July 31, 2015Kim's Birthday Vacation - 2015: On Friday (24 Jul, 2015) we drove down to the city of Durango. We took the scenic route along U.S. routes 285 (north/south) and 160 (east/west). The drive took us through the heart of the Rockies in Colorado. It's always a great drive. The scenery is spectacular, and I recommend it over the I-25 corridor any day. We arrived in Durango in the afternoon, checked into our hotel; situated adjacent to the Animas river, and enjoyed the small town bustle of a tourist town in the summertime. On Saturday, we spent the entire day exploring the Mesa Verde ruins. We did it right - We hired our own guide, and spent an entire day. We met the guide at the park entrance around 10AM, purchased our tickets, and spent the entire day at the park. We drove about, from site to site and did a lot of walking as well. The guide was very informative. He seemed to know everything there was to know about the ruins, the people that created these buildings and the ancient culture which has since vanished. As you can only imagine, I took a lot of pictures. We didn't leave the park until after 1700! On Sunday, we spent the day visiting two towns: Silverton and Ouray. We've been to these towns before (just last year), but we didn't spend enough time exploring the towns. This time around we spent approximately a half day on each town. We started with Silverton, then drove the short distance (about 15 miles) to Ouray. We spent the day exploring each town. Sampling the fare at various restaurants, checking out the tourist shops (I couldn't stop Kim from shopping), and the historic buildings. We even checked out a couple of museums. Silverton has more to offer in terms of tourism, but Ouray is a more picturesque town. We drove back to Durango, and stayed another night in the hotel. On Monday we enjoyed a light breakfast before we checked out and started the long drive home (to Aurora). Once again we used Durango as our 'Base-Camp' for a great adventure out west. It's an excellent vacation spot. One of these days we'll need to spend more time in Durango. It's a long drive home (about 6 hours/with a lunch stop), but we had a good time. This time around we weren't rushed. We took our time and enjoyed the experience, as a matter of fact, we even took an extra day (Tuesday the 28th) to relax at home before we went back to work on Wednesday. As I mentioned earlier, I took a lot of photos (more than 1,000 between the Panasonic point and shoot and my iPhone). It took a while to narrow them down to my favorites. I hope you enjoy the photos I've posted online (see link below). Wow! What a Vacation - Kim and I had another awesome Colorado vacation. Happy Birthday to Kim! Comcast/Xfinity discontinues personal webpages: As I indicated earlier, I'm actually surprised that they didn't shut these personal web pages down earlier. Most other ISPs that offered personal web pages have discontinued this service due to the fact that these personal web pages have become a liability. Comcast/Xfinity doesn't have the time to review or monitor these web pages, and spammers were often abusing this free service in order to host various 'infected' or 'redirected' spamvertisement. The number of personal web pages that were phishing sites was expanding and Comcast/Xfinity was responsible for hosting these web pages. Rather than spending money to review or monitor these personal web pages, Comcast simply decided to discontinue the service. Their 'business' customers were paying for hosting, but spammers and scammers were abusing this free service. It cost money for Comcast to offer this service (bandwidth, storage, maintenance, help desk) and it was quickly becoming a warren of spammers and scammers. As a result, Comcast discontinued the Personal Web Pages, including FTP access, in October 2015 and removed files toward the end of that month. There was a cutoff of February 2016 to retrieve files. How does this impact/affect me? It's not a big impact, but I was using the personal web pages to host a 'tollgatecrossing' web page. I took over the webpage in 2012. A resident of my community had been hosting this webpage (using the Xfinity/Comcast PSP service) for some time (since 2007?), and he moved out of the community in 2012. That's when I took over the 'tollgatecrossing' identity on Comcast's residential service. I used the identity for email and continued to host the 'tollgatecrossing' web page (on comcast/xfinity) until the service was shutdown. I used that Comcast/Xfinity page to provide community members with Neighborhood Watch and Community information. Information about our HOA & Metro District as well as Neighborhood Watch information. In all the time that I hosted that web page (using the Comcast/Xfinity PSP service), I only received one email at the 'tollgatecrossing' email address. If you had a personal web page hosted by Comcast/Xfinity, you will likely find (now that it's 2019), that the webpage was deleted quite some time ago. If you need a personal web page, you'll have to find a different web hosting service. July 15, 2015Voila software update makes for trouble: After updating the software, the application will no longer launch. When I try to launch the software, I get the license agreement splash screen. I click the 'I Agree' button, and that's when I get the error message pop-up.
Pretty much useless banter and a few general remedial suggestions. I did check the 'Console' - Some of you might wonder what the 'Console' is. Well, fortunately for me, I've been working on computers with Unix/Linux based operating systems since the 80s. The system console is a computer program that accepts commands and displays OS level results in a text based window. On the Mac, it's slightly different than a 'Terminal' window where one might interact directly with the OS. On the Mac, it only displays the inner workings of the OS. It displays commands being executed and the results of those commands. Displaying the content of your OS logs. Most importantly, you can see errors that might not otherwise be presented to the user in a 'pop-up' window. According to my 'Console' the application isn't able to contact 'the Mothership' - Many applications insist on an internet connection, so that they can check to ensure that you're using a properly licensed application. If this software can't connect to the internet, it just won't function. I have an active, functional internet connection. My cable provider (Comcast) provides a very consistent connection to the internet using DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol). The connection is routed through my ISP, and all internet is routed to and from my home computer by a locally assigned (by the ISP) IP address. Checking my console did reveal an error message that helped me unravel this mystery: According to some google searches, this error message may be an indication that the SSL certificate on the developer's server is invalid. The server that does the license checking (Referred to as the 'Mother Ship' earlier) has an expired security certificate, and my computer won't connect for fear of a non-secure connection (I would prefer to use secure connections whenever licenses or password details are exchanged). I don't know the URL/web address that the application is trying to contact. If I did, I could navigate there in a web browser and examine the certificate on the server side. I asked if there was some way I could obtain/download the previous version to see if it still worked - They completely ignored that request. After a day (that was actually quick compared to some developers), they responded. They indicated that they had 'tried fixing the issue' - They wanted me to launch my copy of the application and see if I was still getting the error. Yes. I'm still getting the error, and I can't fully troubleshoot the problem because I'm on vacation, controlling my computer remotely and can't quite do everything I want - Like restart the computer. So I have to wait a couple days before I can try some additional troubleshooting steps.
When I finally get home (Now the 8th of July / After the Big Fat Polish Family Reunion - See below), I find that the developer has Closed my ticket. Nice - Now I'll have to start over or fix the problem on my own. So, I set to work trying to solve the problem myself. I repair the permissions on all my directories and files and restart the computer. After the restart I'm still having the same issues. Voila partially starts. I see a disclaimer/terms banner. I click on the 'Ok/I accept' button and then I get a pop-up that says Once again they refuse to provide a previous version that I can try. This time they actually acknowledged that I asked... Apparently the ticket gets reopened when I respond to their previous email - That's not exactly intuitive. From their reply, the now want me to turn off 'Little Snitch', and Anti-Virus software of firewalls I might be running. It seems that they're not listening to me at all. The error message isn't stating that my computer is 'Blocking' the communication with their server. I don't have 'Little Snitch' (connection monitoring/reporting software) installed. I turned off 'Hands Off!' and the Mac OS 10 built in Firewall. Then I launched Voila, and got the same error messages. A pop-up that says A day later the 'Help Desk' indicates that their development team is working on the issue I've reported. If required, they want to have a screen sharing session so they can look closely into the issue. Maybe my detailed reports, which include relevant error messages aren't enough - Whatever. I get it, I've done my fair share of troubleshooting remotely. I know what it's like trying to solve a problem over the phone. Not to mention the fact that email creates another layer of obfuscation, and then there's the 'Help Desk'. I'm surprised that the development team can actually get any work done when problems are reported. On the 9th of July, I attempted some additional troubleshooting. First I tried logging in with 'Safe Mode' enabled. I still had the same problems. Then I deleted all the files associated with Voila: Finally, on the 11th of July, I solved my problem with Voila 3.9. I re-downloaded a copy of 3.8.1 using a link that Globaldelight (the company that owns the software) provided when I was having an issue with a previous build on OS 10.10 (back in November of 2014). When I went to download that software, Safari threw up an This time there was no 'connect to the internet' error. As I had been indicating all along, the problem was related to the globaldelight ssl certificate. Once I marked the certificate as trusted, the application launched with no problems. Note: Prior to this incident (where I marked the SSL certificate as trusted) I didn't have a 'globaldelight' certificate in my keychain, and unlike the browser, the application never presented me with a 'do you want to trust this certificate anyway?' dialog. Since Apple's security protocols didn't trust the certificate, the application simply failed when it attempted to perform an authentication check. The assistance/troubleshooting provided by the Globaldelight Help Desk wasn't helpful at all. I figured this one out on my own (with very minimal assistance from the 'Help Desk'). I tried to get information from them about the website that the application was trying to connect to (so I could check the SSL certificate), but they didn't/wouldn't/couldn't give me the information. Hopefully their troubleshooting/support efforts will be more effective in the future. I'm just glad that I was able to solve the problem myself, because I really like the software. Maybe my troubleshooting efforts will be useful to them... I see that there are others (in the forums) having the same 'network connection error' issues since Yosemite came out. Big Fat Polish Family Reunion: Kim and I had a fantastic time with the extended Kuchta family. Thank you to everyone who shared their homes, food and friendship over the last couple of days. We really had a blast and hope that the family tradition will continue with a new generation of hosts. I volunteered to take photos during the family reunion, and it took me a week to sort through the hundreds of photos I took. The amazing thing is, this isn't everyone (Descendents of Alex & Rose Kuchta). There were a lot of people who couldn't make it to the reunion. I posted the photos on my website in a section where I store all my photos. Unfortunately, all those photos were lost! You can read about that Photo-Gallery disaster on my website. I posted the photos in July of 2015, then in November of 2018, I inadvertently deleted all the photos on the server. Ever since then, I've been working to recreate those galleries. This time I'm using 'Client-Side' software so that I'm not relying on my server for the hosting. It's taking a long time to recreate all the missing photos, and the photos from this reunion is one of the galleries that I need to recreate - The good news is, I've completed that task. The photos from the Big Fat Polish Family Reunion have been recreated and reposted. They're once again available online. In addition to the gallery I've also posted one group photo from the Kuchta Family reunion. See if you can spot the guy with the crazy blue hair! (Umm, that's me). Out to Eat in Denver: July's Jukebox Jamboree: Artists want you to Hear their music - If you like it, you'll buy it; or maybe you'll buy some concert tickets - That's where bands really make their money. The major labels of the music industry want you to pay for their product. - letting you hear it for free is contrary to their business model. Well, guess what? I won't buy the music if I can't listen to it first, and no one listens to the radio anymore (because of all the advertising, interruptions, lack of new music and lack of information - you can never figure out who/what is being played) The major labels are killing themselves with their restrictive distribution and dissemination policies. If you like new music, you can do a web search to find your favorite artist's web site, a new music web site, or an archive of free music. Free music is available - Legally! Don't believe the propaganda of the major labels - Not all free music is illegal. You can legally download and listen to all sorts of music for free (Have you heard of Pandora, Presto, MySpace, SoundCloud or DashRadio?). I download (purchase) most of my music from a couple of commercial sources (eMusic and iTunes), but I occasionally download tracks (legally) from various websites, newsgroups and blogs in order to satisfy my craving for music. If only I had enough time in the day to listen to all the music that I want! Here's a listing of some of the music I legally downloaded - and paid for!
Unlike some music outlets, eMusic doesn't have any DRM and they don't insert unique track id's into the ID3 tags. Their terms of service are consumer friendly. eMusic allows you to burn as many CDs as you like (If you like to do that) and copy downloads to an unlimited number of your computers and portable MP3 players (because I still do that - I take my music with me on an iPod). At less than $.50 a track (I'm currently paying $19.99 for $22.99 worth of downloads per month - I'm on a grandfathered plan that new members cannot get) you can't really go wrong. You don't have to be a member/monthly subscriber to access the site or buy music, and the membership prices (per album) are compared to the non-member prices right up front, so you can see how much you save as a monthly member. eMusic offers a really good value for your download dollar. iTunes and Amazon still charge more. eMusic offers more music for your money, and the variable bit rate recordings make for exceptionally high quality recordings. If you still want, demand, need, your own copies of the music - Check out eMusic. These are some of the items I added to my music collection during this month. Since revamping my music collection back in September of 2005, I've been slowly adding, revising and updating the collection. If you have a comment, question or correction regarding my music collection, please don't hesitate to send me an email. Please keep in mind that my collection isn't for sale, and I'm not interested in giving you any copyrighted materials. I'd rather not go to jail for music piracy. :-) |