was unimpressive, so when the Lenovo moto E price dropped to $100 unlocked I bought one from Amazon. This device would be a typical device for many in the community I’m writing for. It runs a now obsolete version of Android and is unlikely to be updated; it comes with known security vulnerabilities.

I’ve ordered an H2O (a rock bottom service) SIM Card and a $10 32 GB microSD card from Amazon. I didn’t pay too much attention to what I was ordering, I ended up with an 8GB LTE device. There’s a US GSM non-LTE device for $15 less that might work as well for my purposes.

(I dug through my bins looking for an unused SD card, I thought I’d found a 16GB card. On closer inspection it was 16MB. We live in interesting times.)

I’ll write some more about my experience with this ultra-cheap device a bit later. These are first impressions on unpacking it.

• It is a bit stunning to get the equivalent of a basic computer and communication device backed with Google’s full power for as little as $85 (I’m sure Hong Kong has cheaper ones.)
• It has the build quality of cardboard. I put a kink in the base of the edge band while removing it. The SIM card slot is mildly misaligned. There’s a weird slot on one side that seems to have a piece of folded paper in it. I kid you not.
• It comes in a pseudo-iPhone box with a clunky pseudo-iPhone charge.
• The default startup setting gives China’s Lenovo full access to everything you do. You can change this. Theoretically.
• I configured it, for better or worse (Lenovo), to use my primary Google account. It was the best choice for the book work but it does make me nervous. I don’t like using Google credentials on a relatively untrusted device. I tested Android Device Manager, it worked well.
• It includes an FM radio (uses headphones as antenna). That’s just weird.
• It has both Settings and Google settings
• I had to use Google search to figure out how to update all the apps (via obscure menu in Google Play Store)
• The included documentation pamphlet is well done
• It doesn’t include any significant crapware.

The places where this phone is clearly better than my $700 iPhone 6:

• Multiple user profile support - Apple’s inability to do this on the iPad is simply sad
• I can add 32GB of storage for $10 (I’m sure there’s limited use of this storage, and it degrades reliability and adds complexity, but it is there)
• The screen doesn’t have a pop problem.
• TouchID aside, Google service authentication and integration, including Authenticator support, are much better than Apple’s hot mess.
• Google Now is impressive and Google’s voice recognition is astounding. So much better than Siri. I primarily navigate and control this device by voice.
• I love the ability to quickly view and limit cellular data use 
• I won’t cry if it’s lost or broken.

A bit more on the cellular data use. Swipe down with two fingers to get first screenshot tap on H2O to get the second. I set those very low limits to match the ultra-cheap H2O wireless service I’m using for this book project device (see Update in this post for how I got data working).

Update 12/18/2015

And this excerpt from an online manual I dug up explains why the phone experience is so inferior to the cheapest ($450!) iPhone:

I went looking for the manual because I was having trouble inserting an SD card. The image in the manual is correct, but the text description is wrong. It says put the SIM card in “gold contacts up” and the MicroSD card “writing facing up”. They both go in with contacts “up” (camera side). It’s also quite easy to put the SIM card in upside down; it will fit but the eject feature won’t work.

The pamphlet that came with the phone is correct however.

Unable to use Google for iOS 9 Notes.app sync? Check IMAP settings.

i was experimenting with iOS 9 Notes.app and I tried enabling Google (Gmail) IMAP sync. It worked for one of my Google accounts, but not for another.

The trick was Gmail Settings:Labels. I had to check the Notes Label Show in IMAP.

After doing this it worked again. I’m sure if you have IMAP disabled in Gmail it will similarly fail.

This old school IMAP sync tech doesn’t support the new rich-text-like Notes documents, only plain text notes. It’s really a legacy feature that will likely get dropped in iOS 10.

iPhone 6 screen pop problem

A day ago, as I slid my finger along the right side of my 9 month old iPhone 6 screen, I heard and felt a sharp pop.

It is the sort of thing Emily would ignore, but of course it bugs me. The screen worked properly, but every time I passed over the SIM card area I felt a little, distracting, pop.

I’m not the only one. As of Nov 28, 2015 Apple Support Communities has a mega-thread on the problem that started in Sept 2014.

Here’s my contribution:

I've scanned this thread. My impression is that there's more than one theme in the thread. Some people have a relatively simple defect -- a screen that's clearly loose. That may be related to dropping the phone or "bad luck" and it sounds straightforward. In some cases there may be loose screws at the base of the phone (these are very tiny screws, few people have the right tools to tighten them -- I'd let the Apple store do it).

More people, especially more recently, have a distinct "pop" sound with light pressure over a part of the display. It can be any part of the display. This sounds like either a design or manufacturing flaw or both. We'd need an expert in iPhone assembly to contribute. I can imagine a small structural deformity related to dropping the phone or imperceptible "pocket-bend" or a problem with screen glue chemistry.

If you squeeze firmly (but not TOO hard) over the pop area the problem will often clear for a few days to a week (which sounds like a bonding issue). I suspect Apple techs are "fixing" some phones this way.

When an iPhone is replaced under warranty Apple typically distributes a refurbished phone, and it sounds like they often have the same issue. It may be that Apple still doesn't understand the problem and that they haven't tested refurbs for the defect. As of Nov 2015 I don't think Apple has distributed a fix to service centers.

The fix may be expensive. It may require replacement of the screen/touch sensor, or frame replacement or even both. From my experience with similar defects on iMacs once Apple understands the problem they will fix it under warranty but if the repair is costly they may or may not do a post-warranty repair program. (Long discussion threads seem to help, contrary to what's often said here I think Apple does monitor long threads).

I'm going to take my phone to a local Apple store for review. If they don't know the cause (or are not authorized to discuss it) I'll hold onto my phone -- but I'll keep a record of the visit so I have proof the problem occurred under warranty.

Squeezing the pop area “fixed” it for me, but I expect the problem to return. I have almost 3 months of 1 year warranty coverage left, so I have time to wait and see if a fix emerges. (If the pop doesn’t return before my Genius appointment I’ll reschedule.)

Old pet peeve: Blogger uses <BR> tags instead of <P> tags to demarcate paragraphs

I wrote about Blogger’s mad formatting 4 years ago and five years ago. I guess it’s time again. This time I’ll include some screenshots.

My recent ebook DRM post as it appears in MarsEdit:

The MarsEdit HTML view, each paragraph wrapped in <p>:

How it looks when viewed as Blogger page:

Now view source (amazing how much cruft there is in the source):

Yes, still wrapped in <p>. Now let’s try to edit it using Blogger’s rich text editor. Suddenly the paragraphs are gone…

Blogger HTML view shows all the <p> tags have been replaced by a single <br /> tag:

This is a very old problem. I think this was configurable in pre-2010 blogger, but it doesn’t seem to be now. I doubt Blogger will ever fix this, I wonder they do this to be consistent with languages that don’t use paragraphs [1].

 There are two things MarsEdit could do to help since Blogger is never going to change:

1. Provide an option to follow Blogger’s convention and use two <BR> tags instead of one <P> tag when publishing. Do same conversion when bringing back an old post to edit.
2. Make it easier to edit an old post in MarsEdit — which is probably only possible if there’s some way to send Blogger a current URL and get back a post identifier that the API can work with. Otherwise I assume MarsEdit would need a post identifier like … blogID=5710205 … postID=1945754734324659424

[1] Update: I’m being too kind to Blogger, this really is a bug. If Blogger is replacing <p> tags on an English language blog they should be writing two <br> tags, not one.

The curse of DRM - can't read new book because Adobe E_ACT_NOT_READY

This is why we should all loathe Digital Rights Management in books. I download the EPUB version of a Google Play book I bought and I got this when I launched the .acsm file

The E_ACT_NOT_READY error message is a longstanding Adobe Digital Reader problem. It can have many causes, from a server outage to authorization problems. In this case I attempted to deauthorize my account and I got an error message that deauthorization failed.

The next step is to quite Adobe Digital Editions and “Navigate to /Users//Library/Application Support/Adobe/Digital Editions and drag the activation.dat file to the trash.” You then have to attempt to download again — by launching the .ascm file. This worked for me.

In my case I think the bug is related to restoring to a new machine from backup. The Adobe authorization is machine specific. Adobe forgot the use case of doing a restore from backup, so their code hangs and produces a default error message. The app should simply request authorization for the new machine. I suspect I deauthorization failed because, of course, I wasn’t using the original machine. So I suspect I have a ghost machine authorization in my Adobe account — another ubiquitous but subtle DRM problem (most often seen with iTunes authorizations) that occurs in iOS as well as OS X and Windows. It’s a fundamental problem with DRM tied to a specific device that is not immortal.

I checked my Adobe ID Profile, and there is no way to view authorized devices or deactivate them. I bet some users run into an activation limit.

I still think the slow/stalled adoption of eBooks is because of Apple/Adobe/Amazon DRM. In Emily’s words “English majors buy books. English majors don’t tolerate stupid software.”

We should be doing watermarking DRM instead and it should be a part of the EPUB specification.

Sledging the drives

Obsolete and dead hard drives have been piling up for 7 years in a wardrobe I want to empty. Here they are ready for execution; one had to be dug out of a Time Capsule:

The ones that I know held sensitive data (unencrypted backups mostly) I wiped via cradle mount.

Then it was sledgehammer time. The lawn was a bad idea — even by my neglectful standards it made a mess.

The best results came from angling drives on concrete, and using short strikes to fold the drive:

A one pass wipe and a sledgehammer might not stop the NSA, but it should suffice for Best Buy recycling.