Away from home but with a reliable high speed WiFi connection, my MacBook Air could no longer boot after Verify on the Disk Utility was unable to fix a cluster on my solid state drive (SSD.) The only option left was to boot in Recovery mode (holding down the Command-R during bootup) as Safe mode (just the command key) no longer worked. Recovery Mode, new to Mac OS X with the advent of Lion, boots from a separate small partition that is set aside when Lion is installed. This requires an internet connection and your exisiting network connections area availalbe in this mode. 

Cancel download LionThe first thing that happens when you choose to reinstall Lion in Recovery Mode is that it downloads it again from the internet. Unfortunately, it took several attempts, each a couple of hours long, until I sought a solution to a known issue - the computer thinking you cancelled the download of Lion. Your only options are to either “Cancel” or to “Cancel Download” both of which stop the reinstallation of Lion. OOPS! If you choose cancel, all you can do is try to re-install Lion and again you will get the same non-sensical option to cancel or cancel.

The solution which I found by combing through numerous discussion forums was to flash the PRAM then try again. To do this, hold down CTL-OPTION-COMMAND-P-R when booting…allow the screen to flicker and then reboot into recovery mode with COMMAND-R. Now if you try to re-install Lion, you will find the download had indeed almost completed before and within just a few second the download finishes and the reinstallation continues properly.

Now, what about all my lost data? I’ve been at this long enough that MOST things were backed off in the cloud just fine. 99% of my documents are in a DropBox account so my first step was to just redownload the dropbox installer and then all my files re-synced to my MacBook Air from the dropbox account. Using my Carbonite account, which constantly backs everything to the cloud, I was able to download a handful of files that I had not stored in dropbox very easily.

1 Password by Agile BitsReinstalling my apps was a different matter and this is something that is still not ideal. Most of the cloud services will not back up apps and my Time Machine backup, a feature built-in to every Mac, was sitting at home - and I was not at home. Any application that I had purchased in the Apple App Store was a breeze…just connect with the App Store, look at purchase history and redownload them all. Other apps that I purchased on-line were easy to redownload and install thanks to my 1 Password app (that stores its data in my DropBox folder.) This handy program is a safe storage for all my application license keys and also stores the URL for the download page of every application I’ve installed over the years. As the data file is stored in my DropBox documents folder, once I reinstalled 1 Password, I had all my download URLs and license keys. Unfortuately, my iWork, iLife and Aperture apps were purchased before there was an App store and Apple has yet to have a cloud matching service like they do for iTunes music. This means that even though I have paid for legitimate copies of all the programs, I need the DVDs to do the reinstall. Same goes for Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 which is not even available in the App Store. I won’t tell you what I did but will say it might rhyme with “zit borrent” and an app called Transmission.

So, Apple, I am hoping that one day you will allow folks who have purchased your Apps on DVD and installed them on their computers, to have this registered in the App Store as a purchase so that the app can be redownloaded in an emergency. In the meantime, I strongly recommend these tips based on my experience:

• Use a cloud backup service such as DropBox that always automatically synchronizes your data across all your computers
• Have a Time Machine backup always running wherever you use your computer the most so that you could restore anything; but you still need cloud options for when not at home or when even the backup could be corrupted
• Backup everything constantly in the background using a service like Carbonite or CrashPlan
• Get a license/password storage app like 1Password and be sure to keep its data file in your cloud storage so that you can access the information about any app installed on any computer when needed
• If possilbe, buy apps from the Apple App Store as once purchased they can be downloaded anytime to any of your computers (Hopefully, one day Apple will have an app matching service so that if apps are installed via other means such as download from developer’s site or installed from DVD then you can download it from the App store like their iTunes music match.)

Late 2011 iPhone line-upAs those who have read through the specs know, the only thing that has remained unchanged about the upcoming iPhone is the external appearance along with keeping the 4 in the name. The processor is double the speed, GSM data speed has been doubled to a theoretical max of 14.4 Mbps from 7.2, graphics are up to 7X faster, the camera is now 1080p for video, 8Mp for photos, has a light sensor that captures 73% more light vs iPhone 4, time to take the pictures is much faster now, maximum storage is 64Gb instead of 32, and Siri voice control has played catch up with other devices and maybe surpassed many.

Steve Jobs 1955-2011Why can’t people look past the name? If it were called 5 instead of 4S would people go WOW! Keeping te same form factor gives us instant access to all the cases out there rather than making is wait for new ones. Was the Keynote delivery not enthusiastic enough to make people think this is magical? Was Tim Cook not as exuberant in his delivery as the now late Steve Jobs? Guess what, Steve Jobs was on his death bed while all the Apple top guns were doing the Keynote - how enthusiastic could they possibly be under those circumstances?

Every year there will be evoluationary changes in smartphones. The iPhone 4S makes huge advances over the iPhone 4 and is the logical next step. Look for a radical new design next year which will take advantage of true 4G networks that are just now beginning to pop-up across north america. What will also need to evolve is battery technology that will allow the future iPhone 5 to get through the day…technology that isn’t here yet.

In honour of Steve Jobs consider either buying the iPhone 4S or making a donation to your local cancer society….or both!

3 more weeks until Spotlight indexing complete

After upgrading from Snow Leopard to Lion, there are two behind the scenes actions that tie up your system resources for a number of days. For starters, the improvements in Spotlight, the search mode for the OS, needs to index every file on your computer. If you have a few hundred MBs on your computer, this process can initially be reported as needing up to 6 weeks to complete. At the same time, there are system files that are being cached which also slows dow the Spotlight indexing process. Once the system files are cached, the remaining time for spotlight indexing does shorten…but this can still be 3-5 days.

Here are a few tricks to do after the install to limit your downtime:

• exclude your Time Machine backup from being indexed (in system preferences, look for Spotlight, then the Privacy tab where you can add folders to exclude)
• put your Time Machine back-up on hold until all the spotlight indexing is finished (again this can be done from the system preferences; just turn Time Machine off)
• while you’re at it, this would be a good time to exclude your email messages from being backed up (unless you use only POP mail that gets removed from the server once downloaded); there is nothing worse then restoring old email from a backup when the latest versions will be downloaded, including messages you have already deleted or moved to other folder
• don’t run your email program until everything is stabilized 3-5 days (6 weeks?!) after your install! Downloading and syncing all your email will just cause Mail or Outlook to freeze while spotlight indexing is still happening and besides, everything on your computer pretty much crawls and can’t be run until the indexing and system file caching is completed
• after 3-5 days, you should see the little black dot in the middle of your Spotlight magnifying glass disappear then you can turn time machine back on, download your emails and use your computer again

There you have it! Installl Lion, go on a summer vacation, then when you come back you should be able to use your computer again. Enjoy all those new Lion features!

P.S. Another issue to watch out for is if you are running Lion on a computer that is authenticating to a Snow Leopard server. If this is the case, change your network settings so that you no longer authenticate to the network. I have found that attaching to my Snow Leopard network makes all applications take at least 3-5 minutes to even launch, even after the Spotlight indexing and system caching process has completed. I will keep you posted if this gets resolved by upgrading the server to Lion as well.

Mercury Auro Pro Express SSD for MacBook Air 2010I have been very happy with my MacBook Air (2010) which I bought because the iPad isn’t enough when it comes to editing videos and preparing lectures. Despite my best efforts to keep it clutter free, 120GB got full pretty quickly. With no more room and performance beginning to get hampered, it was time for an upgrade of the internal solid state drive (SSD.)

I purchased the MBAir at the end of September 2010 and was down to just 16GB of free space before this upgrade yesterday. This despite using just selective sync for all my DropBox documents (that I share with all my computer) and using an external SSD dirve for my surgical videos and Aperture iibraries. MacSales now has upgrade options for the internal SSD in the MacBook Air that are up to 4x bigger (480GB) and use up to faster chips (275 MB/s vs 215 MB/s.) It seemed to be defeating the amazing portability of the MBAir by carrying around at least one external drive for certain tasks I was doing on a regular basis.

iomega eGo rugged USB 3.0 external driveUnlike a standard computer upgrade with hard disk drives, the cloning process for this upgrade requires two steps. I used the Iomege eGo 1Tb external drive for the cloning. It was worth buying a big drive because it can always be used for backing up surgery videos afterwards. SuperDuper! was the cloning utility that I used. Here is the full sequence of steps:

1. Use DiskUtility on the Mac to format the external drive as MacOS Journaled
2. Disable your internet connection by turning off WiFi and close all apps (so nothing tries to get updated while cloning the drive)
3. Run SuperDuper! to clone the current SSD onto the external drive. SuperDuper is a great utility that I have used for other upgrades. In addition to being great for one-time complete cloning, it can also be used as an alternative to Apple’s Time Machine app in which you run a full cloning and then from time to time do incremental backups so that you always have a complete clone of your system.
4. Replace the SSD in the MBAir as described below and shown in the MacSales youtube video
5. Restart the MBAir booting from that external drive by holding down the alt/option key when booting (not the command key.) This will display an icon for the external drive since the newly installed SSD drive will be unformatted.
6. app window for SuperDuper!Find your SuperDuper! application in your applications folder. Remember, since your external drive is an exact clone of your original drive, everything will appear just as if it were your internal drive with your applications where you left them. You then need to clone the external drive back to the new internal SSD.

The physical upgrade takes about 5-10 minutes to do. There are 10 screws to remove on the underside of the MacBook Air with the screwdriver provided with the SSD upgrade. A second scredriver is then needed to remove the one screw that holds the SSD in place, slide it out gently on a static free surface, slide in the new drive, then close up the MacBook Air.

If you have Microsoft Office installed NB: As usual for Microsoft Office products, activation was based on your hard drive ID. Having changed  your hard drive, you will need to re-enter your activation code when you launnch any of the Office apps otherwise they won’t work at all.

With one day of using the upgraded MacBook Air things are going very smoothly. Despite the very high cost for the SSDs at this time, the convenience is worth it and I know that I will be able to work on my aperture slides and surgical video editing more conveniently and smoothly. Videos that were beginning to freeze now play smoothly. (I presume that virtual memory performance was being impaired before by the lack of available SSD space.)

Beats by Dr Dre w/ ControlTalk (Monster) I have now lost my faith in Monster products after purchasing the Dr Dre Tour beats with Control Talk after the right ear piece went crackly after less than 2 weeks of using less than an hour per day. Don’t let the high price fool you into thinking this is a top quality product. Yes, the sound quality was really good while it lasted and the full volume control, mic, and pause, skip functions are convenient but not if in the end you are getting a really poorly constructed crappy set of buds. I now understand why others complain that monster is over-hyped - this proves it. I guess seeing everything Dr Dre on American Idol made me think they are now a professional line of audio products but nothing could be further form the truth.

There are many other earbud options out there though somewhat limited choices if you want to control your iPhone’s volume for when you’re using the iPod app. Although this set of earbuds seems to have a great feature set, it is living up to other on-line reviews that complained of their poor construction. I have now experienced it for myself and will be returning them to London Drugs for a full refund. I do not think it is worth giving Monster Cable another chance with a replacement set as you shouldn’t have such a poor experience with a set of headphones with a MSRP of $199! Monster Cable does have a long history of selling audio cables that are often twice as expensive as competitors and have held a mystique about being worth it due to the best construction wherever the cables insert into their plugs. I guess they have dropped their quality without dropping their prices to match.

The key to finding what you’re looking for is to know where you put it. When it comes to computer files, sometimes a folder structure is just not adequate. For digital photos, we have many programs that allow us to edit the metadata embedded in the filename to tag each picture for easy retrieval by searching for all photos with certain tags. When it comes to all other digital files, I have never found a good tagging solution until stumbling across TAGS by Gravity Applications.

Gravity Apps TAGS for altering metadata surgical videosI record eye surgery when I’m in the operating room directly to my computer. I thought I found a great and inexpensive solution for altering the metadata by using Google’s Picasa, a free download. I assumed that as with Apple Aperture that I use to tag my still photos, that the Picasa tags were embedded in the hidden metadata that is part of the filename so that if I were to transfer the surgical video to another drive that my tagging would be maintained. Alas, it does not do that at all. Picasa keeps these tags within the Picasa database and in the root of the current folder rather than saving as part of each file. Once I copied my surgical videos over to another external hard drive, the tags were all lost.

Enter: GravityApps’ TAGS! I searched for programs to tag videos but again these were no better than Picasa in allowing for portability until I found TAGS. This app actually works for all file types as part of the journaled file structure in Mac OS X. If you move the file elsewhere, the embedded metadata tags move with the file. Highlight a file name, click on CTL-spacebar, and up pops the tagging window. When you need to find fies with specific tags, ALT-spacebar is the default key combo to bring up a tag enabled version of Spotlight that includes search for tags along with your normal spotlight results. 

TAGS is $29 for a single user or $49 for 4-user Family Pack license and is available as a trial download. I have it installed on 4 of my computers now so that I can easily find that surgical video I’m looking for and even files in my DropBox shared by all these computers very easily. It matters less where I put any file as long as I marked it with the appropriate metatdata tags.

The recent firmware upgrade for Airport Extreme, 7.5.2, actually breaks DHCP if you have an OS X Snow Leopard server handling DHCP IP address assignments. I found this out recently after running the update and then finding that all my WiFi devices could no longer get an IP address on my network and this was confirmed by others in an Apple discussion forum. Thanks Apple - once again taking a lesson from the Microsoft playbook and how to make things worse. The fix, downgrade to the prior firmware version, is described in this article as is a discussion on what Apple really needs to do with their Airport Extreme.

Airport Extreme warning lightIt appears that Apple is on a streak lately of pushing out upgrades that make their sexy devices fail. Prior to this Airport Extreme mistake, there was the iTunes upgrade that makes it so many folks can no longer sync their iDevices. Now with 7.5.2 for Airport Extreme, Apple has managed to make it so that if you are using an OS X server, in my case running on a MacMini Server edition, the server can no longer automatically assign the IP addresses for ANY of your WiFi devices…in my case this means 4 laptops, 2 iPhones and on iPad.

What Apple also has yet to fix, is the fact that the Airport Extreme has NO SETTING to allow it to be attached to your internet modem yet disable DHCP altogether so that a server can handle the IP addresses. Instead, you still have to have the Airport Extreme hand out your server as its only IP address in its DHCP range so that when no other device can get an address, the server can take over. With 7.5.2, even this no longer works….you have to change all your devices to an assigned IP address from the device itself.

Airport Firmware downgrade step 1The only good workaround for now is to downgrade your Airport Extreme to version 7.4.2. This still requires that you configure DHCP on your Airport Extreme and assign your server as its only IP address, but now your server will once again be able to hand out addresses again instead of all your devices having a self-assigned IP address that does not connect to your server or the internet.

Here’s how to downgrade your Airport Extreme. Launch Airport Utility from your computer. Hover your mouse over the word Firmware as shown in the settings page to reveal that this is a clickable item. Click on the word Firmware in order to open another window that allows you to choose any prior version of the firmware to install. Then, choose 7.4.2, and let the downgrade begin.Airport Firmware downgrade step 2

Now, Apple, how about doing what’s right? Enable NAT yet disable DHCP so that those of use who think your WiFi router is otherwise pretty good, doesn’t have to jump through hoops to make it do what LinkSys and DLink do with no fuss? It is very tempting to just solve all these issues by replacing my base station with another brand that has proper settings and just use the Airports that I have as signal repeaters. Servers are supposed to handle DHCP on networks and is one of their major roles in this environment. Apple makes us jump through hoops by not even alllowing this easily and just made things worse with firmware 7.5.2 which, if you have  a server delegating your IP addresses, you must avoid. For now, Airport Extreme is a home newbie WiFi router and not useable for the business world.

For those who crave a physical keyboard for their iPad, there are now more options than Apple s own keyboard dock. I am the victim of my early adoption once again as I bought two different bluetooth keyboard cases only to be disappointed with both of them. They have made me appreciate the on-screen keyboard even more.

SENA Folio with KeyboardThe first to market was SENA with their Folio with keyboard. It is a beautifully crafted, albeit somewhat bulky, leather case. The leather construction makes this a work of art but the spongy keys on its built-in keyboard proved to be a huge disappointment. I prefer the accidental hitting of the caps key on the on-screen iPad keyboard over ending up with double and triple keystrokes for most letters using the SENA keyboard. This is one product to avoid. I understand that the company recognizes the failure in their choice of keyboard and may have a new model in the works. Wait for that one and avoid version 1.0.

ZAGG MateZAGG, the makers of the protective invisibleSHIELD system (very protective but needs frequent warranty replacements for discolouration issues,) has now introduced their ZAGG Mate keyboard case. It looks good and has a much better keyboard to the touch than the SENA case. There is a bit of a ledge to have to deal with but the keys still feel really good. When I originally posted this article, I thought that the fact the power light shuts off just one second after powering it on meant that the keyboard could not keep its charge. In fact, it is supposed to shut off and it is important to follow the bluetooth pairing instructions that involve pressing the recessed button above the bluetooth logo to make the keyboard discoverable.

The SENA experience taught me to appreciate the on-screen keyboard on the iPad even more until the ZAAGGmate came along. Now I have a more responsive keyboard and no triple entry of letters. I'll keep you posted in the coming weeks on whether it is easier to carry around the iPad with the ZAGGmate or the MacBook Air when on the go.

Less than two weeks into the free month trial of the much hyped Netflix Canada, I cancelled the service to avoid risking being charged a single penny for a service that is devoid of content. If they really wanted to make a difference in Canada, they needed to go live with content from the start…not just videos you would find in the stack of VHS tapes the local libraries can’t even give away by the checkout counter.

Failed search for SNL NetflixNetflix is popular in the United States, where it began as a service in which you could rent DVDs by mail. In the past year they added streaming content which was provided for free to any customer who already had an account to rent at least one DVD by mail each month. In their foray into the Canadian market, they opted to only provide the streaming content and I use the term ‘content’ rather loosely. Because of the lack of a physical DVD, they promoted the service is being $1 cheaper per month compared with our U.S. counterparts. What they failed to advertise, and their paid actors who showed up at the press conference to launch the service, is that aside from an occasional gem that slipped through (eg Mad Men; albeit not including the current season) there is nothing worth watching. Although they annoucned carrying all old episodes of Saturday Night Live, a search on the Canadian site didn’t find any maches. Similarly, you would think This Is Spinal Tap has been around long enough that you would find it on Netflix….nope.

Streaming content on demand will be in everybody’s future, but Netflix has certainly proven that they are not worthy contenders….so who is?

Apple TV (late 2010)The 2nd generation Apple TV was released last month, priced t $119 in Canada, just above that appealing $99 impulse price in the States. Great in that it allows live streaming from other Apple devices in your household as long as they are on and they have their iTunes launched. It also allows renting shows, since it has no storage space to buy any shows or movies - perhaps an achilles heal rather than a selling feature. Apple is betting on the lower cost of a rental being something that will lead customers in droves to download, however network TV is staying away from making content deals….just a couple have agreed so far.

In November we will have the Boxee Box. A higher resolution device than the Apple TV, capable of storing media so purchasing or ripping your own is possible, full range of codecs including many the Apple TV can’t handle, and apps to get other content. However, this will also depend on content deals and app creation to tap into all potential media sources.

Logitech Revue Google TV (via gdgt.com)I’m placing my bets on Google TV, the Logitech Revue, but the wait will be painful for Canadians. It will not likely launch til late 2011. Google TV holds the promise of pulling together media regardless of where its coming from, something the Boxee Box comes close to doing as well. The extra plus though is that it will also connect directly with your cable or satellite provider’s digital PVR so that your searches for media will include the content of your PVR and its program guide for upcoming shows. Of course, this will fail if Google does not reach agreements with all the media providers in Canada to interface with the Google TV. So, please Shaw, Telus, Bell, Rogers, Videotron and any other providers in our country, I hope you can negotiate with Google to interface with the Google TV. 

Help me Obi-Wan KenobiHelp me Google TV, you’re my only hope.

I have tried many different twitter clients on the iPhone and iPad. Although there are some highly rated ones out there for the iPad, nothing comes close to Twitepad. It is refreshing in how it does things differently to achieve things nobody has yet to. (This review is based on v1.2 but on 07Jul2010 v1.3 was released Twitepad blog.)

Twitepad Timeline & browser (click to enlarge)If you click on a link within your timeline, you still keep your timeline displayed and the in-app browser displays the page. Where this gets even more amazing is that you can click on as many links in your timeline as you want and they ALL go to the browser as thumbnails. Tap on any thumbnail to read that page, close it or just tap on another thumbnail. If the thumbnails are blocking your view, click on the downward arrow in the center at the bottom to hide them then reveal again when needed.

Twitepad showing 3 coumnsIn the default view, just drag the timeline to the right and your mentions column appears…drag again and see your direct message column as well. There is an alternative theme you can load with “narrow” columns that shows one column at a time with the other column names shown as tabs up the left side. You can slide the columns back into hiding with your finger or delete them from view.

Tap double-line to retrieve missing tweets TwitepadHow many times have you not been able to check your tweets for awhile and by the time you try, you just get the latest 200. Some apps have an option to view more but you can’t even remember how far back to check since all your previously received tweets are NOT saved. Two more things that Twitepad does that I have not seen in other apps are: 1. all your tweets are kept unless you purge the cache yourself in the settings; 2. a double-line is displayed wherever tweets are missing, and a simple click fills in the gap! You no longer need to suffer from FMS (Fear of Missing Something) on Twitter.

Twitepad has the same features we’ve come to expect from other Twitter apps (eg save to Instapaper, use Bit.ly with your API key to shorten URLs) but does so much more than any other app. This is really the new must have Twitter app. v1.3, now available in the App Store, adds the only two features I was missing, the option to email a tweet to someone and use Twitlonger for sending longer messages. Even with those missing in v1.2, Twitepad was the best Twitter iPad app; it will now pull even further ahead of a mostly lacklustre and over-rated pack.