Category: Tech

Things I download on everyone’s Mac

These are direct as I can make ’em. Click on the links, and in most cases, the software will start downloading.
  1. Firefox 7
  2. Google Earth and Google Chrome
  3. Flip4Mac and Silverlight (To play Windows Media files — this is just the latest version, but I’ll try to keep it updated. The company’s download site is here.)
  4. Perian (To play everything else. Same note as for Flip4Mac; download site here.)
  5. OpenOffice (direct link to download) – I want to encourage everyone to start thinking about editing docs online, but if you need an Office suite, this is as good as Microsoft’s.
  6. SMARTreporter – get notified if one of your hard drives is going to fail. Of course, even if it does, you’re fine, because you’re backing up every day, right? (Note: I don’t always do this one any longer.)
I also have a list of my favorite OS X tweaks here.

My favorite tech support instructions to date

To reset the serial number prompt – you will see a picture of the Mona Lisa. Click on the white dots in the top right and left hand corners a bunch of times. You will not see anything happen. Close and then re-open. That should do it.

He called it their “Da Vinci Code.”

Things that bug us

I’m compiling a list of junk that Erick and I run across that make us crazy. In some particular order, and warning: profanity follows…

  1. Western Digital MyBooks
  2. Maxtor drives
  3. Backup software not backing up
  4. Backup software not backing up because your stupid MyBook keeps unmounting itself
  5. Best Buy’s crappy prices and inventory
  6. That Best Buy sucks so bad we actually miss CompUSA
  7. Circuit City
  8. Altex
  9. The disturbing lack of a Fry’s Electronics store in San Antonio
  10. Yahoo not offering IMAP access to mail clients besides the iPhone
  11. Configuring email on a Blackberry
  12. Dell printers
  13. Gas prices
  14. Ill-informed AppleCare reps
  15. Tech-support phone monkeys who don’t listen, who assume they’re dealing with ignoramuses, and who keep insisting that you need to archive and install
  16. No CalDAV support on iPhone
  17. DSL
  18. Best Buy’s upping the price on DSL modems — Fuckers!
  19. Having to buy a modem at Best Buy because the know-nothing, knee-biting AT&T rep installed a crappy 2Wire wireless router even though the client had a router sitting right there.
  20. AT&T
  21. 2Wire
  22. AT&T’s damn DSL setup CD, which a client unsuspectingly inserted in their server, only to have it change the server’s network settings and screw up their whole operation.
  23. Lack of copy-paste on the iPhone
  24. Black iPhones shipping with white accessories
  25. Entourage (though admittedly less so these days, but don’t tell Microsoft I said so)
  26. Windows Windows Windows
  27. Windows Me
  28. Windows Vista
  29. Windows XP
  30. Windows 2000
  31. Microsoft Small Business Server
  32. Mac OS X Server (yeah, it’s on the list of Things We Dig, too)
  33. Printer/scanner manufacturers with poor driver rollouts for OS X
  34. Stupid fucking Jar Jar (I just had to)
To be continued…

My iPhone 2.0 Saga, Part III: Good news/bad news

I started getting this really annoying error in iTunes, when trying to check for updates in the App Store:

“We could not complete your iTunes Store request.
An unknown error occurred (5002).

There was an error in the iTunes Store. Please try again later.”

I had resolved this once in the past by deleting and redownloading apps, but that didn’t work this time. So, since the 2.1 update seemed to go so well with just a straight “Update”, I thought I’d see if the iPhone backup process really was fixed. I didn’t mention in Parts I or II that the 2.0 backup-and-restore system, besides taking an obnoxiously long time, also failed to restore all the preferences to the phone, thus requiring at least a partial reconfiguration of my device.

After ensuring that my backups were turned on, and that the MobileSync folder had a recent backup (only 7.9MB!), your intrepid correspondent hit the Restore button in iTunes. And…

…It worked! The restore process itself was pretty quick, though It took a while to reïnstall all the apps and the music and the photos and the podcasts, but that’s due to my own particular digital gluttony. All my app preferences and other configs and address book and SMS messages and everything came back. All I had to do was reörganize the apps on the Springboard (they installed alphabetically, which is understandable, though I still want Apple to make that easy).

But…

The stupid iTunes error remains. Last time, I tried changing my iTS password and reëntering my credit card info, according to suggestions in the Apple discussions, but that didn’t work, and I really don’t think that’s a reasonable fix, since Apple doesn’t let you use the same password that you’ve used in the last year.

I’m going to do further research on that, but the successful restore was worth an immediate post. 

P.S. I like umlauts.

Old G4 with processor upgrade is crashing

I have a G4 running 10.4.  I upgraded the processor last year.  It’s now panicking often. Blue screens. Freezes. Fun, fun. I am sure the original processor is somewhere, nearby, packed in a moving box.
The only thing I really want to save on that tower is, predictably, my iTunes library which is on a 2nd hard drive which is mounted separately from the original disk.

I suspect a new Mac will be purchased very soon. I have an original Drobo, but have yet to purchase drives for it.

Allow the yelling about backing up to commence.

I’m a bit biased here, as I have always distrusted processor upgrades. They just seemed more trouble and expense than benefit. Now with the Intel machines, I figure they’re pretty much irrelevant.

Your G4 may be salvageable, but I really do think you need a new Mac. Bite that bullet, bubba. And to get your data off the G4, if it won’t boot to FireWire target disk mode by booting while holding down the “T” key, you can buy a Firewire enclosure or even better, a data cable such as this one, for the internal hard drives from which you need to rescue data.

Excellent work buying that Drobo. Now about those drives…

And then… BAAAAAAACCKK UPPPPPPPP!!!!

No calendar events on the iPhone

I added my calenders from the iPhone to my iCal and turned off MobileMe calendars on my phone and synched. After waiting 15 minutes for it to sync, I ended up with no calendar events on my phone. What now? Should I restore?

In iTunes > iPhone > Info tab, scroll to the bottom and check on “Calendars” under “Replace information on this phone”. Hit Apply, and let me know what happens.

FileMaker developers in San Antonio

I have heard of Alamark as a catalog publisher, but I didn’t know they did custom FileMaker databases. When asked about custom database solutions, I have preferred to recommend pre-done packages, since hiring an independent developer can lead to having a great, plush database … that’s hard to get consistent support for. But I’ve always wanted to know about a local FileMaker pro. After a brief chat with the folks at Alamark, I’ve learned that they have a staff of developers, and they offer a host of support options, including managed services.
Good to know!

Disclosure: Alamark originally called me about my services, and there’s a good chance we will have the opportunity to work together in the future.

Yes Music

This is so cool, I just had to put up a quickie: yes.com
This site collects the playlists from most terrestrial radio stations in the US, and lets you see information about what songs they play, and most likely what song is playing right now! So if you hear the radio, if you can identify the station, you don’t have to try to guess the song anymore.

Now, that is fantastic, as much so as two of the coolest apps written for the iPhone: Shazam and Midomi. These apps can listen to a piece of music — recorded, sung, hummed, or mangled — and tell you what it is. Then they’ll point you to YouTube videos of that track, or let you buy it in iTunes. Stellar!

My iPhone 2.0 Saga, Part II: Fix apps crashing

If all of your third-party App Store apps are crashing, and maybe your phone’s music library is no longer accessible, my very helpful AppleCare technician recommended the following procedure.

  1. Delete all the apps from the phone.
  2. Go into ~/Music/iTunes/Mobile Applications, select all, and copy/paste the list of files into your favorite notetaker, so you can remember all the bloody apps in your Library. I have 99.
  3. Delete all the apps from iTunes, moving files to the Trash.
  4. REDOWNLOAD every single app from the App Store (the Store will let you redownload paid apps without recharging you).
  5. Re-sync the iPhone, perhaps being more particular about which apps you actually keep on the phone.
  6. Reconfigure all your apps, and start your games from scratch. Lovely.

This worked. What a pain, but it worked. So it appears that some application somehow got corrupted, and it screwed up the whole phone. The really annoying part is that, because of Apple’s very closed system, you can’t tell which is the offending app.

Now, only two days ago, after two great weeks of fully stable iPhone performance, the damn thing started crashing again. This time, however, I knew which certain few applications I had purchased recently, and I was able to redownload and reinstall just those, and that did the trick. At least so far.

I just can’t believe that, for all of its “walled-garden” approach, Apple couldn’t prevent one bad… er… app-le, from… umm… spoiling… no, I better not.

Note: I have found, though all of these tribulations, that it is sometimes efficacious to re-install your iPhone applications in groups, according to category. Otherwise, they go in alphabetically, which has its own appeal, but can get tedious if you’re slogging through a long list. I would love for Apple to introduce some kind of quick organizational tool for apps in iTunes that would let you choose the order for apps to appear on the home screen. Ferpetessake, they have categories built in to the App Store! Sheesh.