Blogger is broken - the undocumented 5000 post limit

Blogger has an undocumented 5,000 post limit. At least one of my blogs is well past that limit. Using the blogger dashboard I am unable to search for, view, or edit about 400 posts written in 2003 and 2004.

The bug was recognized in July 22nd 2009. At that time Google was "working on a fix".

It's almost October, so they may not be working terribly hard.

I came across this bug when I went searching for an old post on my 3G iPod -- and discovered it was AWOL.

Fear the cloud.

Update: It's not fixed in draft.blogger.com either. The dashboard does display the correct post count of 5,336. However, if you have the 'show edit' feature enabled and you're authenticated, you can browse to older posts and edit them by clicking the 'pencil' icon.

Update 9/25/09: Here's a July article from Google's official "known issues" feed.

Update 12/22/09: Still broken. Google broke radio silence to say they plan to fix this "early next year". I assume this means it will be fixed around June 30, 2010 -- about one year after Google broke the archives. A one year turnaround is pretty impressive - in a bad way.

Update 7/30/10: It's fixed! They did that very quietly.

Update 9/2014: No, it's not fixed.

Old firewire iPod still working with iTunes 9.01

Since Apple's been tweaking iTunes to block the (USB) Palm Pre, I wondered if my old firewire iPod would be collateral damage.

I wasn't too worried, it's unlikely that Apple will have to block a firewire fraud, nobody's going to build a device with that connection.

Happily my @2003 30GB "3rd generation" iPod (dock connector) still works with iTunes 9.01 and it's still much faster to sync than any other iPod.

The old firewire iPod is an antique by now, but it's still a pleasure to hold and use. It even has the original battery, for which at one point I received a $50 settlement check (battery life is about ten minutes, so it's always in the cradle). I'm surprised it's still running -- it was the 3rd of its kind after two others were replaced under warrantee -- AND the USB-sync never worked (it was perhaps first iPod to incorporate USB sync, even though it wouldn't charge by USB. My model was/is defective.)

How to unlock the BlackBerry Pearl (AT&T)

This Saturday Emily's AT&T BlackBerry Pearl contract hits the 1y 9m mark. That means she's eligible for a fully subsidized iPhone [1]. Considering how much we've wasted on the Pearl's underused $30/month data plan this iPhone will be a bargain.

The first step in a phone switch is to unlock the old phone. You may be able to do this after you've switched to the new phone, but it's a pain. Do the unlocking before the switch, your phone will still work normally.

Once unlocked a GSM phone can be used on other GSM networks, such as T-Mobile. If you have a foreign Pay-Go SIM you can use the phone abroad. The unlocked phone will also work on the original AT&T network. (Note that in practice some phones are very network specific, and you'll find some quirks or missing functions on a foreign network.)

I've written previously about (authorized) Nokia unlocking, happily the BlackBerry unlock procedure is simpler.

Here's the procedure for network (AT&T) authorized BlackBerry Pearl unlocking. (See How to unlock the BlackBerry Pearl and enter Blackberry Unlock Codes for unauthorized unlock procedures.)

1. Call 611 (AT&T support) from the BB Pearl to request an unlock code. If you're nearing th end of a contract and say you're getting a new phone/contract this is routine. It takes about 10 minutes to walk through the procedure and get an unlock code. You may be asked for the PIN number of your AT&T account.
2. Go to Settings (folder with gears) then options (wrench) then Advanced Options.
3. Select SIM card. (shows phone number and the unique phone ID)
4. Hold down alt key, type MEPD (nothing displays)
5. Hold down alt key, type MEP2 (nothing displays)
6. You will then see a prompt allowing entry of the unlock code.
7. Enter the long unlock code.
8. Hit the enter key. If you take a while to do this the unlock code will clear and you have to reenter it.
9. A "code accepted" message will flash and the SIM screen will show "Security disabled"

Now you're ready for the phone switch. When you make the switch you can also ask the AT&T store to flash an upgrade to the latest version of the phone ROM.

[1] Emily thinks I'm going to take the GS and give her my 18 mo old 3G. Don't tell her she's getting the new one, it's a surprise.

Picasa 3.5 for Mac with iPhoto integration

With release 3.5 the free Google Picasa photo manager and editor app is now cross-platform (Intel only on Mac):

Google Photos Blog: Announcing Picasa 3.5, now with name tags, better geotagging and more

... we launched Picasa for Mac as a beta Labs product 9 months ago. Now that Picasa for Mac has almost all the same features as the PC version, we've decided it's time to remove the beta label. Remember that Picasa for Mac is designed to 'play nice' with iPhoto -- Picasa takes a special read-only approach to editing photos stored in the iPhoto library, duplicating files as needed, so your iPhoto library isn't ever affected when you use Picasa.

The appeal of Picasa 3.5 for iPhoto users is the tight integration with Picasa web albums, esp. with "Faces" and geotagging.

What’s wrong with iPhone OS 3.1? I think it’s the RAM.

With OS 3 I had to restart my iPhone every 2-3 weeks. If I didn’t it got painfully slow and problematic apps like Byline would crash.

With OS 3.1 and the same apps I need to restart every 3 days – or spend minutes between screen updates.

I’m not the only one to have trouble with 3.1 ..

iPhone 3.1 problems flood our tip box

In the last week, we have had a constant barrage of iPhone issues break through the lines... so much so that we feel it is our duty to inform the two of you who haven't updated what you could experience by updating to version 3.1 of the iPhone OS. This is no small problem, as you can read from the discussions on Apple's website here, here, here, and here.

The first two links are where we're getting the majority of our tips -- random shutdowns and very poor battery life. The second two, bricked phones and general slowness are still worth a mention -- even prompting our own Erica Sadun to do a live walk-through for debrickifying iPhones…

In my case it’s most likely that the phone is running out of working memory (RAM), probably due to memory leaks (applications that grab working memory and don’t release it). This is likely much less of a problem for 3GS owners, they have twice the RAM of earlier models …

… the actual specs are fairly widely known…

CPU (central processing unit):

original iPhone: ARM 11, 412 MHz
iPhone 3G: ARM 11, 412 MHz
iPhone 3GS: ARM Cortex, 600 MHz

GPU (graphics processing unit):

original iPhone: PowerVR MBX Lite
iPhone 3G: PowerVR MBX Lite
iPhone 3GS: PowerVR SGX

RAM (random access memory):

original iPhone: 128 MB
iPhone 3G: 128 MB
iPhone 3GS: 256 MB

At a glance, you’ll notice that the RAM in the 3GS doubled from past iPhone models. Twice the amount of RAM than you’ve had is never a bad thing, but the reality here is far more noteworthy… The older iPhone models have been often considered underpowered when it comes to RAM, so even though the RAM amount is technically doubled, in actual use, you’ll often be working with 4x to 10x the amount of free RAM. And that’s one major aspect that’s contributing to the overall speedier feel of the 3GS…

Anyone remember the original Mac? It shipped with two little memory to run the OS. The original iPhone situation wasn’t quite as bad, but it was close. It’s likely that the 3.1 update uses more RAM for the OS than the 3.0 release, and the change has moved 3G and original iPhone users into the red zone.

With older phones all-but-inevitable memory leaks are exhausting available RAM in a day or two of heavy use, bringing the phones to a grinding halt. The problem will only be exacerbated by newer apps that expect more available RAM.

The cruel reality is that older iPhones are coming to the end of the line. I don’t blame Apple for that – but I do blame them for releasing OS 3.1 onto phones that can’t handle it. If Apple can reduce OS memory leaks and RAM footprint they’ll redeem themselves (a bit), but clearly future OS releases won’t run on older iPhones.

Apple will either need to move to the two version model they follow on desktop machines (currently 10.5 and 10.6 are both supported, I think there may even be some 10.4 updating going on) or they’ll have to launch some kind of trade-up program for older phones.

Coming from me this is just speculation, but I’m going to install Memory Status and update my results here.

Update: Memory Status was last updated in Dec 2008, so it’s not a good bet for OS 3. I bought iSystemInfo for $1. Shortly after a restart it reports 23MB free (23/128 or 18% free). After using Byline and exiting I have 21MB free.

Update 2: When I make a phone call there's about 3-4MB free during the call. Also, it turns out I didn't need to buy iSystemInfo. I already own "AppBox Pro", a "swiss army knife" product that's subsuming free standing apps like a "Clinometer (level)", Flashlight, Ruler, System Info, Battery Life, Currency Converter, etc. AppBox Pro is giving me approximately the same results as iSystemInfo. Incidentally, AppBox Pro has the ugliest icons ever seen on an iPhone. It reminds me of my old Palm.

Update 9/17/09: The Register on "buggiest update yet". I suspect the problems mostly hit 3G users.

iTunes 9 home sharing is mediocre

There's a longstanding issue with iTunes, one that I've been writing about since at least 2005.

Suppose you have have 3 family members with iPhones. Do they all sync to one user account? Our do they each sync to their own account?

If the former everyone shares music and apps (up to five devices), but they also share playlists, address books, iTunes accounts, and calendars (unless they sync via Exchange Server to Google). If the latter then everyone has their own stuff, but they also need to have their own movie, music library and app library.

This is a longstanding pain in the butt.

So when I read that iTunes - 9 did something about music sharing decided to install it on a non-media machine.

Turns out, it does what Apple says:

... With Home Sharing, you can browse the iTunes libraries of up to five authorized computers in your house, import what you like...

Emphasis on IMPORT. If you add a tune to a playlist you COPY the file, even when iTunes is running in multiple user sessions on the same machine.

So everything is duplicated.

It's a lot like old-style iTunes sharing, except now you can copy.

Not interesting. The old problem remains.

See also:

• Working around iTunes lack of multi-user support
• Sync iTunes Libraries Between Two Macs
• Sharing an iTunes library between multiple users

Update 9/10/09: A friend tells me he syncs his wife's iPod twice. Once to the account that holds iTunes, a second time to her personal account. The iTunes settings on each machine control what gets synched. This is an intermediate solution with both advantages and obvious disadvantages (double sync, no personal playlist, no personal ratings, etc, etc). Also if you are sharing your iTunes Library the update may reset permissions.

Update 9/24/09: I upgraded my main library to 9.01 and paid more attention to the language of Home Sharing such as "is for personal use". Note that Home Sharing is for all persons who share the same iTunes account -- which is, in theory, only one person. Apple is walking a fine DRM line here, as they have for many years. They don't target multiple accounts on a single Mac because that represents multiple users, and Home Sharing is really for one user on multiple machines.

twitterfeed: tweet the feed

twitterfeed is takes any kind of public feed and turns it into tweets.

It works with OpenID and uses oauth to talk to Twitter, so it passes my initial screening tests. You don't enter your Twitter credentials and you don't have to remember yet another un/pw.

Now all I need is for Google to provide a Google Reader shared-item-with-note feed that would provide the item name/link and my Google Reader Note. I'd be able to use Google Reader to generate tweets with notes on the things I'm interested in.

Alas, we're waiting for Google to take the next step here ...