Banana Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream (Recipe Coming Thursday)
Author: TechyDad
Proprietary Plugs, Dead Drives and Irritating Interfaces, Part 2
Yesterday, I wrote about my father-in-law’s dead hard drive with the proprietary plug. To continue the tale, we must first go back a bit. My father-in-law and mother-in-law recently went on a trip to Disney World. (Side Note: Given our Trip That Never Was, I’m jealous of them.) During their trip, they found that their many photos and videos was causing them to run out of memory card space.
They had no computer to offload the photos to, but they did have their iPad. Off went the photos and videos to the iPad. Photos were deleted from the camera and they had room for more photos until they bought an additional memory card. Problem solved, right?
Well, not so much. Recently, they saw that their iPad was going to be upgraded to iOS 5. From reports we’ve heard, this can cause data loss at times. In any event, it is always a good idea to do a full backup before any major upgrade. Indeed, it is a good idea to backup your files on a regular basis. Besides, iTunes was reporting that they didn’t have enough disk space free to install iOS 5.
After freeing up some disk space, we went through the process of getting their photos and videos off the iPad. When we plugged the iPad into the computer’s USB port, I expected it to show up as a drive. This is what happens with pretty much any device I hook up to my computer. My camera shows up as a drive. My phone shows up as a drive. Even Kimberly Kindle lets me transfer files via a mounted drive when it is connected via a USB cable.
The iPad does show up as a device and we can use a file transfer wizard to get the photos, but the two problems that persist are:
1) The photos are renamed. Instead of being named along the lines of P12345.jpg, they are named “Disney Photo 001.jpg”. To make matters worse, the photo order is messed up. “Disney Photo 023” might have actually been taken before “Disney Photo 022” and after “Disney Photo 024”.
2) The videos aren’t transferred. This is huge. They captured some really nice videos at Disney and loss of them is just not an option.
NOTE: We can’t simply sync using iTunes because iTunes insists that it needs to load iOS 5 during the next sync. We also can’t, apparently, stick in a blank SD card and transfer files to that. The Apple store representative told us that file transfers from SD cards are one way only. To the iPad.
Luckily, I’ve done some research and I’ve come up with two possibilities. Note, I’m just presenting these as options. I haven’t tried these (as of this writing) so they may or may not work properly (or they might work properly but not solve the particular need I have).
The first option is an app called GoodReader ($4.99). This app, among other things, lets you sync your files across an FTP folder. I could set up my father-in-law with some FTP space, sync up his files and then FTP them back to his computer. This seems a bit convoluted, though. It’d be better if I could just sync directly with his computer. Enter option 2.
The second option is iPad Manager ($25). This looks like it could be what we are looking for. It claims to allow the user to plug the iPad into a PC’s USB port and transfer videos, photos, songs, etc.
While this sounds good, a more standards-compliant approach, such as showing a mounted drive on the computer, would have been preferable. Then, we could have used the built-in file explorer that every computer (Mac or PC) to copy the files. Alternatively, allowing you to copy files to an inserted SD card would have sufficed. To require you to jump through hoops or use additional programs just to retrieve your own photos/videos seems completely unnecessary. For a company which prides itself on a smooth user experience, this has been quite the bumpy ride.
Have you ever transferred videos/photos off of an iPad? If so, what did you use?
Proprietary Plugs, Dead Drives and Irritating Interfaces, Part 1
My father-in-law and mother-in-law recently found themselves in need of a backup solution. (The driver for this was an iPad which needed to be backed up and low hard drive space. That full story will come another day.) My preferred backup solution is an extra hard drive. They are easy to store and work with and can be hooked up to any computer. So we went out and helped my father-in-law buy a 1TB external hard drive. We got back to his house, plugged it in, and I talked him through backing up his files.
At this point, I just want to step aside and say that I got a bad feeling about this drive from the moment we unboxed it. No, it wasn’t banged up or anything. Instead, I looked at the USB cord and saw this.
Notice the indentation on the cord? That’s not a standard cord. With the external hard drives I have, if I lose the cord I could use any standard cord (of the same type) and access my data. If my father-in-law lost this cord, or if it went bad, then he’d have to hope the hard drive manufacturer would sell him a new one. And that it wouldn’t be too costly. Otherwise, he’d be SOL.
Putting aside my concerns, though, we proceeded with the backup. Everything was working fine until we got to a few of the last files. Then the computer reported having trouble writing the files. My Computer reported that the drive simply wasn’t there. We checked all of the plugs, both in the computer and in the drive. Nothing. We tried plugging it into B’s computer. Nada. Less than two hours after opening the box and the drive was effectively dead.
Before the drive died, it copied files. We didn’t want to simply return the drive, with my father-in-law’s files on it. Neither, however, could we erase those files prior to returning it. Had the cord been a non-proprietary one, I could have swapped out a different cord. This would have at least narrowed down the problem to the drive or cord. Instead, we’re at the mercy of the hard drive manufacturer’s support to figure out what’s wrong and figure out how we can delete our data prior to returning it.
Tomorrow, I’ll post Part 2 where I discuss the frustrations of retrieving data from an iPad.
Aloha Friday: Dreams and Nightmares
Lately, I’ve been having a hard time getting a good night’s sleep. Part of it is my own fault. I tend to get a “second wind” at night and then crash at or after midnight. I need to start heading to bed sooner.
Besides my late bedtime, the other reason I haven’t felt rested have been my dreams. Instead of nice, peaceful dreams, I’ve been having weird dreams and outright nightmares.
Last week, I dreamt that NHL had a febrile seizure. He’s had one before, when he was 11 months old. For awhile, he turned blue and stopped moving. It was among the most frightening moments in my life. JSL has also had multiple febrile seizures.
In my dream, it was just NHL and me. JSL and B were nowhere to be found. Even around us, there was nothing. Just a big emptiness containing NHL and me. NHL collapsed into my arms suffering from a febrile seizure. (Somehow in the dream logic, I knew exactly what it was causing this.) NHL wouldn’t respond to me. I screamed for someone to help me. No response. Just me and my child lifeless in my arms.
I woke up at this point, but was understandably rattled. The dream had seemed so real and it brought back fears and feelings that I never wanted to experience again. I hate feeling helpless. Seeing my child lifeless before me with nothing I can do is the most helpless I’ve ever felt.
Earlier this week, I had a different sort of dream. It wasn’t a nightmare, per se, but it was very disturbing. In the dream, I was in my parents’ house. Specifically, I was standing by the sliding glass door at the back of their house. There was a light snow outside and NHL was spending some time outdoors while I watched him from the other side of the glass.
I noticed that NHL was walking towards a bug. A sort of beetle. It wasn’t a normal beetle, though. It was big. And by big, I mean about 3 feet tall and one and a half feet wide. Yes, this was a seriously large bug. I called for NHL to come in, but he didn’t. Finally, as the bug moved towards him and the house, he came inside. At this point it was too late, though. The bug was trying to get in the house and we needed to wrestle it and push it back. I woke up tired from a long night of beetle wrestling.
My Aloha Friday question for today is: Do you have weird dreams or nightmares?
Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the linky there if you are participating.
Aloha #110
Not Fair! Bedtime Battles
My checklist for getting ready is simple:
- Get in your PJs
- Go to the bathroom
- Brush your teeth
- Get into your bed
- Go to sleep
The battles start with Step 1. Oftentimes, we’ll tell the kids to get in their PJs before bedtime. This way, when bedtime arrives, we won’t be yelling at them to hurry. However, the kids are never quite ready to start getting ready for sleep. They’ll cry about how early it is, how they can still see the sun (applicable in the summer when the sun seems to set at around midnight), or how they’re in the middle of their TV program.
When they get their PJs, they insist on changing in the living room. Remember that TV program they were watching? That becomes a distraction. Left to their own devices, they’ll sit half undressed watching Dora’s latest attempt to ward off Swiper’s kleptomania.
Finally, with the kids in bed, the time comes for Steps 2 and 3. Go potty and brush your teeth. We have only one bathroom downstairs and it is too small for one person to be performing Step 2 while another person does Step 3. This means that someone needs to go first.
Most times, when it comes to boys, asking “who wants to [INSERT SOMETHING HERE] first?” will result in the boys jockeying to claim the right to be the first. It doesn’t matter if the first and second place both get identical ice cream sandwiches, carbon-copy coins, or twin toys. The goal is to be the first one to get the item or get to do the activity.
Except for bed time.
They never want to be first for bed time.
A few weeks ago, in a fit of cleverness, I devised a system. I told NHL and JSL that we’d go by odd numbered days and even numbered days. Since NHL was our 1st child and the number 1 is odd, NHL has to go first on odd numbered days. Since JSL was our 2nd child and the number 2 is even, he goes first on even numbered days. (I wonder what will happen when NHL realizes that there are more odd numbered days in a year than even numbered ones thanks to 31 day months.)
This seems to work pretty well. They still protest, but I just say “It’s an odd/even day so you go first.” Usually, that will quiet them down.
Now that we’re up to Step 4, things tend to quiet down a bit. JSL needs to say good night to everyone and give them kisses and hugs, NHL is content to just jump into his bed. Battle won? No, just lulling us into a false sense of security.
Now comes time to go to sleep. This is where they pull out the big guns. First, JSL will need a nightly drink of water. (Which must be taken when the lights are out and after he’s laid down to sleep for some reason.) NHL will try to talk to us about his day or some random TV show plot. JSL will claim to have had nightmares (before he actually falls asleep). And so on and so on.
Eventually, the bed time music and dark room turn the tide and the kids lose the bedtime battle. Still, we emerge, not victorious, but frazzled and weary. How many more battles must we wage before they go to bed without complaining?