What to do when iCal and iPhone have irreconcilable differences?

What’s Wrong?

Yipes! My iPhone’s calendar and contacts have stopped syncing with my MobileMe calendar and contacts. I’ve tried deleting my MobileMe account on my iPhone, then re-creating it to force the iPhone to sync properly with MobileMe. My mail synced OK but my calendar events and contacts have disappeared. They’re safe on my computers and on MobileMe itself but they just won’t sync with the iPhone. Help!

What to Do

One of the best selling points of Apple’s cloud solution, MobileMe, is how easily and transparently it syncs your mail, calendar, contacts and Safari bookmarks among all your computers and iDevices. Occasionally, however, it succumbs to hiccups like this one, where it refuses to sync properly.

You’ve done the thing you ought to do — re-creating your MobileMe account on your iPhone — and still you have no joy. Short of the cumbersome fixes (re-installing iTunes, restoring your iPhone from a backup — assuming those tactics would even work), here’s what has worked for some people:

Re-setting your Push settings. The objective of this solution is to “force” your iPhone to sync manually with MobileMe in hopes that your data will be restored to your phone.

1. On your iPhone go to Settings » Mail, Contacts, Calendars » Fetch New Data. Turn Off Push.
2. Set Fetch to Manually.
3. Go back one screen to Accounts, select your MobileMe account and click the red Delete Account button.
4. Back on the Accounts screen, select Add Account… and re-create your MobileMe account. Make sure you set Mail, Contacts and Calendars to On (Bookmarks, Notes and Find My iPhone are up to you).
5. Go back to Fetch New Data and turn Push back on.
6. Open your Mail or Contacts app. If all goes well, you’ll see them re-appear.

It didn’t work! What do I do now?

Re-setting your sync data. Here’s your other option; this one is your best bet, though a tad more complicated.

1. Make sure your Mac has synced very recently with MobileMe, and that it has the most recent Mail, Contacts and Calendar events.
2. On your iPhone go to Settings » Mail, Contacts, Calendars » Fetch New Data. Turn Off Push.
3. On your Mac, open System Preferences » MobileMe » Sync » Advanced.
4. Unregister your Mac.
5. Enable Sync again for just Contacts, Calendar and Bookmarks.
6. Go back to Advanced.
7. Select Reset Sync Data and make sure you pick Computer Overwrites MobileMe. This makes sure you’re re-uploading fresh data to MobileMe.
8. Wait until your Mac completes its sync to MobileMe.
9. Go back to your iPhone and re-enable Push.
10. Plug your iPhone into your computer and let it sync with iTunes.
11. When the sync is complete, check your iPhone: Your Contacts, Calendar events and Bookmarks should have returned!

This solution should work for both iOS 3.1 and iOS4, and on all flavors of iPhones (though I used it on my iPhone 4). Apple has a tech note available for other combinations of hardware/software, which you can read here. It’s a cautionary tale.

ON ITS “Conversations” area of its Web site, big mobile phone manufacturer Nokia is asking its community to help design the next smartphone:

This isn’t just about creating the next-gen smartphone; we want you to think beyond that. To avoid creating some kind of unweildy beast, we’ve created a six-step process where you get to vote for the features and functions you think are most important. Every week we’ll tally up the votes and display the defined spec.

Is Nokia crowdsourcing its next smartphone design? Or is it just creating the illusion of interaction with its customers?

This is not true crowdsourcing. This is a popularity contest, an echo chamber in which people relate what they think they want, not what would actually work for a design that sets out to break the mold and create something new. Think about it: Can you imagine a “crowd” coming up with the iPhone three or four years ago, based on what was available in smartphones then? I don’t think so.

True crowdsourcing would use the crowd to tell you how people actually use smartphones and how they want to use smartphones. Not by asking them, because real designers know that people notoriously say they want things they don’t truly want, or they confuse features with the underlying needs that could be better met by features they haven’t even thought of before.

My guess is that this design effort won’t net Nokia much more than they already think they know.

For example, how many people in the “crowd” know the difference between capacitative and resistive screens? I don’t off the top of my head. And does knowing the difference mean I automatically know what the pros and cons of each are. And if I have to Google it to fill out a simple poll, you’re diluting your “crowd” into a self-selected subset of engineering nerds (and we all know what design geniuses they are).

And screen size? Most people in the “crowd” wil likely think bigger is better without knowing what the ergonomic and weight tradeoffs of such a choice would be. These are considerations designers would take into account. A “crowd”? Not so much.

And can you imagine what the “crowd” would’ve told Apple four years ago about keypads? Apple struck out on its own here, convinced it could offer a different type of keypad that wouldn’t have won a popularity contest back then but would work, and would allow other design features that contributed to an overall, cohesive design masterpiece, rather than something created from a checklist generated by random polling. Same with secondary buttons. How are regular people expected to know enough to weigh these options?

I’m disturbed by the ways in which the term crowdsourcing is being bandied about these days. Crowds can process or give you data that can help you discover patterns you might not otherwise have seen. But to impute expertise for a very specific task (i.e., product design) stretches crowdsourcing’s promise beyond what it can deliver.

I showed a friend the the Nokia survey and his response was, “You want to know all this? Let me grab my iPhone and I’ll tell you.” ‘Nuff said.

The widescreen monitor on sale at Staples wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

My second monitor for my iMac at home is only 19.5 inches, so I thought it would be good replacement. I bought the monitor the next day then drove back home over the mountains. Once home, I unpacked the box to discover:

1. No DVI port
2. No audio port
3. No DVI or audio cables
4. No speakers

Mind you, I’d checked the specs of the advertised model on Staples’ Web site, and it confirmed that this model was supposed to feature all those things. So, filled with Righteous Indignation™, I went to my local Staples to complain, and hopefully to obtain the right monitor.

The very nice store manager claimed it was a misprint (even though I showed him the monitor’s User Guide, which noted that this model had a version that came with the precise specs that were noted on Staples’ Web site). He checked all the models he had in stock and all of them were just like mine — digitally castrated.

So he nicely offered me 20 percent off any monitor I wanted in the store. So I looked around the kinda meager offerings, looking for the same or bigger size (21.5″), and DVI input (I really wasn’t that interested in audio, that was just part of my Righteous Indignation™) and the 1920 x 1080 resolution (HD). That’s when I found this –

The Dell ST22210 LCD Monitor

THE SPECS — 21.5-inch widescreen (16:9 aspect rati0); DVI, VGA and HDMI inputs (!); audio in/out, and HD resolution. List price: $229; Staples’ regular price, $199; on sale this week $159. At 20 percent off, the price came down to $128, only $8 more than I paid for the inferior eMachines monitor.

The cons: Only the VGA cord was included, and I can testify that DVI cables are one way Staples makes up for its low prices elsewhere: they wanted $50 for a cable. Jebus! Luckily, Fry’s has the same cable for $30. Even more luckily, I’d bought a DVI-to-HDMI cable months ago for hooking up my laptop to my HDTV but had never used it. So I hooked the iMac to the Dell’s HDMI port (and because it’s a Mac, no driver installation necessary, thank you very much). The Mac auto-detects the HDMI connection and auto-selects the HD resolution for the monitor —

WHAT I LOVE about Macs: You can ignore the CD that comes with the monitor: no additional drivers necessary. My Mac just “knows” which monitor I hooked up to it.

Thank you, Staples.

What made me curious, though, was how many other people are taking Staples to task for advertising the wrong monitor. Since a lot of PCs still favor VGA over DVI would people even notice they bought an inferior model? Mac people would clearly know since we expect DVI out of the box.

So if you’re in the market for a new monitor, hold Staples accountable and get yourself a better one than they advertised. Only one day left!

Thanks to the leverage of their iPad distribution agreements with Apple, the big book publishing houses won their recent price skirmish against Amazon.com, but will the victory be a Pyrrhic one?

To be sure, Amazon’s Kindle book pricing had stiffed the publishers, giving the e-tailer most of the proceeds, while keeping eBook prices low enough to attract buyers of the Kindle hardware, from which Amazon makes all the money (though, infamously, Amazon continues to refuse to disclose how many Kindles it’s sold). Wit the advent of the iPad as a competing (and IMHO, superior) eBook reader, Amazon lost its leverage for dictating terms. Trouble is, the publishers’ win is likely a loss for us consumers — it means eBook prices will rise substantially (Amazon had bestsellers aggressively priced at $9.99 — loss leaders for other books and the Kindle itself), to at least $14.99.

Peter Kafka, in the Wall Street Journal’s All Things Digital blog, noted the other day that publishers should heed the lessons of the music industry’s experience with the iTunes Music Store:

After years of complaints, last year the music labels finally got what they wanted from Apple–the ability to raise prices on their songs. Last April, iTunes introduced a “variable pricing” scheme, which gave the labels the ability to move prices from 99 cents a song to $1.29 (and for some tracks, down to 69 cents). The result? Music sales are slowing.

Kafka goes on to quote the head of Warner Music Group as saying in hindsight that raising prices 30 percent during a recession wasn’t perhaps the wisest thing. But what lesson should publishers take from the iTunes experience? Kafka says he thinks the lesson publishers are taking is that they should push for higher prices early in the adoption cycle. But he cautions:

The counter here is the one that seems obvious to everyone else: Lower prices and you can sell more stuff. Looks like we’ll be getting another real-world test of this economics lesson soon.

My take is that the publishers and the music industry continue to define the terms of this debate in old world, brick and mortar terms. Back in the days when they could dictate their taste to the public, they were supremely important. But in a digital world, they’re reduced to intermediaries. Granted, their role as gatekeepers, filters and — most importantly — marketers of creative products remains important. But this is no longer a world of scarcity, of limited space on booksellers’ shelves.

Books aren’t commodities; one is not like the other. The function of publishers isn’t merely to vet. It’s also to edit, refine and — most importantly — to market. That’s where it costs them. And with eBooks, the fact there’s theoretically limitless shelf space doesn’t change the fact readers don’t have limitless attention. We rely on publishers and bookstores — intermediaries — to help us sort the signal from the noise, especially given the reality that one reader’s signal is another’s noise. Hence the “crappy” books you see out there; if they’re out there someone made an educated guess there’s a market for them.

However, I don’t think publishers see readers as their customers: booksellers are. If any one thing has changed because of the digital revolution it’s that consumers — end users — must be satisfied with your product and must be an important target of your marketing. Microsoft is a similar culprit, prizing its institutional customers over the needs of people who use its products every day. It creates and market its core products (i.e., Office) for the people high up in the corporate structure who pay the bills; it doesn’t rank usability for end users very highly, hence the clunkiness of so many Microsoft products. The result? Microsoft is losing its competitive edge, a reality that’s obscured by the fact it remains quite profitable — for now (“Microsoft’s Creative Destruction,” New York Times).

Industry analyst Mark Anderson went even further recently (“Microsoft Is Losing Fight for Consumers,” New York Times):

“Microsoft doesn’t have consumer DNA,” he said. “Walk the halls at Microsoft and you can see it is not a place that gets consumers.”

Book publishers need to navigate the changes wrought by the digital economy better than Microsoft or the music industry has. They need to “get” consumers, they need to bend over backwards to make their products fit the lifestyle of their customers, not the mere act of providing an electronic book. Publishers need to make their products match the way we live, and will be living, consuming our entertainment and culture on multiple devices at home, at work and on the road. Apple gets that, and that’s why the iPad will flourish.

Today’s Question: What’s the use of Wordpress 2.9’s new ‘post thumbnail’ feature if I’m using an older theme with its own thumbnail hack?

Answer: If you’re a user (as opposed to a theme developer) there’s a big upside to Wordpress’ new thumbnail feature — that is, if you care about people visiting your site from an iPhone or other Web-enabled smartphones.

It’s quite possible you’re already using a Wordpress theme that automatically generates a thumbnail from images you upload to accompany a blog post or page (check out how I’ve implemented it on the home page of Blue Seraph Productions). So why should you care if your theme already takes care of thumbnails?

A HACK Wordpress themes that created thumbnails for you did so courtesy of a hack concocted by your theme’s developer; thumbnails weren’t a built-in feature of Wordpress up til now. As of version 2.9, Wordpress includes thumbnails as part of its core functions. Great, right? It is for developers of new themes, or those who update their old themes, to take advantage of it.

Where this makes a difference for a regular Wordpress user like you and me is what smartphone visitors to our sites see. Thanks to the amazing plugin, WPtouch, your site becomes smartphone-friendly without you having to write a lick of code. A recent revision to WPtouch took advantage of the post-thumbnail feature, allowing you to replace calendar icons on your mobile-version homepage with a thumbnail image. The result: a less generic-looking version of your mobile Web site.

BEFORE AND AFTER The combination of Wordpress 2.9’s thumbnail feature and WPtouch gives your mobile Web site a brighter, more individualized look.

Next: How to do it yourself »

Big news the other day for people who want to make sure their sarcastic emails and text messages are understood as such by the recipients. A company named Sarcasm, Inc. “invented” a punctuation mark to do the trick. And they want you to pay for it.

I don’t know whether to be furious at or envious of a company so sarcastic that it’s invented a punctuation mark people have to pay to use. And I find it hilarious that you have to notate the (paid) SarcMark with a (free) registered trademark symbol — ®.

But seriously, if you have to use punctuation to let people know you’re being sarcastic, doesn’t that defeat the purpose of sarcasm? Witness Sarcasm, Inc.’s commercial (!) for the SarcMark:

FUNNY OR JUST MEAN? Like Alanis Morrissette’s song, “Isn’t it Ironic?“, Sarcasm Inc.’s commercial doesn’t really demonstrate what it says it does. Are the comments in the commercial really sarcastic, or merely taunts, mean and simple mockery? Sarcasm isn’t just mean. Anyone can be mean. Sarcasm is supposed to be witty, ironic, sneering disapproval disguised as praise. When done properly, it should feel like a delicious, oozing fulsomeness. No SarcMark necessary.

Sarcasm, Inc. (no matter how many times I write it, I still laugh) is marketing its SarcMark as a way to ensure people “get” that you’re being sarcastic in an email or a text message, the way the exclamation mark is used to make sure people “get” that you’re excited. Or the comma so people “get” that some kind of pause is necessary to convey a particular meaning. Or that the semicolon is for people to “get” that … what was the semicolon for again? Anyway, mark my words, the SarcMark isn’t going to help. People will continue to get confused by email and text messages.

At most, the new mark will give your mean comments plausible deniability; but people will now know for sure that they’re being made fun of, and how does that advance world peace? (Oh, look! I used a semicolon! But am I really excited about it because I used not one but two exclamation marks? Or am I just being sarcastic? Do I need to create interrobang-like combinations of marks to convey my meaning?!)

Next: Better, more clever ways to convey sarcasm »

MY FRIEND Erik made a late-night post the other day on his blog, the Perils of Punditry, titled “The Real Danger of Microblogging.” But it’s really about something bigger, about how this technology, so magical, so enabling, turns out to be, well, enabling. Like the dysfunctional kind.

Instead of opening new worlds, technology like Twitter and Tumblr ends up closing us up inside ourselves, adding new limits to our already limited limits. Erik says:

Many observers suggest that microblogging is a particularly odious form of narcissism. This misses the mark. Narcissism permeates our society, from blogs to personalized license plates. Twitter and its ilk are drops in that vast ocean. But Nathan Roberton’s suggestion that Tumblr is lousy for anything but agreeing with people all the time made me think about just how much the design of microblogging platforms influences participant behavior. To paraphrase McLuhan, the platform is the discussion.

Erik acknowledges what he’s found useful about this technology but laments, “Why does it feel useful but hollow?”

I believe such ennui is much more a consequence of allowing ourselves to be overwhelmed by such things as Twitter and Tumblr. It’s certainly easy enough. Erik likens it to an addictive drug whose high keeps you coming back. Relegated to mere tools, however, such technology can assume a less troublesome role.

The real lesson here, Erik wisely observes, is that we can’t let technology ensnare us alongside only those we agree with. And as our mutual friend, Spence, noted, “I’ll hazard that engaging in an actual, real-time, face-to-face conversation with someone at a café is better exercise for the noggin than sitting by yourself at a keyboard.”

Prioritizing how you conduct yourself socially — online and off — is an important way to keep from being overwhelmed by social media. Indeed, contending honestly and openly with people who hold opposing beliefs keeps us sharp, keeps us true.

I nominate the new Internet Movie Database (IMDB) app [iTunes Store link] for the iPhone for the Nobel Peace Prize. Just think about all the arguments it has settled.

Factoid

IMDB’s mission statement makes the world a better place:

The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) is the largest collection of movie, TV and celebrity information anywhere. We aim to list every detail about every movie and TV show ever made, including who was in it, who made it, the plot, user ratings, trailers, photos, reviews, and trivia.

Xyle scope — Yes, that’s how the app is quirkily named. From the makers of the great Getting Things Done app called Things for the Mac and iPhone, Xyle scope is for Web developers who want to break down a Web page into its component parts, the better to understand how it was constructed. Xyle scope helps you discover the wealth of CSS designs out there and how they were put together. What better way to learn than through example? More info and free download. 4 1/2 stars from Macworld, btw.

The folks at Bonnier, publisher of Popular Science and other magazines, are working with Berg on prototypes for digital magazines to be displayed on tablet computers of the future (are you paying attention, Apple? — actually, I’m sure they are).

The project, called Mag+, attempts to “marry what’s best about magazines with the always connected, portable tablet e-readers sure to arrive in 2010.”

Take a look at the prototype video and more photos: