Tag: ipod

INVITATION to J2 Labs II: iPhone/iPod Power

Put your iPhone or iPod touch on steroids!

Find out how Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch can make you more productive, educate you, entertain you, and even keep you healthy!

You bought the coolest device on the planet, and you already love its visual voicemail, and how breezily it keeps in touch by email and text.

But you’ve heard about this world of great apps you can get through iTunes, but you haven’t wanted to invest the time and money to figure out which apps will really work out.

Well, we at J2 have done all of that searching and mousing and clicking for you! We’ll show you how to keep an easy task and shopping lists, shop smarter, find a good meal, and keep up with the world.

Luca Enoteca has wifi, so bring your laptops; if you don’t use a laptop, you can watch our screen on a projector.

Big thanks to everyone who came down for J2 Lab I. We had a great time, and we’re very excited and grateful to have plans to keep it going!

J2 Lab II:
iPhone/iPod Power
November 5, 2008
Noon – 2pm

Luca Enoteca
401 S Alamo St
San Antonio, TX 78205
(map)

$45/person includes a delicious lunch.

MENU: TBA

Course One:

Arugula Salad:Bluebonnet Farms arugula radicchio, Cabrales blue cheese, candied pistachios, pecorino romano & balsamic vinaigrette

Course Two, choice of:

Farfalle Alfredo – farfalle pasta, grilled chicken, sun-dried tomatoes in parmesan cream

Chicken – Buddy’s natural chicken breast, parmigiano, grilled asparagus, sun-dried tomato pesto

Crudo panini – sliced proscuitto de parma, capicola, Genoa salami, green olive tapenade, provolone & horseradish aioli

Course Three:

Choice of tiramisu ormixed-berry sorbetto

Includes your choice of tea, coffee, or soft drink

Complimentary valet parking — pull on up to the driveway.

Click here to send an RSVP email to reserve your place.

Future J2 Lab sessions will cover:

  • Mac Mastery
    Mark your calendar! Saturday, November 15, 1pm-3pm
    We’re going to show what every Mac user should know.
  • Mommy, what’s a social network?
    Kids today, with their Facebook and their Plaxo and their hula hoops… Let’s explore what social networks are, and how they’re not just for breakfast anymore.
  • Ooh, Pretty!
    
Use Apple’s iWork to put some snazz in your communications.

Check our calendar at j2mac.com for upcoming events!

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.

iPhone 2.1: so far, so good

I haven’t gotten a chance to post my iPhone saga. Gonna do that next, but right here I just want to record that I was able to run the plain ol’ software update from within iTunes, and it went smooth as silk. So far, the phone is behaving, and backups in iTunes do happen a lot faster, as promised, so this post should be less relevant from here on out.
I haven’t put battery life to the full test. Here’s hoping…!

Disable backups to speed iPhone/iPod touch syncing

Anyone who has iPhone 2.0 software is faced with the gi-normously long backups that iTunes performs almost every time the phone is plugged in. I’m grateful for the idea, of course; I spend a lot of time customizing my phone, and I would like all my settings, and logins, and game levels, and data backed up. Problem is, Apple’s implementation is terrible. Here’s the Ars Technica article about the issue, but in a nutshell:
  • The backups can take anywhere from 30 minutes to 4 hours.
  • The backups are not “incremental,” i.e. they backup all the data on the phone.
  • If someone calls you, the backup is interrupted.
  • Whenever the backup is cancelled or interrupted — when, y’know, have to use the phone — that backup data set is corrupted.
So here’s a solution. I recommend reading the whole post.

I have several (more than 30) applications installed in my iPhone 2.0 (some of them are over 10MB). I’ve been a bit disappointed with the oh-so-slow syncs in iTunes due to the required backup process. Searching a bit, I found that I could disable the backups by setting a hidden iTunes preference. Quit iTunes, open Terminal, and enter this command:

defaults write com.apple.itunes DeviceBackupsDisabled -bool YES

From the comments:

Also check out the free Backup Disabler, which is probably just a GUI for this hint.

UPDATE: iPhone firmware 2.0.1 dramatically sped up my backups! Yaaaaaaaay! We’ll see if it fixes the other stuff. In brief testing, the phone feels less crashy.

UPDATE: The backups got slower again after I started accumulating a lot of third-party data on the phone again.

UPDATE: iPhone firmware 2.1 is waaaaaaaaaaay faster on backups, and on installing apps.

Original iPhone successfully transformed into iPod touch

I didn't have to jailbreak it, or wipe it, or anything. I just popped out the SIM card (using the ultra-modern, paper clip-emulating Jonathan Ive-designed "extraction tool" supplied with my iPhone 3G), and I've got an iPod touch to give my daughter (and a home remote, and perhaps necessary as a spare lest my 3G suffer a mishap). Freakin' awesome!

iPhone Friday: Epic clusterf**k + happy ending

This from the NY Times:
This from “Sluggo”:
AT&T sucks… so does Apple for forcing them on us, very un-Apple-like behavior if you ask me.

Yeah, they do suck. I’m nonplussed at how badly today has gone. I mean, I’m comfortable and happy sitting at a restaurant with wifi, but that’s blissful ignorance, ‘cos I can’t receive any phone calls and don’t know who might be trying to get ahold of me. The grilled salmon at Luca is helping, too.

I don’t guess Apple had much choice but AT&T. Anyone who pays attention to the mobile communications market, and I mean worldwide, knows that a manufacturer has to choose a partner provider, or they can’t get a deal anywhere. It’s like the guy with the greased hair at the high school dance trying to put his hand on every sophomore girl’s ass, and pretty quick he’s got no one to dance with.
It’s also important to remember that, according to reports, Apple did offer the iPhone deal to Verizon, who said that Apple drove too hard a bargain. I know, you’re shocked. So, I’m gonna posit that Verizon is the second best provider in the States to AT&T. Better coverage, slightly more fascistic, about the same level of customer service. Sprint sucks rhino, and T-Mobile rates high in customer support, and terrible in connectivity.
So maybe if you can’t get Verizon, you go with AT&T. It’s possible, too, that the Verizon deal was itself a myth: AT&T is the only GSM provider worth its weight, and GSM is quickly becoming the world standard. Apple doesn’t want to make two iPhone models, one for GSM and one for CDMA, a whole different chipset.
Whether you’re a consumer or a manufacturer, whichever provider you marry, bring a jar of Vaseline to the nuptial consummation.
Perhaps Apple couldn’t have avoided this fiasco. What carrier on earth is used to thousands of devotées showing up, some a week early, to buy a bloody mobile phone on day of launch? We hoped Apple would have been able put up the infrastructure to handle the traffic. It was iTunes that was reporting the failure, but who knows whose servers were at fault?
Ah well. 6 hours after I got started, I have an new, activated iPhone 3G. 
I was without a connection for maybe 2 hours. 
My voicemail has been deleted, but I did take screenshots just in case. 
My original iPhone remains a wireless iPod, which is awesome. 
I’ve got GPS, good fast internet, and a bunch of cool apps. 
There are also more cool apps that cost more than I feel like paying. 
I don’t have copy & paste. 
I don’t need MMS. 
I haven’t tried the 3rd-party video recorder. 
I’m still with godawful AT&T, but I have an unlimited-minutes plan at a reasonable price (not more than I was paying before).
Today was a good day.

J2 News: Invitation on iPhone Friday

“Woooooooooh!”
If you didn’t catch footage of an Apple Store on June 29, 2007, that was the sound of a greet-&-cheer line of Apple employees whenever a customer left the store with a new iPhone. It was a geeky good time. One so rarely gets applauded for being a gearhead.
This Friday will see the release of the next generation of iPhones, featuring faster internet (a.k.a. 3G), GPS navigation, and hopefully better reception and longer battery life. All iPhones, new and old, will also get the iPhone App Store, with hundreds of ultra-mega-cool applications that will be available and downloadable straight to your iPhone or iPod touch.
The stores at La Cantera and North Star Mall will open at 8am. History and logic say that you won’t need to stand in line. There should be plenty of stock. But plan on it taking a while, as you will have to activate your new iPhone at the store. (AT&T stores will have stock also, but they’re not nearly as much fun, and the staff rarely as knowledgeable.)
I think it’s gonna be a fun day. Lots to discover. Lots to play with — have you seen these awesome games coming out? Or this one?
I’ve been getting calls to help folks get up to speed on their new iPhones, transfer data, update software, activate Mobile Me (which we hope comes out by Friday), and download apps, soooo….
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here’s my idea:

Everyone is invited down to the marvelous Luca Ristorante [map] on Friday, starting at 11, and we’ll have ourselves an iPhone-syncin’, 3G-surfin’, GPS-navigatin’, me.com-navel-starin’, new-fashion’ hoedown! 

$15 gets you into the session, and until 4pm, you can ask me about anything related to iPhone or Mobile Me. And if you want to discuss something else, I bet we’ll be able to accommodate.

Please RSVP to this email address. Bring a laptop if you can — there will be wifi — or be prepared to look over someone’s shoulder. 

And pass it on; the more the merrier!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tips:
Apple has posted a guide to replacing an original iPhone with an iPhone 3G, and I do encourage everyone to scope it. Most important: 1) Sync your existing iPhone before plugging in your new one! 2) Run Software Update to grab the latest iTunes.
Read the “What to bring” section of this page.
If you’re running Leopard, I would recommend updating it to the latest 10.5.4.
If you don’t have a hard drive backup of your computer, now is a good time to snag one at the Apple Store.
I’m also hoping this news — “AT&T says original iPhones can be deactivated and used as WiFi iPods” — is true about what we can do with our old iPhones.
Q: Should I buy a new iPhone?

Jonathan

J2 Consulting ~ Chicken soup for the Mac ~ 210.367.3420


“The National Weather Service advises you to stay away from Windows.”

End User: Nirvana for Gigabytes

Published in San Antonio Current, July 19, 2007

Data, welcome to Nirvana: a small black box with lights, called Drobo, the “data robot.” One pull quote called it “the iPod of mass storage.”

I’ve been waiting a decade for this.

The Drobo (drobo.com) is the first device that can take multiple hard drives — of unequal size, by any manufacturer — and unify them into one giant walk-in closet for your digital stuff. If any one drive fails, you just pop in a new one. If you run out of space, you buy bigger drives and swap them in. All the while, the Drobo stays on, and you don’t lose access to your files for even a second.

If you’ve heard of RAID, Drobo takes RAID out to the shed and beats it with a belt.

For four years, I’ve made almost every one of my clients buy an external hard drive to sit on their desk, automatically backing up their stuff. Each time, I’ve said, “When that drive fills up, we’ll get you a new, bigger one and you can stash the first one in a closet.” It may seem wasteful, but as I discussed in my last column, very few computer users can afford to lose what’s on their hard drives.

I want to mention here that, if you do suffer a hard drive failure, services exist that can typically recover your data. Drive Savers of California has one of the best reputation (and employs a crisis-intervention counsellor). Their work can run between $1,000 and $3,000, but there are more affordable and locally based agencies. Also, the $89 software SpinRite, by Steve Gibson at grc.com, reportedly does the best job at recovering data outside of a clean room.

Back to good vibrations: Mass storage used to be unnecessary for non-geeks. Now any new computer can help anyone become a musician or filmmaker, work that takes lots of space to produce.

On the other end, internet-based consumers have put billions of dollars into pure 0s and 1s, assets that exist nowhere but hard drives. In January, the iTunes Store sold its two billionth song, and it offers more than 500 movies, and whole seasons of many TV shows. Amazon recently announced its own forays into digital downloads of music and video. Sales of physical albums continue to drop, while downloadable purchases claim bigger market share every day.

Then there are the terabytes of free (or free-if-you-know-where-to-look) files being downloaded every day. (Between us, did you know you could have your computer automagically grab new episodes of your favorte TV shows, sans commercials, without any subscription? Whatever you do, don’t visit tvrss.net, and don’t download, for example, Miro-né-Democracy Player, which also has wonderfully legitimate uses.)

So, the Drobo lets you stash that multimedia audio-visual glut in an expandable, protected space. Now that the first 1Tb (terabyte) internal hard drives have hit the market, the Drobo can combine four of those puppies for a total of 2.7Tb redundant storage. (Redundancy in computerdom, as opposed to, say, a philosophy major, is a boon.)

I can’t report that this magnificence comes cheap. The Drobo is $500 for the enclosure alone. But gigabytes have become very cheap, indeed; a year ago I advised people to be happy getting $1/gigabyte. Today, I paid $100 for a 500Gb drive. Three of those will put 930Gb in my Drobo. That, my friends, is 2,000 movies or 300,000 songs, whichever comes first. By the time I fill that (and I will), drives will be more capacious and markedly cheaper.

The Drobo currently only connects over a slightly slower USB 2.0. Many forum-posters have griped about this limitation, but it makes sense in the way the iPod makes sense: Keep it simple, and fewer things will screw up.

I bought my Drobo in August, and it is everything I expected. I feel a lot more secure knowing my data is (almost completely) safe from drive failure.

And… iPhone… Ooooh, you knew I was gonna sneak it in somewhere!

Jonathan Marcus publishes online at themacwhisperer.blogspot.com.

End User: Null and void

Published in San Antonio Current, October 3, 2007


Weird warranties: In March of this year, Linux.com and others reported that a Compaq rep had told a woman that the problem she was having with her notebook’s keys sticking and being unresponsive was not covered by the one-year warranty because she had replaced the Windows operating system with a version of Linux. A similar story, this time about a laptop purchased at PC World, appeared in early September; a broken hinge and dead screen pixels were the problem.

In both cases, the inconvenienced consumers eventually received satisfaction. They had been initially misinformed, and PC World and HP (Compaq’s parent company) have clarified their warranties: Hardware defects will be covered by warranty regardless of the OS installed on the computer.

On Linux: Many computer users are still unaware that they have an alternative to Windows or Mac OS X. Linux is an open-source operating system that comes in many different flavors, most of which are freely available for download. One of these flavors — called “distributions” or “distros” — is called Ubuntu, and it is becoming increasingly popular for its uncomplicated installation and configuration. Ubuntu comes with free software, including alternatives to Microsoft Office and Internet Explorer, called OpenOffice and Firefox, respectively, both of which are also available for Windows and Mac. In Ubuntu, many users (even non-geeks) have found shelter from the security problems and malware that plague Windows.

le iPHONE: Far more malicious than the misguided Linux advice above is Apple’s September 24 press release about the iPhone software update that they were to release on September 27. “Users who make unauthorized modifications to the software on their iPhone violate their iPhone software license agreement and void their warranty.”

Well, excuse the hell out of me, but I have made my iPhone all the more useful and convenient and entertaining by installing a slew of third-party applications which are now readily and freely downloadable. Now standing in long lines with my 7-year-old daughter is easy and fun with games like blackjack and a Yatzhee-like thing, and neither requires use of the battery-draining internet connection. The latest iPhone update, were I to install it, would delete all of those great programs.

Ironic and disheartening is the lameness of the features added by the update. Like the new iPod touch, the iPhone can now purchase music from the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store. And double-tapping the space bar “intelligently” types a period where appropriate. Yippee-doodle-do. Where’s my freakin’ copy-paste?

Slashdot posted on September 25 a story that Apple’s prohibition may break the law: “The Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act states that Apple cannot void a warranty for a product with third-party enhancements or modifications to their product.” My own comparison of the iPhone warranty against the Mac warranty finds the same phrase: “This warranty does not apply … to a product or part that has been modified to alter functionality or capability without the written permission of Apple.” Nothing else in the iPhone document seems to support Apple’s latest claim.

Now, the iPhone is clearly classifiable as a computer, albeit a very light one. It runs a version of OS X much like the Mac’s. Who would buy a Mac if Apple restricted it against software developed by people other than Apple? It’s like a grocery store making it illegal to take one of their frozen cheese pizzas home and put onions on it. Or Honda saying I can’t drive my Accord to Arkansas.

The iPhone update also re-locks the units that have been unlocked to work with carriers other than AT&T. That one we saw coming, and it makes sense for Apple to keep their corporate bedfellow happy for the foreseeable future. Disabling independently created software that makes your expensive, powerful device more functional, however, makes no bloody sense at all. •