Weblog of a “Switcher”

For quite some time now I have not been able to upgrade my 5th Gen iPod to the latest version of the firmware (1.2.3). I have tried several times to upgrade, but kept getting the following error:

So today, Apple released version 1.3 of the firmware. So I thought maybe now that the software has been updated again, I'll be able to upgrade my iPod. I tried and got the same error.

So, I figured that the problem wasn't the firmware, but something on my computer. So, once again, I headed over to the discussion section of Apple's website and started searching for my error message.

I came across a message that mentioned that he "Enabled disk mode" in the iPod Options section of iTunes. Hmmm, I have Disk mode turned off, I wonder if that is the cause... So I enabled disk mode myself and tried again.

Low and behold, the update worked. So apparently, it's necessary to set your iPod to Disk Mode in order to upgrade it to a newer version of it's firmware. Something that I don't believe I have seen written down anywhere.

I posted this for the same reason as the previous post, so that I'll be able to remember it next time I have to update my iPod.

written by Dave M. \\ tags: Apple, Apple 1, Discussion Section, Disk Mode, Error Message, Firmware, Hmmm, iPod, iTunes, Options Section, Quite Some Time, Reason, Several Times

1.1.3 Update May Break Gmail (Nobody Wants A Styl.us): "Nobody Wants A Styl.us
Tips for using Apple's iPhone.
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1.1.3 Update May Break Gmail
I got a call this morning from my Dad.

Him: Bad news.

Me: What?

Him: Your mother’s Gmail isn’t working on her iPhone.

Me: Oh no!

Him: Yes. Houston, we have a problem.

This basically ground my parent’s house to a halt this morning.

It turns out both of their Gmail accounts weren’t working, but they don’t appear to be alone in this. The specific error message is that imap.gmail.com isn’t available, and it just keeps checking for email. Outbound mail does go out, but there’s no verification that it goes.

I don’t really know what’s going wrong here, but if you recreate the Gmail account fresh on the iPhone, everything seems to work right again.

(Fortunately, the Gmail setup is pretty easy.)

(Via Nobody Wants A Styl.us.)

This is interesting. I have read a couple of blogs now that have mentioned that Gmail was messing up on their iPhones.

This seems odd to me. I haven't seen any issues at all with Gmail on my iPhone. Now, I know that problems can crop up for some people and not others, but it just seems odd.

Now I have had problems with IMAP Gmail not working correctly with Mail.app. It works really nicely with Thunderbird, but I had some strange problems when sending email's via Mail.app. They may have been fixed by now. I haven't spent the time to try it since the first time I tried.

I guess I should be glad that I am not seeing these problems. I use Gmail as my main email account and all my other email accounts forward messages they receive to my Gmail account so that I can have access to all my mail all the time.

written by Dave M. \\ tags: Apple, Bad News, Blogs, Break, Dad, Email Account, Email Accounts, Error Message, Gmail Account, Houston We Have A Problem, Icons, Imap, iPhone, Iphones, Outbound Mail, Strange Problems, Styl, Thunderbird

One of OS X's newest features was one of the biggest reasons I switched to Mac. That feature (as you probably gathered via the title of the post) is Spotlight!

Today I had a rather frustrating time at work in Windows trying to locate a single file in millions. Every time I attempted to launch WinCVS, it would either lock up or tell me that there was a deadlock with a TCL84.DLL file.

Reading the error message that displayed, it implied that it was possibly using an incorrect version of the DLL stored somewhere else. From the name of the file, I figured that it was something to do with TCL/TK. This is odd since I didn't install the Python/TCL options it wants. I didn't have them installed before and had no problems.

Anyway, I wanted to see where there were other copies of the file. So I asked XP to do a file search (the one in Explorer) for me. After 30 minutes of my system running at a snail’s pace looking through all the files on my HD for that file, I gave up.

"Why didn't I use Google Desktop Search or Microsoft Desktop Search?" you ask? Well, I'll tell you. I don't use those tools because they cause my computer to run at a snail’s pace when I don't want it to. Even though those programs claim to not run if the computer isn't idle, they still seem to. Also, I have had Google Desktop Search cause some rather strange problems to show up. Like getting errors during project builds because it's indexing a file that was just touched by the build and since the file is in use, the build errors out.

I have tried both of the search engines above. Microsoft's search at least allows you to put it to sleep for 1 hour, 8 hours, etc... What they need is a scheduler that I can say exactly when the indexing should take place. That way I can specify the hours I am not in the office.

Enter Spotlight on the Mac. I have used this many times since I got my MacBook. I constantly forget where I store files. All I have to do to find the file is type part of its name and before I finish typing that name, it appears in the list. I'm sure OS X is indexing the computer, yet I never notice it.

Why is this such a difficult task for Microsoft or Windows to do? For file name searching, I have created a batch file at work that does a "DIR /S" and pipes the output to a file. I do this for all the volumes on my computer and I schedule it to run overnight. In the morning I can simply search the text file created to find a file. It's not real-time, but at least it's something.

written by Dave M. \\ tags: 30 Minutes, Deadlock, Desktop Search, Error Message, File Search, Google, Hd, Macbook, Microsoft Desktop, Office Mac, Os X, Pace, Python, Scheduler, Search Engines, Single File, Sleep, Spotlight, Strange Problems, Tk