MacOS Catalina Upgrade Issue Late 2015 iMac

I recently purchased a late 2015 iMac and promptly replaced the hybrid drive with a 2TB SSD from OWC (Other World Computing). My next upgrade was bumping RAM up from 32GB to 64GB.

After upgrading memory and swapping out with OWC a 2nd time I still had some random issues with iMac shutting down and restarting. I did the usual stuff, I ran hardware test and then a tool called Rember to test memory further. Everything tested out positively. No detected hardware issues, memory stress test checked OK…but the persistent issue of random shut down / restart had me ready to pull out some hair out.

I thought running the MacOS Catalina upgrade might help so I downloaded via “About this Mac”, but I kept getting a message that the file was corrupted. I downloaded from Apple and got some message. On the third attempt, I downloaded the file to an external drive thinking my SSD might be possible cause.

After scratching my head a few times I decided to remove the upgraded 64GB memory and reinstall the factory 32GB RAM.

SURPRISE!!! I re-downloaded Catalina upgrade through software update tool under apple icon / About this Mac and I was able to complete the upgrade. I did however run into a few issues.

NOTE: If you use wireless keyboard mouse, you may need to reset your PRAM. Because of this I could not connect any wireless devices to complete Catalina OS install. I found an old Apple keyboard with cable and ran to BestBuy to purchase an $8 corded mouse to finish the install / setup.

Once completed, I was able to reset PRAM and activate bluetooth on my iMac.

The interesting thing for me in this process is that the memory created some sort of issue that caused a corruption error when trying to do the upgrade and also the random shut-down / restart issue. I have not had time to circle back around on that issue.

In closing, I would make sure you are not doing any upgrades and trying to install Catalina OS at same time. Run the update first and then work through any potential hardware upgrade issues as they come up. I’m going to call OWC and see if they have any insight on this issue and will follow up here with another post.

Youtube Releases New Home Page With New Look For Desktop and Mobile

From Youtube:

We’re excited to bring you the new YouTube homepage: an updated design with new features that start rolling out today across your desktop and tablet devices. You can expect to see a redesigned layout, higher resolution previews, an “add to queue” feature, and more – check out the full update on our blog and the summary below!
  • More easily find the next great video to watch: this new look includes longer video titles, bigger thumbnails, and higher resolution previews, so you can see more information about each video at a glance. As part of the new design, you’ll notice a full page grid of suggested videos rather than rows of suggested videos by category. There will still be some horizontal sections for breaking news, music mixes and more.

  • Recognize your favorite creators with channel icons: when browsing on Home, you’ll now see channel icons below each video, making it easier to recognize your favorite creators and the content you love. For creators – we hope this helps you get more visibility for your channel on the Homepage!
  • Customize what to watch next with your queue: if you’re looking for a way to queue up the next video without interrupting what you’re currently watching, try out add to queue on desktop. You’ll see the queue button on every video thumbnail, or you can select “add to queue” from the three-dot menu (detailed instructions here). Note that your queue is temporary, so it won’t save after you’ve closed your browser. If you want to save videos to watch at a later time, you can still use the Watch Later playlist.

  • Remove suggestions from channels you don’t want to watch: in fewer steps, you can tell YouTube to stop suggesting videos from a particular channel. Just tap the three-dot menu next to a video, then “Don’t recommend channel”. After that, you should no longer see video suggestions from that channel.

  • Coming soon – select topics to refine your Homepage and Up Next videos: earlier this year, we added a new feature to the YouTube Android app that lets you select your favorite topics and customize your Home feed with related videos. We’ll be releasing it on desktop and tablets soon!

https://support.google.com/youtube/thread/18132714

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Search lost IS (budget) column Google Removed

Search lost IS (budget) column

Did Google Adwords remove Search lost IS (budget) column?

Search lost IS (budget) column
Search lost IS (budget) column

One of the key columns of data I look at when reviewing performance and the adgroup level. While checking data for clients I noticed this column was gone. After going into “modify columns” I noticed the search lost IS budget column is no longer an option.

If Adwords has removed this information it’s yet another blow to advertisers that want as much data as possible when analyzing ad performance.

Is Facebook Advertising Worth It?

Is Facebook advertising worth it in 2018?

While Facebook ads may work for some small businesses and enterprises, I’m not sure that Facebook is the right platform for business that want to scale and potentially run hundreds of campaigns.

I’m currently working with a company that spent over $1 million dollars in 2017 on Facebooks ads and we cannot get a live person on the phone.

With Facebook recently dropping some of their third party demographics data they paused hundreds of campaigns on my client’s account with no explanation on which specific parts of an ad were affected. We had to manually go through all of the ads that were paused to figure out what needed to be fixed or corrected.

As I worked with my VA to fix ads and get them turned back on we noticed that some of the ads were turning off / pausing again. After some investigation and visiting Facebook’s advertiser forum this seems to be an ongoing issue that has not been adequately addressed. While there are many posts with users sharing the same issue, Facebook’s primary response is that there must be other users that have access to your account pausing ads.

You would think that any company that has spent a million dollars on ads would be able to get someone on the phone to help you spend another two million dollars, that’s not the case. Apparently, Facebook is making so much money on ad revenue that unless you are spending well north of a million bucks you are left to figure out major issues by surfing the forums.

Google had this same approach back in the day, but at least Google can provide a tiered service; The more money you spend with them, the more help you can get to grow your advertising.

What’s an advertiser to do?

As of a couple of days ago I turned off all Facebook ads and will continue to migrate ad budgets over to Google Adwords. Once we can get issues resolved even if it’s via chat with an agent, we’ll consider ramping up Facebook ads.

What are your thoughts? How have recent updates / changes to Facebook’s advertiser platform affected your ads?

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