Posts filed under Apple

Updating to iOS 7.0.5 Turned Ugly

iPhoneRecoveryState.png

During the update of my iPhone it got stuck in the so-called recovery mode. This means that everything on the iPhone is lost, and that you need to restore everything from a backup. Thankfully, the last backup was made 10 minutes before the upgrade process began. So no worries there.

The panic started to kick in when the actual recovery process terminated with an unknown error (17).

An unknown error occurred (17)

No matter what I tried, the error kept re-occurring

Searching the Interwebs,  I founds several forums mentioning modifying the hosts file on your computer. Any entries referring to the apple.com domain should be removed.

Checking the hosts file out (located @ /etc/hosts on a Mac), I found a reference to a gs.apple.com with a specific IP address. At that point things started to dawn on me....

A couple of years ago I started to experiment with creating your own MobileMe thing (so I would have no need to purchase a MobileMe account back then). In that process you needed to fake some Apple web-servers. One of those servers was gs.apple.com.

After removing the entry from my hosts file and rebooting my iMac, the recovery process went flawlessly.

This 'experience' made me wonder; Did the 'crash' of the iPhone happen because of the hosts file entry? If so, this could be disastrous if someone made these servers unresponsive (e.g. DNS hack, or whatever), since the iPhone would become a brick. At least for as long as these servers are not accessible....

Posted on February 8, 2014 and filed under Annoying, Apple, iPhone, Personal, Software, Tips'n Tricks.

AirDrop Between iOS and OS X Maverick

I got my new AirDrop-capable phone today.  Not that AirDrop was the reason for getting it, but the feature itself is quite nice; being able to send files between devices. No need to use mail or other communication methods.

This evening I shot a video on my phone and I needed it on my MacBook (with OS X Maverick). Both devices are AirDrop capable, so ..... 

And there is I went wrong. After trying for about 30 minutes to get it to work I found the answer online.... Looks like that AirDrop between different OS is NOT supported by Apple. And not supported does mean that it won't work.  

OS X: Can I use AirDrop with my computer?
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4783
iOS: Using AirDrop
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5887 

That is one Epic Fail if you ask me.  

Posted on November 11, 2013 and filed under Annoying, Apple, iPhone, Operating Systems.

Apple Sued For Porn Addiction

Chris Sevier, a 36-year-old man from Tennessee, got so addicted to porn videos that his wife took his children and left him. Now he has sued Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), saying the Cupertino, Calif.-based company failed to install any filter in its devices to prevent his affliction.
— http://www.ibtimes.com/apple-sued-porn-addiction-man-says-macbook-cost-his-marriage-kids-1345831

Why stop at Apple? There's also something as your Internet Service Provider. Those are the 'bastards' that transport the stuff from the Interwebs to your home. Or the actual sites for allowing people to see these appalling (for some) images / videos without a dozen age/religion/whatever security checks?

One of the best parts is the following: 

Sevier claims that his addiction started when he “accidentally” replaced the “a-c-e” in Facebook with a “u-c-k.” Sevier said this F***book site “appealed to his biological sensibilities as a male,” and he started to prefer the images on the screen to his own wife.

The 'a' is nowhere near the 'u', and the 'k' is nowhere near the 'e' (on my keyboard), so how the hell is it possible to 'accidentally' type f-u-c-k instead of f-a-c-e

At least I learned something; I learned about the existence of a website that wasn't in my bookmarks already :-)

Posted on July 15, 2013 and filed under Apple, Fun, News.

iPhone Stuck At Infinite Loop After iOS Update

AppleInfiniteLoopSymbol.png

The old iPhone 3G got stuck in an infinite restore loop after upgrading to iOS 6.1.2 this evening. As you might understand, the misses was not amused....

The infinite restore loop means that it keeps saying that it needs to be restored from within iTunes, but after doing that several times, you tend to loose faith. After trying it several times on a Windows laptop I tried it on my iMac. While it was restoring for the who knows how many times, I did some research on the Interwebs. The results were not encouraging.

I started gathering information, and some tools (like Tiny Umbrella) to break it from its infinite loop. After the restore the iPhone booted just fine. No idea what made it break its loop. Could be coincidence, could be my iMac. No idea.​

Anyway, the misses is busy restoring the data. She (or iTunes) made a backup just before the backup. So all should be back to normal in a few minutes.​

Posted on February 21, 2013 and filed under Apple, Annoying, Hardware, iPhone.

Apple Pulls Photo App Because Of Porn

There are lots of (portfolio) websites available for the enthousiast / pro photographers. Some are free, and some cost a couple of dollars/euros a year. The most popular are (in no particular order, but since I store my photos @ SmugMug....);

In general, Flickr is portrayed as a photobucket where people dump their photos and comment on others with the weirdest badges, just to get some attention.This was also the reason I stopped paying for my Flickr account.

Both SmugMug and 500px offer less 'noisy' features and lots of customization options, but the thing they all have in common; they offer an app (at least one) the give the users an excellent experience on their mobile devices (Android and iOS).
Also, each of these services allow (up to some degree) nude photos, and as long as it's artistic you shouldn't have a problem publishing your photos on these platforms. Especially when you mark them as nude/possibly offensive, etc.

This week, Apple pulled the 500px app from the Apple App Store, because it was too easy to find nude photos [1, 2], and this violates their terms of service. The funny thing is that most of these apps allow the user to find nude content, and Apple's mobile browser (Safari) being one of the worst.

tumblr-nudity.png

Just today a got a new follower on Twitter with a username that didn't leave much to the imagination. I just followed the users website link (which opened in Safari) and 'stumbled' upon a Tumblr account with tons of nude photos. All it took was 1 click.
Talking about Tumblr.... They have their own app where you can 'subscribe' to these micro-blogs. So I guess that Apple needs to revise their App Store terms, because this is  ridiculous.

Posted on January 25, 2013 and filed under No Way!!!, Apple, Photography.

Cleaning Up Apple TimeMachine Might Take A While

When I bought my Apple iMac about 2.5 years ago, I also added a 500GB external drive for backup reasons. This backup drive is a 2.5" USB-powered Western Digital drive. Small, unobtrusive, and stuck to the back of my iMac.

Now, >2 years later, the TimeMachine process started to complain that I ran out of disk space for (the TimeMachine) backup purposes (4.85MB free of 500GB). I used to think that TimeMachine would warn once, and after that it just started to overwrite old backups, but no matter how many times I clicked OK -> Continue etc. the out of space error kept coming back. Highly annoying. During this period I have no idea if it's actually doing anything in regards to backing up my data. I needed to resolve this, so I had two options;

  1. Get a new / bigger external harddrive (on Christmas eve......)
  2. Or delete the old backups from about a year back to the beginnning.

Since getting a new drive was out of the question I decided to delete some really old stuff on the backup drive. My reasoning being that if I didn't need the extremely old (modified) data back then, there's little chance I need it now or any time soon.

Selecting the data and deleting it was easy, this only 'moved' the data to the Trash. In other words, it's still sitting on that drive. I have the empty the trash to free the actual space on the external drive.

EmptyTrash.PNG

The screenshot was taken while it was still counting the objects that were going to be deleted. Eventually (after 2.5 hours), the counter reached >480,000 items. After this time the actual cleaning of the Trash started. That was over 1 hour ago, and it still needs to eliminate about 350,000 items. This is one of those situations were lightning backup fast drives are welcome. For the other 364 days a year it doesn't really matter.

It's gonna be a long night for the iMac.

Posted on December 24, 2012 and filed under Software, Annoying, Apple.

iPhone App Distressed FX For Free

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Another photo app for iOS (iPhones etc.) has been added to the Apple Store. Normally, these apps cost money, but Distressed FX is free for a limited amount of time.

Distressed Dough

The app used (predefined) filters, and blurring effects to manipulate photos. Photos can be made by the in app camera function, or by selecting a photo from your library.

Posted on December 15, 2012 and filed under Software, iPhone, Apple, Photography.

OS X Wireless Connection Problems Solved (??)

Ever since the upgrade to Apple OS X Mountain Lion (10.8) on my MacBook (v5.1) I encountered wireless problems every now and then. These 'experiences' are documented in two different blog posts here and here.
At the time I was also running an 'old' version of Little Snitch (v2.x). After installing v3.0.1 my problems seemed to have solved... Seemed, until I upgraded Little Snitch to v3.0.2.

After the (mandatory) reboot my wireless connections were gone. The adapter wouldn't go active. The symptoms being the exactly the same as before. So I have no doubt, that Little Snitch had something to do with it.

Posted on December 8, 2012 and filed under Software, Annoying, Apple, Operating Systems, Tips'n Tricks.

MacBook Wireless Borked Again, Still, etc.

A while back I had regular issues with the wireless adapter on my MacBook after I had upgraded to OSX Mountain Lion, but after the removal of Little Snitch (I still ran the beta version) it seemed that times were a changing... Seemed that is.

This morning I was fiddling about with my photo website, and needed to see the results in several different browsers. One of them being Google Chrome.
Trying to launch the Chrome app, it crashed immediately. Reopening didn't help. So I tried to download a newer version, since I hadn't updated mine since the upgrade to Mountain Lion. The result; It still crashed. Even after removing all Chrome (and Google) references on the disk, it still crashed.

So, it became time to consult the book of knowledge, and see what the Internets had to say about my little ordeal.

Posted on October 13, 2012 and filed under Annoying, Apple, Browsers, Hardware, Tips'n Tricks.

Unable To Turn On Wireless In OS X Mountain Lion

Last night I was minding my own business on the couch, when the wireless connection on my MacBook (UniBody)  decided to call it a day. According to the symptoms (no bars visible in the WiFi icon in the menu bar, no visible wireless networks in the vicinity), the WiFi adapter was turned off. Turning the WiFi back on was not possible though.

Posted on August 3, 2012 and filed under Annoying, Apple, Hardware, Tips'n Tricks.