No sound with Flash on OS X

My Flash videos were silent. Audio seemed to be working otherwise. I reinstalled Flash, but silence still reigned.

Mac OS X Hints had several old fixes: A possible fix for no sound in Flash on Intel Macs. The most direct fix involved running a Midi utility to correct the sound sampling rate, but my sampling rate was fine.

Turns out there's a wee little sound control in Flash video. It's independent of the system sound. Mine had somehow been set to the lowest value.

Who knew?

My Griffin Clarifi iPhone 3G case review (close-up lens)

Amazon.com: Clarifi W Easydock Iphone 3G: Camera & Photo

I dropped my iPhone four feet to the basement floor the other day. It bounced nicely, but I decided it was time to spring for the Clarifi and its close-up lens.

The good news it that I can now take great close-up pictures of text. Business cards, journal article titles, newspaper headlines -- no problem. I'll be doing this a lot, in combination with Evernote's storage.

The bad news is that it bulks up my iPhone. It feels much heavier and thicker. I'm sure there's a lot of perception in this, but I wonder if I'll end up deciding it's too much bulk for every day use.

The case is black, so my white iPhone is now hard to find in the dark. Kind of defeats the purpose. I put a white Apple sticker on one side, and I'll look for something neon green to add. I hate loosing expensive hardware.

The magnifying lens has an obvious design flaw. There's a mild locking indent in the closed position, but not lock indent in the open position. Sigh. Let's hope this gets fixed in a future version.

I suggest try before you buy. You could try any hard shell case to test the bulk effect, they're all pretty similar. If you are going to get a polycarbonate case, the macro lens makes this the best bet.

I bought the case from TechNGnet, an Amazon-associate I'd never heard of. No-one else had any in stock, and Griffin forces direct buyers to set up a username and password. I hate doing that.

TechNGnet did well, but like most associates they charge a goodly shipping fee. $7 in this case, but it did come very quickly. Even with the shipping fee they were less expensive than Griffin, and I didn't have to setup a un/pw to order.

Update 10/30/08: I'm tolerating the extra bulk of the case, and I haven't had too much trouble with the lens obscuring photos. The macro ability makes the iPhone camera far more useful for me. One unexpected benefit is that I'm not accidentally switching the phone into vibrate mode. The case protects the 'silencer' switch; it now only moves when I want it to.

Update 11/8/08: Pocket crud gets trapped behind the sliding lens -- so you need to spend more time cleaning the lenses than normally. The lens should be kept closed when the case is stowed; this would be easier if it had a much stronger open/close detent.

Update 3/21/2010: I finally pried off the lens and turned this into a regular case. The fatal flaw was the lack of a proper indent. The lens would ruin pictures by sliding into place. The cheap plastic lens was also a dust magnet, and very hard to clean.

iPhone displays only 1500 characters from a calendar note

I get off my plane, confidently open my iPhone Calendar to check where I'm staying and ... the note is truncated!

WTF?!

I retrieved the data from my Gmail calendar (no truncation there!). So what's the deal?

It was surprisingly hard to find out about this iPhone Calendar.app limitation. An Apple discussion forum post by Everett Marshall was the only source I found:

Apple - Support - Discussions - Outlook calendar entries get truncated ...

... To address your specific issue (and I have the same frustration with travel itins being cutoff ...gggggrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!!) the ENTIRE note is actually on the phone. You just can't see it.

What you can do is select 'Edit' for the note in question. Then touch the Note to enter Edit mode. The entire note is there.

I guess someone at Apple has decided if 140 characters is good enough for Twitter, 1,500 characters is more than enough for an iPhone user's Note field.

Fix it Apple. This is basic stuff. Oh...And while you're at it why not make phone numbers clickable in the note field....

Sometimes Apple's decisions make me want to bonk my head on the wall. Palm did better than this 10 years ago!

I confirmed that if you try to edit the note text, you get a small window you can scroll through. I don't know what the field limitation really is; Outlook will go to 32,000 characters. I suspect the iPhone limit is less than that.

I suspect the limit applies to all Apple iPhone Notes but I can't confirm that.

I'll add this to my growing list of surprising things about the iPhone (along with more detail on the dry finger problem!).

Office Online: don't bother

I've experimented with Office Online's calendar sharing features:

Publish a calendar on Office Online - Outlook - Microsoft Office Online

... You can use the Microsoft Office Outlook Calendar Sharing Service to publish and share and calendars on Microsoft Office Online with other people. You have control over who can view the calendar and who can remove the calendar at any time....

Don't bother. They've messed up their security certs so badly Firefox and Safari/iPhone fight hard to stay away. It all smells abandoned; so much for Microsoft's Office in the Cloud strategy.

I think this initiative was overtaken by the Outlook Connector for Windows Live.

Update: Nope. Outlook Connector just displays Windows Live calendars in Outlook; they can then be edited in either environment. It doesn't get Outlook calendars to Windows Live.

Office 2007 Diagnostics includes memory and disk check tools

I was trying to decrypt my latest Microsoft Office 2007 XP puzzle – why Outlook was telling me …

"Either there is no default mail client or the current mail client cannot fulfill the message request. Please run Microsoft Office Outlook and set it as the default mail client."

The word on the street is that this is, you guessed it, a MAPI32.DLL version problem.

All together now, sag to your desk and cry out “OS X, Why hast though forsaken me?”

We wander lost in the desert of XP …

Anyway, a google hit mentioned a useful first attack is the new Microsoft Office 2007 diagnostics test:

Diagnose and repair crashing Office programs by using Office Diagnostics - Help and How-to - Microsoft Office Online

… Microsoft Office Diagnostics in the 2007 Microsoft Office system is a series of diagnostic tests that can help you discover why your computer is crashing (closing abnormally). The diagnostic tests can solve some problems directly and might identify ways that you can solve other problems…

Yeah, it’s in my Office install, along with the usual set of neglected goodies. It includes a memory tester and disk diagnostic, so it’s a handy tool for all kinds of problems.

The Setup Diagnostic packages can take a VERY long time to run.

Update: The Setup Diagnostics (formerly Office Repair) took one unspecified "corrective action". The problem is gone. I bet it fixed the MAPI32.DLL problem. It's not obvious how to get more information from the results.

SATA drive dock but no Google Checkout

Recommended by Daring Fireball readers: ThinkGeek :: External USB SATA Drive Dock.

Sold by ThinkGeek, which I'd forgotten about. It's nice to see they're still in business.

Unfortunately ThinkGeek does not use Google Checkout. Makes me wonder how geeky they really are.

I'm done with creating vendor specific accounts. If a vendor doesn't support Amazon or Google Checkout, or at least an OpenID authentication, forget 'em.

Which iPod was best?

I've bought six iPods. Four are still in use in our home, including my first - the third generation firewire sync iPod.

From left to right: 3G iPod, 5G iPod, 2G Nano, 3G iPhone.

Not shown are a 2nd generation shuffle that I was happy to lose to the washing machine, and the great 1st generation shuffle that my mother owns.

So which iPod was best? The answer depends on use of course, but it's not entirely obvious.

1. Absolute worst: The second generation shuffle and its proprietary charging and sync connector. Yech.
2. Best music player: A close race between the 5G iPod (#2) and the Nano. They're both great music players; the scroll wheel and interface features make them much better than the iPhone for listening to podcasts. If I had to choose one I'd favor the 3G for its additional video features and greater capacity.
3. Most versatile charging and accessory compatibility: Nano and 5G iPod both charge with Firewire, USB and all auto accessories. Yech to my iPhone.
   
4. Most powerful device: Ok, the iPhone is good for something.
5. Fastest sync: I swear the Firewire 3G is 3 times faster at sync than anything else. I really miss Firewire.
6. Best accessory range: The old 3G iPhone had a special connector for adding on radio, recording, broadcast etc. It came with a small remote control cable.
7. Best suited to a person with visual and motor limitations: The first generation shuffle.
   

So certainly there's progress, but it's mixed.