Posts

Showing posts with the label iPhone

iTunes was unable to load provider data from Sync Services. Reconnect or try again later.

If you're experiencing this problem, "iTunes was unable to load provider data from Sync Services. Reconnect or try again later," perhaps the fix I found will work for you too. At the time of the error, I was running iTunes 10.4.1.10 on Windows 7 Home Premium, 64bit OS. I had just starting using iTunes again to sync with my iPhone 4. It had been nearly 2 years since I had used it with an iPhone -- the original. Try these steps to correct the problem: Eject / disconnect your all iTunes devices (iPhones, iPods, etc) Close iTunes Open Task Manager and kill the Sycservices process Rename the "C:\Users\ [your user name] \AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\SyncServices" folder. DO NOT delete the folder, because if this doesn't solve it or causes other problems you can always return to this older version of the folder. Restart iTunes Re-attach your device This worked for me. Let me know how it worked for you.

2010 Tech Predictions - Recap

At the beginning of 2010, I made some tech predictions as well as discussed some other technology issues. Here I will summarize how well I did with my predictions. In a nutshell, most did not come to pass, but the issues remain, so you could say I was just early. Amazon will adopt the ePub format for the Kindle. While Amazon has gotten a lot of pressure on the hardware side, their software version of the Kindle for other devices has kept them in the drivers seat for eReaders. With that position, they had no reason to add the ePub format. The iPhone will be on Verizon. This same prediction was made by many, and we still haven't seen it. Of course the rumors is alive that Verizon will get the iPhone this year. Look for my 2011 predictions to hear my position on this. Significant data loss/corruption on a Cloud platform. I couldn't find any evidence that this occurred. While in some cases there may have been a loss of service, it appears there were no data issues reported. In

Switched from iPhone to Droid for $20

With my contract expiring on AT&T I found myself in the market for a new cell phone. I could have waited for the next iPhone, by continuing month-to-month, but I really wanted to move to a 3G connection. With the announcement of the new iPhone OS only working on the 3GS, I had to spend $200 (and a 2 year contract) to get it. I'm not sure why with the threat of switching carriers that AT&T didn't have a better offer. From my research and testing a few Droids owned by 3 friends, it seemed like a good alternative to the iPhone. In speaking directly with Verizon, they too could only offer me a $200 Droid with a 2 year contract, so it didn't offer anything better. Then in searching Amazon, I found that I could get it for $20 on a 2 year contract. It's now been a few weeks, and I'm very happy with it. While the Droid has its own quirks, they're no worse than the iPhone quirks. There also is a promise to bring Flash to the Droid, which is a lot closer than Flas

Unable to Sync iPhone and Unable to Sync Photos to iPhone

Another issue I found moving my iTunes and iPhone to a new PC, was Sync'ing was hanging, though I did have my Apps, Podcasts, and Music. Upon further investigation, I discovered that if I did not sync my photos, then it no longer got stuck. First I was thinking it was a permission issue with Windows 7 -- but I made no progress. I finally figured out how to solve the issue. Stop the sync'ing Delete the iPod Photo Cache in my photo folder(s) Resync I can only assume the iPod Photo Cache had pointers to the location of my photos on my old computer.

Rip / manage music on your iPod

Sometime you need to manage music on your iPod that iTunes doesn't allow. I tried iDump, and it didn't recognize my music, so I tried SharePod . While iDump has a 30 day trial before purchase, SharePod is completely free -- donations accepted. SharePod installed quicker, and was very simple to use.

2010 Tech Predictions

2009 was a very difficult year for our economy, and many friends and colleagues lost their jobs and/or their homes. While I can't very well predict how our economy will do in 2010, I will try to out due my 1 for 3 predictions of 2009 with my 2010 predictions. In no particular order, here are my 5 top tech predictions for 2010. With the number of players increasing in the eBook Reader arena, Amazon will adopt the ePub format as a supported file format. The next version of the iPhone , announced this spring, will be available on Verizon . Similar to the data loss that occurred for Sidekick users in 2009, a significant data loss or corruption will happen on a Cloud platform . Though hopefully like with the Sidekick data being recovered, even if the data is recovered, it will send a strong message to CIOs and others considering moves to the Cloud. Depending on the reports you read, the browser war statistics can vary widely. Regardless, Internet Explorer continues to dominate, despi

Listen to iPhone videos while using other iPhone functions

The iPhone's iPod player works great with audio. Start your favorite song or podcast, and while it plays, you can use other functions on the phone. This is one of the few background processes that works with the iPhone. If you try the same thing with a video, perhaps all you really care about is the audio portion, you're out of luck. As soon as you navigate away from the video player screen, the video stops playing. I have found a work-around, so you can listen to the video while you use other iPhone functions. Here are the steps: Find and start the video Navigate away from the video player by pressing the Home button Put the iPhone to sleep (press the top sleep/wake button) Wake the iPhone (press the top sleep/wake button, again) Double-click the Home button This will bring up the video, with the phone locked Press the play button Slide the slider to unlock the iPhone Now you will be able to listen to the video while you use other features of the iPhone. Have fun!

Get iTunes catalog DRM free MP3 from Amazon

Image
Do you like using the Apple environment of iPod/iPhone and iTunes, but hate that you have to get DRM music? Using Adventageous mp3 , you no longer have to. After installing Adventageous mp3, find your Artist or Album in iTunes like you always do, but then instead of purchasing, click on Adventageous mp3 to be directed to the equivalent on Amazon. Here you can make your purchase for the same music without the DRM.

iTunes / iPhone buggy

The iPhone is the phone that everyone wants to love. Unfortunately, Apple makes that difficult at times. The 2.2 upgrade was the first error free upgrade I've had. But now I ran into another problem. I had added a new, 2nd drive to my PC as my media was consuming so much space. With that, I moved my photos and videos to the new drive. With photos, it was easy to point iTunes to the new location, but unfortunately for the videos it wasn't. iTunes uses a custom database (itl file) to store its media index and creates an xml file for a backup. If the itl file should become corrupt, it will rebuild with the xml file. If the itl file is non-existant, it will start over. Based on some various guides I found online, I used search and replace and updated the location for all the videos, and then I caused the itl file to be corrupt. iTunes read my updated xml file and rebuild the itl database file and I seemed to be back in business. Ahh, not so fast. Apparently iTunes does not back up

Free AT&T Wi-Fi with your iPhone

Here are the steps to get your free AT&T Wi-Fi on your iPhone: Activate Wi-Fi from the settings icon on your iPhone Select "attwifi" from the list of available networks Enter your 10-digit mobile number and check the box to agree to the Acceptable Use Policy. Tap 'continue' You will receive a text message from AT&T with a secure link to the AT&T Wi-Fi hotspot. You will not be charged for the text message. The SMS link will only be valid for 24 hours at the location it was requested. Another request must be submitted when using another hotspot location. Open the text message and tap on the link for 24-hour access to the AT&T Wi-Fi hotspot. Enjoy! Credit for the documented steps goes to my great colleagues at work.

Create ringtones from your own MP3s

Image
I found a great, free site that will take my mp3 music and create ringtones. With audiko.net you can search for existing ringtones, upload your own mp3 or enter a URL of an mp3 or YouTube video. The ringtones should work with most phones including the iPhone. When you upload a file, it takes only a few minutes to process, and then you can select the music segment that you want converted to a ringtone. The one problem with the entire process is that you cannot play your uploaded file, so you need to determine on your computer or mp3 player the time mark to start and stop the clip. Audiko.net is able to process files so quickly because they only use the first 75 seconds of a clip, which should be fine in most cases. If you opt to use a YouTube file, the process takes a bit longer, but still works. Of course with YouTube, the audio is not likely to be as good as what you can get from an mp3 file. When the ringtone is ready to download, you can get it in mp3 format, m4r, (the iPhone forma

Real iPhone speed, not the commercial speed

As published on the Silicon Alley Insider , here's a video that compares the real speed of an iPhone against the speed you see in the iPhone commercials. In looking at the ad, Apple has clearly cut out much of the connection and load times. Now let's examine the reality of cell phone network speeds. As reported by tests done by Computer World , AT&T's network averaged download speeds of 755Kbit/sec. and average upload speeds of 484Kbit/sec. Computer World also included a 3 second network connection time. With this information, let's calculate the load time for an average 50kb page. Convert our download rate to Kb: 755/8 (8 bits in a byte) = 94.4 Kb/sec Download page time: 50 / 94.4 = 0.53 seconds Total time: connection time of 3 sec + download time of 0.53 seconds = 3.53 sec For us to really get the performance we have come to expect from our computers, it appears the issue right now is the connection times. We can grow our page sizes 6x (and many have) before the

3 iPhone Usability Tips

Image
Tip 1: When the phone is locked, double-click the Home button to access your "iPod" volume, play/pause, forward, and backward features Tip 2: When the iPhone is unlocked (you're using it), double-click the Home button to get to your Contact Favorites Tip 3: ( Repeat from a prior post ) When apps are crashing, power your phone off and on or start and stop airplane mode

Fix crashing iPhone Apps

I discovered an easy fix to crashing iPhone Apps... turn Airplane Mode on and off or shut your iPhone off and on. By doing this, your iPhone re-establishes itself with the cell phone network. This reminds me of troubles I used to have with my old Sprint phone -- the longer I had it on, the more likely I would have problems with dropped calls. According to Sprint at the time, the cell phone needs to periodically re-establish itself with the cell database. This seems to have worked for me with the iPhone, as my crashes were always occurring when the iPhone was interacting over the network, such as trying to establish my location. Note that I have a first generation iPhone on firware 2.0.1. Let me know if this works for you or not.

Unable to call out on the iPhone

Update, 10:22 am PST: I am now able to make calls, receive email, and use the network. Update, 10:05 am PST : AT&T customer service confirmed that there is a major outage in Oregon and Washington and they are sending a technician out to fix it. They have no ETA on when it will be back up. This affects only the 2G network -- 3G is up and working. Update, 9:50 am PST : Still no change. No incoming or outgoing calls, nor access to any network functions. It's 9:00 am PST, just south of Portland, OR, and I am unable to dial out or receive calls on my first generation (firmware 2.0.1) iPhone. I confirmed the same experience with 3 of my co-workers. Data services are also down. I'll be looking for that credit on my next bill from AT&T.

iTunes 7.7.1.11 and iPhone 2.0.1 spell disaster

Just a few nights back after work, following a fairly normal routine, I accepted the iTunes request for an update to 7.7. Upon completion and plugging in my iPhone, I was prompted to update the firmware to 2.0.1. Again, I accepted. During the middle of this process, iTunes crashed. Upon clearing the dialog boxes, iTunes restarted (my iPhone was still connected). Only this time, iTunes had nothing in it's library -- no music, no movies, no Podcasts -- nothing. And then looking at my iPhone, it was cycling between the Apple logo and an image of a USB plug and the iTunes logo -- my iPhone had become an iBrick. Wow! In a bit of shock, I tried closing and restarting iTunes, and I tried shutting down and restarting my iPhone. Neither one helped. Here I went from a few casual, routine updates to a lot of unplanned for, and really unnecessary rebuilding. First, i had to figure out how to un-brick my phone. The best I could come up with was some instructions posted on ...my first tech blog

3G iPhone follow-up

Image
On Monday we learned about the new 3G iPhone : lower purchase price ($199 for 8MB version), GPS integration, longer battery life, and more. A lot of the buzz was around the lower price, but if you look at the total cost of ownership you will find out that it is actually more expensive. Over the 2 year plan with AT&T, you're going to pay an additional $10 per month for data ($240) and an additional $5 for SMS messages ($120). So instead of a total cost of ownership of $1815, you will pay $1975. For the additional features, the price is probably worth it. In comparing against other smart phones, the cost is competitive too. Gizmodo has a more detailed breakdown that includes phones from Sprint, Verizon, and AT&T. Speaking of new iPhone features, Gizmodo also has an article that discusses the new video conferencing add-on for the iPhone. There has been discussion from the community over the missing, built-in video conferencing features, but as you can read about there is a l

New 3G iPhone

Image
3G 8GB: $199; 16GB: $299 Available July 11th in 22 countries 2.8 faster than iPhone 1.0 on the Edge Network. Longer battery life GPS integration SDK Push email, calendar, ... Live contact searching Word, Excel, PowerPoint Bulk delete and move Save email images Enhanced calculator Asian language support, including character recognition MobileMe ( me.com ) App distribution through cell network (less than 10MB), iTunes, WiFi, enterprise (intranet), ad hoc (up to 100 authorized phones) Tech Specs SDK / Apps article

iTunes and Starbucks together

Image
Apple and Starbucks just started (October 5, 2007) a new service in participating Starbucks stores. Using your laptop, iPhone , or iPod touch , you can get free access to the iTunes site and review and buy up to the last 10 tunes played in the Starbucks store. When using your iPhone or iPod touch, you will also be able to get the song on your Mac or PC for no additional charge. I learned about this today when I went into Starbucks. As part of the promotion, you can get a free, new song every day in Starbucks through November 7th. The first artist was Bob Dylan and has include greats such as Gloria Estefan and Mavis Staples; upcoming releases include Herbie Hancock, Dave Matthews, and John Mayer. Personally, I think this is a great combination of two great products, coffee and music, brrought to us by folks who know how to do it so well, Starbucks and Apple. That'll be a triple-grande-latte for me.

iPhone -- June 29th -- Will you be switching?

Image
I viewed Apple's iPhone demo on their website, and despite a few quirks, I'm hooked. As they say, their best iPod ever -- it sure looks that way. Of the many features , I'm not sure if it is the touch-screen controls, the great interface, or some of the nice features such as how voice mail and Google mail is done, but my next cellphone will be an iPhone -- that's assuming I can afford AT&T. If you're not sure, checkout the demo , I think it'll sell you.