Leopard iCal Publishing Bug

March 11, 2008

Apple Discussion

If you have an iCal calendar published to A Private Server (webDAV), AND you have a .Mac account, you may find that your calendar stops publishing to the webDAV server, and starts publishing to your .Mac account.

What is worse, if you DO NOT have a .Mac account, but you DO have the .Mac account info filled-out (say, you used the trial and let it expire), this can happen too you as well. Only, in this event, the calendar will no longer be published anywhere, since .Mac won't accept invalid credentials.

I discovered this at a client's office where, literally years ago, everyone signed up for trial .Mac accounts. They found it not to be useful, and so let everything expire. Due to the very wonderful Migration Assistant, all of that account info has moved forward throughout the years.

Last year we installed an Xserve and have used it ever since as a webDAV iCal server. After upgrading everyone to Leopard last month, many people's calendars stopped updating. The common thread has been that every one of the problem calendars suddenly showed that they were being published to .Mac. Those clients where, at some point, I had gone in and cleared out their .Mac into, were not affected.

Repartitioning to Upgrade

March 11, 2008

Recently I have had to do several Mac OS X system upgrades (to Leopard) where the hard drive had to be repartitioned first. The previous system administrator had partitioned the drives into three parts: one for system and apps, one for data, and one for archive. He must not have realized that the Users home folder would be on the System Partition, and would slowly grow, or he would have given this partition the largest share. The upshot was that these systems had only about 3Gb of available space on the system partition.

The big problem was that these drives had more data than would fit on my 100Gb portable drive -- the one I use for this kind of thing. The client had a server, though, so I decided to use this to backup the hard drives. My plan was to create a disk image of each of the three partitions, then restore the primary image back to a single partition on the drive, verify that it was bootable, then perform the upgrade on the newly expanded drive. As an aside, you might think that backing up over the network would be slower than using an external drive. Nope. This network was gigabit ethernet, and it was actually faster.

I ran into trouble right away. While the Leopard Installer DVD allows you to browse the network, it will not allow you to authenticate to a resource. So, I had to setup a public folder on the server that was accessible to guests. Then I used Disk Utility to make a Disk Image of each partition, and saved it into the public folder.

The next problem I ran into came when I went to restore the system disk image to the newly partitioned hard drive. Disk Utility gave me the error "Restore Failure: Could not find any scan information. The source image needs to be imagescanned/scanned for restore." My heart sunk because I though the disk image was somehow corrupt. The fix, however, was simple. I poked around the menus in Disk Utility, and under Images was "Scan Image for Restore..." Thinking that it couldn't be that easy, I gave it a shot, chose the disk image, and bingo, it appeared in the left column, ready to be restored.

After that, the install went flawlessly -- well, almost. See my next post.

Back to My Mac on Bellsouth

February 10, 2008

According to Apple's documentation, in order to support the .Mac "Back to my Mac" features, your router must be an Apple router, or be able to support UPnP (Universal Plug and Play). It's not quite that simple, at least not with Bellsouth.

This assumes you have more than one Mac, and that you have paid for .Mac, and that you have configured .Mac on each Mac.

The short version is this: your Bellsouth Modem/Router doesn't support UPnP, but you can buy a second router that will work with it to do this. I use a Linksys WRT54G.

The trick is to setup the Bellsouth modem/router NOT to do it's own PPPoE. Instead, you configure your second router to do the PPPoE. Then you can configure the second router to enable UPnP and it works. If you want an overview, keep reading.

This requires a bit of TCP/IP knowledge, so this is not for novices. You will also need to have a second router in hand -- brand new out of the box is fine. If you don't have a passing familiarity with configuring basic home routers, stop and call the 11-year-old next door to help you.You will need your Bellsouth login and password, so do not proceed without this. Here are the basic steps:

1) Your Bellsouth router should already be configured and working. Make sure you can get to its config page (check your TCP/IP settings to find the router address, and plug that into your browser address bar). Note this address.

2) Now, disconnect your computer from the Bellsouth router and Plug the WAN port on your second router into the LAN port on the Bellsouth router. Then plug your computer into a LAN port on the second router (or access it wirelessly). If your Bellsouth router was configured properly, you should be able to get on the internet after you do this.

a) If you can access the internet, go on to step 3.

b) If you can't access the internet, unplug the second router from the Bellsouth router, but leave your computer plugged in to the second router. Power cycle the second router. Now access the router config page (check your TCP/IP settings to find the router address). On the main page, change the third number in the "Local IP address" to 10 (actually, any number from 0 to 254 will do, so long as it is different from the current number). Save the change, then connect it all back up and try again.

3) Now you should be able to access the internet. Check to see that you can access the Bellsouth Router's config page (the one your noted in step 1). Also check that you can access your second router's config page (check your TCP/IP settings, AGAIN because they have now changed, to find the router address). If you can access them both, you're ready for the next step. If you can't, you've got something else going on I can't cover here.

4) Log in to your Bellsouth router config page. Go into the advanced configuration. Look around for the passthrough-mode, or the bridging mode (varies). Enable this mode, choosing to pass through to your second router (it should be the only available device). Save the change. After you do this, you will probably not be able to get back on to the Bellsouth router config page. Don't worry, move on to step 5.

5) Access the config page for your second router. Configure the internet connection type to be PPPoE, and plug in your Bellsouth login and password. Save the settings.

6) After the router restarts, your will probably NOT be able to get online. Disconnect the ethernet cable from your computer (or turn off your wireless), wait a few seconds, then plug it back in (turn it back on). Now you should be able to connect to the internet.

7) Go back to the config page for your second router, and find the Admin page (Linksys Administration). Poke around until you find the UPnP setting -- enable it and save the settings.

That's it (that's enough!)! Now, when you leave your household and get on a normal internet connected network, you should be able to see your other, home, Back to My Mac computers under "Shared" in your Finder Sidebar. I said "normal" because some public networks block this. Have fun.

AT&T Kudos

February 10, 2008

Ok, so my last entry was about my problems with AT&T Rebate Debit cards. That was resolved to my satisfaction, but it did take the wind out of my overall good experience with them. Still, I really must say something good about AT&T. I know, I know, they are the Death Star... still.

When I got the iPhone, I expected to be paying more per month than I had been doing for years. I decided that it would be worth it. Then I discovered the Unity Plan.

The AT&T agent told me about the Unity Plan when I went in to get my wife and an employee's phone numbers ported to AT&T. He explained that the pricing for the Unity Plan was the same as the regular pricing, but it required that you put your wireless phone on the same bill as your home phone -- of course, that means you must have an AT&T home phone, which we do.

The real kicker, though, is that the Unity Plan makes all calls to AT&T phones free. This includes wireless AND wireline phones. A quick mental survey, and I figured this would cut my minutes in half. So I jumped on the plan. It was easy to port the two phones, and I got all of the paperwork and purchases completed in under an hour.

After I got my first phone bill, I wasn't sure what minutes were what. So I let a couple of more phone bills come. Then I took a good look at just how many plan minutes the three of us were using. It was definitely half of what we used to use. In fact, less than half.

I called up AT&T to reduce the total number of shared minutes on the plan. My target should be about 1,800 minutes per month. But AT&T only offers 1,400 or 2,100 minutes. Since I had a BUNCH of rollover minutes accumulated, I opted for the 1,400 minute plan. When, if, we burn through the rollover minutes, I'll flip to the 2,100 minute plan.

The good news is that my phone bill has actually gone down. On SunCom I used to pay for four phones. Now, with three phones, my bill works out to be less than the amount I would have paid for three phones on SunCom.

AT&T Rebate Complaint

February 10, 2008

Shortly after I got my iPhone, I flipped my wife's and an employee's phones over to AT&T. I got them both Motorola RAZR phones, each with $100 rebates ($200). After a few weeks, I got four (4) AT&T Rebate Debit cards, each worth $50. I thought, wow, cool, this will be easy to spend.

The first time I used a card, all went well. Then I realized that, in order to spend all of the money, I would have to track the amount spent for each card. So I put each card in an envelope and kept track of the balance on the front. I looked like a dweeb pulling them out, but I was determined to spend every penny.

The first time I tried to use two cards to cover a transaction was at the grocery store. I was successful at spending down to the penny the first card, but the second card, which had more than enough remaining balance, was rejected. I had to use a third card to cover the bill. Then I had two partially spent cards, which really bugged me.

The next time I tried to use a card was at a restaurant. The card had about $5 more available balance than the tab -- but it was rejected. I had to use my debit card because they could not let me use two cards to cover the bill. At a gas station, I tried to use a card, but it was rejected. Next I tried to use a card to pay for chinese take-out, and it was rejected. In five attempts, four rejections. By now I was totally put-out.

So I called up AT&T customer support. I got a very nice gentleman on the line. I promptly chewed him out, stopping to apologize and explain that, while I thought he was great as a person, I was completely pissed with AT&T. Nothing personal. BTW: I think this is a very important thing to do -- tell them you aren't pissed at them. It diffuses the situation, and helps them to want to help you.

He explained to me that many businesses, especially restaurants, have to authorize more than the total of the bill in order to accommodate tips, etc. I knew this, but this still didn't explain the first rejection at the grocery store. I asked him to give me a credit for the remaining balance and just be done with it. He told me he could not do that. I read the riot act again, and again I explained that it was AT&T, not he, that was the target of my wrath. Then he said a very smart thing.

He suggested that I just use the cards to pay my bill. Oooo, I was completely defanged. I thought "what an elegant solution, why didn't I think of that?" I thanked him and hung up.

When my next bill came, I called up the pay-by-phone line and explained what I wanted to do. After hearing me out, the customer service rep explained to me that there would be a $5 service charge FOR EACH CREDIT CARD TRANSACTION. That would be $20! What!? If I pay my bill with AT&T's own debit card, they charge me for every transaction?

I immediately asked her to close out my account. I told her that if they had such a ridiculous rebate system, and an equally punitive set of fees to use their own cards, I simply couldn't remain a customer. No way was I going to pay $5 per transaction. After all, it was their own card paying their own bill.

Thankfully, she decided it would be better to waive the $5 fees and just take the cards. So, one by one, I depleted the balances of my three remaining cards, and stuck the total remaining balance on my company credit card.

So, the next time you see a rebate offer, beware that you may be receiving a debit card, and not a check. Avoid trying to use the card at restaurants and gas stations, and ask other types of vendors up front if they will have to authorize for more than the exact value of the transaction.

Wall Street Journal Mac Ad (sort of)

February 5, 2008

Send by a friend who subscribes to The Wall Street Journal.

Happy New Year!

January 1, 2008

The photo says it all. I wish you and yours a great year!

Happy New Year!
Originally uploaded by billread

iPhone Mail and Calendar Integration

December 6, 2007

Of course, I installed Mac OS X Leopard the day it came out. I was really hoping for a bunch of new goodness and integration with the iPhone, but was pretty disappointed that no new secret stuff appeared. Over time I have discovered a few nuggets that have proved to be useful-- especially if you are an iPhone using GTD fanboy.

Everyone knows:
- that iCal syncs to your iPhone
- that there are no To Dos on the iPhone-- not even an app
- that the iPhone notes app doesn't have a Mac counterpart

Everyone (that means me) really hoped that Leopard would miraculously incorporate all of these things. But it didn't. At least not totally. However, THERE IS A WAY.

If you use IMAP for your Mac and your iPhone mail, you can can get both Notes and To Dos from your computer on your iPhone. The implementation still needs work, and I think that Apple will eventually get around to this. But for now, it is very useful for your GTD system.

Under Leopard in Apple Mac, you now have a button for Note and a button for To Do. If you are working inside one of your IMAP mailboxes, such as your inbox, and you click one of these, the item is automatically added to that mailbox on the IMAP server. This means the iPhone will see it.

To view the notes on your iPhone, just look through your mailboxes. Notes will appear as emails "From" you, but with subjects being the first line of the note, and the body being the whole note. Pretty cool.

To Dos show up differently. In Apple Mail, when you create your first To Do (within Mail, while in an IMAP folder), a new IMAP folder will appear, titled Apple Mail To Do. This folder will now appear on your iPhone. There is no real interaction with To Dos on the iPhone, other than reading the To Do, or deleting it. But this is great for those of us who need to get our To Dos on our iPhone. I don't actually use the To Dos, just the notes, but I plan to play with them.

Currently I am using Vitalist to manage my projects and actions. My plans are to create a set of IMAP note folders, organized by context, and migrate my GTD system into it. Now, if Mail just had tagging....

Interwatches on eBay

November 18, 2007

Ok, so I'm generally not one who complains, leaves negative comments, or rants about a company after a bad experience. Yes, there are some exceptions. Well, Interwatches is one of them. Earlier this year I bought my wife a Ladies Rolex from Interwatches via eBay. We have been very happy with the watch, but Interwatches was odd to deal with.

For an added $120 Interwatches offered a water resistance test, along with a water resistance guarantee. I bought this because my wife wanted to swim with the watch. Once I won the bid, I got an automatic invoice from Interwatches. I wrote them to ask for the water proof test, and went back and forth before finally getting an email from them telling me to just add the extra $120 to my payment, which I did.

The watch arrived, but did not include the certificate. Also, it arrived a little earlier than the delay that "water proof test" should have added. I called and they assured me the test had been done, and they promptly sent me a certificate. It left me wondering.

As it turned out, my wife didn't swim with the watch for several months. Then, when we were up on a lake in the SC mountains, she went swimming. When she got out of the water, the face of the watch was completely fogged. Annoyed (and, yes, suspicious that it was somehow her fault-- a fault of my own), I checked the screw-down crown, which was firmly in place. I unscrewed it to see if the seal might be visibly damaged, but couldn't really tell. I secured it again, and told her not to swim with it again until we could return it.

When we returned home, I called Interwatches. They acknowledged that we had a guarantee. They told me to ship the watch to them right away, and they would take care of it.

A few days later I received a call from them. The agent, clearly foreign and with halting English, told me that their jeweler determined that the crown had not been screwed down completely, and this was the cause of the water breach. He explained that it was therefore not covered, and would cost me $85 to be serviced. Now, I am 100% certain that this is not true. I'm not 99.9% certain, but 100%. I checked that thing. I've owned a Rolex with a screw-down crown for 20 years, and I know how it works-- this is why I checked the thing when it happened (because I wasn't so sure she knew it).

I went ballistic. I explained to him the events, and told him that I had in fact checked the watch immediately upon discovering the problem. I insisted that there was NO WAY this was true, and that he needed to fix my watch under the $120 guarantee. We went round and round for 20 minutes, and he finally told me he would speak with his manager, who was conveniently "out."

When he called back the next day, I stood my ground. In fact, I insisted that if he refused to fix my watch under the warranty, that he should refund the $120 to me. He could take the $85 out of the refund. Again, he had to call me back.

Then I began to think: they've got my watch held hostage; it's only $85 to get it back, fixed. Standing on principle at that point might just cost me the watch. Then I hatched a plan: pay for the repair via American Express, then dispute the payment when the watch arrives. I called Amex to ask them about the situation. They explained to me that, even if I disagreed with the $85 extortion fee, so long as I agreed to pay it initially, I couldn't really dispute it-- not without lying about it.

The upshot is that I wasn't going to lie about the situation-- that was what they were doing, and I wasn't going to stoop to their level. I decided to pay the $85 just to get the watch back. I've chalked it up to experience, and I'll never do business with Interwatches again. Feel free to let me know if you have had a different experience.

A Little Help from My Friends

November 17, 2007

It's nice to know that once-in-a-while you can provide someone with a little help. This email came from a post of mine about the VoicePro VP206, VP208, VP412 Programming Manual PDF download.

Here it is almost 2008 and the link still comes in handy for some of us. Our NEC DS2000 system is acting up amd it requires a professional programmer with special software to troubleshoot and do it justice. I've had a VP408 on standby for years. Can't find the manual, can't find the power supply. So, I hacked a computer power supply to get 24 volts (it wrks fine though the box says it needs 28 --- I'll buy a 28V regulated later).

Then I hit Google and kept coming up with the adverts for that printed manual. After a few search word changes your BlogSpot page popped up in 8th place on page 1. (Searching on "voicepro  programming manual".)

Thank you!!