Like most of you out there, I upgraded my iPhone to iOS4 right when it came out. And like most, have hated the upgrade because my iPhone 3g ran like crap afterwords. It was so slow, I could hardly use it at all. Crashes, mega slow, and all sorts of crappy performance issues. Nothing seemed to work. After scouring the Internet, I finally found a couple posts and threads that addressed the issue. What I gathered was that the iOS4 update needs some loving from your iPhone hardware to work right. Basically, it seems it needs to “rebuild itself” on the software side. My first attempts were to turn the phone off and back on but this didn’t work. Turns out it needs a “hard reset”, not just a power off (one would think these were basically the same things, but nope). Here’s what I did and it fixed everything:

• Press and hold BOTH the Sleep/Wake button and the Home button
• You will see the shut off screen. KEEP HOLDING
• Wait for the Apple logo
• Release the buttons
• Wait a bit until it comes back up (mine took a couple minutes)

Bingo! It’s back to its old self with iOS4. Now I have my phone back and all is right in the world. Well… Except that I don’t have the iPhone 4 yet, but that’s another issue entirely. Hope this helps you out as well.

Edit: I guess there’s another way by doing a complete backup, reset to factory defaults and restore through iTunes, but who wants to do that? I guess if the previous method doesn’t work for you, give the old restore a try.

Have you experienced the same thing? How did you fix it? Please share!

I was just recently informed of the SymLinks function in assosiation with DropBox. I know, I should have probably known this already, but I didn’t. This is seriously cool. You can back up any folder on your computer to dropbox. Sweet!

And yes… I said “BOOM!”

Last night, I decided to replace my hard drive. I had recently done it on my wife’s 13″ MacBook and it was super simple so I figured that my 17″ (late 2006 model) would be easy as well. Boy, was I surprised when I downloaded the how-to guide. It was minor surgery and a bit unnerving to say the least. Nevertheless with extreme care and meticulous attention to detail, the deed was done and I now have a brand new 500gb hard drive in my machine. I wouldn’t recommend doing this yourself if your macbook is still in warranty because I have heard this will void it. Mine is just out of warranty and been operated on several times by the Apple care crew so I figured I would take the risk. If yours is as well and you have the intestinal fortitude to operate on your Mac, it’s not too bad. Just make sure you have the right tools, follow the guide and it doesn’t hurt to pray. Happy tinkering!

One of the things I refer to all the time is the special character shortcuts available in OS X and their HTML equivalents. I love that there’s a keyboard shortcut for just about any one I want to use. The problem is remembering them from time to time (especially the HTML codes). So, I decided to whip out a table with all that I could find online and put it up here at iBAM so I could have quick reference to it and so could you. If there’s something that I missed, feel free to add it in via the comments. We all would love to share in your juicy knowledge. I hope this list proves helpful. Happy characterizing!

I also use this site a lot: CopyPasteCharacter [Continued]

A major disadvantage to the iPhone, so far, has been the lack of ability to watch TV. What’s worse is that online TV sources, such as Hulu, have been based on Flash programming, which isn’t available on the iPhone. The few sources available so far have been less than satisfying. Now, CBS is coming into the ring with their own TV.com app.

CBS claims that TV.com will allow you to “catch full episodes of some of your favorite shows”. It should be noted that the“some” is a more of a majority. For most of the shows that I watch on CBS, either very few or no full episodes are available. Most web-only content from CBS properties like CNET are fully available, but the major shows are lacking. Instead of offering full episodes, short 1 to 2 minute clips are available.

The interface for finding shows and episodes isn’t drop-dead stellar, but it’s usable. One of the notable features being promoted with the TV.com app is the “My Feed” tab. “My Feed” aims to create and promote other content that they think you will like, based on shows and clips that you add to a list. After adding many shows and clips to the list, my personal feed didn’t update. After repeatedly attempting to get the feature to work, I continued to have no luck.

While it’s an okay start, the TV.com app has a long way to go. Navigation needs to be easier, and more shows need to be added. If you want to try it out, it is free and available in the app store.