Overseas Chinese Web Guide

Category: Tech

  • Starry Night Enthusiast 8 for Apple Silicon

    When I upgraded from an Intel to Apple Silicon MacBook Pro, I couldn’t get Starry Night Enthusiast 8 by Simulation Curriculum to work. The error message indicated that the application was damaged, even after a fresh installation.

    As a last resort, I deleted this folder:

    Users > [username] > Library > Application Support > Simulation Curriculum

    When I ran the application again, instead of reporting an error, it prompted for software licensing credentials. After entering my information, the application launched without a hitch. Just in time for C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–ATLAS).

  • Lightroom Dehaze Turns Black

    I had ordered a 16″ MacBook Pro at the beginning of the WFH phase of the pandemic. Three years later, the laptop is still chugging along on its legacy Intel processor. The biggest bottleneck is with the AI-powered Denoise in Lightroom, where it takes about a minute per photo. May not be as fast as the newer Apple M series MacBook Pros, but still usable to denoise selected photos.

    Lately, I thought I was having problems with the GPU when using Lightroom Dehaze would turn the photo black. Additionally, Lightroom Denoise would slow down considerably beyond the one minute mark. Restarting the Macbook Pro would temporarily solve the problem, but it would recur soon enough. I even started looking at upgrading to a newer MacBook Pro for Cyber Monday.

    However, I came across a fix that really worked. When I optimized the catalog at Lightroom Classic > Preferences > Optimize Catalog, the problems cleared up. Have not experienced the recurring bug for a few days now, when it would crop up multiple times each day. A bit counterintuitive that a problem with the catalog would trigger these issues.

  • MacOS Mojave 10.14 Will Not Install

    It took way too many attempts this morning, but I was finally able to upgrade to MacOS Mojave 10.14. When I first attempted to upgrade from High Sierra, I was able to download and run the installation app. It then proceeded to close other applications and restart. However, a quick check of About This Mac showed that I was still running High Sierra.

    I confirmed that my Late 2013 MacBook Pro was eligible for upgrade, and it was. I attempted to install again, and got the same result. What finally worked was restarting the MacBook Pro in safe mode by holding down the shift key at restart. When I installed Mojave this time, I finally got the installation time line after the MacBook Pro restarted.

  • Sonnet Dio CF SD Reader Keeps Ejecting

    I purchased a Sonnet Dio CompactFlash and SD card reader a few years ago to read the CF cards from the Nikon D800. While I still use the D800 on occasion, I mostly shoot with the newer D750, which used two SD cards instead of the CF/SD combination. One advantage of the D750 is that I can just pop the SD card directly into the MacBook Pro to import my photos, so I haven’t used the Sonnet Dio as much as of late.

    When I recently tried to use the Sonnet Dio, I encountered a connection issue where the card kept getting disconnected. Not the safe disconnect, but the one that prompts a warning. At first, I thought the reader was somehow failing. However, this morning, I thought that the USB cable may be the culprit. So, I swapped cables and the connection problem disappeared. Glad I was able to figure this one out.

  • T-Mobile Simple Choice Plan

    I switched to AT&T when the first iPhone was released and have had no coverage issues for the most part. Of course, if I ventured to the Grand Canyon or another remote part of the United States, all bets were off, but that is to be expected.

    The one thing I did not like about AT&T was whenever I had to travel overseas. Basically, I had to turn off cellular, forward my number to Google Voice, and rely on hotel wi-fi. Being disconnected from electronic devices can be liberating, but sometimes having a phone in hand is essential. Recently, I had a chance to test the T-Mobile Simple Choice Plan when traveling to Peru.

    The plan is supposed to charge $0.20/min for voice, and provide free and unlimited data and text. However, calls to Peru from the United States cost $2.69/min (I later discovered).

    In terms of data and text, I accrued no extra charges. T-Mobile reported that I had used 263MB of data. AT&T charges $30 for 120MB of data with an overage charge of $0.25/MB, and $60 for 300 MB of data with an overage charge of $0.20/MB. On AT&T, it would have cost me $30.00 + $35.75 under their Passport plan or $60 under the Passport Plus. Although the iPhone was displaying the 3G icon, the data speeds were not 3G. It felt more like EDGE with the slow loading maps.

    In terms of voice, the big surprise was the $5.38 charge for a two-minute call to Peru. That was unexpected. However, I had a number of short calls to 800 numbers that were not charged because they were over hotel Wi-Fi. The only long call (65 minutes!) from the airport in Lima back to the United States only cost me $13.00, or $0.20/minute. AT&T charges $1.00/min under Passport and $0.50/min under Passport Plus. $13.00 is better than $32.50 or even $65.00.

    For the most part, I can live without a phone while traveling. However, during this trip, having a phone really saved me. This is the first time that I’ve experienced a flight delay, missed connection and a canceled flight all in one trip. Being able to call back to the United States to re-arrange my flight plans was well worth the $13.00 charge, even if it took over an hour to straighten out.

  • Apple iPhone Import Contacts from SIM Card

    Solved an interesting problem tonight. I had an old AT&T Z221 phone, and wanted to migrate the address book from the SIM card to a new iPhone. The AT&T website had a support page with information about copying contacts to and from the SIM card. Still, I had no idea how to transfer that data to the new iPhone. Furthermore, the AT&T Z221 phone I had on hand had a busted screen. It would have been impossible to navigate through any menus on it.

    From Apple, I found a support page on importing contacts stored on a SIM card. I knew that the iPhone 6 would have a different sized SIM card than the AT&T Z221 phone. So, I popped open the SIM card slot on a three-year-old iPhone 4S. No go. The iPhone 4S SIM card was too small. Thankfully, I still had a five-year-old iPhone 3GS on hand. I had to search a bit for the SIM card slot, which was located at the top of the phone. This time, the SIM cards matched.

    For the final step, I signed into iCloud from the iPhone 3GS. After importing the contacts, the sync was instantaneous. I checked the new iPhone 6 and the contacts matched the address book of the old cell phone. Success!

  • Free Wi-Fi v. Verizon Jetpack 4G LTE

    I’m sitting in the bleachers at a local ice skating rink on a Saturday morning wondering how fast the free Wi-Fi is. Speedtest.net reports the download speed as 1.25 Mbps and 0.35 Mbps as the upload speed. My experience is that the connection is perfect for reading text, but struggles with video.

    Fortunately, I also have a Verizon Jetpack 4G LTE. In the belly of a concrete ice rink, Speedtest.net reports the download speed as 2.30 Mbps and the upload speed as 1.36 Mbps. That’s more than twice as good since the connection isn’t being shared. 😉

    speedtest-ice-oasis

    Obviously, the Verizon Jetpack 4G LTE experiences a bit of variance in performance depending on the location. At home, Speedtest.net reports a download speed of 4.41 Mbps and an upload speed of 0.56 Mbps. Strange that the download speed is faster than at the ice rink, but the upload speed is slower.

    April 11, 2014 – At the gymnastics center, the download speed is a swift 11.49 Mbps and the upload speed is 0.87 Mbps. Quite a bit of variance.

  • TurboTax Business

    I think every Mac user must have a love-hate relationship with Intuit. I still don’t understand why Intuit had dumped Quicken for Quicken Lite a/k/a Quicken Essentials for Mac. Ugh. But, I’m glad that I jumped on iBank instead of waiting around for the long-rumored Quicken Deluxe for Mac. I’m sure it is still just around the corner.

    Despite the rocky relationship, I still turn to Intuit for its tax software. The regular TurboTax, which works on a Mac, and TurboTax Business [Download], which I have to run in VMWare/Windows. It’s always cheaper to pick up a copy from Amazon instead of getting it direct from Intuit.

  • EyeTV 250 Plus and Winegard FlatWave Amped

    I’ve been looking at an EyeTV for a long time. Almost too long. A few weeks ago, a family member inquired about recording a television program for later viewing. I did not have a post-VCR solution for that. When I returned to the ElGato website, I couldn’t find any of their relevant products. Nothing from Amazon as well. Looks like Tivo will be following this path as well.

    I rarely watch TV or record any programs. After all, it’s been years since the living room has seen a VCR, so I didn’t want to commit to a Tivo with its monthly fee. Fortunately, I found a new ElGato EyeTV 250 Plus from Other World Computing. Looks like a few others had the same idea since they are now out of stock.

    The EyeTV 250 Plus is quite impressive since I was able to pull a few more channels from my external antenna than the television. KQEH (Channel 54), which has a few more channels of programming than KQED (Channel 9), was cutting in and out on the television, but clear on the EyeTV. (This prompted me to terminate all the unused coaxial ports in the house. KQEH now works, but I’m not sure if that was causation or correlation.) Unfortunately, I have a coaxial port in the living room, but not the office. So, I picked up a Winegard FlatWave Amped internal antenna from Costco. I affixed it to the window and scanned for channels again. It picked up even more than via the external antenna, but mostly international and shopping channels.

    I am very impressed by the combination. Had I known they worked so well together, I would have made the leap a lot earlier.

    Feb 5, 2014: I was wondering why the Winter Olympics did not show up in the program guide. Then, I noticed that NBC 11 (KNTV) was missing. I had problems receiving this channel on the regular TV as well.

    So, I went about testing various mounting locations. I could not get a signal for NBC 11 from any of the windows, regardless of orientation. When I mounted the antenna on the wall, it worked. Note that the height of the antenna matters too. The antenna is placed close to the ceiling. While NBC 11 shows up in the program guide, the Signal Quality sometimes drops, even when there is no change in Signal Strength.

  • AT&T DSL to Sonic.net

    I’ve been with AT&T DSL for several years at the 6.0Mbps tier, which wasn’t bad at first. However, now that software is distributed almost entirely by Internet, I just got tired of the waiting. I could have switched to AT&T U-verse, which offers downstream speeds up to 45 Mbps, but I hate the introductory pricing with the one-year commitment.

    Instead, I went with Sonic.net and their Fusion service for $39.95 per month, which is not an introductory price, but also not an upfront price either because of the convoluted taxes.

    Rental Modem Router Combo $6.40
    Fusion Service $39.95
    Federal Subscriber Line Charge Fee $6.50
    Property Tax Allotment Surcharge $0.26
    Voice Regulatory Recovery Surcharge $0.52
    Federal Universal Service Fund Fee $1.69
    FCC Interstate Telecom Service Provider Fee $0.04
    FCC Telecommunications Relay Service Fund $0.00
    Property Tax Allotment Surcharge $0.00
    Voie Regulatory Recovery Surcharge $0.00
    California Lifeline Telephone Service Surcharge $0.19
    California Deaf and Disabled Telecom Program Surcharge $0.03
    California High Cost Fund-A Surcharge $0.03
    California High Cost Fund-B Surcharge $0.05
    California Teleconnect Fund Surcharge $0.10
    California Advanced Services Fund Surcharge $0.03
    California 911 Emergency Surcharge $0.08
    California Public Utility Commission User Fee $0.03
    Palo Alto Utility Users Tax $0.82
    Total $56.82

    From browsing various forums, I already knew about the modem fee. So, in addition to the $46.35 service + rental fee, I was dinged for $10.47 (or 22.6%) in fees, surcharges and taxes. The number of fees, surcharges and taxes is almost comical. Imagine dining at a restaurant and ordering a $25 steak, but being billed for a seating surcharge, utensil service fee, dining table allotment, and lighting surcharge.

    Anyways, the transition was surprisingly smooth, which has never happened before. My download speeds have roughly doubled from 5.09 Mbps to 10.70 Mbps, according to speediest.net.

    speedtest