Tuesday, September 16, 2008

iTunes 5002 Error Message. How to Fix It.

In the iTunes click on the Applications in the side bar, without your iPhone/Ipod Touch connected.

 Double click on any of the apps that have a generic app icon instead of the proper icon. You will be presented with the option to locate a missing file.

 Navigate to your iTunes library folder into the Mobile Applications folder and choose an app. 
If the application is missing, then erase it from the iTunes and re-download it.

Thursday, September 11, 2008

How to Avoid a Lengthy iPhone Back-up Procces Without Messing With Terminal? Easy!

Lately you could see a lot of posts on the Apple support forums and wonderful sites like Boing Boing and Mac Os Hints about what to enter into a terminal window to disable iPhone (and I assume iPod Touch) back-up process. The back-up might take up to an hour or longer in some severe cases.
There is an easier way that doesn't involve tinkering with the Terminal.app.
Just click the "x" next to the progress bar.
The back-up will stop and the sync will continue.


Do let the iTunes to create a backup from time to time in order to have a copy from wich run a restore in case it might be needed! Also, never cancel a backup that is a part of software update process.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Follow Up: iPhone Syncing With iSync

Anna asked in the comments to my iPhone syncing with iSync post, how it actually works.
The software version of iSync on my PowerBook is 2.4 and I am running Mac OS X Tiger 10.4.11.
The procedure as follows:
  • Disable automatic iPhone Syncing in iTunes,
  • Start the iSync utility and go to the preferences.
  • Make sure that Enable syncing on this computer and Show status in menu bar boxes are checked.
  • Quit iSync utility.
  • In the menu bar click the iSync icon and chose Sync Now
  • Your connected iPhone will now sync, even though there will be no indication on the iPhone screen. The iSync icon in your menu bar will rotate. This will only synchronize non-iTunes items.
This will not work if you try to sync from the mane application window of the iSync utility.
Hope it helps.

Tuesday, September 09, 2008

New Genius Feature is NOT Like Pandora!


I keep hearing that the new Genius feature in the new iTunes 8 works just like Pandora radio.
That is not true. From the user point of view: when use Pandora I do not need to pay for tracks Pandora suggests. With the iTunes, I do.
The principle of the way Genius runs is more reminiscent of Netflix, where the recommendations are based on what other users that rated the same movies you did the same way you did, say about those movies that you haven't rated yet. Pandora, on the other hand actually knows what the artists or songs specifics and unique features are.

Tuesday, August 05, 2008

My App Updates Goes Crazy.

The saga of malfunctioning iTunes software/iPhone continues.
I plugged in the iPhone to download 2.0.1 , and was informed by iTunes that there is 1 (!) update available for my installed applications.
When I clicked the link to check what new joys the app developers have for me I have gotten a page with 41 updates available.
Unfortunately those 41 updates were for just 4 apps: 21 updates for AIM, 4 updates for Break Classic, 8 for Dial O, and 8 for Jirbo Jive.

Check out the screen captures.




After I clicked install all of the updates, iTunes has downloaded only 4 updates.
Upon syncing the iPhone iTunes has informed me of not being able to install the updates: error code 0xE800002E




Update: Tuesday Aug 5, 2008, 1pm. I have uninstalled the apps in question by disabling them from the Apps bar during the iPhone syncing, and then enabling them again. This have seemed to fix the 0xE800002E issue. The multiple apps updates still show up in the iTunes store though.

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Has apple nuked the fridge with their app store in particular and with the launch of the iPhone 2.0 in general?

Don't get angry at me, Apple fun boys. I am one of you. I own several Apple Inc. products and I am happy with the most of them. But there is a troubling tendency in how Apple handles many things of the late.

When I bought my original iPhone on the June 29 of 2007 I did not buy it for the superior technological advantage it supposedly had over the competitors. In fact it did not have any technological advantages. There were faster phones, with higher speed networks available, phones with longer spec and features lists. But none of that mattered. What mattered the most was the consumer friendliness, the ease of use and user satisfaction. In other words it simply worked.

So, when the new iPhone was announced, I was happy to learn that all of that user friendliness will now come in a more robust package with the faster network speeds and the GPS. Or so I thought.
Apple began destroying the experience by requiring the in-store activation. My decision to own an iPhone in the first place was partially based on the fact that I would not need to deal with the mindless drones behind the desks of the regular phone company store. You will say that Apple Store employees are much better, and I will agree with that. But I must point out that, even with the friendliness of the Apple retail staff, the wait in line for a few hours was pretty much unbearable.

Then, of course, the app store on the iTunes.
The application updates process is still broken as of August 30th. Application versions are all mixed up. Wrong versions are being downloaded, and there is a difference between what the iPhone thinks has an upgrade available versus what the desktop version of the iTunes thinks. This is anything but "It Just Works" philosophy of the Apple we have grown to love.
Has apple nuked the fridge? Is it becoming a new Microsoft?

P.S. Don't even get me started on how long did it take me to configure a network with an Airport Extreme and an Airport Express on it, after the automatic configuration utility has failed.

Monday, July 28, 2008

A definite proof that www.cuil.com is full of it.

People from cuil.com claim that they have more pages indexed than Google. In order to compare the obvious supremacy of cuil.com to the shameful inadequacy of Google I did a simple query to both.
I searched for the name Obama, you know, the guy who might be our next president. However, I did not search in English - I used Russian.

The result might surprise you.

cuil.com - 0 results.

goggle.com - 663.000 results.

How did they manage to index almost 3 times the size of the google's index and, yet, return 0 results is beyond me.