Category Archives: Tips & Tricks

March 15, 2012

Solved iPad freezing issue

By Dave M.

Problem solved

UPDATE (5/8/2012): Apple has finally fixed this bug in the latest version of iOS (5.1.1). If you are seeing any of these symptoms, you may want to either follow the steps below or do a restore before installing the latest iOS update. Just to make sure that your device is clean.

Earlier I reported that I was having some serious issues with my iPad as well as my iPhone freezing for a short period of time after being woken up (power button or pressing Home button).

It appears that a solution has been found. Or at least a “fix”.

Doing a search for “Unable to Purchase” in Google, I was able to find a thread in Apple’s support forums that talked about this issue. Actually, the thread never mentioned any freezing issues, but it did mention grey icons as well as this “Unable to Purchase” dialog box popping up.

The full symptoms to this problem are:

  • Device freezes soon after being awoken
  • Some app icons would grey (with space for progress bar and title changed to “Waiting”), then the icon image would appear followed by the icons being fully restored one by one in quick succession (screen shot #1)
  • After installing a Universal app from a different device or iTunes, I would be prompted for my AppleID password (screen shot #2)
Screen shot #1

Screen shot #1

Screen Shot #2

Screen Shot #2

These symptoms started up around January of 2012.

The solution or fix seems to be to remove a file “downloads.28.sqlitedb” from a folder on the device. There is an app called iExplorer (formally iPhone Explorer) that allows you to see your devices folder structure without having to Jailbreak the device.

Locate the folder “Media”, open it and locate the folder “Downloads” and open it. Inside the folder “Downloads” you will see several folders with what appears to be random numbers (I had well over 50) as well as a file called “downloads.28.sqlitedb”.

If you Jailbroke your device like I have for my iPhone. I found a package called iFile ($4.00) that allowed me to dig into my iPhone’s folders.

iFile package found in Cydia (Jailbreaking)

iFile package found in Cydia (Jailbreaking)

The above screen shot from “iFile” shows the “…/Media/Downloads” folder after deleting the many “numbered” folders as well as the downloads.28.sqlitedb” file. The sqlitedb file was recreated and is now much smaller than the nearly 780KB file it was.

I deleted all the folders in the “Downloads” folder along with the “downloads.28.sqlitedb” file. I turned off my device, then restarted it.

It’s been over 12 hours now since I deleted the sqlitedb file and I haven’t seen any freezing when waking my iPhone or iPad. I also have not seen any icons greying out.

I installed a couple of Universal apps and was not asked for my AppleID password and the apps appears on both devices.

So it appears that this sqlitedb file must have been corrupted. Folks in the forum feel that this corruption occurred when attempting to install an app and something happens to stop the download from successfully downloading. At that point, they feel that they started seeing the “Unable to Purchase” dialog.

Unable to Purchase pop up

Unable to Purchase pop up

I don’t know what caused this corruption, but I have had times when an App Store purchase started downloading but didn’t finish or I had to reboot the device due to the download freezing. (or at least appearing to freeze)

If you are having any of the above symptoms, check out the forum and see if your symptoms match what they were seeing. Then try the iExplorer solution/fix. I think you will find that it works for you too.

6 comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in iPad, iPhone/iPod touch, Tips & Tricks

August 30, 2010

Download images in Safari 5 that Flickr disables

By Dave M.

flickr_logo.png

The following appeared on an OS X hints site, but was apparently censored by the host probably because they were afraid of the concequences of the article. I, on the other hand, am not. :)

Flickr gives users the ability to ‘disable’ downloads of images, but they do it by merely placing a transparent HTML object or image file over the desired image.

By installing the AdBlock for Safari extension, you can easily disable the formatting that prevents you from easily drag-and-dropping the image on your desktop or right clicking it.

There is a Flickr specific method and a more general method presented below. The short way (only good for Flickr.com):

  • Click the AdBlock config button from Safari’s toolbar. Add the text to a new line in the blacklist section of AdBlock:

    www.flickr.com##DIV[class="spaceball"]
    www.flickr.com##SPAN[class="facade-of-protection"]

  • Save your changes and refresh the Flickr page if needed.
Apparently, this also works with AdBlock Plus for Firefox as well.

  • Bring up the Adblock Plus Preferences dialog
  • Click “Add filter…”
  • Copy “www.flickr.com##DIV[class="spaceball"]” and paste it into the edit field
  • Click “Add filter…” again
  • Copy “www.flickr.com##SPAN[class="facade-of-protection"]” and paste it inot the edit field
  • Click the Apply button

To try out either fix, locate an image that you normally wouldn’t be able to download (disabling the Adblock Plus lines will help if you are using AdBlock Plus, I would suspect that AdBlock for Safari has a similar feature, then re-enable the lines and refresh the page. You should be able to right-click on the image and save it like any other image. You can also now drag the image to any folder in the finder as well.

Update (8/30/10 7:05pm): Surprise, surprise. I have been asked to remove the link to the image that was being used as an example of this trick. Unlike the other website that was to scared to leave the post up, I’m not going to remove the post. As with any hack to remove a protection of sorts, it’s up to the person using the hack’s conscious to decide whether to use it or not.

The image that was being used as an example image to test with was just that and certainly nothing to write home about. The artist appears to be going from site to site that has been publicizing this hack, making sure that the link to their image is removed at least. It almost sounds like they want the entire post removed. I’m not going to do that. If they want better protection for their “art”, I would suggest they write to Flickr.com and have their developers fix the blatant hole in their “security”.

17 comments   |  tags: , , , | posted in Tips & Tricks

March 19, 2010

Keyboard Shortcut: Safari (Command-Option-Delete)

By Dave M.

Update (3/19/10 – 3:20pm): Sorry about the formatting earlier. I am having issues with MarkDown and this blog. For some reason, I can’t get the plugin I installed to work correctly.

safari.png

Command-Option-Delete ( menusym-command.gif menusym-option.gif menusym-delete.gif ):

Remove topmost webpage from “Show the previous page” history

safari-back-history.png

So, I came across this keyboard shortcut totally by accident while I was trying to remove podcast subscriptions from within iTunes. In iTunes, you use Command-Option-Delete to unsubscribe to a podcast and remove the files from iTunes and your hard drive.

Well, I didn’t know it at the time but Safari was my active application when I was attempting to remove a podcast. Sometimes iTunes doesn’t become the active application even if you click on it with the mouse. Not sure why that is, but I hope its a bug that is fixed when the new Snow Leopard (10.6.3) is finally released to the public.

Nothing happened in iTunes, but I noticed an update in Safari’s window. I didn’t think much about it at the moment, and attempted to delete the podcast a second time. Again, I saw an update in Safari’s window. So this time I paid attention to Safari and noticed that when I pressed Command-Option-Delete, the current webpage went away and Safari animated the page zooming back to the Top Sites page.

Well, at that point, I realized that the key sequence was actually doing something constructive. I went to a website, clicked on a few links to build up the back page history and pressed Command-Option-Delete again. This time, the browser went back to the previous page. When I looked at the back page history, I saw that one less entry was in it.

So to explain a little better, take the screen shot above that shows:

  • Safari: Browser Window and Menu Shortcuts
  • safari keyboard shortcuts – Google Search
  • Google
  • topsites://

Now I press Command-Option-Delete and the top most entry is removed and the web browser shows the Google Search results page and the back page history showing:

  • safari keyboard shortcuts – Google Search
  • Google
  • topsites://

Press the combo again and the Google search results page goes away and the browser shows Google and the back page history showing:

  • Google
  • topsites://

One last time and the browser animates the Google page going back to it’s position in the Top Sites page:

  • topsites://

I attempted to find this keyboard shortcut documented somewhere, but I couldn’t. So here you go. I hope you find it as useful as I have!

2 comments   |  tags: , , | posted in Tips & Tricks

October 1, 2009

macosxhints.com – See folder content previews in Quick Look in 10.5 and 10.6

By Dave M.

macosxhints.com – See folder content previews in Quick Look in 10.5 and 10.6: “Quick Look has a hidden feature that is not enabled by default, and can only be enabled through Terminal. Essentially, when ‘X-Ray mode’ is turned on, Quick Looking a folder will show, in a way, the contents of the folder.

xrayfolder.pngInstead of just seeing the regular folder icon in Quick Look, the folder icon will be semi-transparent, with previews of the folder’s contents visible in the Quick Look window, as seen in the image at right. What’s more, the preview images will rotate automatically, moving through each item in the folder (click the image to see a movie of the animation).

To turn this on, quit the Finder (using Activity Monitor, Terminal, etc.), then open Terminal and enter this command:
$ defaults write com.apple.finder QLEnableXRayFolders 1
Relaunch the Finder, and enjoy the new folder X-Ray mode in Quick Look. If you ever want to disable it again, quit the Finder, then repeat the above Terminal command, but change the 1 to a 0. “

This is one of the best tips/tricks I have run across is a long time. Not only do you get to see thumbs of whats in the folder, but they cycle through all the files. New image start at the top and slide under as new images arrive. Its a great effect and something I am going to keep on my machnes.

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , | posted in OS X, Tips & Tricks

September 28, 2009

Finer FastForward/Rewind Control In QuickTime Player X

By Dave M.

quicktimeplayer.png

I just discovered that if you hold down the Option key when clicking on the fast forward/rewind controls in QuickTime Player X, you will increase the speed of playback by 0.1x per click.

quicktimeplayer1.png

This is a great trick if you have limited time and want to watch a video at faster than normal speed. 1.3x to 1.5x is still pretty understandalbe and will save a decent amount of time.

This tip was originally mentioned on Max OS X Hints, but the post claimed that the Control key was the key modifier to use when, in fact, its the Option key. I’m not trying to claim this tip as my own, just wanting it writing in such a way as to not cause any confusion over how to use it.

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , | posted in Tips & Tricks

September 16, 2009

Mac OS X Tip: See Hidden Files in File Open Dialog

By Dave M.

snowleopard.png

I came across this little tip on a development twitter post. Turns out you can see hidden files and even open one up for editing if you enter Cmd-Shift-. in an Open File dialog.

As with pretty much all of Apple’s shortcuts, it’s a toggle, so typing it once displays hidden files and typing it again hides hidden files.

Here is a standard Open File dialog window:
openfilebefore.png

Here is the same Open File dialog after typing ‘Cmd-Shift-.’:
openfileafter.png

I really wish Apple had a page somewhere on its website that described all these hidden gems. There are literally hundreds of these things hidden through out OS X and other Macintosh applications.

1 comment   |  tags: , , , , | posted in OS X, Tips & Tricks

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