iOS 6 versus iOS 6

Leave a reply

Apple’s new iOS 6 has generally been a great release (aside from the previously mentioned Maps data problem). With the exception of a few iOS 6 upgrade glitches, it has been a smooth upgrade process. Unless you were running the iOS 6 Beta and you forgot to upgrade to the release version of iOS 6.

For some strange reason, in the late iOS 6 Beta stages, my iPhone reported it’s OS version as iOS 6, the same version as the full release of iOS 6. I had asked my iPhone to check for a Software Update, as well as asking iTunes to check for the release version. Both the iPhone Software Update and the iTunes update check came back saying that the iPhone was up to date.

Most iOS Beta’s are set to expire after a short while and are set to warn the users and developers. Sure enough, my iOS 6 Beta expired on September 30 without warning. It reported that I lost my activation and I needed to reactivate my phone. I tried to activate my iPhone over the air, but the activation failed. This left me completely locked out of my; I could not even check my Contacts or Calendar. I connected my iPhone to iTunes to try reactivate. iTunes informed my that my iOS had expired and that I needed to update.

Using iTunes I tried to check for an update and surprisingly iTunes came back and told me that I was running the latest version of iOS 6. Now, I was stumped and I started to scour the Internet. None of the simple answers came back with anything usable. The only thing that I could think that could work was to restore the iPhone back to the default state. I clicked Restore and the iPhone rejected the Restore.

I figured that I could download the release version of iOS 6 from the Apple Developer site. Unfortunately, I forgot my password and the resets didn’t work. I was starting to worry…

I finally found a link to Apple’s download servers to get the .ipsw file and I used it to restore the iOS. Thirty plus minutes later, my iPhone rebooted and I was started at the initial iPhone screen, except this time iTunes gave me an error that it could not restore the iPhone. This was not good. I figured what did have left to try, except to put my iPhone in DFU mode and try to do a restore. Thirty minutes later, having tried to restore the iPhone four times, I kept receiving the same error message.

It finally dawned on me that my .ipsw file might be causing this restore problem. I found that errant .ipsw file and deleted it. Rebooting the iPhone into DFU mode and doing one final restore, bated breath for the next thirty minutes and one final reboot, I finally saw the Apple symbol and the initial setup screen.

Luckily, I had a solid backup that was less than two days old and I use IMAP for email and iCloud for my Contacts and Calendars. Six hours later, all of my music, movies, and photos were restored.

Lesson learned, manually upgrade your iOS Beta’s ASAP after the release version.

LG 55LW5600 TV

Leave a reply

I got my LG 55LW5600 TV about a month ago. I mounted with an articulating Sanus TV mount. After a week of mounting the TV, I finally connect my TV via a coax to Shaw and Ethernet to the home network. My previous TV was from 2005, an Acer 32″ LCD TV was a simple TV. I previously connected my Windows Media Centre via DVI, but now I have upgraded to HDMI.

The strange thing about this new TV is that it needs software updates. I think it may even run some embedded linux, which makes me wonder if I will need to schedule patch Tuesday for this TV ;)

Telus Router + Apple WiFi + iOS = No networking

Leave a reply

I was visiting my parents this weekend and they’ve upgraded switched to Telus Optik. Shaw was quite a bit more expensive for them, particularly after the Telus bundle pricing.

Telus Optik bundle offering has Telus TV, ADSL Internet, & (analog) phone. They supply a combo ADSL modem/router/WiFi/Home PNA terminal. My parents previously had their equipment terminated in a closet under the stairs, but Telus connected the ADSL combo in a bedroom with an outside + coax outlet. From there they used the Home PNA network to send the signal to a receiver in the closet.

The installer forgot to check or mention to my parents that they are installing this ADSL combo router, so they had a double NAT situation. We turned the NAT on the old firewall, the Apple TimeCapsule, and all of our computers were on one network now.

Except for half of our iOS devices. The ADSL combo router just didn’t want to give us an IP address, nor did the TimeCapsule want to let our iOS devices onto the WiFi network.

Very strange thing, which I will have to fix soon. I think my dad has started using PingChat on his iPod Touch!

Running: Spring Startup

Leave a reply

I took a few weeks off from running after the Vancouver 2011 Sun Run. I was a bit bummed about my run this year and work had ramped up nicely.

Today the weather was great and I was able to run with a part of my training group. They’re great a bunch to to run. We ran just short of 8km, according to my Runkeeper record. For some reason my Nike+ shoe tag wouldn’t link up with my iPhone. I might to re-pair it with my iPhone.

Minoru Park to Tera Nova

Minoru Park To Richmond Olypmic Oval to Tera Nova

Office 365: Lync Online (except for Mac)

Leave a reply

After signing up for the Office 365′s Beta, I was excited to try out Lync 2010 Online. I fired up the Microsoft Communicator application, trying to figure out some of the settings for the application. I dismissed the Kerberos Agent’s attempt to request a ticket from my local OpenDirectory server, but I was not able to login to Lync 2010 Online.

Unfortunately, a bit of searching led me to this and  this site.

Hopefully there is an update to Microsoft Communicator for Mac in the coming weeks.

Office 365

Leave a reply

Microsoft has finally launched Office 365 in a public beta format. It took a couple of days for my application’s approval to process. Microsoft has done a very good job at providing a web interface for administrating the Exchange and profile management features. I’m still waiting for my Lync setup to be provisioned.

Office Web Apps (Word, Excel, and PowerPoint) are quite amazing, but not quite a full desktop replacement. I tried to drag an image file into my web based Word session and the results were not good; I not only didn’t have an embedded image, but the document that I was working on was not saved. I only lost a few minutes of work, but that state-less nature of web browsers can bite you once in a while.

Outlook Web Access works really well, as it is based on Exchange 2010 SP1. I normally don’t use Lync or OCS, so I was happily surprised to see the presence tools built-in.

All of my testing has been in Safari on MacOS X 10.6.7. It’s a night and day difference with Microsoft’s support of web browsers from even four years ago. Exchange webmail was a much hated “feature” on non-IE browser platforms.

iPhone 4 Not Charging

Leave a reply

My iPhone 4 has been acting wonky for a few weeks now. It refuses to charge after a few minutes, or it will charge for a few hours and then stop charging in the middle of the night (much to the detriment of my sleep!).

I dropped by the Richmond Apple Store and made an appointment with a customer service rep (aka Genius). He took a look at it and noticed that there was dust in the dock connector port (surprise, surprise). A bit of cleaning ensued, followed by a pronouncement of the problem being fixed. I didn’t quite believe that dust would do that, I persist in disproving the dust removal fix. A few syncs with iTunes and the problem was back.

At that point the Genius offered to replace my iPhone 4, which I took him up on. The only down side was not recognizing people’s phone numbers on the caller id, as my contacts had not synced yet.