iOS 4: Exchange Mail, Contacts, or Calendars may not sync after update

Apple has released a profile update to iOS4. Apple Says:

Symptoms
Immediately after updating to iOS 4, some users may notice that Exchange ActiveSync Mail, Contacts, or Calendars do not sync, or sync very slowly. In addition, some Exchange Server administrators may notice their servers running slowly.
Resolution
To work around this issue, users should install a configuration profile from Apple that increases the amount of time the iOS 4 device will wait for the Exchange Server to respond to its sync requests. For best results, the profile should be installed on as many iOS 4 devices at your company as possible.

To install the profile:

1. Use Safari on your iOS 4 device to download the configuration profile. It may be easiest to read this article with your iPhone or iPod touch and tap the download link there, but you may also email the attachment to another email account on your iOS 4 device, and tap the attachment to open it.
2. Tap Install to install the profile, and enter your passcode if prompted.
3. A warning message will appear because the profile is not signed. Tap Install Now.
4. Tap Done to complete the installation, then power off your device and power it back on.
5. Wait for your Exchange data to finish syncing.

After installation, the profile will be listed under Settings > General > Profile.

An Apple Forums poster has claimed that this profile patch has helped to resolve the battery drain issue in iOS4 on iPod Touch devices.  I have just applied the patch.  I will report back tomorrow.


Update- After applying Apple's new patch and leaving the iPod touch in "Airplane Mode" with Wifi on  all night, I received a couple of email notifications and one notification from my "AP".  There was no apparent battery drain!  I will post continued updates as I have further experience with this patch.

John H. Armwood 

Letter from Apple Regarding iPhone 4

Letter from Apple Regarding iPhone 4: "We have discovered the cause of this dramatic drop in bars, and it is both simple and surprising.

Upon investigation, we were stunned to find that the formula we use to calculate how many bars of signal strength to display is totally wrong. Our formula, in many instances, mistakenly displays 2 more bars than it should for a given signal strength. For example, we sometimes display 4 bars when we should be displaying as few as 2 bars. Users observing a drop of several bars when they grip their iPhone in a certain way are most likely in an area with very weak signal strength, but they don’t know it because we are erroneously displaying 4 or 5 bars. Their big drop in bars is because their high bars were never real in the first place.

To fix this, we are adopting AT&T’s recently recommended formula for calculating how many bars to display for a given signal strength. The real signal strength remains the same, but the iPhone’s bars will report it far more accurately, providing users a much better indication of the reception they will get in a given area. We are also making bars 1, 2 and 3 a bit taller so they will be easier to see." More...
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We will have to see user reactions to this press release as well as independent laboratory tests on the new iPhone devices.  It appears that Apple is denying there is a substantive problem, just a signal strength indicator issue.  Why then does the iPhone bumper ad on seem to fix the problem if the problem is just an incorrect formula used to calculate the visible signal strength bars?  Does this explanation make sense to you?  Now what will they say, if anything, about iOS4's dramatic draining of batteries in newly upgraded iPod Touch devices?

John H. Armwood   

South Korea drops law forcing Internet Explorer for shopping | Electronista

South Korea drops law forcing Internet Explorer for shopping | Electronista

updated 05:45 pm EDT,

Thursday July 1, 2010

Korea no longer requires ActiveX for online sales

Rivals to Microsoft were given a significant victory on Thursday with a ruling in South Korea that opens up financial transactions to browsers besides Internet Explorer. The country's Financial Services Commission has scrapped a 1999 rule that required using ActiveX to verify shoppers' IDs, effectively giving Microsoft a government-backed monopoly over business. The change came after the Korea Communications Commission decided in May that the rule prevented most smartphones owners from buying things online.

The legal change takes effect immediately, but a committee to oversee the transition won't arrive until later this month.

Opening the browser rules is poised to quickly erode some of Microsoft's market share in Korea, as locals will no longer be required to use Internet Explorer, and therefore a version of Windows, to shop online. The browser has lost much of its share in the US and much of Europe, where Chrome, Firefox and Safari now have significant share. Windows Mobile has some level of support for ActiveX, but unlike its desktop counterpart has much less share and has been losing ground to the iPhone, and Android, in Korea.

More...

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Finally the Korean government is waking up. Active X, Microsoft's outdated and prone to security attack Active X website creation tool, has long been discarded to the proverbial technological garbage can by American web developers but in much of Asia it is inexplicably, still in common usage. In South Korea, for example, most websites require Internet Explorer to conduct business and other transactions because this non "web standards" technology is not supported by any other major web browser. Korea is not alone in still using Active X technology. Chinese language websites, like many in South Korea, use this technology even to view "Adobe Flash" movies. My wife, a Malaysian Chinese American immigrant, has to use Internt Explorer to view her beloved Chinese language movies and soap operas. We in America often see countries like Korea as having lots of advanced computer technology. This is in large part true. I lived in South korea for more than two years. I miss the high speed internet connections there where both download and uploads speeds dwarf average DSL speeds in the United States but when it comes to website development South korea lags far behind the U.S.

As a result of this website development lag, Apple Mac computers, which most professionals consider superior to their Windows operation system rivals, have been unable to make a significant penetration into the Korean market. This is due to the fact that Microsoft's Internet Explorer does not support the Mac operating system. It seems that the over controlling Korean government is belatedly moving forward. Better late than never.

John H. Armwood

Editorial - Google vs. China, the Sequel - NYTimes.com

Editorial - Google vs. China, the Sequel - NYTimes.com

As the Chinese Communist Party sees it, its very hold on power depends on tightly controlling the access of ordinary Chinese to information about their country, their rulers and the world at large. When Google decided in March to stop self-censoring search results in China by automatically redirecting queries to its uncensored service in Hong Kong, no one should have been surprised if Beijing rejected the scheme.

The Chinese government is now pushing back, threatening not to renew Google’s license as an Internet content provider. It is Google’s challenge to stick to the spirit of its promise and never censor its searches in China again. To give in now would make Google into an accomplice of China’s repressive government.

So far, Google’s response to Beijing’s displeasure appears consistent with its original vow. Instead of automatically rerouting queries to its Hong Kong engine, it started sending visitors to www.google.cn to a new “landing page” that links to the Hong Kong Web site, where users can perform searches beyond the reach of Chinese government censors.

And Google has insisted it has no intention of backtracking on its promise not to censor itself — that much-lauded announcement that said that if self-censorship is a requirement to remain then it must abandon China. Yet Beijing has not said whether it finds this solution acceptable. It may not.

This bit of skirmishing with Google comes amid a general tightening of China’s online censorship. And Google clearly is not eager to leave the world’s largest Internet market.

It is true, as Google often says, that its departure from China would impose a cost on the many Chinese who have relied on its search engine as a window into the Internet and, thus, into the world.

But a censored Google is worse than no Google at all. Threatening to depart, it at least clarifies to Chinese Internet users the extent of their government’s control over information and the cost this policy entails.

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Google must stick to its guns and not give in to this despotic regime. China has received a lot of positive press recently and is looked upon as a model nation by many in developing countries. The nativity, with which they brush away question concerning the Chinese governments obsessive attempts to control speech and freedom, is quite troubling. China is not a free and open society and should not be treated as such. Corporations. who do business there, should not collude with Chinese government officials in suppressing the civil rights of the Chinese people. If China wants to fully join the community of nations its human rights abuses must end. Until such time all efforts must be taken to insure the free flow of information to the Chinese. google is taking courageous steps in this direction.

John H. Armwood

The Swype Revolution? - NYTimes.com

The Swype Revolution? - NYTimes.com

It's tough reviewing an Android phone, as I did in today's column. You're reviewing not just a phone, but also its cell network and, most hopelessly of all in limited space, a huge and complex operating system.

The Droid X is particularly tough to describe concisely. There are a couple of big features, in fact, that I didn't have time to get into at all.

Entering text on a phone that has only an on-screen keyboard is nobody's idea of fun. (It's always amazing to me that those 100 million iPod Touch and iPhone owners suffer through tapping out text with scarcely a peep of complaint.)

Anyway, the Droid X offers three alternatives to tapping away. First, there's the speech recognition that's built right into Android. You can dictate text anyplace you can type, as long as you have an Internet connection and the gods of accuracy are on your side.

Second, the Droid X has a much-vaunted "multitouch keyboard." Every review I've seen mentions this feature, but I couldn't figure out what it means. When would you need to type two letters at once? Does that somehow help you type faster?

I asked Motorola's Droid X team, and they could come up with only one useful example: You can hold down the Shift key and then tap a different letter to get a capital. Well, duh-you can do that on the iPhone, too. Is this a big deal? Enough to justify the "multitouch keyboard" bullet point in the advertising? Color me baffled.

The third Droid X text-input option is a little more interesting. It's one of the first phones to have Swype built in.

What is Swype? It's a new way to enter text, invented expressly for touchscreen phones. It was invented by the same guy who invented the T9 text-input system, which let you type out words on phones that had only number keys. You know: you push 4-3-6, and the T9 software figures out that you meant "gem."

When you use Swype, you see what looks like a standard onscreen keyboard. But instead of tapping each letter, you're supposed to leave your finger on the screen and *drag through* all the letters of the word you want. More...

Jobs on iPhone 4 antenna: "we are working on it" | Electronista

Jobs on iPhone 4 antenna: "we are working on it" | Electronista

Apple co-founder Steve Jobs has cleared up some ambiguity hinted at earlier as part of a dialog with a potential ex-fan. Following heated complaints from a BGR reader, Jobs called much of the recent analysis a "few days of rumors" but also acknowledged that there's an issue. "We are working on it," the executive said. More...

Facebook Adds New Controls for Third-party Apps - PCWorld

Facebook Adds New Controls for Third-party Apps - PCWorld

Facebook has revamped the way its users share information with third-party applications and Web sites in an effort to make the process easier, the company said Wednesday.

With the changes, a new permissions box will pop up whenever a Facebook user installs a new application or first logs into an external Web site through their Facebook account, wrote Bret Taylor, the social-networking site's CTO, in a blog post. More...

Microsoft: 10,000 PCs Hit With New XP 0day Attack - PCWorld

Microsoft: 10,000 PCs Hit With New XP 0day Attack - PCWorld

Nearly a month after a Google engineer released details of a new Windows XP flaw, criminals have dramatically ramped up online attacks that leverage the bug.

Microsoft reported Wednesday that it has now logged more than 10,000 attacks. "At first, we only saw legitimate researchers testing innocuous proof-of-concepts. Then, early on June 15th, the first real public exploits emerged," Microsoft said in a blog posting. "Those initial exploits were targeted and fairly limited. In the past week, however, attacks have picked up."

The attacks, which are being launched from malicious Web pages, are concentrated in the U.S., Russia, Portugal, Germany and Brazil, Microsoft said.

PCs based in Russia and Portugal, in particular, are seeing a very high concentration of these attacks, Microsoft said. More...

Apple updates HP, Epson drivers for Snow Leopard | Printers | MacUser | Macworld

Apple updates HP, Epson drivers for Snow Leopard | Printers | MacUser | Macworld

Apple has released updated sets of Snow Leopard drivers for Hewlett-Packard and Epson printers and scanners.

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You may simply use Apple's operating system update feature or go to Apples's download site to obtain the drivers.

John H. Armwood

iPod Touch OS4, Battery Drain Fix

The iPod touch, in its default setting in OS4, drains the battery at an incredibly fast rate.  This is in comparison to the previous operating system.  The drain makes the device of limited usability.  You can cure this problem by changing your default setting.  This will allow you to minimize this battery drain and still use your device as it was originally designed.

There are a few causes of this drain. With Wifi on the radio connect to the internet every 10 seconds.  There is no way to change this setting except to turn the Wifi radio off direct or by putting the device into the new "Airplane Mode" setting which turns off Wifi and all push and fetch features.  This cures the problem but its like throwing out the baby with the bath water.  One of the best features of the iPod touch is its ability to fetch email and receive push notifications.

So here are my tips learned from my personal experience and confirmed by users on the Apple iPod Discussion Forum

1)  Turn off notifications and application location services, under the settings menu, for programs from which you do not absolutely require constant, automatic updates.

2)  Turn off the Bluetooth Radio when you are not using it.  This can be turned off in the settings menu.

3) Go to Mail, Contacts, Calendar under  settings and turnoff the push and fetch features. If you need email fetch set it to either 15 or 30 minute intervals. At thirty minute intervals my iPod touch showed only a little battery while left in sleep mode all night, even though I did receive several push notifications.  To reiterate I left the Wifi Radio on all night and the device was not using the new "Airplane Mode".

4) Put the device in Airplane mode when you do not need to connect to the internet.  This mode turns off the Wifi Radio and all push notifications.

These setting changes worked for me.   By the way, Apple will not let you return to previous versions of the operating system once you have upgraded it so consider carefully your decision to upgrade.  Do you really have enough applications to require the new nested folders feature?  I like this feature a lot because I have a lot of apps.  The send major advantage of OS4 is a unified mail inbox.  This is very useful if you have more than one email account.  It works just like the "Mail" application on the MAC OX10 operating system.  These are  the two key advantages of upgrading to OS$ for iPod Touch users.  Please feel free to post your comments and questions.

John H. Armwood

AppleInsider | Wireless experts weigh in on iPhone 4 reception issues

AppleInsider | Wireless experts weigh in on iPhone 4 reception issues

Reception issues with Apple's recently released iPhone 4 have gone under the microscope, with two new in-depth reports testing a variety of methods on how to hold the phone, and the effects those positions have on signal.

Anandtech: Antenna is improved, but bumper is needed

Authors Anand Lai Shimpi and Brian Klug did a barrage of tests on the iPhone 4, as compared to the iPhone 3GS and Google Nexus One. They found that the new model gets the best reception of any iPhone, holding on to one bar with voice and data for longer than its predecessor.

"With my bumper case on, I made it further into dead zones than ever before, and into marginal areas that would always drop calls without any problems at all. It's amazing really to experience the difference in sensitivity the iPhone 4 brings compared to the 3GS, and issues from holding the phone aside, reception is absolutely definitely improved."

More...

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This is an excellent, detailed study of the new iPhone's reception issues. The verdict is by the bumper and you will get better reception than with the previous 3GS model.

John H. Armwood

Google Will Stop Redirecting Chinese Searchers to Hong Kong - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

Google Will Stop Redirecting Chinese Searchers to Hong Kong - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

For the last three months, Google has found a clever way to overcome its ethical objections to self-censoring search results on its Web site for mainland China, google.cn. It has automatically redirected Chinese users to an uncensored search site, google.com.hk, maintained on the company’s servers in Hong Kong.

There was only one problem with this solution: as we reported in March: the Chinese government objected to it.

On Monday night, Google acknowledged those objections in a blog post written by David Drummond, its chief legal officer. Mr. Drummond wrote that the Chinese government was ready to reject Google’s application for renewal of its Internet Content Provider license, which would effectively mean the company would have to shut down its Web site in the country entirely. The license renewal application is due on Wednesday. More...

In Suit Over Faulty Computers, Window to Dell’s Fall - NYTimes.com

In Suit Over Faulty Computers, Window to Dell’s Fall - NYTimes.com

After the math department at the University of Texas noticed some of its Dell computers failing, Dell examined the machines. The company came up with a unusual reason for the computers’ demise: the school had overtaxed the machines by making them perform difficult math calculations.

Dell, however, had actually sent the university, in Austin, desktop PCs riddled with faulty electrical components that were leaking chemicals. Dell sold millions of these computers from 2003 to 2005 to major companies like Wal-Mart and Wells Fargo, institutions like the Mayo Clinic and small businesses.

“The funny thing was that every one of them went bad at the same time,” said Greg Barry, the president of PointSolve, a technology services company near Philadelphia that had bought dozens. “It’s unheard-of, but Dell didn’t seem to recognize this as a problem at the time.”

Documents recently unsealed in a three-year-old lawsuit against Dell show that the company’s employees were actually aware that the computers were likely to break. Still, the employees tried to play down the problem to customers and allowed customers to rely on trouble-prone machines, putting their businesses at risk. Even the firm defending Dell in the lawsuit was affected when Dell balked at fixing 1,000 suspect computers, according to e-mail messages revealed in the dispute. More...

Google's Chrome Passes Safari in US Browser Share - PCWorld

Google's Chrome Passes Safari in US Browser Share - PCWorld

Google Chrome is now the third-most-popular browser in the U.S., behind Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Mozilla's Firefox, but ahead of Apple's Safari for the first time, according to a study by Web analytics company StatCounter. More...

Roll-Up Computers and Their Kin - NYTimes.com

Roll-Up Computers and Their Kin - NYTimes.com

IF you were one of the few brave readers of printed books in 2007 who crossed the divide into digital reading, your options were sparse and expensive. The original Amazon Kindle, for example, cost $400, and its screen displayed a mere four shades of gray.

Today, digital readers are much cheaper and come with significantly better displays and storage space. But things are just getting started — like the price war that erupted last week between Amazon and Barnes & Noble that pushed the prices of their e-books below $200. Those e-readers are also facing challenges from other gadgets that can display books, newspapers and magazines, including mobile phones and the new tablet computers like the iPad. Apple said last week that it had sold 3 million iPads in 80 days.

“The paper book is dead,” says the digital visionary Nicholas Negroponte. More...