Gmail is Back in the Apple App Store

Gmail is Back in the Apple App Store

Hello All iOS Users

Gmail app is back with lots of fixes on notification. You will need iOS 4 + to use this app.




http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/gmail-app-for-ios-available-in-app.htm

A Simple Guide to Migrating your Hosting to server such as EC2 or Rackspace Cloud..

A Simple Guide to Migrating your Hosting to server such as EC2 or Rackspace Cloud..

Weather you are doing this for the fun of it or doing for better availability, scalability or pricing; your domain may have the same importance.



Here is a list of steps that can help and may not a be prefect solution all the time but covers many 'oh I should have thought about that stories'.

Stage one:

Ensure that your DNS service allows you to lower you TTL to x seconds / minutes. DYNDNS 
is one such service that allows you to do that.  If you are asking yourself why this should be done the reason is simple. TTL is how long before that new value is queried for. What this means is if your TTL is 30 Seconds, every 30 Seconds you can change your server address. So you potential loss of data is limited to that.

 
Stage two : 
Migrate your email before hand to google apps free or live. Before you set up this forward all mail to new box. This way all mail will still come to your email and will still be live during migration.

Stage 3:
Before you start:

• Get All your passwords and access mechanisms such as VPN key etc ready and active.
• Create a situation specific check list which you will need to check in the and before shouting "Im going home !!".

Copy all data and code and the works to new location and test it.  Recommendation use server to server transfer servers are on high bandwidth so its usually faster. Also saves you one step.
Useful commands on Linux.

• scp
• ssh
• rsync

On Amazon EC2, you will need to allow port wise access to get the server accessible via you aws console.





Stage 4: 
 Notify users on upcoming maintenance.

Stage 5: 
Put the old site on maintenance so that new data does not get added during migration after and repeat stage 3  for new data and files.

Tip:
Have a team check and double check every thing. Get your bosses to sign off on working status so that the responsibility is joint.  Expect migration issues due to human error. Address it pro-actively as far as possible.

Important:
Just one more thing have monitoring tools  automatically notify you of downtime as you are in a new setup may be text or email you. Having a blackberry will help for push mails. It better for you to handle it before someone says hey server is down. Media Temple is infamous for unannounced downtime.

Plan for the worst because the best will take care of itself.

All the best for a safe migration!












 

IOS 5.01 Update Released

IOS 5.01 Update Released

Hello iOS Lovers. iOS 5.0.1 is available for download.

• Fixes Batter life 
• iCould 
• Voice over (Australian)

Let us see if Battery Life is better. But  I will tell you what . Looks like WIFI is more active now.

Let me know your experience.

Apple Filesystem HFS+ is cool becase .....

Apple Filesystem HFS+ is cool becase .....

Here are some reasons why HFS is cool

1) It has built in defgrag ( works when needed / possible )

2) Shrink you Filesystem when need. This is a really cool feature!!! Microsoft must learn this trick. But for now MS can depend on GParted under Linux ;P. What is better it moves the recovery partition when system partition resizing! Intelligent resize! MS are you listening!!

3) It can act as a version control system for your files ( want to go back to the old one 2 hours ago? 2 days  or 2 months. Sure Time machine will allow you to do that )!

Note: TM need HFS.

IOS 5.0.1 is in Beta

IOS 5.0.1 is in Beta

iOS 5.0.1 is now in Beta.


Download from. http://developer.apple.com







Apple says "

iOS 5.0.1 beta is now available on the iOS Dev Center. It introduces a new way for developers to specify files that should remain on device, even in low storage situations.

"

Does this mean another XCode update ? God Forbid.


I also feel that Apple has started releasing unstable products. Is this a way to tell the world that the are still some capable hands in Apple. If it is, its definitely not working now!

Create a Lion Recovery Disk using the Lion Recovery Disk Assistant

Create a Lion Recovery Disk using the Lion Recovery Disk Assistant

Here is a good think that i like about OSX Lion. My Mac came with built in rescue disk. Neat !

Press Option  Key during boot and it will turn up.  This is not an alternate to backups. But people using macs seldom say they had a crash.

This is for those time that you are unable to do that. So plan ahead and stay protected as possible.  That could happen. So here is the solution. Needs to be done before hand. Plugin you USB Dirve ( after backing up you data ). You will loose all of it. Create at least 2 partitions one with 1GB and another with the rest of the space.  

Here is a trick. If you are going to use NTFS. make sure the second partition is the 1GB drive else Windows wont like it ! Lion Recovery Disk Assistant should be downloaded form here.

Mount the DMG and run it. Allow the app to run. Choose the 1GB partition and allow it to do its job.

Test it by rebooting while holding the option key and choosing the orange recovery disk.

Once booted you can

1. Run Terminal
2. Repartition / Reformat
3. Use Safari
4. Restore from Time machine ( So take your backups !) 

Recommended backup software:
Carbon Copy  (Donation ware -pay if you like it!)
SuperDuper and  ( Paid easy to user
TimeMachine  ( You already have it )

Update: New Update of VBox Allows you to see device but does not hand it over to the VBox Guest OS.

Soultion to problem of mounting external disk drives on Virtual Box on Mac OS.

Soultion to problem of mounting external disk drives on Virtual Box on Mac OS.

Hey All !

Are you a Mac OS user ( Lion Possibly).  Did you ever think of virtual-izing the Win XP / Wind 7 on your machine with VirtualBox. Well then you have seen that the External drives ( thumb or external HDD) do not turn up or are greyed out ? How annoying !!  I have lost a ton of time on that.

Edit : 
https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/9762




Looks Like i am not the only one.

https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=45376&p=205964#p205964

Well after a bit of reading forums and and experimenting here is what i realized / learnt.

Note: VirtualBox (VB) will re-create /dev/vb* entries every boot ! Why ???  

So any permission set on this via command line will be lost.

To get your device to work you will need to do the following


Create a file called runvb.sh in your home directory.

# BEGIN SCRIPT 
# I call this by the name runvb.sh

sudo kextunload -b com.apple.iokit.IOUSBMassStorageClass
#sudo kextunload -b com.apple.iokit.IOUSBMassStorageClass
#sudo kextunload -b com.apple.iokit.IOUSBMassStorageClass
# note the commented code above un-comment if you find the kext is not revived.

sudo open -a VirtualBox.app
## END SCRIPT
Note : Unmount and unplug your device first.
Once that happens. Plug in your device only after the VB fully loads.

Try running this with sudo sh ./runvb.sh in the terminal .

next time you want it unplug the device after unmount and restart VB via the script!

Best of luck