Automation Adventures

Last Saturday my iPod froze up. After applying the reset (Hold on, Hold off, press and hold Menu and Select at the same time), the screen displayed the Sad iPod Icon. Fearing my podcast and audio book listening days were not over but put on indefinite hiatus, I drove home and entered the URL the iPod displayed: http://www.apple.com/support/ipod.

The results there were less than encouraging: try and reconnect your iPod to the computer (sorry, problem didn’t occur while connecting to the computer), or send it in for repairs. Well, we’re talking an almost 4 year old iPod here, so any repairs would probably cost more than the iPod is worth (heck the shipping cost is probably more than it’s worth…!). So I decided to use Google to see if anyone had an alternative solution.

This leads me to a Digg article, that pointed to an article “How To Fix an Ipod with the Sad iPod Icon” on Spilling Coffee. The basic solution boils down to:

1. Put something on your desk (a stack of paper works great) to prevent your desk from getting damaged (don’t worry about the iPod)
2. Grab the iPod firmly, with the connector pointing down
3. Slam it on the stack of papers on your desk

The idea is that the hard disk connector can come lose enough not to make connection anymore, but still be attached enough that a good bang will snap it back into place.

So with a heavy heart and closed eyes I banged my iPod on the desk and performed another reset. Lo and behold, the menu appeared! And faster than it had done on previous resets!! Thanks Tom Coffee!

Warning: banging your iPod on your desk may cause damage to desk, iPod, or anything else in the vicinity. It worked for me, but it may not work for you. Banging your iPod is a serious form of Apple fan-dom…

Tags: bang, connector, disk, ipod, sad

We have a little rotating web page setup in our break room, and have been using a dial indicator to show our performance in bookings and shipments. However, due to the nature of the set-up (a page, showing a flash file, that is configured by an XML file), it turned out to be necessary in Internet Explorer to use the option “Every time I visit the webpage” on the “Check for newer versions of stored pages:” setting in the Temporary Internet Files and History Settings.

Unfortunately, Internet Explorer 7 still can’t handle CSS properly, so some of the tables looked horrible. Switching to Firefox fixed that problem. But now the old data was showing. And where is that “Newer versions of stored pages” setting in Firefox???

It’s hiding in the config. In the address bar, type

about:config

Then find the setting browser.cache.check_doc_frequency, and change it to 1. This will duplicate the Internet Explorer behavior (as far as loading cached page goes, mind you!).

The options for this setting are as follows:

Tags: cache, firefox, IE, XML

Yesterday Apple had its September presentation, which, as the title “Let’s Rock” may have given away, was focused on iTunes and the various iPod models. Here are the announcements in a nutshell:

• HD TV shows added to the iTunes store. $2.99 per episode ($1.99 for standard definition), and you can view them on Apple TV and your computer (and hopefully you iPod).
• NBC returns to the iTunes store.
• iTunes 8 is announced:
  • New browsing options
  • Genius mode: automatic playlist based on songs that “go great together”. It sounds like Pandora in iTunes.
• iPod classic: the current line up of an 80GB and a 160GB model will be changed to one 120GB model, priced at $250 (what, not $249?).
• iPod Nano 4G:
  • has the form factor of the Nano 2G
  • the video of the 3G
  • Built-in accelerometer
  • new User Interface
  • landscape mode for coverflow
  • thinnest Nano yet
  • $149 for 8GB, $199 for 16GB
• iPod Touch:
  • Thinner
  • has integrated volume control
  • built-in speaker(!)
  • Genius playlist creation
  • Nike+ built-in (you still need the Nike+ transmitter)
  • $229 for 8GB, $299 for 16GB, and $399 for 32GB
• AppStore: 100 million downloads in the first 60 days. Upcoming offerings: Spore Origins, Real Soccer 2009, Need for Speed: Undercover.
• Two new headphones:
  • A regular set with in-band control (volume, next, prev, play, pause) and microphone for $29
  • An in-ear set with two drivers per bud (woofer and tweeter) for $79
• iPod Touch 2.1 software: Free upgrade for 2.0 users, $9.95 for 1.x users
• iPhone 2.1 software:
  • Free upgrade
  • improved battery life
  • fewer call drops
  • fewer crashes
  • increased speed for iTunes backups

It sounds that Apple is slowly retiring the iPod classic, and adding more emphasis on the AppStore. More news can be read at Gizmodo and other sites around the net.

Tags: apple, appstore, iphone, ipod, itouch, itunes, nano

I has planned this for March 6th, but unfortunately my tardiness caused me to be just in time in Washington DC to pick up my mom from the airport (no, not the Airport Express, the actual Dulles International Airport), and no time to waste by visiting the Apple Store in Tyson’s Corner.

However, when I dropped her off at the airport on the 16th, I thought I’d have plenty of time. And I would have had, if I’d know my way around Tyson’s Corner a bit better. As it turns out, I had just enough time to drop in, play with a couple of devices, and head out. And so I did.

First on the list was the MacBook Air. That thing is really surprisingly thin and light. And the finish is beautiful. To demonstrate how light it is, there was a customer watching a movie while balancing the Air on one hand. Wow.

Next was the iMac. That was actually a bit thicker than I expected it to be. Plus the bevel below the screen is larger than it looks on the website or the advertisements. The keyboard however is beautiful. The Mighty Mouse wasn’t as intuitive as I had hoped it would be, but after a while I think I figured it out.

I skipped the Mac Pro and the other two MacBooks, because they had a small pavilion set up with educational software. The kids were playing with the software, and completely ignoring the machine. It may be that this happens with educational software on PCs as well, but I never noticed that payed any attention to that. It must have something to do with being a new daddy…

I browsed the software and accessories isles a bit before I zeroed in on the next target: Apple TV 2.0. Looks good, nice remote, too bad it seemed to be running in some kind of demo mode. But it’s going on my wish list. Especially if the rumors about DVR capabilities being built in turn out to be true.

My last stop was the table with the iTouch and the iPhone. The iTouch was alarmingly light – I suspected it was a mock-up, but no, it was a fully functional 16GB music, video, and Internet device. Really cool. The iPhone was much heavier than the iTouch – much heavier than any phone I had I think. Same interface, but the addition of GPS makes Google maps fully functional, and it is amazing to see your location with satellite maps. It makes you think that you could zoom in and see yourself standing.

And then it was time to leave. I think I could have stayed until they closed the store – I had the same feeling as back in 1978 when I was playing with the TRS-80 at a Radio Shack store. And as at a trade show a couple of years later when they had an Apple Lisa set up to play with. It’s the kid-in-a-candystore feeling, that was lacking from the Gateway store I visited, and certainly lacks from Walmart or Best Buy. I will be back Apple Store – either in person or on the web.

Technorati Tags: apple, store, imac, macbook, air, iphone, itouch, appletv

A hectic schedule at work and at home has prevented me from reporting on the MacWord announcements Steve Jobs made in his keynote. A quick round-up:

• Office 2008 native on Intel
• Time Capsule, an external hard drive companion to Time Machine, with a built-in Airport Extreme base station. Two versions, 500GB ($299) and 1TB ($499), ships in February.
• iPhone update: SDK in late February, now maps with locations, SMS to multiple people, webclips
• iPod Touch has upgrade to get all this. Existing users have to pay $20 to upgrade.
• iTunes movie rentals. Regular $2.99 for library titles, $3.99 for new releases. HD costs a dollar more.
• AppleTV take 2 – no computer required, but can sync to one. HD movie rentals. Integration with Flickr and YouTube. Price dropped to $229.
• World’s thinnest notebook – the Apple MacBook Air. 13.3 inch widescreen, 3 pounds, 0.76 to 0.16 inches thick, iSight camera, full size LED backlit keyboard, large trackpad with multi touch gestures (like on the iPhone and iPod Touch), 802.11n WiFi, Bluetooth, 5 hours battery life, 1.8″ harddrive 80GB standard, 64GB SSD optional, 1.6GHz Core Duo. No optical drive – need to have it as USB connected drive, or borrow one from a PC or a Mac. Priced at $1799, and ships in two weeks.

Nice announcements, on top of the Mac Pro with 8 cores announced last week. The Apple Air is sexy and sharp, looks like you can cut someone with it. Time Capsule’s saving grace is the wireless base station, otherwise it’s just a high-priced USB drive. AppleTV v.2 might be just what AppleTV needed to take off, combined with the movie rentals. It sucks to have to pay $20 for an iPod touch upgrade, but it beats having your device obsoleted a couple of weeks after you purchase it.

Unfortunately, nothing earth shattering. Which seems to be reflected in the AAPL stock price: hovering around $177 beginning of this week, it now dipped down to about $163. That’s only a little higher than their three-month low of mid-November. I wonder what will Apple come up with around May (gut feeling they have “one more thing” up their sleeve)?

Tags: air, apple, appletv, iphone, ipod touch, itunes, mac, macbook, office 2008