Monthly Archives: October 2011

theres more to stacks than overflows

i’ve been finding quite a few answers to recent technical problems and questions on stackoverflow.com but what i hadnt realised is that there’s more to stack than just overflow ! it turns out that stackexchange.com that owns and runs stackoverflow also runs 68 other Q&A sites including:

all of which are moderated using their theory-of-moderation

is upgrading your ipad to ios 5 worth the pain ?

actually it turns out upgrading your ipad to ios 5 ipad-ios-5-upgrade-breaks-ipads is worth all the pain even for just a few of the 200 new features ios-5-contains-over-200-new-features such as:

  • safari tabbed browsing
  • wi-fi sync (just import an audio CD onto your PC and it appears on your ipad)
  • icloud backup
  • future updates directly via wi-fi (without needing a PC)

ipad ios5 homescreen ipad reset mode ipad ios5 "the telegraph" app ipad ios5 formula1 app

iOS 5 contains over 200 new features

apparently iOS 5 contains over 200 new features but i havent noticed any of them yet !

  • • Notifications
  • ◦ Swipe from the top of any screen to view notifications in one place with Notification Centre
  • ◦ New notifications appear briefly at the top of the screen
  • ◦ View notifications from lock screen
  • ◦ Slide the notification app icon to the right on the lock screen to go directly to the app
  • • iMessage
  • ◦ Send and receive unlimited text, photo and video messages with other iOS 5 users
  • ◦ Track messages with delivery and read receipts
  • ◦ Group messaging and secure encryption
  • ◦ Works over mobile networks and Wi-Fi*
  • • Newsstand
  • ◦ Automatically organises magazine and newspaper subscriptions on Home Screen
  • ◦ Displays the cover of the latest issue
  • ◦ Background downloads of new issues
  • • Reminders for managing to-do lists
  • ◦ Syncs with iCloud, iCal and Outlook
  • ◦ Location-based reminders when you leave or arrive at a location for iPhone 4S and iPhone 4
  • • Built-in support for Twitter
  • ◦ Sign in once in Settings and tweet directly from Camera, Photos, Maps, Safari and YouTube
  • ◦ Add location to any tweet
  • ◦ View Twitter profile pictures and usernames in Contacts
  • • Camera improvements for devices with cameras
  • ◦ Double-click the Home button when device is asleep to bring up a camera shortcut on iPhone 4S, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS and iPod touch (4th generation)
  • ◦ Volume Up button to take a picture
  • ◦ Optional grid lines to line up shots
  • ◦ Pinch to zoom in the preview screen
  • ◦ Swipe to camera roll from preview screen
  • ◦ Tap and hold to lock focus and exposure; iPad 2 and iPod touch (4th generation) only support exposure lock
  • • Photo improvements for devices with cameras
  • ◦ Crop and rotate
  • ◦ Red-eye removal
  • ◦ One-tap enhance
  • ◦ Organise photos into albums
  • • Mail improvements
  • ◦ Format text using bold, italic or underlined fonts
  • ◦ Indentation control
  • ◦ Drag to rearrange names in address fields
  • ◦ Flag messages
  • ◦ Mass mark messages as flagged, read or unread
  • ◦ Customise mail alert sounds
  • ◦ S/MIME
  • • Calendar improvements
  • ◦ Year view on iPad and new Week view for iPhone and iPod touch
  • ◦ Tap to create an event
  • ◦ View and add event attachments
  • • Game Center improvements
  • ◦ Use personal photos for your Game Center account
  • ◦ Compare your overall achievement scores with your friends
  • ◦ Find new Game Center friends with friend recommendations and friends of friends
  • ◦ Discover new games with custom game recommendations
  • • AirPlay Mirroring for iPad 2 and iPhone 4S
  • • Multitasking Gestures for iPad
  • ◦ Use four or five fingers to pinch to the Home Screen
  • ◦ Swipe up to reveal the multitasking bar
  • ◦ Swipe left or right to switch between apps
  • • On-device setup, activation and configuration with Setup Assistant
  • • Software updates available over the air without tethering
  • • iCloud support
  • ◦ iTunes in the Cloud
  • ◦ Photo Stream
  • ◦ Documents in the Cloud
  • ◦ Apps and Books automatic download and purchase history
  • ◦ Backup
  • ◦ Contacts, Calendar and Mail
  • ◦ Find My iPhone
  • • Redesigned Music app for iPad
  • • Hourly weather forecast
  • • Real-time stock quotes
  • • Wireless sync to iTunes
  • • Keyboard improvements
  • ◦ Split keyboard for iPad
  • ◦ Improved auto-correction accuracy
  • ◦ Improved Chinese and Japanese input
  • ◦ New Emoji keyboard
  • ◦ Personal dictionary for auto-correction
  • ◦ Optionally create keyboard shortcuts for frequently used words
  • • Accessibility improvements
  • ◦ Option to light LED flash on incoming calls and alerts for iPhone 4S and iPhone 4
  • ◦ Custom vibration patterns for incoming calls on iPhone
  • ◦ New interface for using iOS with mobility-impairment input devices
  • ◦ Option to speak a selection of text
  • ◦ Custom element labelling for VoiceOver
  • • Exchange ActiveSync improvements
  • ◦ Wirelessly sync tasks
  • ◦ Mark messages as flagged, read or unread
  • ◦ Improved offline support
  • ◦ Save a new contact from a GAL service
  • • More than 1,500 new developer APIs
  • • Bug fixes

apple ios 5 bricks ipads iphones and itouches

it seems that a lot of people have found that the ipad ios 5 upgrade breaks their ipads

when i tried to use windoz vista with itunes 10.5 to update my ipad 1 it got locked into “recovery mode” with apple itunes “corrupt ipad backup” and “error 6” messages but eventually after many failed “restores” and itunes download the 700M update twice at the fifth (any co-incidence ?) attempt  it just decided to work !
if you’re having problems too check this apple technotes
fyi my error log contains
2011-10-29 18:00:28.224 [4928:1344]: restore library built Sep 14 2011 at 01:30:07
2011-10-29 18:00:28.224 [4928:1344]: iTunes: iTunes 10.5.0.142
2011-10-29 18:00:28.224 [4928:1344]: iTunes: Software payload version: 9A334
2011-10-29 18:01:30.526 [4928:1308]: iTunes: Specifying UOI boot image
2011-10-29 18:01:30.527 [4928:1308]: requested restore behavior: Erase
2011-10-29 18:01:30.545 [4928:1308]: amai: AMAuthInstallDebugWriteObject: debug object written: C:\Users\admi\AppData\Local\Temp\Per5256.tmp\amai\debug\tss-request.plist
2011-10-29 18:01:34.241 [4928:1308]: amai: tss_submit_job: HttpQueryInfo returned 200
2011-10-29 18:01:34.907 [4928:1308]: amai: AMAuthInstallRequestSendSync: received tss response (server version: 2.0.0)
2011-10-29 18:01:34.913 [4928:1308]: amai: AMAuthInstallDebugWriteObject: debug object written: C:\Users\admi\AppData\Local\Temp\Per5256.tmp\amai\debug\tss-response.plist
2011-10-29 18:01:35.307 [4928:1308]: amai: _AMAuthInstallBundleInstallPersonalizedEntry: entry "KernelCache" has been previously personalized; skipping it
2011-10-29 18:01:35.327 [4928:1308]: amai: _AMAuthInstallBundleInstallPersonalizedEntry: entry "DeviceTree" has been previously personalized; skipping it
2011-10-29 18:01:35.336 [4928:1308]: amai: _AMAuthInstallBundleInstallPersonalizedEntry: entry "AppleLogo" has been previously personalized; skipping it
2011-10-29 18:01:35.615 [4928:1344]: iTunes: Restore error 20000

X/Ubuntu 11.10 isn’t all bad

There are many reports of problems with Ubuntu 11.10 such as the “5 app menu”, grub, sound, video, wi-fi not working but this is true for dozens of GNU/Linux distros.

Using the Xubuntu edition instead of Ubuntu itself solves the “5 app menu” problem and it has turned out to be one of the best Live CD GNU/Linux distros i’ve ever used!

Maybe I haven’t used a Live CD distro in a long time or run one on a PC with 3G of RAM but the Xubuntu 11.10 Live CD on a 3G notebook creates a 1.5G “overlayfs” ? “/cow” ? root filesystem which gives you plenty of space for patches and to install the largest of apps.

It only takes a few minutes to install the 83 patches (32M), Adobe Flash plugin and even the Eclipse IDE to create an incredibly useful live environment !