Cannot sync photos to iPhone / iPad / iPod Touch

I ran into this problem which drove me crazy these last couple of days.

When I tried to sync photos to my iPhone or iPad, I would get this message:

Some of your photos, including the photo Photo.JPG were not copied to the iPhone because they cannot be displayed on your iPhone

At first I thought the problem was with specific photos, but then I saw that event photos that synced once do not sync now.

I have searched the web a while before I found the answer, which seems specific to Vista and Windows 7.

The main solution is to run iTunes as Administrator, and then the sync would work! You may need to delete the "iPod Photo Cache" folder which is in your photos sync folder before it would work, but in my case simply deleting it didn't help, and I needed to run as Administrator as well.

Hope this post saves you some time.

Apple TV 2 – Philips and Sony TV Owners - Colors Change to Green and Pink

I recently got an Apple TV 2 (ATV2). Overall, a product with great potential, and I promise to review all the positive aspects, once the following huge bug will be resolved.

It appears that if you own certain Sony or Philips (mine is Philips 9664) TVs, you may get a very frustrating experience. After 20 or 30 minutes of watching, the colors get warped, and change into green and pink. This is regardless of what you are watching (e.g. SD or HD content, pictures, or just the menu of the ATV2). The only way to fix it is to switch to another input (e.g. switch to your DVD), and then switch back to the ATV2.

There is a huge topic about it in the official Apple support forum (http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2600405&tstart=0), with over 600 replies and over 100,000 views! Unfortunately there is no official Apple response so far, and the latest software update hasn't solved it. According to people on this thread, Apple either claims that they are working on the problem, or that this is a problem with the TV manufacturer. As I don't see either Sony or Philips doing anything about it, if Apple doesn't solve this, these are $99 that were thrown down the drain.

Apparently the problem is with how the HDMI handshake between ATV2 and the TV is performed, so you can see why each manufacturer would say that the problem is with the other manufacturer, but I assume that it would be easier for Apple to solve this, or at least put a disclaimer that this product doesn't work correctly with the following TVs.

There is another problem, which I'm sure is connected to the first one. From time to time, when I try to play HD content, I get this message:

This content requires HDCP for playback. HDCP isn't supported by your HDMI connection.

Now, the same content can play without a problem some times, and other times it would display this message, so I assume it has to do with the HDMI implementation.

Overall, this is a big disappointment. I was looking at several streamers, and chose Apple TV 2 despite its shortcoming compared to other streamers. I did so because of the very good experience I have with iPhone 4 and iPad, and I wanted something that would be as painless to operate as these two. Obviously Apple has messed up on this, and I hope they have a solution soon.

Update long overdue: it is finally working correctly!

Nokia

What phone is this? How did I take this photo?

Blogger app for iOS

Anyone know of a good app for Blogger for the iOS devices?
A quick search didn't find anything significant.
I need something that can also include pictures.

Windows 7 - IE Very Slow - 100% CPU

I have recently encountered this issue: Internet Explorer on Windows 7 - when opening IE it takes a long time for your home page to appear. If you open a new tab, it also takes a lot of time, and the CPU is at 100%.

Checking the Task Manager, I have noticed the problem is with this process: ssvagent.exe

This process is a part of the Java Run-Time, which I have just installed. After some searching on the internet, I have found a workaround:

1) Tools -> Internet Options -> Programs
2) Click on Manage add-ons
3) Select the Java Plug-In and disable it

For me it both solved the 100% CPU, and the Java application that I needed still worked.

Thanks for http://www.byteblocks.com/post/2009/08/20/JRE-makes-IE-run-slow-on-Windows-7.aspx for the workaround.

10 Google Wave Invites to Give Away

I have 10 Google Wave invites to give away. Just comment below with your first Name, State/Country, why you need the invite (just so that I know who I'm sending the invite to, it's not much to ask, is it?), and email address. First 10 who comment with these details will get the invites.

Second Thoughts About Mozy

After being so happy about Mozy, I've noticed that the Mozy Restore process on the MozyHome client was not working OK. The Restore window just closed without restoring any files. I've been on email with their support, but I tried searching for "Mozy Restore" on Google, and found a lot of complaints. I've narrowed it down to results just from this year, and still got quite a few stories of people who had a total meltdown of their system, and then found out that the Web Restore files takes forever to download, if they are downloaded at all. Some people had to resort to the DVD option, where they paid 100$ to get DVDs from Mozy, and some complained that not all of their stuff was on it.
So, I'm now thinking of abandoning Mozy. Instead, I may purchase a second external HD, and do alternating backups, keeping at least one HD offsite (perhaps even both).

Update 1: No word from Mozy support for the last 12 hours. Anyway, I’ve decided to remove Mozy. There goes my $5.

No more online backup solutions in the near future.