Amos Repairs

For the Mac fans - we officially sell new Macbooks now. As with new PC computers, we'll help you choose the right machine for you and transfer your data and apps from your old computer so you're ready to go in no time. Give me a call or write a private message to get started.

One particular thing that's quite bothering me in professionals is dishonesty. I've had a recent case where a client brought over a Macbook that would not boot into the operating system. What I found in checkup was really disturbing.

Turns out that this macbook had a prior repair in another shop. That shop installed a standard SSD drive into this Macbook. Normally this would not work since Macbooks use non-standard SSD drives and non-standard SSD ports, however that shop used an adapter to install the standard SSD into this computer. The adapter caused the SSD to sit higher off the motherboard, and because of that the SSD had been in direct contact with the bottom lid of the computer. So essentially any mechanical shock to the bottom lid had a potential to impact the SSD. Unsurprisingly, I found the SSD drive in that computer to be dead, along with the data that belonged to the customer and was absolutely critical to her.

That is not the end of the story, though, as in addition to the dead SSD, the computer turned out to be firmware-locked and refused to boot into anything else other than the same [dead] SSD. That rendered the computer absolutely useless until and unless the lock was removed. Since the client had absolutely no idea about the firmware lock, and since there is no way to install a new SSD and operating system on a firmware-locked device, the lock had been almost certainly put in place by that same shop, without the client's permission or knowledge.
It is possible to remove the firmware lock, however that requires either going through a complex process with Apple, or modifying the firmware - which only a few professionals can do. Luckily, I could help with that.

Now while installing a standard SSD drive into a Macbook using an adapter could be attributed to incompetence, locking the machine firmware has no other explanation rather than pure dishonesty or malice. I must say that this is not the first horror story I've seen coming from that same specific shop. I'm not disclosing its name and where it is located, but be careful with who you trust to care for your machine. While most of the people who work in independent repair are just as honest as anybody else, there are some rotten apples out there.

If the person who did this is reading this text: you erode the trust people have in independent repair. One day, one of your victims will sue you out of business.

Latest news from the technical battlefield: deadly automatic updates.

How it goes: the computer was great, and then one beautiful morning it won't turn on. That's it - no other symptoms. It didn't fall down, nobody ever spilled anything on it, all the hardware is fine. The problem: BIOS corruption.

In a few words, BIOS is a low-level program that lives on a special chip on the motherboard and basically manages the hardware. It is required for the computer to function, and even to power on.

What's new: as a normal part of automatic updates in Windows 10, Microsoft pushes BIOS updates now. I can not tell exactly when they started to do that but judging by the number of incoming computers with corrupted BIOS, that policy is fairly recent, as in the past year (Apple has been doing this for a few years already).

There is a reason for these updates. As any program, BIOS has bugs. As time passes, some of those bugs get discovered, and sometimes they can be exploited to gain unsanctioned access to the computer (aka they pose a security threat). Since users almost never update BIOS by themselves, it is logical for Microsoft to step in.

However, BIOS updates are also inherently dangerous as if something goes wrong, the system instantly becomes "bricked", meaning completely and utterly dead. If that happens, in most cases there is no easy way to bring it back to life. Most computer repair shops will diagnose a motherboard problem and recommend to buy a new computer. Some shops will be able to dig deeper and diagnose BIOS corruption. Then selected few techs (including ourselves) have the equipment and the know-how to pull out the chip, extract the binary data from it, fix it, flash it back into the chip, then put the chip back.

How to prevent the problem to begin with? Be aware that your computer may decide to update BIOS as a part of normal software updates. Usually it will say "updating firmware" (which is another word for BIOS) and then you'll normally see some text with a progress bar, similar to the attached picture. If that happens - don't panic! And don't touch anything. Don't connect or remove the charger. Don't connect or remove any devices. And especially - don't turn off the computer. Just let it do its thing. Be aware that in some cases, the update takes a few steps with a couple of restarts in between. Don't touch anything until your system loads again and you see the desktop or the login screen. It is very rare for BIOS update to go wrong, unless the human behind the screen actively interrupts the process. But if that happens - get in touch, chances are we can fix it!

P.s. for proud owners of Macbooks: this happens there, too, with the difference that in Macbooks, this is sometimes actually fatal and impossible to recover because of some special Macbook features designed to prevent tampering and, by extension, repair.

Yay! Migrated my main database server to a different architecture (Sparky Linux 32-bit -> Debian 64-bit). Took 5 hours but hey - all the data is there and everything works!

Here's a nice guide that helped me a lot:

How To Migrate Linux Servers Part 1 - System Preparation | DigitalOcean There are many different considerations you should make when migrating from one system to another. In this guide, we will discuss how to prepare your source and target systems for a migration. This will include getting your two machines to communicate

Why my Premiere or AfterEffects project is so slow and what to do about this?

A question asked by a lot of our clients who work in video editing.

I am an expert on computers, not video editing, but I had to troubleshoot performance issues with video editing software enough times to be able to provide some tips that you may find helpful.

First, these are the major things you need to keep in mind when optimizing your system or project (a few practical tips in the end of this post).

Basically, performance in video editing is affected by 4 major factors:

1) The hardware: CPU speed, RAM capacity, storage speed and configuration, and (to some degree) the GPU speed

2) The software configuration: it is important to configure the application to use the available hardware in the most efficient way. Such configuration is available in your application's preferences. Among the important things are cache, memory and graphics settings. Also per-project settings, such as preview resolution, may have a major effect on performance.

3) The project: Source video files resolution and length, the complexity of the composition, the number and type of effects used in your composition.

4) The workflow: this is essentially how skillful you are at using the available hardware resources to your benefit. A few more words about this: video editing can be extremely resource-heavy, and so it is very easy to completely overload the most powerful workstation with just a few simple changes to your project, such as adding effects. Understanding what resources are available, how they are utilized in your project, and how to free up resources in situation of shortage is not optional - this is a must if you want to work efficiently, especially if you are a professional who does this for a living. No hardware upgrades will save you if you don't know how to optimize your workflow.

It is impossible to fully cover this topic in one short post but luckily, there is enough information out there that can help you. A good place to start are official Adobe guides. I gathered a few below.

https://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/using/improve-performance.html

https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/using/setting-system.html
https://helpx.adobe.com/content/dam/help/attachments/Adobe_Hardware_Performance_White_Paper.pdf

https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/using/preferences.html

https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/how-to/latest-tips-quick-video-editing.html

https://forums.adobe.com/thread/2122549

The short list of tips:

One most important tip I can offer: use the Task Manager (on Windows) to monitor resources utilization! The Task Manager on Windows 8/8.1/10 is actually a great tool for that since it is capable of monitoring the load on your storage devices, as well as the CPU, Memory, and even GPU (recent Windows 10 versions only). On a Mac, the Activity Monitor provides a somewhat similar functionality, though alas it is not as good and intuitive and misses a few important features.

- General 1: Look up hardware requirements and recommendations for your version of Premiere and After Effects. Just google this. That will give you a general idea what are the minimal requirements and where your hardware is relatively to that.

- General 2: You are not the only video editor in the world. There is a huge community of people who work in the field. If you have any problem, chances are thousands of others have encountered it before you, and some of them have found and shared the solution. Google is your friend, 'nough said. Some problems are difficult to troubleshoot, or are caused by hardware or operating system malfunction - there you can always consult with someone who solves computer problems for a living - for example, with us.

- Storage 1: Make sure to use as few mechanical drives as possible in your workflow. Ideally, you would have 3 internal SSD drives: A large one for your projects, a fairly large one for the operating system and applications, and a small one for Adobe cache. Make sure you always have at least 20% free space on all your drives!

- Storage 2: Check where your Adobe application stores its cache! This matters a lot. If cache is stored on a slow drive, everything will be slow! Same goes for the location of your source files.

- CPU: if your projects put a way-too-high load on the CPU in your machine, either upgrade the CPU, or minimize the number of effects you are using. Easiest way to go: as soon as you are satisfied with an effect, render it.

- RAM: if you don't have enough RAM for your project, your options are: add more RAM, reduce the number of effects, reduce the preview resolution.

- For laptops: first of all, if you are a professional video editor, laptop will likely be unable to provide satisfactory performance for your job. However if you really have no choice, try to follow these rules: work when the computer is connected to the charger; close as many applications as possible before starting your work; if your laptop has a dedicated GPU, make sure that Premiere or After Effects are configured to use it and not the low-power Intel GPU; make sure your power scheme is not set to "Power Saving"

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