"iPad is disabled try again in 10 minutes."
This was a definite WTF moment.
About an hour earlier, I’d put my iPad to sleep as I traveled.
The surface was covered and protected, so nothing was rubbing up against it.
When I pressed the home button, instead of being greeted with the familiar passcode screen, I was greeted with the screen below.
I have owned an iPad since they first came out, but have never seen this screen before or even heard of this happening, so I was surprised, no shocked. Luckily, I was near my computer. I Googled, to find that it occurs with too many passcode attempts. OK, I understand that, but how about none? The iPad was asleep, case cover was closed.
I waited (was forced to wait) the 10 minutes, but kept checking to see if the lockout would end and I’d see the passcode screen. No, but the minutes were counting down. After the 10 minutes were up a slider bar appeared, I slid, and the passcode screen appeared.
OK, so I definitely needed to solve this. Being locked out is not an option. What was the cause, glitch, too much shaking in the bag? No, me, or better, my new wireless keyboard.
I do a lot of typing on my iPad, I needed a real keyboard so that I could type the real way, from feel.
The problem lie in not turning off the paired wireless keyboard before I put everything in my bag and took off. Setting the lock screen is not like putting your computer to sleep. The iPad and wireless keyboard are still having a conversation. And if the keys are pressed, as they might be jostling around in the bag, they are interpreted as passcode entry attempts to unlock your iPad.
The more wrong attempts, the longer you are locked out. Ouch!
Apple also has a setting that would wipe the iPad clean if there are too many unsuccessful passcode attempts. Luckily, that settings default is set in the off mode. See here for their kb doc.
Whew!
:::
As documented here, I recently made an unplanned test of the Gorilla Glass used on iOS devices (specifically my iPad2). My fellow blogger Chita wrote about the case she purchased for her iPad where she passed on the Apple Smart Cover for something that better protects her device.
Well, I came to the same conclusion and ordered a Mophie Workbook case. What I like about this case is that it protects the entire iPad, front and back, with a nice, padded shell – so that should I drop it again (butterfingers!) I won't have to worry about the cover peeling off on the way down and the iPad landing on the glass again.
Also, the Workbook has the magnets in the cover that trigger the automatic on/off of the iPad 2, so it still comes on when I open the cover. It comes with four different colored elastic straps that are used to hold the cover shut (you pick one to put on, but you can easily swap them if you like). The inside has the soft side of Velcro, and the left edge has the rough portion, so when you position the iPad, you can set it at many different angles.
The iPad slides in and out easily – much more easily than the iPad 1 in the Apple case (once that was in, you did not want to take it out – it was a very tight fit). So if you do need it to be out of the case for some reason, it's pretty easy to get it out and back in again.
Now there are some downsides – I can no longer just drop the iPad into its stand for charging – I need to plug the cable in. Fortunately, the case has cutouts that align perfectly with all the places you need one (the Apple connector, headphone jack, cameras, speaker, etc.). Also, it does make the iPad slightly bulkier (although not really much heavier).
Still, just like Chita, I'll trade those things for piece of mind. With the strap on, the case will not open on its own, and with the extra thickness and less magnets (recall that the Smart Cover has magnets on the hinges to edge to connect to the iPad) I feel a bit more comfortable having it in the same bag with my laptop (although still in another compartment). Now if I can just work on my motor skills…
Sorry, folks. It was a crazy weekend, and this week has not started any better. I promise to do better next week. So this wasn't a totally wasted trip, I have a video from The Capitol Steps. If you've never heard of them, you're missing some good political humor. And they pick on everyone equally. Check them out for a new political parody song each week.
This one is dedicated to Terry.
When Steve Jobs/Apple announced iCloud as the successor to MobileMe the questions started circulating about the features that weren't mentioned. In other words, would features like iDisk or iWeb publishing go away? What about web access to email? Apple has posted an FAQ here outliing which features would make the transition and which ones won't. Unfortunately for long time MobileMe (.mac, iTools) users at least 3 features won't make it:
- iDisk
- Gallery
- iWeb Publishing
My goal here today is to provide some alternative suggestions for those who have come to rely on these three features.
Let's start with iDisk
The good news here is that there are some great alternatives already in place. First of all you'll get 5GBs of free space with iCloud. This means that your iCloud aware Apps will be able to store documents in the iCloud. However, if you want more traditional drag, drop & syncing storage, then I highly recommend Dropbox.com. You get 2GBs of space for FREE. You can buy either 50GBs of space or 100GBs of space. The software is very Mac like and you can install it on all your Macs (or PCs) and they even have an iOS App (and Android App) for access to your content on your mobile devices. You can always access your content from any computer that doesn't have the software installed via their web interface. Granted Dropbox has had a couple of security scares recently, but they stayed on top of it, fixed their holes, apologized to their customers and provided great customer support during the breaches. Any company can be hacked (yes it even has happened Apple on more than one ocassion). I can't say enough good things about Dropbox and have been using it for the past year without any problems. I have the 100GB plan and basically treat it like my documents folder. It syncs everything I put in it up to the cloud as well as between all my networked computers at home. I always have access to my photos, documents, etc. even via my iPad or iPhone.
You can sign up for your FREE Dropbox.com account here.
Gallery
Gallery is the feature of MobileMe that allows you to easily share your photos and movies from iPhoto. While I do have some photos on my MobileMe Gallery, I already share those same photos in other places. The good news is that even if you are an iPhoto user and you want to keep things simple, iPhoto allows you to share photos via Flickr.com and Facebook.com just as easily as MobileMe. Both Flickr.com and Facebook.com are FREE to use and have much larger communities than MobileMe. With Flickr you can lock down access to individual Photo Sets (Albums) or pictures. Dropbox also has photo sharing support with instant galleries by simply dropping a folder of images in the Photos folder. You can also post short movies. Speaking of Movies, I acutally prefer to post videos to YouTube anyway. With MobileMe visitors were required to have QuickTime installed and that was usually a pain for Windows users. Everyone is already used to YouTube and YouTube videos work on just about everything. The videos play back in Flash OR HTML 5. Also the YouTube player is built into most mobile devices being sold today. You can restrict YouTube videos to be Unlisted or Priviate. Lastly YouTube is FREE.
If you're an iMovie user, iMovie can already upload to YouTube directly and YouTube supports HD video, which MobileMe didn't. If you're an AppleTV user you can view Flickr Albums and YouTube videos just as easily on your TV as you did MobileMe content.
You can signup for Flickr.com here
You can signup for Facebook.com here
You can signup for YouTube.com here
iWeb Publishing
This one is probably the hardest to replace from an ease of use standpoint. The handwriting has been on the wall for iWeb for a while now and Apple hasn't updated it. Your options here are not bad though. If you like iWeb you can keep using it as you always have. The only difference is that by June 2012 you'll need to find another hosting service to host your iWeb sites. Most if not all hosting services allow you to upload your websites via FTP and iWeb supports uploading via FTP. I use GoDaddy and Network Solutions for most of my hosting needs. I don't particularly have any love or hate for either of these companies. They work fine most of the time for me. I don't really have a "perfect" hosting recommendation. Everyone I talk to recommends a different company and there doesn't seem to be one big national hosting company that stands out above all the rest. I would start by looking at pricing and up time. If you're an iWeb user chances are you're not hosting a big commercial website. Therefore you can probably save by going with a smaller local hosting company. You'll want one that's been around for a while and has a good track record for not only their up time, but their customer service. In other words if your site goes down on Friday evening, will it take until Monday before you can talk with someone about it?
If you want to move away from iWeb completely, then I would strongly recommend looking at one of the blogging services such as WordPress.com or Google's Blogger. Even if you have NO DESIRE TO BLOG, you can set up a "regular looking" website using these services. They're web based and allow you to easily update your site's look with literally hundreds if not thousands of free templates and of course you can post photos and embed videos too. Don't forget that for many inviduals they've given up the notion of having a "personal website" in favor of social networking sites like Facebook and Tumblr.
Here's a document explaining how to move your iWeb site from MobileMe to a different hosting provider.
All of these services are FREE:
You can get a WordPress Blog (website) here
You can get a Blogger blog (website) here
You can get a Facebook page here
You can get a Tumblr page here
The Bottom Line
Remember that you don't have to make any of these decision today. You technically have full use of MobileMe until June 2012. However, it's probably best to start thinking about your transition plan now as opposed to waiting until the last minute and having to find places to put your content.
With the iPad1 came the Apple black folio case. There was an abundance of them. They pretty much encased the iPad with the exception of the needed strategic openings. While it wasn't stuffed with protective padding, it did add minimal protection.
With the iPad2 came the SmartCover; that "covering" with the cutesy peek-a-boo feature that puts your iPad2 to sleep and wakes it up and folds. Well, fine, thanks, but I prefer to have my iPad2 encased and protected, even mininally. Unfortunately, fellow blogger Jack reinforced that notion with his recent mishap.
I looked for a replica of the original Apple black folio case for the iPad2 and found that that wasn't as easy as I expected it to be. Every vendor, it seemed, was trying to mimic the new SmartCover.
Even at the local stores that carried iPad2 accessories, vendors were exercising their creativity when it came to cases. Some cases ranged from expensive flimsy and useless, to expensive bulky—making the iPad weigh three times its original weight, to expensive and nice—but way too expensive, to hmmmm. Online was pretty much the same experience.
Finally, after lots of searching and a little waiting it out, HardCandy has come up with a folio case for the iPad2 that resembles the original iPad1 folio case; same fold and tuck.
The CandyConvertible iPad2 Faux Nubuck Flip Folio Case gives you the experience you had with the original iPad1 folio case, made for your iPad2.
The nubuck finish has a nice soft feel, but not slippery to the hand, and the iPad2 fits very snug inside. Colors are (jet) black and (bright) red. These cases are priced at $44.95.
:::
Apple released Final Cut Pro X yesterday (along with Compressor 4 and Motion 5).They are only available in the Mac App Store as downloads – no disc version is available. Yet again, Apple is cutting loose from the past, and once again, some are saying – is it too soon? (Well, ok, at least I'm saying it…)
Was anyone ready for the end of the floppy drive? Of course, they've only been phased out on PCs in the last few years, but Apple did it with the original iMac back in 1998. Back then, it was a revolutionary move. Nowadays, I can't even remember the last time I used a floppy disc, even on a Windows machine. But it certainly caused consternation back then.
But now we're cutting the cord to the optical disk (and, with iOS 5, cutting the cord to your Mac and its hard drives, if you want). This certainly doesn't mean the end of CDs, DVDs, and Blu-Ray disks any time soon. DVDs are mature, but Blu-Ray is still in its infancy. But that infant won't make it out of the crib on Macs – it's obvious Apple will never equip a Mac with a Blu-Ray drive from the factory. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the next generation of MacBook didn't come with an optical drive at all, just like the MacBook Air.
Apple is moving on and daring us to follow. But can we? Should we? Not everyone can, for one. According to a study published last year by US Department of Commerce, 30 percent of households have no Internet access. Worse still, nearly 40% of the population does not have broadband access (which is not to mean they can't get it – some can't – but just that they don't have it). However, only 4.7% of households are still on dial-up.
If you are one of those unconnected (or virtually unconnected if you're on dial-up) users, how do you buy something like Final Cut? How do you upgrade to Lion, which will also only be available via a download from the Mac App Store? Apple says come on down to the store and use their WiFi. Well, that's probably not going to work out too well if you have an iMac or a MacPro. Also, you'll need an hour or so to download Lion, especially with others in the store doing it too. That's if you live close enough to a store to make that practical. While you could head to a local coffee shop or other free WiFi provider, I'm not sure they'll be thrilled to have you killing off their connection to download an OS. (And please don't buy it at a MacGroup meeting, either! The WiFi is already slow with so many people on it as it is.)
Another bad part of this trend – while Apple, Netflix, Hulu, YouTube and the like are trying to get you to pull down more bytes, your ISP is throwing on caps. Comcast added a cap last year for most users (OK, they always had one, but it was a secret – you didn't know what it was or how close you were to it – now you can find out both). Other cable providers have also added caps. AT&T capped off their data plans for the iPhone, and Verizon is poised to kill off their unlimited plans. So on one hand we have content providers making it harder to do things off-line, while on the other hand ISPs are trying to tamp down the amount of data you use. And it only gets worse with high-speed data. For example, if you are on one of Verizon's new LTE devices, which have speeds that rival DSL, you can burn through your month's allotment in a few minutes. As broadband speeds improve to houses and businesses, you'll see the same sort of thing happen there.
So where will this trend take us? Hopefully to faster broadband with much higher (or preferably no) caps. But how does that infrastructure get built? Because the US already had an extensive communication structure in place for a long time, we're saddled with a legacy system (the landline phones) that can't really deliver high speed data (after all, they weren't designed for it) and are too costly to replace. Countries with younger infrastructure and/or smaller countries have much higher broadband speeds on average. They haven't got a huge, ancient infrastructure to replace.
Is it too soon to wave good-bye to the optical disk and rely on the Internet? Maybe. But maybe, like the death of the floppy, we just need someone to give us a swift kick in the behind and move on.
Last week I mentioned that I would finally have to part with Quicken 2007 when Lion becomes a reality. I also mentioned that I was testing out iBank 4 as a viable replacement. Well, I tried it and moved on. It had no problem converting my Q2007 files (after exporting them in QIF format), and it had no problem producing the summary reports that I rely on at tax time, but data entry was slow. No automatic saves, like Quicken. No tabbing to a new entry. Too many extra key combos and mouse clicks for me.
While looking at reviews of other programs, I found that Intuit had fixed many of the things that caused negative reviews of the initial release of Quicken Essentials. OfficeMax had it on sale for $39.99, and as Intuit offers a 60-day money back guarantee, I decided to give it a shot. I'm glad that I did. Is it perfect? Not by a long shot, but it's better than I expected.
Converting my old data was kludgy, at best. While other software will import a QIF file that has been exported from Q2007, Essentials has it's own converter app that turns the .QIF file into a .QFX file that you can then import. And the interface for doing the converting and importing is confusing, to say the least. On a positive note, it did import my multiple accounts without losing a thing.
Entering transactions is pretty much like always with a couple of exceptions. Tabbing across fields is the same except for the date field. It used to be a matter of using the plus key to advance the date, then tabbing to the check number field. Now, you can still use the plus and minus keys to change the date, but you then tab from month to day, day to year, then year to check number. Hopefully, they'll get this back to the old way of tabbing. And while it still saves automatically, tapping the Return key does not bring up a new transaction. Now — Command-n. Minor things, but they slow me down. I will admit that it is faster than it's predecessor, probably because it's native and not running under Rosetta. Another positive — I can create custom summaries and save the report formats. They can't be customized like similar reports in QuickBooks, but you get what you pay for, and this is a lot less expensive.
I can't speak for how it handles online banking data transfers. I've been a trial balance bookkeeper for 4 decades, and a control freak to boot, so I've never gotten into that. Conflicts with my own system of checks and balances. I still use spreadsheets to compile my tax data, but I have at least gone from paper to Excel and Numbers. All in all, I'm satisfied with Quicken Essentials, and if the changes and improvements in v. 1.5 over v. 1.0 are any indication, I think Intuit is listening to the complaints.
One other thing I mentioned last week was ArchDetect, an app to find all of those old Classic and PPC leftovers in your folders. While it does a good job on most things, it apparently runs into some things that confuse it. Some newer apps are tagged as PPC when they really aren't, and a few are showing up with no designation at all. So, if it flags things you haven't used in eons, feel safe to dump them. If, on the other hand, it's something recent and you really use it, double check before deleting it.
And on that note, a favorite video:
Our MacNews site is powered by WordPress. While the experience is good on a destop browser and pretty good on the iPad it wasn't really optimized for the iPad. You could always use our iPhone/iPod touch App, but that App wasn't designed for iPad either. With an update to our WP Touch Pro plug-in MacNews is now a bonified "web app" too.
What's the difference between a web app and a native iOS app?
For those of us old enough to remember when Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone back in 2007 he touted "web apps" as a way to get custom Apps onto the iPhone. That didn't go over too well with developers that wanted to access native functions (APIs) of the device. So Apple opened the doors to native App development for those wishing to create Apps using Objective C and distribute them on the App Store. Hundreds of thousands of Apps later, that was definitely the right thing to do. However, the fact of the matter is that web apps are still useful when the task isn't as complex as some native apps. With a web app you now can get the "feel" of a native App but without the need to actually write a program using Objective C. Web Apps are built with HTML, Javascript, CSS, and JQuery Mobile. These open standards not only mean that anyone can develop an App (using tools like Adobe Dreamweaver CS 5.5) it also means that the App doesn't have to go through Apple's (or anyone else's) App Store approval process. The other advantage of a web App over a native App is that the developer only has to write one App that will work across all platforms including, dare I say it, your desktop/laptop too.
What's the difference between a web app and just adding a website to your home screen?
In iOS you can go to any website in Safari and add an icon (bookmark) to that site right on your homescreen. This will give you a one tap access to load that site in Mobile Safari. That's great, but all it really is is a button that accesses a bookmarked URL. With a web App you navigate to the site first in Mobile Safari as you always did, but when you save that site to your homescreen and launch it from that icon it launches like a regular App and you don't see the Safari interface around it. It functions like a true App with the ability to remember things like where you left off in the App and you get the same kind of animations during navigation that you would in a native App. Also the Web App can take advantage of things like a different layout for horizontal viewing vs. vertical viewing and even some of the hardware (ie. camera, acelerometer, etc. just like a native App.
Try it for yourself
Load MacNews on your iPad (or iPhone/iPod touch) in mobile Safari. Then tap the share icon to Add it to your Home Screen. At this point you can also name the App whatever you like ie. "MacNews". Now go to your Home Screen and launch it like you would any other App. I am still tweaking the performance, but otherwise it should be good to go. Keep in mind if you don't like it you can always access the site via mobile Safari as you always did. In Mobile Safari just scroll down to the bottom of the page and turn off the mobile theme and you'll be back to the regular site.
Well welcome to Friday once again.
Normally I would be elated about now but I am still at work this evening and it's been a long day so far.
Anyhow, one might ask what does this title mean and how does this relate to backup. Well let me tell you.
Everybody is all a titter about the announcements about the Cloud services being offered. What I think is going to happen is that a lot of folks will fail to do their "due dilligence". It will put them into that lazy mode of trusting that everything is backed up and then the day comes that they have to do a restore, they will have a problem finding that they don't have a good backup.
Also, you are encumbered by your internet speed as to haw fast you can restore your drive on your computer if you have everything in the cloud.
Here's what I am saying
The cloud is a good idea, and it's part of the total overall package of one of many good backup schemes. But having your own physical, controllable backup is the best defense from data disaster. You need to keep some form of your backups local. It makes for not only quick restores, but quick backups as well.
Let's just keep it simple and sweet this week.
Have a great up coming week
That stack of DVDs that you have near your computer, in the boxes, the drawer; do you remember what’s on them?
You’ve got a pretty good guess. But, when crunch time comes and you are looking for that specific file, I bet you’re rifling through them all the same. Loading them in and out of the DVD drive. If you’re lucky, you may have a label on them, but DVDs can hold thousands of files, your label probably could never be large enough.
Since OS 9, there has been a software app that has followed us along through OS updates, to help us catalogue our many files, on the many forms of media we own. AutoCat
AutoCat is ease and elegance when it comes to cataloguing media. This utility program catalogues your CDs, DVDs, external disks, and if you still have them, floppy disks, by creating an alias. What’s really great is that AutoCat works right within the Finder of the Mac OS.
Getting past the particulars of downloading, launching, and the shareware screen, you are presented with simply a small un-intrusive window for you to drag and drop your CD, DVD, volume, etc., onto.
AutoCat will then process and catalogue your disk, saving to an AutoCatalog folder containing the aliased information to your specified location.
No files are ever transferred or copied. Everything remains exactly where it was on your disks, but you now have a way of searching for content on those disks even when they are not mounted on your desktop.
I dragged the AutoCatalog folder to the Finder sidebar, to create an easily accessible alias of the AutoCatalog folder, so that I can view or specifically search catalogued content from within the Finder window at anytime drilling down or using Spotlight.
AutoCat is shareware, with a price of $15 for a single user license.
If you want to know what's on your media, AutoCat is a good step in that direction.
:::
Loading ...
