The Great UnGoogling: The Sign

I genuinely once wrote a blog entry using the browser of a PSP while sitting outside a library after hours to use their Wi-Fi. That was many years ago, and I have a lot less patience for when things don’t work. I’ve had my Blogger account for longer than any other platform, with the possible exception of DeviantART. It’s been far from perfect overall, but I’ve stuck with it. I’ve tolerated the occasional workarounds, to say nothing of the site’s frankly dated interface. If anyone were to ask me where to go for a blogging service, my knee-jerk is pretty much WordPress. For all the issues I have with them putting features behind paywalls after previously offering them for no charge (as well as their domain name services, which are downright scummy), WordPress offers the single best WYSIWYG interface for making media-rich text. Everything is laid out nice and neat, I can move things around with ease, and post settings are straightforward and intuitive.

My point is the problem with WordPress is more with me than anything they do. I suppose it’s fair to say that Blogger spoiled me. Everything Blogger offers is free (unless you want a domain name) because Google is a big evil monolith of a company that gets their money by other means (in my case, cloud storage). WordPress is not Google. At least, they’re nowhere near the size of Google and have fewer means at their disposal to keep the lights on.

Recently, I’ve encountered an issue with Blogger using my browser of choice, Safari. It acted like I wasn’t logged in, even though I was. This problem’s worst aspect was being unable to upload or otherwise post any images. After a tedious back-and-forth with Google’s worthless support, I eventually figured out the issue is with WebKit, a toolkit at the very heart of both Safari and my other browser of DuckDuckGo. I waited for a few updates to my OS and had better luck, but as of this writing I’m still not able to post images. That’s a slight lie; I can post images but I have to use another browser that doesn’t rely on WebKit, such as Edge or Firefox. I don’t want to do that. I know this sounds like being stubborn, but I’m just tired of workarounds. Updates always cause certain pieces of software to break, that’s unavoidable. What’s frustrating however is how long an issue can persist. In a time of software-as-a-service, I don’t think there’s any excuse for a known issue; You’ve got the revenue, you’ve got the personnel, fix it… and no pizza or energy drinks until you do.

This all coincides with a recent change I’ve been making over the course of the past year to UnGoogle my life. It started with no longer relying on Google for logins, password management, or two-factor authentication. That was a very big step and so far it’s had no downsides. I do still have a Google account overall, including a Gmail and cloud storage. Gmail is the best email service I’ve ever used and the cloud storage is really just a backup for other storage services I have, including some good old-fashioned physical drives I have to plug in to my desktop. Blogger is my biggest anchor, the most important reason I haven’t abandoned Google entirely. The recent WebKit fiasco, however, has given me pause. Couple that with the promo pricing offers that WordPress likes to email me, and I can’t help but see it as a sign to jump ship and go all in on WordPress for my blogging needs going forward.

So, given the scope of this endeavor as well as my reservations, I consulted my decision matrix. The decision matrix is a spreadsheet that catalogs the results of three virtual assistants asked to flip a coin. At the risk of sounding spiritual, I concentrate on the question while each coin is being flipped. Heads means to go for it. Tails means don’t do it. The result is a two out of three. The assistants are Siri, Alexa, and Google. Siri said to go for it while Alexa and Google said not to. The only time I’ve ever vetoed the decision matrix was when I upgraded my phone from a 12 mini to a 15. I’d held on to the 12 for a long time, even replacing the battery at one point, and the price on the 15 was pretty hard to beat since it was on the way out. As for WordPress, there exists a possibility of being vetoed and I go all in, but don’t hold your breath. Besides, the deal would only last for three years, and then I’d have to pay closer to full price again. I just don’t feel like it’s worth it right now.

I did decide on changing the theme for my other WordPress site for the umpteenth time. I was going to go for a rather bland but practical number creatively called Twenty Twenty-Five. My only real beef with it was putting color customization behind a paywall. The more I thought about it, the more I realized the futility of the situation. For as much as I love dark mode (give me light text on a dark background or give me death), not everyone consumes blogs the same way, and that's completely fine. You've doubtless got a "reader mode" on your browser of choice and can therefore render any theme on any blog obsolete. If you want black on white, white on black, yellow on navy, orange on gray, maroon on pink, I cannot stop you and I wouldn't want the power to do so anyway. Please, by all means, go bananas with my blessing. 

A Prime Example

In the interest of full disclosure, I am an Amazon slave. I've been a Prime Member for years, I have several Alexa smart speakers, I use Subscribe & Save, I use Kindle and Audible, and I even watch Prime Video (mostly for the Grand Tour or anything the old Top Gear crew is attached to). I know the company is evil, they treat their workers (especially their drivers) like garbage, their returns are a joke, and Jeff Bezos is dumping tons of methane into the atmosphere with his phallus rockets, to say nothing of that stupid yacht he tried to have a bridge disassembled over. 

Yet... I'm still paying. I can only offer so much in my defense. There's still plenty of small and local businesses I support, and there's certain items that I simply will not buy from Amazon if I can avoid it. If I can get it straight from the manufacturer, I'll go that route (especially if they let me check out with PayPal because that's just as convenient as Amazon). To me, Amazon offers a way to eliminate tedium. I don't have to haul bags of cat food, kitty litter, and sparkling water around in a cart, into my car, out of my car, and into my house. Now, all but that last step has been eliminated. It's one less thing I have to deal with. It's cruise control, not fully autonomous driving, if you follow. The point is if it all went away tomorrow, I'd be only a little bit bummed... for about five minutes, and then I'd move on to something else. 

Is it really an addiction if you're in control of it? 

Anyway, there's still the dilemma of supporting a terrible company, but the awful truth to that matter is that voting with your wallet is kind of a hollow promise. After all, there's no "vote against" just voting for something, and not voting at all. Moreover, if you know anything about how the company is structured, their main money maker is not their retail branch. It's all their web hosting. That's where this gets really scary. I heard once that all of Netflix's servers are owned by Amazon. That may seem like a massive conflict of interest, but it's actually good business. There's a similar sort of relationship between Apple and Samsung. Yes, they're rivals in the smartphone space, but if you were to open up your iPhone, you'd find Samsung's name on more than a few components. In fact, the iPhone camera is actually a Sony component. I find that funny because the camera on my old Xperia phone wasn't all that great, but the little iPhone 5c I got to replace it took damn fine pictures right out of the box. 

I decided to write this entry after receiving an email from Amazon that some of you may have read yourselves or at least heard about on social media. Ads are coming to Prime Video. Although they insist there will be overall fewer ads than television, it's more than a little disheartening that this is what they resorted to in terms of expanding their market share in the streaming space. 

Rather than create a new, lower-priced, ad-supported tier and bring in new customers, they'd rather punish loyal customers who have been paying for Prime for years (seriously, whatever happened to grandfathering?). Instead, they now offer an ad-free version of Prime for an additional fee. Obviously, this is about Amazon making more money. They chose this strategy because simply raising the rates would have deterred many from renewing, so they decide to raise the proverbial temperature of the pot of water instead of dunking us in straight away. As I said, I think they could have done more to draw in new customers than try to tiptoe around existing ones. 

As for what I'm going to do about it... very little. Ironically, most of what I've been watching on Prime Video of late has been through their subsidiary FreeVee, which is ad-supported anyway. There's also that practice of advertising their other shows before the ones I'm already watching. It's frustrating that this is happening, but I'm more mad at myself for not being more bothered. I feel like I should be cancelling my Prime membership as a statement, but I know it's not going to change anything and despite what I said about what I'd do if this all went away, I don't want to be the one to pull the plug. Given the scale, it would be cutting off my nose to spite my face. Then again, we're also living in a time when a comedy about Wile E. Coyote suing Acme was brought back from a fate worse than death for media. 

Maybe we're reaching a point where it's more than just the bottom line that a business can pay attention to. Yes, Coyote Vs. Acme got a big boost from a number of meetings being canceled, as well as the potential threat of Capitol Hill getting involved (one congressman compared the move to committing arson and insurance fraud), but it's still notable how much of a public outcry got heard. Hell, remember when the first Sonic the Hedgehog movie got delayed because of backlash against the early trailer? No calls for boycotts there, just plain, "Dear God, what is that thing!?" from a few thousand voices on Twitter. Yes, there was still a bottom line ultimately being threatened, but we didn't have to wait until opening weekend for the change to occur. 

Bye-Bye, Bulby

"Computer? Make coffee, please.”
“I’ll put the kettle on.”
---The exchange that starts my day, everyday.

The big 3 of the smarthome/virtual assistant scene are Amazon, Apple, and Google. I’m team Alexa for 3 reasons.

1. I’m already an evil bastard Amazon Prime member 
2. The Echo’s sound awesome for their size and price. 
3. I can say “Computer” instead of “Alexa” because that’s all I’ve wanted since Star Trek: The Next Generation, and I know for a fact I’m not alone in this. 

Apple’s HomePod definitely wins in the Rule of Cool department in terms of design, and Google Assistant more than lives up to the “assistant” part of the name when it comes to schedules and reminders, so if you’re at all interested in a Smart Automation setup, do your homework and check out some reviews. Beyond the straight out of the box experience of a smart speaker, the third party realm of the ecosystem is more or less going to be the same for everybody. This is where we get items such as smart bulbs. Amazon does not produce their own smart bulbs and neither does Google. This leaves a wide range of options such as Philips and GE, as well as some lesser-known options like TP-Link. I’d heard of them because I recently upgraded my Wi-Fi to one of their routers. Pricewise, they blew the bigger guys out of the water, so I ordered two, one for the front door, and one for the side door.

Long story short, I never bothered taking the second one out of the box and the first one’s entire tenure as an illuminated doorman lasted about 2 days. If you need a little more than that to make a decision of your own on these gadgets (especially keeping in mind my experience was far from negative, simply disappointing), then read on.

The way the whole smart bulb setup used to work was that you had your bulbs and those bulbs needed a hub. The hub could either be built in to your existing smart speaker (like the second generation Amazon Echo) or would be a separate device entirely. It’s meant to act as a middleman between your smart setup and the bulbs themselves, which wouldn’t typically have much in the way of tech under the hood. As time went on, the importance of the hub was diminished and the bulbs took on more of the networking workload. Hubs are still recommended in some setups if you plan to coordinate a large number of bulbs, but if you’re not thinking too far past your front door, then these newer self-contained bulbs are the best of both worlds.

Because TP-Link is a third party, you need their proprietary app in order to set up the bulb before you tether it to your smart speaker. This sounds tedious, but it’s because these smart bulbs are meant to fit in and play nice with whatever virtual assistant camp you’re flying a flag for. The downside to this is that while Amazon, Google, and Apple have massive development teams devoted exclusively to producing apps for their products, even the likes of Philips and GE don’t hold a candle to those guys. To be fair to TP-Link, as their bread and butter is networking devices, they’ve got the skills to pay the bills and their app is far more polished than most others I’ve come across. It was still far from perfect, bringing to mind the following words of wisdom, “Simple does not mean easy.”

First, you download the TP-Link app and create an account with Kasa, their smarthome subdivision. To their credit, this is the extent of the tedium; it’s one more username and password to keep track of, but since I can tie it to the account I opened when I got my Wi-Fi, it all worked out. Once in the app, you plug the bulb in and turn it on. It blinks 3 times to tell you it’s ready to be found and connected to the app. Now, the app does not connect directly to the bulb at this point. Without getting into the nitty-gritty technical details, the bulb produces its own Wi-Fi signal (as opposed to a Bluetooth signal like a pair of headphones or a game controller). You have to exit the app and open your settings, going to your Wi-Fi settings, and selecting the bulb as your network rather than your home Wi-Fi. Once that’s done, you go back to the Kasa app where you may well see it insisting it’s trying to connect with the bulb. I mean, I didn’t even click on the button that said, “ready to connect.” but I guess the app knows what it’s doing. At least, it acted like it knew what it was doing. It took two attempts to get the bulb connected to the app via the phone.

This is where I have to admit to messing up as I misunderstood exactly what this process was meant to achieve. 

The short and sweet version of what this graphic is attempting to explain is that you are using your phone to tell the bulb to talk to your router so you can talk to it through your smart speaker. My mistake was telling the bulb to talk to itself. It was an honest mistake, and a simple enough fix, but nonetheless a little embarrassing. It’s rather like mixing up “right” as in the direction and “right” as in correct when you’re giving someone directions. Simple also does not mean obvious.

The rest of the setup was utterly painless. I went into the Alexa app, told it to look for a bulb made by TP-Link, and since it was already connected to the Wi-Fi, it welcomed it to the tribe with open arms, a mighty feast, and much dancing and celebrating. I could tell Alexa to let their be light, and light there would be. This arrangement worked… for about a day.

Despite the new Wi-Fi router fixing all of the problems I was having with the previous router (now a pile of plastic rubble via an Office Space reenactment), there are still limits to its reach. Sadly, outside the front door is just on the edge of the signal strength. The bulb would easily disconnect from the network and would not be able to consistently reconnect. I had a suspicion of running into this problem, but it was still disappointing. I had considered dusting off my old Wi-Fi extender previously used to solve the range issue that was one of several of the old router’s growing list of problems. However, that felt like a lot more steps than I wanted to bother with for something that was supposed to be more convenient. It would have been another hoop to jump through and, most importantly, another point of failure. Extenders/Boosters don’t guarantee a strong connection nor a particularly stable one, to say nothing of the latency issue. I had that problem with my television, wherein Alexa would tell me the device was unresponsive, but in actuality it was working just fine and it simply hadn’t given the thumbs up to coming online when Alexa gave it the go ahead.

The moral of the story is rather than try to supplement a weak router with an add-on, just take the plunge and make the investment. Some of the most tech-savvy people I know only upgrade their Wi-Fi setup when they absolutely have to because the higher-end ones are generally future-proof as a rule, or at least more future-resistant than most gadgetry.

Speaking of proof of living in the future, the return process was one of the most painless returns of anything I’ve ever gone through, almost downright celebratory. Say what you will about Amazon (I’m likely right there with you on most of it), they do go out of their way to make returns as straightforward as possible, which is truly an achievement for what is fundamentally a mail-order retail company. I opted for the drop-off option, a deal they have worked out with Kohl’s and UPS. I opted for Kohl’s as they carry Alexa-friendly stuff and often have some decent sales going on.

I walk in and as I’m walking past the front checkout lanes, one of the cashiers follows up her obligatory “Hello” with, “Do you have an Amazon return?”

It caught me off guard for a moment before I answered in the affirmative. I was then directed to follow the signs toward the back of the store and take a—

Right, not a left towards their customer service area. That caught me off guard too. I followed the signs and came to a small counter where I think some memory foam pillows used to be. By the way, after I was directed on where to go at the front of the store, the cashier immediately got on a walkie-talkie and foretold my arrival. Nice touch. I pulled up the QR code on my phone, had it scanned, and was then handed a confirmation slip with a 25% off in-store coupon. The nice lady behind the counter even mentioned a sale on band shirts, having taken notice of my Pink Floyd tee. Again, nice touch. Unfortunately, there were no sales on smart devices and the coupon expressly restricted electronics anyway, but I’ve still got to give props for the holding the hassle and rolling out the red rug. As I walked out while reading the coupon’s fine print, I thought, “I should return stuff to Amazon more often.”

The cherry on top came in a text about 30 minutes later informing me my purchase had been refunded. I was expecting a few days (as they say 4-5 hours from the time it’s received, not necessarily indicating being dropped off as such a time), but already I’m looking at what it’s going to:

This is a smart plug. Specifically, it’s the one my electric kettle is plugged into, the one I tell to start my coffee making routine in the morning. I could plug in a proper coffee maker, possibly a smart one that would negate the need for the plug, but I don’t have one. I like to change it up between a typical drip cone and a French press. Even my grinder is manual, because that’s how I roll, by dammit. Plus, my roommate prefers tea. I have a handful of these plugs with other devices plugged into them, and I’ve gotten so much mileage out of them they’re almost impossible not to recommend. They’re a little more expensive than the 3rd party plugs, but there’s no middleman to the setup and depending on when you go shopping, you can find them bundled with speakers or other devices. I only wish they also had a USB plug in addition to the main outlet so as to power on smaller, lower-power devices, especially those of the homemade/DIY variety, what’s known in the tech field as the “Internet of Things.”

Finally, if you’re still set on having a smart bulb or two or three or more, I’d like to suggest an alternative:

This is a smart switch. It replaces your normal wall switch and effectively turns any bulb into a smart bulb, just a lamp plugged into a smart plug would technically be.

Whichever virtual home and hopefully non-homicidal HAL-9000 you go with, please do remember to say please and thank you, even if all you want is the lights off or the coffee started. If nothing else, they'll remember that in the uprising.