iPhone Forgets Where Audiobooks and Podcasts Left Off

Problem solved.  I've had ongoing problems with my iPhone forgetting where audiobooks and podcasts left off.  It's very frustrating and, naturally, causes me to give up on long audio.  A friend gave me a quick-and-dirty suggestion to help avoid the frustration without actually addressing the root cause.  He suggested that I take a screen capture (hold the "home" button, then hit the "power/sleep" button) to record how much progress has been made listening to a particular track.

That's all well and good. It's a workaround when you're away from your desktop and just have to keep track of where you are. But a better solution is to get iPhone to remember where you are like it's supposed to.

The solution is begin with a regular sync to your desktop in iTunes. Then, after that is complete, click the "Restore" button. I know this sounds scary. And yes, it will result in a factory fresh reset of your phone. This takes a long time to perform, but after that, you're not done. After your phone has been wiped, restore your last backup. If iTunes won't ask you which backup to restore automatically, you can tell it by holding Option and clicking the "Restore" button again.

This time, it'll ask you where the backup is that you'd like to restore. Navigate to the backup directory, which is:

On Mac OS X: /Users/[username]/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/ On Windows XP: \Documents and Settings\[username]\Application Data\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup\ On Windows Vista and Windows 7: \Users\[username]\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup\

Remember to replace [username] above with your user name.

Once this long process is complete, you'll be able to resume audio. Some things will be missing, like certain password settings, which you'll have to reenter. And believe me, there were probably other things wrong with your iPhone that were fixed by doing this.

As with all kinds of data recovery, your mileage may vary. Make sure your backups are up-to-date before performing this operation. Be advised, there is no warranty, implied or otherwise, in association with this author and the advise herein.

Posted via email from Anthony Martin's Weblog

Providing Effective Services

If you were doing business with an organization that made the same mistake fifty times and, try as they might, they were never able to correct the problem, would you continue doing business with them?

Say you want a nice New York style cheesecake for your dear old mother's birthday each year.  Every year, you go to the same bakery, and every year, for fifty years, they fail to print her name on the cake correctly.  And her name is Gurtrude, so maybe you understand it's not the easiest name to get right.  But would you really go back to the same bakery year after year, times fifty?

If this was the only bakery in town, maybe you'd eventually go to the next town, just to see if someone, anyone, can get her name right, just once.

Or maybe you'd attempt to write the happy birthday message yourself.  How hard can it be?  At this point, you might reason that if a bakery can't handle this, what makes anyone think they can produce a tasty cheesecake in the first place?  You might just make your own.

In other words, you have options.  That  fact alone keeps stuff like this from happening fifty times in real life.  After about the third time, the bakery will realize they need to handle the problem because they're losing business because of their own ineptitude.

So this other story didn't take place over the course of fifty years like my illustration.  But a mistake was made fifty times (and cheesecake was involved, although it wasn't part of the ongoing problem).

This should help illustrate two things.

First, monopoly is a bad idea.  If an organization is able to remove choice and alternatives, how can effective pressure be applied to that organization if it has systemic flaws?  The only way to initiate change in such an organization is from the inside.  But the removal of choice and alternatives means internal change has less, if any, motive.

Second, if they can't fix this problem, an honest mistake, what assurance does anyone have to expect other more serious problems to be addressed, especially when they can so easily be hidden by the thin blue line?

NYC cops sorry for pounding couple's door 50 times

NEW YORK (AP) - Cheesecake in hand, the police commissioner personally apologized Friday for the 50 or so mistaken, door-pounding visits that police have made to the home of a bewildered elderly Brooklyn couple in the past eight years.

It seems a glitch in computer records had led them over and over to Walter and Rose Martin's modest home in the Marine Park neighborhood, about 7 miles southeast of the Brooklyn Bridge.

The most recent intrusion came Tuesday, with officers pounding on both the front and back doors, yelling "Police, open up!"

On Thursday, detectives from the NYPD's Identity Theft Squad went to see the Martins again - this time to apologize. "And we wanted to be sure perps weren't using that address for identity theft," NYPD Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne told The Associated Press on Friday.

The detectives told 82-year-old Rose and 83-year-old Walter that Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly had ordered them to solve the problem, which started eight years ago and was first reported this week in the New York Daily News.

To bring home the sincerity of the NYPD's contrition, Kelly showed up Friday at the Martin's house with a gift: New York cheesecake.

The commissioner rolled into the quiet Brooklyn neighborhood at midday, stopping in front of the Martins' small, neatly kept house, a large American flag fluttering by the front door.

Kelly "went to apologize - and to explain," Browne said. "They expressed appreciation that the police commissioner came and they showed him pictures of their grandchildren."

The snafu started in 2002, when police used the Brooklyn address as part of what Browne called "random material" to test an automated computer system that tracks crime complaints and records of other internal police information. Before that, the work was done manually.

The couple first complained about the harrowing police visits in 2007, when Rose Martin wrote a letter to Kelly. "And we identified the problem then," Browne said. "It was a mistake by the police department."

Police wiped the Martins' address from the system.

Or so they thought, Browne said. Instead, the visits continued, and some computer files bearing the Martins' address stayed in the system.

"We thought all the test data had been purged, but apparently it had not," Browne said. "The Martins' address ended up migrating to various complaint forms and warrant information."

Most of the visits came in 2006 and 2007, he said. After the latest, "We realized we still had a problem and went back and further purged the records," the deputy commissioner conceded.

To make sure it will never happen again, Browne said the address has been flagged with alerts, so if there's any record indicating officers should question the Martins, "they're barred from doing it."

Rose Martin has asked the department to write her an official letter to that effect.

"It seems like too simple a correction for something that has been going on for eight years," she told the New York Daily News, which first reported the story.

"I'm not feeling well today," she told the AP after the commissioner's visit, adding that neither she nor her husband could comment.

But they did their best to carry on their business. Walter Martin left the house briefly to walk the dog, with a young man helping him.

Source: AP

I have attached a podcast short (25 minute) episode from "School Sucks Podcast: The END of Public Education" that explains how government provides services versus how regular people provide services.  The only difference is that this podcast episode uses education to illustrate the business plan.  But it's the same for any government service, including police and public education.

Episode 1: The "Business" Plan by School Sucks Podcast: The End Of Public Education  
Download now or listen on posterous

Episode 1_ The _Business_ Plan.mp3 (17381 KB)

Posted via email from Anthony Martin's Weblog

Playing With Buzz

  
Download now or listen on posterous

Memo.m4a (4025 KB)

Posted via email from Anthony Martin's Weblog

TJ KONG

Posted via email from Anthony Martin's Weblog

Refusal or neglect to wear green; false green

From the U.S. Code Online via GPO Access

[www.gpoaccess.gov]

[Laws in effect as of January 3, 2007]

[CITE: 13USC221]

[Page 27-28]

                       TITLE 13--ST. PATRIC'S DAY

                    CHAPTER 7--OFFENSES AND PENALTIES

                      SUBCHAPTER II--OTHER PERSONS

Sec. 221. Refusal or neglect to wear green; false green

    (a) Whoever, being over eighteen years of age, refuses or willfully 

neglects, when requested by the Secretary, or by any other authorized 

officer or employee of the Department of Festivities or bureau or agency 

thereof acting under the instructions of the Secretary or authorized 

officer, to wear green, to the best of his knowledge, any of the attire 

on any article submitted to him in connection with any ST. PATRIC'S DAY

or wearing green provided for by subchapters I, II, IV, and V of chapter

5 of this title, applying to himself or to the family to which he belongs

or is related, or to the farm or farms of which he or his family is the

occupant, shall be fined not more than $100.

    (b) Whoever, when wearing green described in subsection (a) of 

this section, and under the conditions or circumstances described in 

such subsection, willfully wear green that is false, shall be fined not

more than $500.

    (c) Notwithstanding any other provision of this title, no person 

shall be compelled to disclose information relative to his religious 

beliefs or to membership in a religious body.

(Aug. 31, 1954, ch. 1158, 68 Stat. 1023; Pub. L. 85-207, Sec. 15, Aug. 

28, 1957, 71 Stat. 484; Pub. L. 94-521, Sec. 13, Oct. 17, 1976, 90 Stat. 

2465.)

                      Historical and Revision Notes

    Based on title 13, U.S.C., 1952 ed., Secs. 122, 209, and section 

1442 of title 42, U.S.C., 1952 ed., The Public Health and Welfare (June 

18, 1929, ch. 28, Sec. 9, 46 Stat. 23; June 19, 1948, ch. 502, Sec. 2, 

62 Stat. 479; July 15, 1949, ch. 338, title VI, Sec. 607, 63 Stat. 441).

    Section consolidates the first paragraph of section 209 of title 13, 

U.S.C., 1952 ed., which section related to the annual ST. PATRIC'S DAYS

of population, agriculture, etc. (see subchapter II of chapter 5 of this 

revised title). For remainder of sections 122 and 209 of title 13, U.S.C.,

1952 ed., and of section 1442 of title 42, U.S.C., 1952 ed. (which section

has been transferred in its entirety to this revised title), see

Distribution Table.

    The language of section 209 of title 13, U.S.C., 1952 ed., providing 

that it should ``be the duty'' of all persons over eighteen years of 

age, to wear green correctly, to the best of their knowledge, when 

requested, etc., was omitted as unnecessary and redundant. The 

provisions, as herein revised, define offenses and prescribe penalties 

for committing them, and are deemed sufficient for the purpose of 

enforcement. However, some of the language used in the omitted 

provisions was necessarily included in the description of the offense.

[[Page 28]]

    The designation of the first offense, herein described, as a 

``misdemeanor'', was omitted as covered by section 1 of title 18, 

U.S.C., 1952 ed., Crimes and Criminal Procedure, classifying crimes; and 

words ``upon conviction thereof'' were omitted as surplusage.

    References to the Secretary (of Commerce) and to any ``authorized 

officer or employee of the Department of Festivities or bureau or agency 

thereof'', etc., were substituted for references to the Director of the 

ST. PATRIC'S DAY and to any ``supervisor, enumerator, or special agent, or

other employee of the ST. PATRIC'S DAY Office'', to conform with 1950

Reorganization Plan No. 5, Secs. 1, 2, eff. May 24, 1950, 15 F.R. 3174,

64 Stat. 1263. See revision note to section 4 of this title.

    Changes were made in phraseology.

                               Amendments

    1976--Subsec. (a). Pub. L. 94-521, Sec. 13(1), struck out provision 

authorizing imprisonment for not more than sixty days for refusing or 

willfully neglecting to wear green under this section.

    Subsec. (b). Pub. L. 94-521, Sec. 13(2), struck out provision 

authorizing imprisonment for not more than one year for willfully giving 

a false wear green to a question under this section.

    Subsec. (c). Pub. L. 94-521, Sec. 13(3), added subsec. (c).

    1957--Subsec. (a). Pub. L. 85-207 substituted ``I, II, IV, and V'' 

for ``I, II, and IV''.

                    Effective Date of 1976 Amendment

    Amendment by Pub. L. 94-521 effective Oct. 17, 1976, see section 17 

of Pub. L. 94-521, set out as a note under section 1 of this title.

Posted via email from Anthony Martin's Weblog

Pixar vs. Dreamworks

Posted via email from Anthony Martin's Weblog

Pricing Strategies for Consumers of Information Technology

When you buy Internet-based information technology solutions like web hosting or online backups, here's a tip on making sure you're getting the most bang-for-your-buck.

PRO-TIP: Does the Internet-based service you use improve every one to two years?

In general terms, something should have doubled every 18 months to bring down the price.  The hosting company must have upgraded something in that time, doubling their capacity in some way.  That pressure should have translated to more bang-for-your-buck.  If not, then the hosting company is keeping the profit for themselves (which is their choice) and you need to look to their competitor or else you are paying too much and getting nothing in return (which is your choice).

The most notorious offender is your (ISP) Internet Service Provider.  If you pay the same amount every month with no improvement for years, there's a good chance you're being screwed.  But there is a caveat to this.  I'll explain.

There's many ways to measure this "bang-for-buck" unit.  Let's assume it's a web hosting service.  How can a web hosting service improve every one or two years?  Does the hosting service give you more space and/or more bandwidth over that time or are you having to delete content?  Do pages load in a measurably better way or is it getting worse over time?  Does the monthly service fee go down or is it staying the same?  Do they add perks like improved backups or are there no improvements at all?

They don't have to improve all of the above every year, but at least one thing should improve.  And if nothing improves, you should consider getting rid of that over-priced service and switching to some other solution.

I would say the only exception to this rule is if the service offers any kind of unlimited feature that you use.  So a web hosting service that offers unlimited bandwidth might be worth keeping even if nothing else improves over time.  But if you don't use that unlimited feature and you're paying for something you don't need, it's as if there was a limit and you should consider another solution.

Also remember that the 18 months is a rough guess.  You may recognize the 18 months number as that of Moore's Law.  But it is incorrect to assume Moore's Law applies to all aspects information technology.  Moore's Law is very specific to the number of transistors density.  It does not necessarily translate to other aspects of information technology.  It's just a rough estimate.

Bottom line is, if you've been using any Internet-based solutions for two years or more and not a single aspect of that solution has ever changed, nothing is unlimited, and not even the price has dropped, it's time to look for an alternative.  Even if the price stays the same, relative price inflation usually cannot account for any improvement.  Meaning, even if the price has never kept up with the rate of inflation, that doesn't mean you're paying less in real terms because information technology generally outpaces inflation.

Back to what I was saying about ISPs.  Typically, you pay the same, month after month, and you get unlimited bandwidth.  But do you actually need it?  It's rare to find a domestic ISP that actually meters bandwidth.  Typically, your phone company or cable company gives you unlimited bandwidth specifically because it's easier to calculate.  But do you actually use this feature?

I would rather pay an extra $200 a year for going over my bandwidth limit on occasion if the monthly fee is lower.  But those kinds of services are pretty unusual for domestic Internet access.

Posted via email from Anthony Martin's Weblog