Category Archives: Technology

Shared Google calendar won’t sync to iPhone

This took me forever to figure out. My wife shared a google calendar and I could see it in my Gmail account, but I could not view it on my iPhone. I had my wife share and unshare and re-share the calendar. On the iPhone tried going to Settings > Calendar > Accounts > Other and adding a “Subscribed calendar” and CalDAV Account using the URL from the email, but I keep getting an “Can’t connect using SSL” error. When I hit continue I’d get a “Unable to verify account information” error.

The solution was go to to this URL, https://calendar.google.com/calendar/u/0/syncselect and put a check-mark in the calendars that I wanted to show up on my iPhone. I killed and restarted the two calendar apps on my phone and the shared calendars showed up. This will probably also work if it’s your own Google calendar.

Outlook hangs on loading profile

This is a Windows 10 pro workstations with Outlook 2016

This was a frustrating and time consuming problem. Outlook connected to a cloud exchange service through Intermedia. What I tried to fix the issue.

Disabled graphics hardware acceleration (this worked for a few days)
Checked and disabled the Norton spam plugin
Disabled any non essential Outlook plugins
Started Outlook in safe mode
Check the firewall settings
Added a line to the Windows hosts file for the auto-discover exchange server
Disabled and enabled cached exchange mode (left it on cached)
Deleted and re-created the profile
Restored exchange to default settings
Re-created exchange accounts in Outlook
Completely uninstalled Microsoft Office and re-installed

A trick to get Outlook to open faster

Disable the internet, or block Outlook from accessing the internet with the firewall, then open Outlook.

What finally fixed the problem

Disabled ipv6 in network settings
Set static DNS to 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 (googles name servers)

The start time is around 30 seconds compared to 5 minutes

For the web spiders: SOLVED, solution, fixed, resolved

Cisco the worst pre-sale “support” I’ve ever had

We needed to replace our aging small business router.

kr12120-600x400

I called pre-sales support to get information on a router we wanted. I told them I had a pre-sales technical question. I wanted to know if the new router had this functionality the old one had. They said I could be connected to someone, but they needed information first. Name,  business name and email. They also wanted to know, when I would be making this purchase, how much I would be purchasing and what my future purchases were going to be. I provided this information and I was told it would be between 3-5 days to get a call back from someone that could help.

For reference, four years earlier when I originally bought the equipment I was able to speak to someone that had a technical background right away and it was very helpful and reassuring.

DSC_0246
Three days pass and I get a call from Cisco, I’m excited, because we need to make this purchase. It’s the same woman, she wants my business address. I was hesitant to provide this because I have a home office, but I provided it. I confirmed that my information would not be given or sold to a 3rd party.

Four days pass, I realize that I don’t have a reference number, so if I have to call back I couldn’t reference my earlier call. I decide to call on the fourth day to see if I’m still in the waiting queue to get a call back. I bounced around in the phone system and finally got someone. I gave them my information, but they had a hard time finding my records. Finally they found it and said i was still in the queue for a call and that he wanted to help me.calvin-reading-writing-confused

I asked about protocols and features of a couple different routers. Not being technical he looked at the same spec pages and read me the same information I had access to. We settled on one that seemed to have everything I needed. He also said that we should still confirm this with someone technical and they he would expedite my call to next day.

I waited a day and finally without getting a call back and not wanting to call Cisco for a third time made the purchase. Very shortly after receiving the router I realized it wasn’t going to suit our needs. I had been given bad information. In frustration I started the search again. This time I decided to try Cisco’s chat support.

frustration2

I was connected almost immediately. They seemed pleasant and asked how they could help. I distilled my question down to two short sentences. They said that they could get me an answer. I was thrilled. However, first I had to give them some information. Company name, and email. I provided this and they made it seem like I was finally going to get an answer. They came back to the chat after a short period and told me first they had to get more information before we could proceed. When I was I going to make this purchase. How many units I needed. What equipment in the future will I need to be purchasing. I’m fuming mad at this point. I told them I only need one router to replace our existing one. I explained that I had gone through this before, gave all my information answered all their questions and never got a call back or any answers after going through this exact process. That’s when I was disconnected from chat.

Even writing this now I’m still pissed about this. I still have to send back this unit and will incur shipping costs. I’ll never, ever attempt to buy anything from Cisco again after this experience. I will not recommend it and I will make every attempt to purchase equipment from any other company other then Cisco.