phones – TheTimeDok

Ok, it’s technically not an apple in the most real sense of the word. God or Eve or even the devil had little influence on this fruit. We are talking about an iPhone.

Let my experience with this device be a cost-saving measure for you.

With the lockdowns and subsequent lack of leaving the house, the phone, which usually lives on my person, hardly ever left the desk.

Since it never left the desk, it also never or hardly ever left the charger.

The physics that goes along with these batteries is somewhat elusive, but batteries are designed to be used. Said another way, unlike car batteries, these batteries in your laptop, cell phone, and tablets are designed to cycle on a larger scale than your car.

They are rated in how many times they can be ‘cycled.’

On my desk laid the iPhone plugged up to a constant source of energy. Monitoring the current from the power supply to the phone, I noticed no appreciable current draw but, something was happening.

Simultaneous events occurred during February and March. The phone seemed to split apart. Something inside the phone was expanding. It could only be the battery. Knowing that these batteries can be volatile, a new phone seemed to be in order. Repairing an old phone makes little sense by the time you find a place to take it and so on.

Another thousand dollar phone later seemed to be the right approach. Trying to leave the house presented a whole new challenge. The car battery was dead.

With all the electronic ‘stuff’ in cars today, there is about a 250 ma constant draw on the battery. If you don’t drive it weekly, put a trickle charger on the battery.

Here we juxtapose the two different technologies. Lead Acid batteries are designed to give you that current with a small amount of discharge in the process of starting the engine. Once started, the alternator puts the energy consumed, back into the battery. Hence one cycle is complete.

In Texas, anything over three years is considered a win. Heat is detrimental to lead-acid batteries.

Switch gears to the phone. The Lithium Polymer battery will provide the correct voltage and current until depleted. Translated, if you puncture a phone battery while trying to remove it while still charged, it very well might combust into flames.

The battery in my older iPhone expanded much like a balloon while living on my desk. Not having taken one of these phones apart before, I felt the proper thing to do would be to recycle it and forget it. (but It still worked.)

The longer it sat there with its screen popping off, and the more time I had to think about it, google became the go-to source of information.

$22 later, I had a new battery and the tools to change it on the way to my home.

While the procedure is not for the faint of heart, if you were to follow the directions to the letter, the odds are, you too could save your phone.

The older phone still provides a platform for Zoom, music, and yes videos. The newer phone now lives on an inductive charger, which, according to the manufacturer, will not overcharge your battery.

Since the older phone is repaired and looks great, I unplug it from the charger as I use it like one usually would. Even without actual ATT service, with wifi, there are many ways to use the phone as a phone still.

The trickiest part of the procedure is removing the old battery. It is glued to the phone. This is where you could create an explosive situation if you are not super careful. One tip I would offer is, drain the battery completely before you attempt a procedure like this.

How? Turn the phone on and listen to music until it is dead.

Regarding your car, make sure the trickle charger is rated at least an amp. The trickle charger I bought from one of those box stores used a little wall wart as the supply. It did not provide sufficient current to keep the battery charged and run whatever stand-by devices were drawing minuscule amounts of energy.

I now use a zero-point charger that shuts off when the power drain falls below a few milliamps. As the devices draw enough current to trigger the charger, a cycle is developed, keeping the car ready for when you need to escape from quarantine.

I hope you find this information of some value and that you stay safe during these trying times.

-Best

Nothing says “push me” like a big red button. One of the office supply stores even created a big red button that says “EASY” on it, to advertise how they can simplify your work life.

One of the data centers that I was responsible for had such a button. It was covered with a little plastic rectangular box that said “emergency shut off” on it.

I have been in many data centers during my career. There were several that had a big red button by the door with it sole purpose to release the magnetic latch on the door, to open it.

Like any other location, security in a data center is paramount. Not only are network security firewalls and such important but physical security as well. Only those who needed access to the data center, could access it with their security card. Not even the CEO had access as he did not need it. Their entrance was logged and in fact throughout the building one could forensically track any employee’s movements as this card was necessary to gain access to just about anywhere. With the technology available today, I could design such a better system, but that is beyond the scope of this document.

One day, a vendor was visiting with a proposed solution to a problem. Like any other vendor, if access to the data center is required, they are escorted at all times by one of, if not more of my staff or me. The data center was in the middle of a retrofit and redesign while keeping the company running in parallel. (This is much like changing the tires on a race car while it is moving down the track.) On their way out of the data center, just as quickly as anything, the sales guy in front reaches up to the left of the door pops the cover open and pushes the big red button! By the time that the sound of “NO” had left my lips, there was an eerie quite in the room.

The chain of events that this action triggered, were phenomenal. Lights went off, the air handling unit went off, the Battery back-ups clicked on and for the moment; it looked as though the carefully engineered back-up power supplies were working. I should mention that the look on this guys face was priceless, and I am just about certain that he had to change his shorts afterwards. It dawned on me that no one had tested this button, and nobody knew where all of the circuit breakers were; well almost no one. As I was the one that specified the power requirements for this data center and oversaw the installation of the new transformer, I knew where the main breaker was. Within moments I had most of the power back on however; there was one legacy system that was still not on main power.

In another closet in another part of the building were still more circuits for this room. I did not have a key to this and getting building maintenance involved was time consuming as they typically think like union employees; (don’t care if the place is on fire, when it is time for a break, they take it.) Before the UPS was totally drained for that system I had gained access to that closet and found one tripped breaker.

I had inherited a mess of a data center that was put together on a shoestring budget. Not because the company could not afford to do it right, their boss was cheap beyond reason. They had cut corners at every place they could, including splicing old type 3 wires to cat 5 wires and running 16mg token ring over it. They could not understand why 5250 and 3270 traffic would constantly be garbled and why connections to the server would be dropped frequently. When I say spliced, I literally mean wires twisted together and a wad of electrical tape stuffed in the wall and or ceiling. (Another story)

It did not take me long to get that circuit changed over and documented with everything else. I also got to check off the list “test emergency shut down.”

Moral of the story; if you have a big red button, find a time to test it. Secondly make certain that the button is labeled in big white letters on a red sign etc EMERGENCY SHUT OFF!

I am a stickler for documentation, which IT personnel are loath to do. A living document should exist within each and every company that explains the ins and outs of everything, so if need be, someone else can take over. It is part of the audit process for a disaster recovery plan and is one of the deliverable s.

-Best to you and all those that you care about!

TheTimeDok

The Case of the Bloated Apple

Big Red Button or Time to Panic!