It Really Just Works
Apr0
My iPhone has been playing silly buggers for a few days now, so I decided to bite the bullet and do a restoration on it. Having had some experience of restoring various gadgets to factory settings and the subsequent pain of getting them back how I liked them, this was something I approached with no small amount of trepidation.
Dock iPhone… it shows up in iTunes and predictably throws up an Unknown Sync Error (-39). No worry, I’ve already decided to click the “Restore” button. A single approval window appears, and I confirm my intent.
iTunes goes away and unpacks the new firmware, wipes my phone, re-flashes it and then restarts it without any input from me. I even went and played on Facebook whilst it was getting on with it. Next thing I know, the iTunes icon is merrily bopping away in my Dock and asking me if I would like to set my iPhone up as a whole new device or if it should just restore my backup.
Simply put, I restored my backup and it’s currently got all my settings (As far as I can tell) absolutely as I left them and is busy restoring all my media/contacts/email and so on. Apple wins for easy fixing of mildly broken phone, infinitely easier than fixing most other broken devices, even those with so-called ‘one-click recovery’. Even so, it worries me that people feel the need to put in a big “Fix It” button no matter how easy to use it is. Perhaps a more elegant solution would be an option tucked away in a menu, and a ‘cock-up counter’ which automatically asks you something like “Your device has failed to sync properly the past 10 times you have docked it – would you like to run an automated recovery and restoration of your backup?”
I’m Back!
Nov0
Following that brief and somewhat irritating spite of hackers, who got in through a hole in someone else’s unmaintained site (The offending user has been thoroughly rollocked), my blog is back with no loss of content despite their best efforts, all for a mere 3 minutes of my time. Ladies and gentlemen, this is why you take backups.
I also took the opportunity to upgrade my slightly old codebase to the newest WordPress version, so I’ve got some new buttons to click. Nothing to worry about though. Sit back, relax, enjoy life.
Ready the Time Flux Capacitor!
Oct0
I’ve gone out today and bought myself (Amongst some bits of stationery) a new USB hub, and a new external hard disk (320GB for £49.99 – can’t complain).
The reasoning behind this is simple – I need a new USB hub to connect the mountain of devices I have to my laptop without running out of ports, power or both. I opted for a nice 4-port USB 2.0 hub (Powered) in order to be able to connect and juice up my various bits and pieces via a single port. Since I’ve still got a mini 1.0 hub, I reckon that 9 ports should be adequate for most purposes. If not then I’ll invest in a 7-way hub – but that’s getting silly.
On the hard disk front, I wanted it to use as a backup device – but no mere rsync backup device! No dodgy 3rd-party backup device! No, this was going to be a Time Machine backup device!