Black Diamond Spot User Guide (manual)

I’m swearing off Wirecutter. Again.

It’s not that their recommendations are awful, they’re just kind of inexpert. They don’t actually use the products they recommend, they just test them.

Like the Black Diamond Spot headlamp. I needed something for an upcoming trip and it wasn’t mission critical, so I used the Wirecutter recommendations. The Spot actually works ok, and seems well made, but it’s ridiculously complex. The Spot is what happens when you give bored Chinese engineers some chip space.

Serious climbing headlamps have maybe two settings — basic and high. This has at least 6 settings based on combinations of switch press, hold and side tap. My brain looked at the directions and shut down.

And those directions — they go on for pages and pages in many languages, but the core is a small series of pictures. Sure to be lost, essential to reference, and not available online.

So here’s my scan of the part of the Black Diamond Spot User Guide that matters

You’re welcome.

Here are all the friggin modes (I put them in a note on my phone). Die Wirecutter, Die.

TOP BUTTON modes

Not Powered On (why it needs a lock mode)
- press and release 1x: turn last active light on
- press and release 2x: toggle between spot and wide angle light
- press and release 3x: strobe
- press and hold 2s: red light on
- press and hold 3s: always turns on spot light
- press and hold 4s: toggle lock mode (small blue light blinks for a few seconds in lock mode)

Powered On
- press and hold: goes to bright then dims as hold
- 3x: strobe

TAP RIGHT SIDE
(light tap when powered on)
- activate BOTH spot and wide angle

Best way to get Scrivener content into a blog post

After various experiments the best way I’ve found to get Scrivener content into a MarsEdit blog post is to complete to HTML then copy/paste the rendered HTML into MarsEdit.

Everything else messes up paragraphs.

Mountain bike dropper posts, a very quick review

A public Facebook group featured the best review of dropper posts I’ve read, by TB R-A. Reposting here so it’s not lost...

I’ve owned the RockShox Reverb, Fox Transfer, Specialized Command, Bontrager whatever it is called, and 9 Point 8 Fall Line. Of them all the Fall Line has had the best actuation and has been the best performing.

The Reverbs are a pain because they need bled. The bleed process is easy enough, but still a pain. Also, if the line would be damaged or cut out on a long ride you’re SOL. You can’t fix it in the field.

The Transfer worked well enough, but it makes a sucking noise at the top and bottom and drove me nuts.

The Specialized was a bit finicky, I don’t remember much more about it. The Bontrager was OK, but not nearly as nice as the Reverb in terms of quality or performance.

Right now I have the 9 Point 8 Fall Line on both of my bikes. Performance has been flawless and you can easily repair it on the trail should you need to. The upgraded lever made by WolfTooth is really nice, good ergonomics and you can just replace pieces of it should something break (which happened when I loaned my bike to someone). You can release the rail from the head on one side to access the air valve, it’s pretty slick. So, the Fall Line is my choice. I replace the seals annually on it, which takes about an hour. Aside from that nothing really needs done.

Dropper posts are expensive still, though the cheap clones are emerging. I like the idea of the wireless rockshox, but it’s $800 for now. The Bontrager is less costly than the 9 Point 8.

Bleeding Avid (SRAM) XX/XO 2012 hydraulic mountain bike brakes (scan of manual)

I’ve now bled my front and rear 2012 Avid XX brakes. I did the front first and got an excellent result. I did back twice, the first time it sucked the 2nd time it was good but not as good as the front.  Tricky business! You really need to follow directions fairly precisely.

Want to get some quick notes out here mostly for my use. Maybe later I’ll fill in the rest.

• If you’re going to bleed brakes buy a set of fresh pads to insert. No sense bleeding with old pads.
• The Avid/SRAM (SRAM bought Avid) kit I bought for my 2012 XX vintage brakes is amazing. Full of bits and pieces. For bleeding only need a few. Everything feels surgical quality. The procedure felt more like a medical procedure than a bike procedure.
• The brake block for my Avid XX 2012 is the one in the manual with the prongs. You can use it with the prongs and the pads in place, or with the pads out and the thick end. There’s a right and wrong way to insert, all the cutouts and notches have a purpose. You’re supposed to remove the pads for and use the thick end, but I’m not sure it isn’t better to use the prongs with fresh pads. You’re running risk of getting fluid on pads, that’s supposed to destroy them and the bicycle and surrounding neighborhood.
• The 2012 manual that came with the kit I used is excellent. I couldn’t find a copy online save from scurvy services that vacuum up PDFs and reserver them. The 2019 manual isn’t as good. It’s sad SRAM didn’t keep this one around, I’ve uploaded a brake fluid stained scan of my copy.
• Take your wheels off so they don’t get brake fluid on them or tires.
• They describe the brake fluid as quite toxic. First time around there were drops on the ground and I really needed a clean lint-free rag. Would be easy to get in eyes. Wear eye protection. Wear latex gloves. If you’re sloppy wear crappy clothes. Do it outdoors.
• The kit includes a small Torx wrench. If you have a magnetic torx bit driver you’ll be very happy.
• They are serious about that 75-80mm lever distance.
• You should have lots of isopropyl alcohol around to clean with. I washed my bike with soapy water.
• Make a copy of the directions so you don’t get brake fluid on your only (paper) user guide
• The clamps on tubing were super stiff at first. Needed pliers to close clamp. Gets better after use but still a pain.
• There are lots of online directions and videos but for me the old manual worked best.
• I think you need the bike somewhat horizontal, don’t have it in a stand where the brake lever is lower than the caliper.

I really like my SharePoint list based blog that's not a SharePoint blog

I don’t think anyone is terribly interested in this, so I’m not going to provide a lot of detail, but if you want to know more just email jgordon@kateva.org.

So why am I writing anything? I’m writing because this thing has worked very well for years. Alas, nobody at work appreciates the simple genius of how it works. So here I can vent.

I ignored SharePoint’s clumsy native blog. I built my blog off the SharePoint announcement list which has basically worked the same way for 10-20 years. Like every list in SP it has an RSS feed (deprecated in newest versions of SP alas) and email notifications with user controlled update frequencies. So the subscription side works fine.

I added a couple of fields to the basic list. One is for tags. Tags let me create topical views of the list by creating SP views that filter on tags.

The other field (and this worked better than I imagined) was to create my own PUBLICATION_DATE field and sort the blog (list of announcements) by publication date. The default value is the date created — but I can edit the publication date without changing the post URL!

The last is wonderful. Instead of having to point to an old post and perhaps add some new additions, I just update the old post and revise the publication date to current. SP regenerates email notifications to subscribers, updates the RSS feed, and the view shows the updated post at the top — but the URL is unchanged so links don’t break.

It’s really simple, it’s worked very well for 2-3 years, it should work indefinitely. I wish other blogs worked that way — let me revise publication date, sort by that date, don’t break links.

PS. Why SharePoint? Because where I work that’s what we have. We aren’t getting anything better.

Chrome: Default pjkljhegncpnkpknbcohdijeoejaedia quit unexpectedly

For years I’ve launched gmail and gcalendar on my Mac using apps in my user/application folder I’d named gCal.app and gMail.app. I loved them. Not only did they let me go directly to gCal and gMail from spotlight they also opened in my preferred user profile rather than the last user profile I’d used.

Today they crash on use.

Intermittently I got this error message:

Default pjkljhegncpnkpknbcohdijeoejaedia quit unexpectedly.

That looks like malware, but apparently pjkljhegncpnkpknbcohdijeoejaedia is an undocumented internal Google Chrome extension. (Very cute Google.)

After a bit of research I believe those apps were known as Chrome apps, and years ago Google supported creating them on the Mac. Google ended support in 2017. I think the apps lived in a Chrome folder that was removed, but on my machine they survived because I’d moved copies into a user folder.

Today my extended use luck ran out. Now they crash [1] under Chrome 75.0.3770.100. I suspect my Mac was updated today or yesterday, this version of Chrome was released June 18.

I REALLY miss the desktop app functionality. “Progressive Web Apps” were supposed to replace it but I don’t think they happened [2]. I might try this 2018 tip to see if I can restore it.

Or maybe the next release of Chrome will fix the crash :-).

- fn -

[1] sample start of log

Process: app_mode_loader [1087]
Path: /Users/USER/*/gCal (jfaughnan).app/Contents/MacOS/app_mode_loader
Identifier: com.google.Chrome.app.Default-ejjicmeblgpmajnghnpcppodonldlgfn-internal
Version: 4.5.6 (2564.97)
Code Type: X86-64 (Native)
Parent Process: ??? [1]
Responsible: app_mode_loader [1087]
User ID: 502

Date/Time: 2019-06-29 14:33:12.397 -0500
OS Version: Mac OS X 10.14.5 (18F132)
Report Version: 12
Anonymous UUID: C285F89D-D3A8-7245-0199-81B760782A83

Time Awake Since Boot: 2100 seconds

System Integrity Protection: enabled

Crashed Thread: 0 Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread

Exception Type: EXC_BREAKPOINT (SIGTRAP)
Exception Codes: 0x0000000000000002, 0x0000000000000000
Exception Note: EXC_CORPSE_NOTIFY

Termination Signal: Trace/BPT trap: 5
Termination Reason: Namespace SIGNAL, Code 0x5
Terminating Process: exc handler [1087]

Application Specific Information:
dyld2 mode

Thread 0 Crashed:: Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread

[2] No, didn’t happen on Mac. Over a year late now:

Progressive Web Apps on Desktop 
Progressive Web Apps now work on the desktop, including Chrome OS and Windows, with support for Mac and Linux coming soon.

For Google macOS is not a priority platform.

 

Getting Emily's iCloud photos -- you can multi-select in Photos.web (again)

As recently as 2018, Apple had stopped supporting multi-select in iCloud Photos.web. It was really annoying.

Today it works. I don’t know when this was fixed. It didn’t get a lot of attention in my streams.

It’s a big feature for me.  Now if I want to add photos from my wife or daughter I can browse to their iCloud accounts, select from Photos.web, and download. Much easier than switching to a user account, running Photos.mac, waiting for it to sync, exporting to a shared account, etc, etc.

One odd thing, the file “Modified” date is “Tomorrow at 12:15am”. Presumably a server time zone problem….