Category: iOS & Mac how-tos

Last night I was updating my iPhone 4 to iOS 4.3 (from 4.2.1) and it got almost all the way through until it sought to verify the update with Apple and failed with error code 1013. The support document said this was likely to do with security software preventing iTunes from connecting to Apple but I had no problems with the iTunes Store (usually a dead giveaway) so I looked further and found that it’s to do with the hosts file on the computer needing a line edited.

I was just about to give it a try when I stumbled across references to the application TinyUmbrella causing this problem. I have used TinyUmbrella to grab the SHSH blobs for my AppleTV 2 so that I could jailbreak it safely (jailbreaking the ATV2 is highly advisable as it makes the device incredibly useful for things like XBMC). There’s actually a preference setting in the TinyUmbrella app that automatically alters the hosts file so that it forces checks to go through Cydia and not Apple and therefore allow jailbroken iOS software to go undetected.

Open the app, click the Advanced tab, uncheck the box marked ‘Set Hosts to Cydia on Exit’ and the update problem goes away.

Thought I’d post this in case it helps somebody else with the same problem without having to go editing the hosts file themselves.

You may be considering syncing your iPhoto libraries between various machines using Dropbox. I tried this recently and it works, but there are some serious caveats, that if you ignore could result in wiping out a lot of your iPhoto changes. Skip to the last paragraph if you want the short version, but for those who get some strange thrill from reading a stranger’s data disaster tales, read on.

So, I recently upgraded to the 50GB Dropbox account as I wanted to be able to sync a large quantity of photos between my iMac and MacBook Pro so that I didn’t have to be tethered to the desk in order to sort and edit them, then make an iPhoto book out of them.

As I started the process of making the book I knew I would have to sync my iPhoto libraries as well. Now, I don’t use iPhoto for anything other than making calendars at Christmas, and the occasional book. I turn off the feature that copies photos into iPhotos catalogue as I prefer to leave them where they are. I also create a new library for each project (although I think that as of 2011 I’ll just keep all of each year’s projects in one library named for the year).

First of all I backed up my libraries by duplicating the entire folder in which they are kept, then zipping it down. Then I created a symbolic link to the original folder and dropped that into Dropbox. That’s a hefty amount to share so I had to leave it overnight to get the contents up onto the server and down onto my MBP.

Once done, I was pleased to see that there appeared to be absolutely no problems. Everything I’d been doing on iPhoto on my iMac prior to syncing appeared in the MBP iPhoto installation. Remembering that with such ‘hacks’ I would need to make sure only one copy of iPhoto was running at a time (to avoid save version conflicts) I got cracking on the book in iPhoto on the MBP.

Yesterday I decided I wanted to continue the book on my iMac for a change. I’d done a lot of work the day before on the book, and that evening had hidden the app away while my wife browsed the net, and then had left the laptop closed and charging on the coffee table overnight as always.

So without thinking, I fired up the iMac copy of iPhoto and as soon as the book loaded I was hit full force in the guts – none of the prior day’s work was there and with a burst of searing adrenaline I realised why.

I hadn’t quit the MBP iPhoto the night before. It was still running, with all of the changes to the book on it, albeit hidden away in the dock. I had a sinking feeling that Dropbox hadn’t been able to upload the new changes to the server and download them to the iMac.

I quickly quit the iMac app and reached for the MBP to pop out the iPhoto app from the dock where it was idling and check all was well. All my work was still there, THANK GOD. However, my mind was starting to work through what had happened.

I could see from the menu icon that Dropbox had started doing a lot of syncing on both machines. I thought through what was going on and came to the conclusion that iPhoto probably makes final saves to the library on Quit, and Dropbox is probably only able to properly sync the changes to the libraries at that point, ready to be used when the app is next launched on whichever machine. I’d closed the MBP the previous evening without quitting iPhoto and, therefore, without letting Dropbox copy the library properly to the iMac.

Then I’d launched the iMac version with an old library, from two days ago. Then I’d quit that version in a panic. And it had started syncing at that point…

With a grim feeling of doom I relaunched the MBP iPhoto and sure enough, in the last two minutes all my work had been wiped out. While Dropbox had been trying to upload the MBP’s newer iPhoto library, it had downloaded the older and freshly saved iMac library and overwritten all my work. And now the newer library was gone for good.

There was no happy ending here – I’ve thought through every possibility. My MBP is meant to be a ‘floating’ computer and hence is never backed up either locally or to the cloud, Dropbox excluded (not that it would have helped in this case for the above reasons). If I had been working on the iMac and forgotten to quit, there was a chance that the days work would have been backed up to my external drives or to Dataflame overnight, but as it was my work was toast and I’ve had to redo it today from memory.

The lessons here are:

Here endeth the lesson…

(PS, I just spent my lunch recreating the lost pages, which only numbered around 8 or so in the end, and I’m confident they’re actually better now I’ve had a second go at them. I still wish I’d never had to do it in the first place)

Happy Christmas, everyone! I hope you all got what you wanted and/or what you deserved. 😉

My Christmas treat to myself was to spend the evening geeking out with my Dropbox setup. It’s a free service that basically allows you to keep certain files constant across multiple machines. You create an account, download software to the machines you want to use and it creates a folder called ‘Dropbox’ on those machines. Whatever you put in the Dropbox on your computer is uploaded to the server space (where it’s secure unless you mark it ‘Public’), and is subsequently downloaded to the Dropbox folders on all the other machines you’ve set it up with, maintaining consistency no matter what machine you use.

It’s probably easier to understand if you just try it. It’s completely free, works with Macs, PCs and iPhones – sign up via my links and you’ll even get 250MB extra space on top of the standard 2GB, as will I. Plus, if you follow five of the six ‘Getting Started’ tips once you’ve signed up you get another 250MB free!

I’ll admit I wasn’t sure what to use it for at first. However, combined with the free iPhone app that accesses your server space, I found it was useful for syncing work documents like callsheets or scripts, as well as being a simple and free way to distribute large files like zip archives of photos for friends and clients.

Finally, I started using it instead of the Sites folder for storing the local copies of the code that runs my websites so that I can make edits on my iMac and be able to pick them up later on the laptop, with no effort copying the files between the two machines.

However, I felt like I was missing out on some cool uses, so I started investigating syncing the settings of regularly used applications ike Safari, iCal, Address Book, Things and 1Password, and this is how I did it.