A Cup of Joe

MacOS Catalina Issues

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I’ve been a Mac fan now since I got my first one in the fall of 2015. After a lifetime of being a Windows guy, I jumped ship, and had little to no learning curve. Don’t want to go back. I’ve gotten quite used to the way Macs do things. It’s for that reason that I’m writing now.

Their latest operating system update (macOS Catalina v10.15) is out. Overall, it’s a great upgrade, with many new things that are quite helpful. However, not everything is good. For some inexplicable reason, there’s three things that I’ve noticed that they’ve changed/dropped from the system that really degrades the overall experience to me – and that is the strongest thing for me with Macs. I’m not talking about bugs, I’m talking about intentionally changed or removed features here. I’m sure there’s more things, but these are the only ones I’ve noticed that have affected my regular usage. [Read more…]

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

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Didn’t really think I’d be plowing through four Star Wars movies in the span of about two days, but that’s what’s happened.  This evening I watched “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” with my family.  I was originally planning on watching just the numbered movies in this watch through, but decided to add Rogue One to the mix, as it’s a brilliant lead in to Episode IV.   So here’s a few words about this one.. [Read more…]

Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith

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Yesterday I was in a Star Wars mood, so I plowed through a couple of the prequels.  Episode II in the afternoon, and Episode III in the evening with my wife and daughter.   This is by far the best of the three prequel movies.  Might not write as much about this one as some of the others, but that’s because it’s all good, I can’t think of anything I actively disliked about this movie. [Read more…]

Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones

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Last night I watched Star Wars Episode I as the start of my “Watch ’em All” project, and also as the lead-in to the new Star Wars film in a couple of weeks.  I had planned on watching them one per weekend, but there wasn’t enough time to do that, so I had to double up a bit. I had absolved my wife from watching Episodes I & II, as she really didn’t like them, so I had Episode II on today.

This is another movie that fans tend to hate, and this one I understand less than Episode I.  That one I get why people hated it.  This one has a lot more action, and virtually no Jar-Jar Binks in it.  It should have been set up for a much better reception, but people latched onto one thing and wanted to hate it… [Read more…]

Star Wars I: The Phantom Menace

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Earlier this year, I was looking through all the movies I own, and there’s a lot.  When I was going down the list of them, I decided that at some point, I would start on a project where I’d watch them all. Partially because I recognized there was a decent percentage (like somewhere around 5-10%) of movies I own that I never watched.  This bothered me.  It’s not the first time I’ve done this, I undertook the same project some years ago with all the music I owned, and tweeted about it on my music twitter account.  I’m basically doing that, except this time I’m using my own Twitter account, and I intend on blogging about them vs only tweeting.  Basically, my plan was to watch all of them, and make a few comments on them.  Not write 2,500 word reviews, but a few thoughts as to what I thought after I watched them.

So that’s what I’m doing tonight.  this is the first movie in this review series, and I start with a rather notorious “Number 1”.  Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace.

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Quiet Riot’s Hollywood Cowboys

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I was a child of the 80’s, and in the early/mid 80’s one of the biggest powerhouses there was at the time was Quiet Riot.  Technically the third Quiet Riot album, Metal Health came out in 1983, and good God was that a massive album.  There was a lot to like on that album, but the two songs most people know Quiet Riot for came from that – Bang Your Head (Metal Health) & Cum on Feel the Noize.  They put out three more albums that decade before splitting up for awhile.  They got back together a few years after that, and have stayed together since, except for a few years when original singer Kevin DuBrow died.  What most people don’t know is that there continues to be new Quiet Riot music to this day, and that’s what I’m writing about.  There’s to be a new studio album released by Quiet Riot on Nov 8th.  It’s their 14th overall, entitled “Hollywood Cowboys”. [Read more…]

iOS loses WiFi when device sleeps

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My iPad has had problems with disconnecting form the house Wifi when it goes to sleep. which is annoying as things don’t update when that happens. Found this list of steps elsewhere, and it seems to work for me, so I’ll pass it on that info.

1) Turn device on, with Wifi on and connect to Wifi your having problems with. If the device supports mobile data, turn it off for now.

2) Turn off the device (hold the sleep button and then swipe to turn off)

3) Wait 30 seconds

4) Turn it back on

5) After the home screen loads, but BEFORE you reconnect to Wifi, reset the device (which means holding the home and sleep buttons down and keep holding until you see the Apple logo come back up).

That should be it. After I did all this, my Wifi stayed connected after the iPad went to sleep.

Open Letter to Tim Cook

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Earlier today I wrote an email to Tim Cook of Apple.  Not that I expect him to reply, but one NEVER knows.  He does the same thing Steve Jobs did – which is occasionally reply to a random email sent by a customer, so I thought what the heck.   Here’s what I wrote….

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Perpetual Outrage

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This article isn’t really about Black Sabbath.  Don’t tune out right away.

I’ve been a heavy metal fan almost as long as I’ve lived music.  I like almost all kinds of music, but I tend to gravitate to the heavier stuff.  I was drawn at an early age to the guitar sound of Tony Iommi.  He’s more known for being the guitarist of Black Sabbath. [Read more…]