My daily surfing appetite is satisfied by dozens of sites. Some are news-oriented, others entertainment, some not so easy to categorize. Most of them have ads of one sort or another, and that makes sense. You shouldn’t expect to get all this free content without someone else paying the bills. Just as you will encounter ads on radio and TV shows — except for some premium cable channels and SiriusXM satellite radio music channels — online publishers have to pay the bills.

The traditional way is just to display banners. Some might be animated, but unless those animations are extreme, they don’t really get in your way. If the site isn’t overwhelmed with ads, it’s not hard to get at the content you want to read.

But some sites take it too far, autoplaying an audio or video presentation. It’s not just putting a Play button in front of you, but forcing the issue. Some recent browser updates, such as Safari, make it possible to silence the unwanted audio, so it’s not as bad as it might otherwise be.

These aren’t unknown sites either. I’ve seen and heard unwanted video presentations at such well-known web portals as USA Today and CNN, and you’d think their web teams would understand that customers should not be driven away. Macworld’s site also sometimes puts up a large ad when you click on an article. It’s the sort of thing where the ad will vanish after a period of time, or you can click or tap a “Skip” option of some sort. But some sites won’t let you dismiss the ads until a short period of time, usually 30 seconds, have elapsed.

Yet another offender is RealClearPolitics, a site that posts the averages of recent polls, plus a crosssection of articles from different publications. The usual scheme is to first display the site, redirect to the ad, and redirect you back to the content after 30 seconds. You still have the option of skipping the ads without a delay, but sometimes it’s done with an “X” button that isn’t always visible without scrolling around a little.

I’m sure you can provide similar war stories.

Now we accept ads to help cover our costs. I try not to make them intrusive, so I omit extreme animation or audio and video from the ad networks to which I subscribe. Sometimes I get caught flat-footed — the ad network tosses in something that is more extreme than I would like — but I do my best to keep the focus on the content.

If you do see an ad about a product or service that might interest you, I’d like you to check it out. That helps encourage the advertiser or network to renew or increase our monthly commissions.

Unfortunately, online advertising has become more difficult in recent years. The repeat offenders have simply turned off people to their presence, and thus any ad, however innocuous, is considered an annoyance. That’s why many people use ad blockers. Out of sight, out of mind, and there won’t be ad pop-ups or unwanted audio or video commercials to intrude on your privacy.

There are ad blocker services that allow a site to register with them, but it often comes at a price. That’s how the free services earn money, so if your site or advertisement is accepted, you won’t find yourself blocked. I have another word for the practice that contains six letters starting with the letter “r,” or another with nine letters starting with an “e.”

In other words, I don’t want to be put in a position where I have to pay off someone to stay in business.

On all my sites, I use anti-ad blocker plug in. It puts up a message explaining that we depend on advertising to help pay the bills, so please disable your ad blocker on my sites. Most ad blockers do have a way to selectively exclude sites, and I hope you will.

My two radio shows also have ads. But they are all placed within a defined ad block. You can fast forward through them if you like, as many do with TV shows. The network gives us a small number of ad slots in which to put our own ads, which is the sole source of direct income from the radio shows. If you don’t want to fast forward, you can also subscribe to The Tech Night Owl+ and The Paracast+ so you’ll be able to download commercial-free versions of the shows. No fast-forwarding necessary. For The Paracast+, your subscription fee also gets you some value-added extras, including an extra radio show, After The Paracast, show transcripts and other great content.

I just hope, in the desperation to force ads on visitors, the entire online advertising system isn’t damaged beyond repair. Already Google is earning lower bids for their targeted ads. I’ve also had to cut the rates to attract business, and it’s still difficult. Some sites simply put everything, beyond a few teasers or a small number of free articles, behind a pay wall. The New York Times, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal are examples. We’re not large enough to move in that direction and, besides, I do think the best web content ought to be free.

But we have to have the ads to help put food on the table, and, as some of you know, ad revenue is already insufficient.

All this for a headphone jack. First comes the claim that the iPhone 7 must be a minor update because, well, the case will look pretty much the same as the current model. Such reports are apparently based on alleged prototypes that strongly resemble the iPhone 6s.

Perhaps that’s true. There’s no way to know right now because, even if the prototypes are real, they may not represent the final production configuration. Things change, although it’s probably close enough to final production that those pictures, again if they’re genuine, ought to more closely represent the finished product.

On the other hand, the critics who insist Apple ought to just follow what Google or Samsung does are missing the point. Google has not been successful at premium smartphones, not in the least. Samsung moves far fewer Galaxy smartphones than iPhones. Samsung’s advantage is in low-end gear that earns little in the way of profits.

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Over the years, I’ve read about loads of reasons not to buy anything from Apple, or at least to be deeply concerned about what the company is doing. While there’s plenty of room for different opinions, one hopes the facts don’t change. But sometimes things become so murky that simple marketing or branding exercises can turn into some sort of major catastrophe.

As most of you know, the Macintosh OS has morphed over the years from Mac OS, to Mac OS X and, more recently, to OS X.

Starting with 10.12, also known as Sierra, it becomes macOS, which is pronounced the same, obviously, as Mac OS. The branding change is one of consistency, so it matches up with iOS, tvOS and watchOS. This was one of the less notable announcements at the recent WWDC. In a sense, the change also appears to reflect a greater emphasis for the Mac, since its OS has a product name attached to it again.

You with me so far?

Well, it appears that yet another alleged tech pundit has decided that this is a disastrous move.

But first, the pundit begins with the usual excuse to allow for foolish speculation, “I’ve always loved the Mac.”

That dodge is designed to make this particular writer’s claims bear greater weight. It is designed to make it appear as if the journey into never-never land has a valid purpose.

So we then have the claim that this oh-so-simple branding exercise, one that, as I said, is pronounced exactly the same as the classic version of the operating system, is a deep insult, at least to one person. It will, according to this pundit, “accelerate the downward spiral as a fringe hardware product.”

This is an admission that the product this person has “always loved” is still regarded as a “fringe hardware product.” What is that supposed to mean — a preference for the fringe?

Now do you know of anyone who will stop buying Macs because the operating system regained the word mac with the lower case “m”? Does that make the products less useful? Will customers suddenly freak and demand that Apple remove that dreadful word and revert to OS X, or they will never, ever, well hardly ever, buy another Mac ever again now or in the future, that they must now switch to Windows? Or Linux?

Thus begins an exercise into utter stupidity that consumes several paragraphs to explain why Apple has not only diminished the Mac in the eyes of this particular beholder, but has condemned it to failure. But if one is going to engage in faulty logic, it might help to get the facts straight, particularly the claim that “OS X has been around since 2001.” Well that’s partly true, except that, between 2001 and 2012, it was referred to as “Mac OS X.”

When it became just OS X, some suggested that Apple was actually diminishing the value of the Mac or Macintosh by removing its name from the OS. Some conspiracy theories had it that OS X would eventually merge with iOS, and this was the harbinger of doom. True there have been a few interface changes in OS X that made it function a little closer to iOS. Some apps have become available with similar or the same features for both platforms, except for the interface requirements of a touch versus a mouse/trackpad and keyboard OS.

That ought to be a good thing, and for customers invested in Apple’s ecosystem, it is, since it makes it easier to switch back and forth among devices and experience familiar environments. It’s not as extreme as what Microsoft hoped to do with Windows 10, before its mobile platform came crashing down as the result of poor sales, but it’s far from merging the two. Instead, it reflects the differences and celebrates them for the benefit of customers who want gear that’s easier to use and works predictably.

The next argument is that the iPhone, iPad, Apple TV and Apple Watch are merely gadgets. But the Mac is not a gadget and therefore shouldn’t have an OS that’s named in the same format.

The mind boggles.

To be fair, an iPhone and an iPad are mobile computers that perform many of the same functions as a Mac. The operating systems are all based on the same Unix core, but optimized for specific classes of products. But if you strip the OS and input choices, you can rightly refer to all of them as personal computers. They have processors, graphics hardware, memory and storage hardware. The rest of the electronics are obviously based on the unique features and requirements of these devices.

Through Continuity and Handoff, Apple allows its devices to share and trade functions for your convenience. I send and receive old fashioned SMS text messages on my Mac. As soon as I use the Mac to send a message, it appears on my iPhone, and messages received on my iPhone appear on my Mac. That way I’m not scurrying for my iPhone when I hear the tone to indicate one has arrived.

None of that has anything to do with the name of my Mac’s operating system, or the fact that it once again has “mac” in its name.

But there’s always someone who can change something relatively unimportant into some major slight for some fool who “always loved the Mac” but has a set of peculiar sensitivities that were rubbed the wrong way. I have another few words to offer for such behavior: Go get a life!

With different gadgets to run when I want to watch something on my VIZIO TV set, I’ve settled on a universal remote to sort things out. But not the one usually supplied by the cable or satellite provider, since they tend to be inflexible, often difficult to set up, and they don’t always include all the connection possibilities I need. They often fail on add-on audio gear, such as a sound bar.

I could go into more detail, but what’s the point? Instead, let me tell you about the one I bought five or six years ago, and how Logitech has apparently abandoned me and other customers of some of their remotes. But I’d like to cover the positives first.

So the Harmony 900 divides programming setups into activities, accessible from a tiny touchscreen. You would use one activity to watch TV with your cable or satellite box, another to add Apple TV, a third for a Blu-ray player and perhaps a forth for a gaming console. Fortunately the VIZIO, an older E-series model, has four HDMI ports, so I have all these options available without cable swapping should I ever care to add gaming gear.

While some universal remotes require manually entering arcane commands, such as a device number, Logitech has a better idea, by storing your Harmony profiles online using a fairly standard point and click interface. To its credit, Logitech has configuration profiles for loads of devices even from lesser-known manufacturers, so choosing the make and model number is usually sufficient. You can configure the remote in your browser, or with Logitech’s app. The 900 requires Logitech Harmony Remote Software for the Mac; the last version, 5.8.1, came out last year.

There has yet to be an update for El Capitan, and that’s where the trouble began.

So I’ve been known to switch TV services from time to time, usually when the 12-month or 24-month discount deal is done. In theory the lower prices vanish and you have to pay the full price. More often than not, when you threaten to leave, they find a way to connect you to a “retention” department that’s ready to distribute a handful of special offers so you can stay with them. After all, it’s rough to get customers these days. Growth among these companies has stalled, as more and more people look for ways to cut the cord.

Anyway, Cox Communications didn’t have an offer that appealed to me, but DirecTV was happy to welcome me back as a customer at a really cheap rate for one of their less-inclusive plans. But it was inclusive enough for  my needs, so I said yes. This meant that I’d have to reprogram the Harmony to support the DirecTV box.

Doing that was simple enough. It took a few minutes to change the DVR setting from Cox to DirecTV in the Logitech app. Then next step, however, was to connect the remote to a Mac or PC via a USB cable and download the update to the remote. But that’s where things went awry because I’m using OS X El Capitan.

Nothing happened! I tried a different USB cable; it uses a mini USB plug to attach to the remote. Again, nothing happened. The download process normally takes less than a minute to complete, but I haven’t updated the Harmony for a couple of years, last time I switched TV providers.

So I checked out Logitech’s support FAQ, and found nothing relevant. I was using the last released version of the software, so I checked the support boards and found a clumsy solution. Logitech, it seems, has some work to do.

You see, the Remote Software isn’t compatible with El Capitan, nine months after its release. Heaven knows what’ll happen when macOS Sierra arrives.

In passing, the software also uses a Java library for cross-platform compatibility, and requires that you have SE 6 installed. That’s a version that’s no longer distributed by Apple, so you will have to dig deep at Oracle’s site to find a copy to allow you to run certain apps that require Java for certain functions, and that includes some older versions of Adobe’s Creative Suite.

Now about that workaround, here’s what a tech person wrote at Logitech’s discussion board:

“This issue is due to a new protection feature [that] appeared in El Capitan. Basically, it blocks non-signed [kernel] extensions. Harmony is installing three [kernel] extensions to communicate with the remote, and those extensions are not signed properly; thus, they are blocked (non-loaded) by OS X.”

The fix requires rebooting your Mac in Recovery mode, by restarting and holding down Command+R until the boot process begins. You then open Terminal from the Utilities menu and run this command: csrutil disable.” That command disables the system setting that protects your Mac from those pesky non-signed extensions. You cannot do it with Terminal under normal conditions, because it just flags an error.

I restarted the Mac, and attempted to update the Harmony. This time, it successfully fed the update within about a minute. Before restoring the protective feature, I checked to confirm that the new DVR recognized the remote.  After it passed the test, I returned to Recovery mode to run csrutil enable, thus switching on the protection feature, after which I restarted the Mac.

Now the fix seems easy enough. But Logitech needs to follow Apple developer guidelines and deliver revised kernel extensions that are properly signed. While all is said and done, the software’s dependence on an older Java build ought to be fixed too. To avoid an overhaul, some app developers will simply embed Java so you don’t have to deal with finding an outdated download.

Now there were promises in the support board that Logitech planned the fix the problem, but this is an old remote. The current top-of-the-line model, the Companion, can use a Harmony Control app for iOS or Android to update the remote via its Wi-Fi connection. So maybe the Mac software will never be fixed. Perhaps they’d rather sell you a new remote.

In any case, Logitech is sending me a Companion for review. The current model also supports “Internet of Things” connections, so maybe it’s roughly equivalent to a simplified HomeKit. It also lists for $149.99. When the Harmony 900 first came out in 2009, it’s list price was $449.99. At least something’s changed for the better.