I know this article is a personal indulgence of mine, where I get to vent about some simple, everyday tech annoyances. But on a recent monitoring of various articles' web statistics, I noticed that the previous installment of 5 Gripes somehow was a big hit.

Was that a freak occurrence? Or does everybody like it when I'm annoyed? Or do you relate to these disappointments?

It doesn't matter. I'm going to take that slight spike in readership as a mandate to write more of these, whether you're ready for them or not.


Smart Homes Never Felt So Dumb - Re-Connecting Alexa And Sonos

God forbid you have to do a hard reset of a couple of your smart home devices. Some of you may not want to invite a surveillance unit into your house, but I'm long past giving myself over to our tech overlords. Resistance is futile.

That said, when Sonos and Alexa work together, there's no pieces of tech hardware I love more. With a Sonos speaker in several rooms working with Amazon Alexa and smart plugs, you feel like you have control over your environment. And hook up your Spotify app to Sonos, and you're golden. Whenever you want to hear any song, know what time the baseball game starts that night, or find out what temperature to cook a lasagna.

But recently, I had to reboot my Sonos speaker and spent what felt like the better part of the weekend getting one of the most popular home audio systems to talk to one of the most popular smart home hubs. It was a seemingly endless loop of mistaken troubleshooting screens and dead ends.

One Possible Solution For You: For starters, update both apps, take a deep breath, and hope for the best.


Facebook Is So Mission Critical It Needs To Be Up To The Minute

I try not to do much on Facebook. But sometimes in life, there's some dumb unavoidable reason to be on Facebook. Fine.

Almost every time that I am there, it seems like I need to update the app. Most apps will give you a grace period and urge you to update, but not force you into it. Not Facebook. You've got to take the time to reload and wait right away.

And guess what: Facebook is always monkeying around with key features and often ruining previously functioning features. Thanks to FB's aggressive update policy, you can have those features ruined for you immediately.

One Possible Solution For You: Use the browser version instead of the app. Not only do you not have to update, but the Facebook browser has far better privacy. I mean, if you think that the good people at Facebook are trying to leverage your data.



Dropbox Pushed Me Away For Good

Cloud storage services used to be a huge concern. All sorts of companies like Mozy and MSN Live Folders were flourishing just by putting your files in the pre-"cloud" cloud. Dropbox became an early power in sharing your files securely with colleagues.

In my music life, cloud file sharing was important early, and in some of those circles Dropbox was an unofficial standard. They started cheap. But once OneDrive and Google Drive entered the scene, Dropbox pivoted-reducing storage on lower tiers while raising prices.

The other day, a friend shared files with me on Dropbox. I couldn't view them until I renewed my account-a year-long subscription, after being off for a few years. Why? Just because he shared them. I've also had poor experiences with their customer service. I'm glad that Google Drive is destroying these guys.

One Possible Solution For You: Use Microsoft OneDrive, iCloud from Apple or Google Drive and run away from Dropbox as fast as you can. Those other services integrate better and give you more storage for less money. All of them.


Quora Is Creepy

First off, Quora has somehow mastered SEO early and deeply. They have been the first answer on so many useful Google queries. And guess what? They've done it by making their content actually awful. They perfected burying the very definitive and definable answer to a question only after presenting a scrollfest of useless information. Want to find the amount of time to boil rice? Just read through 15 paragraphs on the history of edible starches and then they'll tell you.

But the more objectionable or creepy part is what happens after you've looked something up on Quora. Read one specific thing there and the subject follows you on the web. They signal ad networks more than anybody else.

Say what you will about the perils of A.I. but at least they're changing the nature of SEO and Quora can die a long, slow painful death.

Try looking up a question on Quora about scuba diving and start paying attention to how often you're getting spammed or having unwanted ads about diving suits or snorkels mysteriously popping up on your next site or app visits at other sites.

One Possible Solution For You: As best you can, just don't go there. Sometimes Google would funnel you there anyway. But don't do it if you can avoid it. This is already lessening as a problem because Google is giving more answers immediately instead of pointing you towards a top result.



2-Factor Exhaustion

I just can't take it anymore. Somehow, sites that I visit all the time need to be revalidated - and usually at moments when I’m in a particular hurry. Worse yet, this level of hell can get multiplied by your saved login expiring, and you might need to authenticate it at Google, which itself also then needs you to revalidate you; so you're in an Inception-level nightmare. Bonus hassle points if you're validating at Facebook and you need to use their authenticator app.

Guess why you went through all of this hassle? It's usually not for something mission-critical like your banking app which we understand needs to be quite secure. Usually, when I'm jumping through 2-factor hoops it's for something unimportant like Words With Friends or CarbManager. How could you ever recover if those logins of yours got hacked?!

One Possible Solution For You: For starters, click "Remember this device" whenever available for something innocuous - even though a lot of sites just won't remember you at all. But using a password manager app for logins is not only a little less painful but also more secure.