san antonio – Page 3 – jjmarcus tech solutions

Completely backup iPhone, iPad, and iPod

This is a good, safe, butt-covering thing to do before running an iOS software update, or before you migrate to a new device. iCloud backups are an enormous convenience, but I subscribe to Murphy’s Law, as well as the 3-2-1 Rule of Backups, so I like to maintain a backup of my iPhones and iPads in iTunes on one of my Macs:

First and always, make sure you have good backups of your Mac.

Then, clean out your old iOS backups in iTunes:

Click on the iTunes menu, and go to Preferences…
Click on Devices.
In the list of Device Backups, with the dates, look for duplicate backups of your devices. Note the most recent backup, and leave it alone.
Now click on each of the other backups, and below, click the button called Delete Backup.
Do that for each duplicate backup, leaving only the most recent ones.
Hit OK.

iTunes will take a bit of time to delete those files. You may see the rainbow beach ball.

Now, near the top of the iTunes window, under the search box, click on your iPhone or iPad. On the main Summary page, make sure that Encrypt iPhone Backups is turned on. If it’s not, click the checkbox, and enter a password. (As long as you choose Remember Password in Keychain, you can pick anything.)

iTunes will now run a full backup of your iOS device, including passwords for your sync accounts and wifi networks.

The new iPhone: to buy or or not to buy

Everybody has now caught wind of the excellent new iPhone software and hardware coming this month. All current iPhone owners will be able to download the new OS 3.0 for free on June 17.
The question I’m getting asked now is whether one should buy the new phone, or will one be happy simply updating their existing hardware with the new system?

I won’t delve into all the new features, some of which will be available to all iPhones, and some which will only come with the new iPhone 3GS. (Sidenote: I’m not going to type it “3G S”, ‘cos I think it looks stupid.) The Unofficial Apple Weblog has done a fine writeup of most of the new features, and of course you can see Apple’s pages on the iPhone 3GS and on the iPhone OS 3.0 for full lists.

Out of everything announced for the iPhone, cut, copy, and paste is far and away the most important new feature, one that most of us feel we should have had from the get-go. I’ve finally gotten to play with it myself, and it works beautifully, and solidifies the iPhone’s position as the must-have gadget of the moment. And it will be available on every iPhone in existence, and that makes us happy.

The features that are coming only to the new iPhone 3GS, the big ones at least, are faster phone operations, voice control, a digital compass (enabling turn-by-turn directions, among other things), a much improved camera, and shooting/editing/sharing video. (I just read they’ve added an “fingerprint-resistant oleophobic coating” to the screen. So maybe we don’t want to put film on this time, although I really like my anti-glare screen.)

Honestly, they had me at “speed.” I’ve been increasingly dissatisfied with the time it takes to go from one app on the iPhone to another. Apple has optimized things a little in OS 3.0 — contacts searching is noticeably quicker — but my iPhone 3G still feels sluggish. So, with a better processor and more RAM, the new iPhone holds much promise for the more impatient among us.

So, could I be happy with my current iPhone? Yes. 3.0 makes it a much, much better device.

Am I going to buy a new iPhone? Yes. In fact, YES! I am looking forward to turn-by-turn directions and voice control… although I really want to be able to say “new email to bob smith,” and start transcription, and it doesn’t look like we’re there yet.

Am I going to buy the iPhone 3GS when it comes out? Not… just… yet.

Here’s the deal: The $199 & $299 prices announced for the 16GB and 32GB models, respectively, are the “subsidized” prices, i.e. the price that you pay if (a) you enter into a new 2-year contract with AT&T, or (b) if you are already under contract, and you bought your last subsidized phone more than a year ago.

The iPhone 3G hit the shelves July 11, 2008. Today is June 13, 2009 (6 days before the iPhone 3GS release). I have confirmed with AT&T that anyone who bought an iPhone 3G at the subsidized price won’t qualify for the lower price on a 3GS for at least a month, July 13 at the earliest.

Some folks have been misled by going to Apple’s “Buy an iPhone” page, because it doesn’t give you the above information, and does give you the impression that you’re gonna pay the full $400 or $500 price for a 3GS. Unfortunately, some news outlets fanned the flames of false information.

The nice part about that wait is that I’m forced to be patient and let everybody else experience the good and the bad of the new phone. I’m sure it’ll be fine, but last year’s iPhone Day 1 was quite a mess, with the new MobileMe service and everybody activating at once, and the very buggy 2.0 software.

A final note: I just sold my 1st-generation iPhone 2G for $220 on craigslist, and there are, right now, listings for 3G phones as high as $400. Tip: An older phone is more valuable if you unlock and jailbreak it. (Call us at 210.787.2709 for assistance.) So one can potentially turn a profit in getting a new phone.

iPhone abroad

I learned something useful about the iPhone when I was out of the country recently. I wanted to use the phone’s wifi Internet, but I didn’t want to make or receive calls on it, and get charged the ridiculous per-minute rates. AT&T tried to sell me the $6/month “World Traveler” plan, in which your international roaming rates are simply somewhat less appalling. (I learned, also, that I would have paid even for incoming calls that I didn’t accept, and data rates for voicemails that I didn’t listen to. Stinkers!)
Anyway, here’s what I did:

1) Upon boarding your plane, ship, hovercanoe, what-have-you, turn on Airplane mode: Home > Settings > set Airplane Mode to ON.

2) Then, when you get to a wifi connection (and your vessel is increasingly likely to have one), go back to Home > Settings > Wi-Fi, and turn on Wi-Fi, then choose whatever network is available, for which you either have or don’t need a password.

This worked like a charm to get me email, surfing, local restaurant reviews, etc. I was only surprised that GPS didn’t work. The major BONUS was that, the day I arrived in the other country, Skype released it’s free iPhone app, so I was able to make calls back to the States really cheaply, whenever I had Internet. ¡Que suave!

Is 5GB of mobile broadband a month enough for most people?

First off:
1024 bytes = 1 KB (kilobyte)
1024 KB = 1 MB (megabyte)
1024 MB = 1 GB (gigabyte)
1024 GB = 1 TB (terabyte)

It’s hard to peg the average size of a web page (so, one person’s profile on Facebook, for example). Easy to say a range between 80 and 300 KB. (This is an interesting page: Average Web Page Size Triples Since 2003.)

Very broad and arbitrary size ranges for other kinds of files:

Photos found on the internet: 100 KB – 2 MB
Higher-resolution images: 2 – 15 MB.
Song files run between 2 – 15 MB.
A half-hour of video, maybe 150 – 175 MB.
A 90-minute movie, 500 MB – 1 GB

So, to the question:

5GB is fine for phones with internet (c.f. articles 1 & 2).

On a computer, however, 5GB may or may not be fine (c.f. article 3 is from a geekier perspective).

I go waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay past 5 GB a month. I ain’t even going to guess a number. If you only look at static web pages — ones with no videos — and nobody sends you emails with pictures or videos in them, and you don’t download any music or audio-visual material… you likely won’t hit 5GB.

Here’s the important question for your carrier: Is there a way to monitor how much you’ve used up to the current moment in the billing cycle?

1. Beta News: Sprint says 5 GB per month should be enough for most

2. Yahoo! Answers: Is 5GB enough for a normal use on a laptop for broadband access using a USB Card?

3. Buzz Out Loud Lounge: Would 5 GB be enough for you?

Junk Mail mode in Apple Mail

I lost my junk mail icon – how do I get it back to teach my inbox what is junk?

Mail menu > Preferences > Junk Mail

Set it to automatically Move it to the Junk mailbox, as opposed to what used to be called Training mode, which is now, in Leopard the Mark it as junk mail, but leave it in my Inbox setting.

But before you do, I would suggest leaving it in Training mode for a bit, and clicking the Junk/Not Junk button. In fact, one will initially need to train Apple Mail to recognize legit mail — newsletters and such — by clicking Not Junk.

I’ve always said a month, but that’s an arbitrary guess on my part, and is contingent on someone being vigilant about clicking the Junk/Not Junk button. Stay in Training mode until you are confident that it’s catching junk mail correctly by marking junk mail brown, and leaving non-junk along.

Make sure that you add any trusted correspondents to your address book (Message menu > Add Sender to Address Book (⌘⇧Y)) to prevent them from being mis-identified as spam.

Gmail, if you use it, and you should be using it, will catch most of the spam most of the time, but that’s how you deal with the rest.

Backup Address Book & iCal, and troubleshoot syncing

Just a quick note of instructions for Leopard.
1) Backup Address Book
File > Export > Address Book Archive …
Agree to the default file name, saving it with a date

2) Backup iCal
File > Backup iCal
Agree to the default file name, saving it with a date

3) Quit all applications on the iMac.
Then open iSync in Applications.
iSync menu > Reset Sync Data
Reboot

4) Let syncing happen. If it comes up with conflicts, review them, and choose the item in each conflict most likely to be accurate.

VirtualBox + Windows 7 Test Drive = smoothness

Just installed Sun’s virtualizer VirtualBox — a free, open-source alternative to Parallels Desktop or VMWare Fusion — and then created a virtual machine for the Test Drive of Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC).
VirtualBox is easily acquired and installed. Microsoft required a hotmail/live.com registration to download Windows 7 … I think I had a hotmail account back before Mr. Softee snatched ’em, but despite my misgivings, I registered with my real address.

Anyway, I haven’t had a chance to dig into Windows, and I don’t have nearly enough Benadryl on hand for that anyway, but I am very pleased that VirtualBox installs and works basically as smoothly as either of its non-free competitors. I hope VMWare and Parallels have recouped their development costs for their products.

The Shipping News

From a review of a hard drive at newegg.com. S/he was done with listing Pros and Cons and then said this very helpful tip:

Other Thoughts: Here’s a suggestion for anyone buying a hard drive, go with FedEx, the express saver is the cheapest. I know it cost more than UPS and Newegg’s “free shipping” isn’t FedEx, but here’s the deal: I have bought over 30 hard drives (Western Digital and Seagate) through Newegg in the past 2 years, 100% of the ones shipped FedEx are still running, 80% of the ones shipped UPS were either DOA or failed within 6 months. UPS beats the He11 out of their shipments, even their website states that every package is subject to a 6 foot drop. Do the math, free shipping or cheaper UPS shipping isn’t free in the long run. I ship my non-fragile items with the free shipping, but I do a separate order and use FedEx for hard drives and motherboards.

A rare prediction

I’ve been reading books on the iPhone with the free Stanza application. And right after I heard about this excellent program, Amazon purchased Stanza, and the guess is that it intends to replace its own Kindle reader for iPhone with Stanza.
I was surprised at how much I enjoyed reading on the iPhone. Because one can change the font, the font size, the font color, the background color, and even the margins of the page, it’s an experience far superior to, say, reading an article on a web page in Mobile Safari.

While Amazon’s new version of the Kindle is selling way better than the original model, it now seems to me a fair bet that Apple has already been playing with this idea. And so, while I never like to try to guess Apple’s plans — and certainly never to bank on them — I’m going to officially throw in with all the folks who are assuming that Apple will announce some form of media tablet this summer. I think they’re even going to get into selling eBooks, although it would seem smart of them to get in bed with Amazon on that deal.

All of this gives me high hopes for the publishing industry, which has suffered greatly in recent years. I also hope that electronic distribution will save authors and publishers from the chains of the big book retailers such as Barnes & Ignoble and Borders, who have had a chokehold on the industry for too long. Unfortunately, small bookstores will get probably even more screwed in the process.

Should I apply the 10.5.7 combo update?

Just a brief note to all who are wondering if they should let Software Update install the latest Leopard update:
In general regard to software updates, I always find it easier to tell people, unless they are in a production environment where app failure might cost $$, to go ahead and download and install whatever updates come down the pike…

BUT! I keep one exception to that policy, and those are the big OS updates, i.e. going from 10.5 to 10.5.1 or 10.5.6 to 10.5.7.

When I am going to install a major update like that, I always go to Apple.com and download the “combo update” for that version. So today, for example, I did a Google search for “10.5.7 combo,” came up with this link. I went there, clicked “Download,” and let the big honkin’ 729MB file start its transfer.

Combo updates reinstall all of the updated files from, in this case, 10.5.1 through 10.5.7. This gives you a nice refresh of your OS — like an exfoliation — and can prevent a lot of the issues that some people report with updates.

(You will run a complete backup of your hard drive before you install any updates, now, won’t you?)

If you do want to know what problems people are having with a software update, and whether they might affect you, check out MacFixIt.com. One can scan them on the off chance that one of them might have an impact on one’s computing life.