Dan's Data recommends a USB enclosure

Allegedly, it spins down: Cheap USB box du jour :: August :: 2008. Only available in Australia, but he gives advice on the chipset.

Good links to other DD notes on enclosures.

It's very hard to find good recommendations on these things.

iPhone synchronization is a flaming mess

1Password has yet another approach to iPhone synchronization. Problem is, it didn't work for me:

Gordon's Tech: Palm to iPhone: JFile to 1Password

.... After all of the following, I'm unable to get the sync to desktop working under 10.4.11..

1Password tries to sync with the desktop app. OmniFocus tries to work through an absurd WebDav service. Missing Sync for iPhone is the only product I've seen to date that syncs anything through the cable.

This is *%$& ridiculous. All of these kludgy synchronization methods are only creating security holes and stability issues. Not to mention screwing up my evenings!

Apple needs to give developers a standard, reliable, synchronization framework. I've worried about the apparent absence of API synchronization support for desktop apps for months; I'm not happy to discover I was right to worry.

Palm to iPhone: JFile to 1Password

For at least 14 years I've kept my URL base and password data in FileMaker Pro for PC and Mac. I periodically exported the data to my Palm, using an old database app with support for encryption (JFile).

It worked, so I haven't touched it for years. Now it's one more thing I have to transition from my Palm to the iPhone.

I was hoping that FileMaker would resurrect FileMaker Mobile for the iPhone, and add encryption. That would be perfect. Alas, I don't see it.

So I'm looking at dedicated password storage apps like the list on the left, including 1Password, eWallet, SplashID, etc.

There are three criteria other than an established user base and a good reputation:

1. It has to work on the iPhone (native app).
2. It has to sync with my iMac
3. It has to be able to import tab delimited data exported from my FileMaker database
4. It has to have good export options.
5. There has to be a good demo app I can test.
   

1Password seems to meet the criteria, and it has plug-ins for Firefox and Safari. I write "seems" because the web site says nothing about the limitations of the downloaded version. If I run into limitations that make it hard to test then I'll put 1Password down at the bottom of my list.

The above screenshot shows it can import in many formats. More importantly, it can also export as tab delimited and as 1Password Interchange File.

So how do I import data from my FMPro database? The 1Password documentation is pretty terse:

1Password User Guide

... In addition to the above formats, 1Password has a Generic Importer that can import any Comma or Tab Separated Values. To use this, specify Generic Text as the Import Format.

The Generic Text importer will allow you to specify which columns in your CSV file should be used for each 1Password field...

Problem is, I need to know what all the possible import choices are, so I can create an export from FileMaker Pro for further testing.

I created an entry in 1Password then exported it as tab delimited. I found the following list, I've bolded those I can provide from my database:

• title
  
• notes
• htmlName
• htmlID
• htmlAction
• htmlMethod
• passwordHistory
• username
• password
  
• URL/Location
  

My FM database has a much richer organizational scheme than 1Password can support, including two types of classification, tags/keywords, extensive notes, those insane "secret questions", search across all fields, and more. It's also shareable with Emily in a way that 1Password is not.

So I'm not sure I'll give up on the FM database, but it looks like I can, for the moment, export it to 1Password so it's available on my iPhone.

At $35 1Password isn't cheap, but if it passes my import test I may go for it.

Update: It took over an hour to import 1400 rows, so it's pretty darned slow. That's not a big deal though, it's quite fast to search them. Turns out these are the available columns on import:

1. Title
2. Username
3. Password
4. URL
5. Folder
6. Notes 1, Notes 2, Notes 3, Notes 4, Notes 5

As best I can tell Columns titled "Notes" 1-5 are concatenated into the 1Password Note field. I used Notes 1 for my description field and Notes 2 for a calculation field that concatenated several FM fields.

Search runs against Title and Notes, so this concatenation works for my purposes.

One major limitation is that you can import into Web Form and Secure Note, but you cannot import "Wallet items". You can export Wallet items however. The inability to import a wallet item is very annoying, though I can see why that is a harder task for the developer. Wallet items use a different data model for each type of item, so a tab import is less likely to work. I will probably use "Secure Note" for another JFile database that holds that type of information.

Update 8/7/08: After the above things got messy. I couldn't get the sync to work at all. 1Password technical support pointed me to firewall instructions, and explained something that really should be documented on the web site:

... 1Password is fully functional for 30 days, with no limitations. After this time, should you wish to continue using it for free, you will need to store fewer than 20 items...

This is a great demo policy, it just needs to be documented. There are other things that could use some documentation. It turns out there are firewall changes to make, but that's only documented in a support forum thread:

Firewalls can prevent the iPhone/iPod touch and Mac applications from connecting to one another. Please check if you have firewall turned on (System Preferences > Security on Leopard). Details for Leopard. Tiger is quite a bit different: Details for Tiger

I turned off my 10.4 firewall and was able to sync. I'll try it later with the firewall enabled and the port they recommend set up.

Update 8/14/08: I think 1Password uses the OS X Keychain. That has some nice features, but it is unbelievably slow to delete large numbers of items or add large numbers from an import. Slow, as in seconds per transaction! It feels like AppleScript speed.

Update 9/2/08: Unbelievable. I went to buy 1Password, and I learned it uses a "license token". I hate those, because they're a pain to backup and manage. I want a registration code. I'm going to contact support, but this is a real stinker of a deal killer.

Update 9/4/08: About the same time as I wrote my 9/2 post, 1Password relented. The current version supports entering a text un/registration number that they provide via email. I found out because I let them know why I wasn't going to buy 1Password, and they quickly responded that I wasn't the only person who was unhappy with the encrypted token approach -- and they were now providing both options. So I bought it.

Update 7/15/09: I use 1Password still. It's been through several updates, sometimes with new bugs. I've also discovered it uses an Input Manager -- something I really try to avoid because of all the associated bugs and complications. I'd recommend an application that didn't use an Input Manager, though I'll stick with 1 Password for now.

Palm to iPhone migration: import into iCal

If I decide to migrate my legacy Palm/Outlook calendar data to iCal, this is a handy reference: macosxhints.com - Import .csv and other text files to iCal. The comments suggest other options.

For now I simply ended my Outlook calendar and started using the iPhone calendar. That was the least trouble for the moment.

[Update 8/16/08: Much later I realized I could have used Missing Sync for Palm OS to sync my Palm to iCal. I have a license from eons ago, when we used to sync my wife's SONY PalmOS device to the iMac. I may still do that to get legacy data into the calendar, but really I'm better off archiving that data.

Update 10/2/2009: Another method.

iPhone's forgotten web apps

It's a bit weird, to put it mildly, that Apple's iPhone Web apps site doesn't have an iPhone friendly version.

Makes you wonder how seriously they really ever were about the once celebrated Web apps.

The list is actually pretty interesting. For example: Apple - Web apps - Productivity, including 43 Actions,

I think the best way to install these is to browse the list from Safari/Desktop (on your iPhone sync machine), bookmark those you want to try, then sync to iPhone Safari.

From iPhone Safari you can turn these into standalone icons as desired.

Saving grace of the iPhone – Apple updates it

I’ve bitched a fair bit about my iPhone.

I may not have recently mentioned that it’s actually working pretty well for me. I haven’t seen the crashes and instability many users experience. Contacts is slow, but not unbearably slow. The battery lasts about as long as my prior non-smartphone 3G Nokia; I just charge nightly or at the office via USB. I don’t miss voice dial – it’s never worked for me.

I have expected problems with things I knew were missing when I bought the phone: tasks, notes, editing, search. The biggest nasty surprises have been iTunes Outlook synchronization (unsafe at any speed), Apple’s MobileMe calendar limitations (missing subscription features, missing feed and CalDAV support), the loss of Firewire charging, and the usual anxiety about how much power Apple will give developers to work around Apple’s lowest-common-denominator approach.

Still, it’s not like the alternatives are very good. This AppleInsider post reminds us how very bad the US smartphone marketplace has been …

AppleInsider | Inside iPhone 2.0: iPhone OS vs. other mobile platforms

… This rapid pacing of Apple's free updates is unheard of on competing smartphone platforms. The Palm OS seemingly hasn't been updated since dinosaurs roamed the earth…

The Symbian partnership has delivered four incremental updates to Symbian 9.0 since 2004, roughly one per year. These updates are often related to new hardware, and in many cases owners of Symbian phones simply can't upgrade to whatever the latest official version is.

RIM's BlackBerry OS update page similarly warns, "If you did not purchase BlackBerry software or smartphones directly from Research In Motion (RIM), please contact your service provider to determine if the software distributed by RIM is authorized for use with your smartphone." That highlights why Apple chose to only market the iPhone through mobile partners that would agree to allow Apple itself to deliver updates and support for all of its phones worldwide. …

When Microsoft shipped Windows Mobile 5.0 in 2005, the update wouldn't even run on most existing WinCE phones because it required new hardware support for its persistent RAM architecture change. The following release of Windows Mobile 6.0 didn't ship until two years later in 2007, and Windows Mobile 6.1, a relatively minor update, took more than another year to shake loose from the bowels of Microsoft. Even after a Windows Mobile release "ships," owners of specific models might have to wait for many months before their mobile provider or software vendor allows them to install it, if they ever choose to do so.

Despite now being a decade old, the WinCE foundation of Windows Mobile is also still regarded as unstable, riddled with bugs, and poorly architected, with a horrific user interface, clumsy process management, and development tools that are a simple regurgitation of the archaic Win32 desktop API, lacking much optimization for mobile development…

Apple, at least, releases updates for all phones from one central service. That’s a saving grace.

AppleInsider's set of iPhone reviews

Apple Insider has a series of in depth iPhone reviews running. For example: Inside iPhone 2.0: the new iPhone 3G Software [Page 3].

It's excellent not only as a critique of what's missing, but also as a guide to users. For example, the double tap page up/down feature on Safari, holding the period in Mail.app to see domain suffixes, geotag display in 10.5 preview, etc.

Spanning Sync tells us what's wrong with Google's free CalDAV sync

Google's free CalDAV sync with iCal would seem to be a severe challenge to non-ad-supported commercial products like Spanning Sync and BusySync.

In reality I know from past experience that Google is perfectly capable of screwing up synchronization time and again, and that they don't admit their problems.

So it's good to see Spanning Sync fighting back with a point-by-point attack on Google's sync solution. For example:

Spanning Sync Blog: Google's "Appreciated Gesture" Drives Record Sales of Spanning Sync:

... Calendars synchronized using CalDAV become read-only on iPhone. One of our biggest customers is in the process of rolling out 700 iPhones and 200 iPod touches. This lack of iPhone compatibility makes Google's CalDAV solution a non-starter for them, and for anyone else looking for bidirectional sync between iPhone and Google Calendar."

Ok, that's a wee bit of a limitation! I didn't read that anywhere else, but I believe it. I'm not willing to experiment with CalDAV sync, I really don't trust Google's ability to do this stuff.

I think what most of us want is synchronization between the iPhone calendar app and Google Calendar; we could leave iCal out of the picture. Unfortunately it's not clear if Apple will allow such an app to be deployed.

Please Google Android, Palm Centro and Microsoft ... be successful. We iPhone users need your competition. In the meantime, I'm thinking of trying BusySync and Spanning Sync again.

Mac OS X 10.4: Installing classic from a 10..2 software restore disk

Say you have a PPC machine with 10.4 and you need to reinstall Classic from 10.2 or 10.3.

To do this you'll need to follow the directions in the above link, but it turns out they no longer work for 10.2 disks.

If you have 10.2 disks, there's an updated version of the Software Restore application that you need to download from Apple:

Mac OS X 10.4: Restoring applications from a Mac OS X 10.2 Software Restore disc

...If you have Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger already installed and you want to restore your Mac OS X 10.2.x computer-specific software, you can use the version of Software Restore available below...

FMTouch: FileMaker on the iPhone

If it suppored encryption, this would help a great deal with my Palm to iPhone migration. It's "pending approval" at the Apple store:

FMTouch

... FMTouch is a powerful application that enables you to use FileMaker Pro on your Apple iPhone or iTouch.

FMTouch allows you to take advantage of the relational data structure that makes FileMaker so powerful.

Simply select the database you would like to sync to the iPhone, use our sync technology, and within seconds you can have your FileMaker database working on your iPhone or iTouch.

FMWebschool to release limited Advanced version of FMTouch July 28, 2008.

FMWebschool will release 50 copies of FMTouch Developer editions to FBA and TechTalk members.

They don't have encryption as a feature, so I've send in a request.

I'm disappointed Apple hasn't resuscitated the defunct FM Mobile for their own platform.

Synthesis iPhone SyncML Client: Sync iPhone Cal with gCal?

The Synthesis SyncML client for iPhone is available on the App store.

Synthesis AG - SyncML Client for iPhone and iPod Touch

Synthesis SyncML Client for iPhone/iPod Touch OS brings SyncML standard based data synchronisation to iPhone OS X based devices.

This allows mobile over-the-air (OTA) data synchronisation with any compliant SyncML server (such as Oracle Collaboration Suite, goosync.com, consolidate.at, Open-Xchange, MDaemon, eGroupware, ZYB, mobical, DeskNow, ScheduleWorld, neopim.com and many more)...

Unfortunately gCal is not on the list, Goolge just added CalDAV support, but not SyncML (see Palm, 2005 and Wikipedia CalDAV -- I wonder if the SyncML spec has too many issues).

So this doesn't help with my real interest -- direct sync from the iPhone calendar app to Google Calendar.

More interestingly, the Synthesis team tells us that the Apple SDK limits what SyncML can do:

... At this time, Synthesis SyncML Client for iPhone is offered as a free preview in the App Store synchronizing the Addressbook. Current restrictions in Apple's SDK for the iPhone OS do not allow accessing calendar, notes or emails...

As is usual with iPhone SDK limitations, we don't know if this will be remedied with time or whether Apple prefers to keep the competition at bay.

The iPhone user guide back button bug

This is a weird one.

The only iPhone documentation that's readable on an iPhone is the web based iPhone User Guide.

Except it didn't seem to work on my iPhone.

I could click down to any page, but when I tapped the back button I'd get a blank screen. If I force a refresh I'm back at the top menu, rather than the last page I visited.

On the desktop it doesn't render at all in Firefox.

Using Safari on the desktop (much faster!) I was able to figure it out. You have to navigate by the breadcrumb display at page top, the browser back buttons don't work.

I wonder how many people have run into this.

Apple should fix the web page. Breaking browser back buttons is rude.

iPhone task manager review

In the old days we had task managers. Now we have "Getting Things Done" managers (grouped tasks with context attributes).

Grmph.

Roses by other names basically.

ATPM has a review of what's available for the iPhone. It includes at least one that's new to me. Great resource.

Apple iPhone 3.5mm to 2.5 mm headset adapter -- use conventional earset

Now I can use my favorite Shure earsets with my iPhone

Apple - Support - Discussions - Apple iPhone 3.5mm to 2.5 mm headset ...

I bought two 3.5mm to 2.5mm headset (earset) adapters from 1800mobiles.com part number APLIPHONEHFA2. They work, I can now use my favorite Shure easets with my iPhone 2. They're very slender, so they don't add significant bulk to the earsets. $8 each, white in the picture, black when I got 'em.

If you search on this part number you will find multiple vendors, probably all the same company. 1800mobiles wasn't bad, but they sent me an invalid tracking number and didn't answer customer support emails.

Here's one vendor's description:

Apple iPhone 3.5mm-2.5mm Headset Adapter APLIPHONEHFA2

...for the iPhone 3.5mm recessed stereo audio jack, fits Apple iPhone and Rim 8300 Curve cell phone models by converting the jack to a standard 2.5mm jack for use with any universal headset such as Jabra or Plantroinics or Shure.

* Apple iPhone Adapter fits the recessed Apple iPhone audio jack, since the Apple iPhone headset port is deeper that the outside casing. This Apple iPhone headset adapter is custom designed to makes it easy and convenient for you to connect your standard 2.5 mm mono headsets into the iPhone's recessed headset port.

* Featuring a sleek design which isn't big or bulky, simply plug one end of the adapter into the audio jack of your Apple iPhone, and the other end to your existing 2.5mm headset and you're good to go.

* 2.5 mm to recessed 3.5 mm port Headset Adapter for the Apple iPhone.

* White color cord is 2 inches long.

Now I know they work I'll order a few more. I might look for a cheaper price!

Update 5/19/2010: After about 8 months of use these adapters fell apart. Then for another six months I couldn't find any working replacements. I tried several that failed. The iPhone 3.5 mm plug does not appear to be a standard connection; I wonder if it's patented and connectors need to be licensed. Recently, I found another adapter that works. I've ordered three of them.

Update 7/12/11: I broke one of my Shure headset/earsets and tried the adapter with another. Same model of earset, but on this one the adapter didn't work as well. Studying it, I'm thinking the problem with these adapters is an antenna/radiofrequency problem, not a mere connection problem. Modern phones are a bit of hellish RF environment, and earsets are a form of antenna. Antennae don't like "couplings". If I'm write, this might explain why these adapters have faded away. Maybe they never really work reliably with a high RF phone.

iPhone task manager promises desktop sync

THINGS is a not-yet-shipped desktop OS X task manager with lightweight project management. Things touch is a current iPhone App.

So far, mildly interesting. There's no mention on the web site of data export capabilities, so they probably fail the data freedom test.

The interesting news is that they claim to have a sync solution coming soon, and they give us a workaround for the very nasty data loss (this is Apple, they live to kill data) problem associated with iPhone App updates: Things touch 1.0.1, Syncing, and How to Prevent Data Losses When Updating iPhone Apps.

I wonder how they do the sync -- there's been little mention anywhere of how developers can sync across the conduit. I wonder if they're using some kind of file share sync.