Delete the current index

To delete the Spotlight index, open up the Terminal app and type in the following:

sudo rm -r /.Spotlight-V<tab>

Note: Do not type in the <tab> part. That is to force the Terminal app to load whatever your index folder is into the command.

How to make Spotlight reindex your file system

To force Spotlight to reindex your file system, use the Terminal app to run the following commands:

sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.metadata.mds.plist
sudo mdutil -E /

Give it some time to reindex your file system. You’ll notice the processors working hard during this time. Depending on the amount of file on your system, this may take a few minutes or an hour or two.

To trigger Voice Control:

Press and hold the Home button until the Voice Control screen appears and you hear a beep. Then use the commands described below to make calls or play songs.

You can also press and hold the center button on the iPhone headset to bring up Voice Control.

To call someone in contacts:

Say “call” or “dial,” then say the name of the person. If the person has more than one phone number, you can add “home” or “mobile,” for example.

To dial a number:

Say “call” or “dial,” then say the number.

To make a correction:

Say “wrong,” “not that one,” “not that,” “no,” or “nope.”

To control music playback:

Say “play,” or “play music.” To pause, say “pause,” or “pause music.” You can also say “next song” or “previous song.”

To play an album, artist, or playlist:

Say “play,” then say “album,” “artist,” or “playlist” and the name.

To shuffle the current playlist:

Say “shuffle.”

Find out more about the currently playing song:

Say “what’s playing,” “what song is this,” “who sings this song,” or “who is this song by.”

Use Genius to play similar songs:

Say “Genius,” “play more like this,” or “play more songs like this.”

Cancel Voice Control:

Say “cancel.”

For best results:

• Speak into the iPhone microphone as if you were making a phone call. Or use the microphone in the included headset.
• Speak clearly and naturally.
• Say only iPhone commands and names, and numbers. Pause slightly in between.
• Use full names.

Now, the full story…

When I first purchased my iPhone 3GS, one of the features I looked forward to use the most was the new Voice Control feature. I had owned the iPhone 3G and originally thought this feature was going to be part of the iPhone OS 3.0 upgrade but it was not. You have to have the latest hardware in the iPhone 3GS in order to use this feature.

When I first got my iPhone 3GS activated and ready to use, I went to use the Voice Control feature and unlike most every other iPhone feature, the Voice Control feature was not obvious. I’ve never had to pick up an iPhone manual to figure out a feature and I wasn’t going to start now. So I thought about it for a minute and realized the point of the feature is to be able to take an action in a hands free mode. The only real way to do this would be if you could trigger it without unlocking the phone. So I looked and there are only two real buttons on the phone. I figured it wasn’t going to be the power button so it had to be the home button. Sure enough, if you hold down the Home button for a couple seconds, the phone will make a unique tone sound and vibrate. This lets you know you can speak the voice command without having to even look at the phone.

This is a great new feature to the iPhone and one that I welcome. It allows you to have a true “eyes free” experience with the iPhone. The extension of the voice commands into the iPod controls is also great. Just another example of the iPhone leading the way in mobile devices.

I was stunned last year when AT&T wouldn’t let me get an iPhone 3G for my wife at the “discounted” rate. And by discounted rate, I mean the rate that they advertise everywhere with the star and fine print next to. However, even though I had documentation showing I had not used an equipment discount for 2 years, they refused to give me the discount.

But they have taken it to another level this year. The iPhone 3GS is being released on June 19th as you probably have already heard by now. So I went on to the AT&T site to check my upgrade status figuring that surely after 3 years, I’m eligible to get an equipment discount on that line. However, I’m presented with some obscure message about being able to take advantage of “no commitment pricing”. What is exactly is that? You mean the unadvertised over the top retail price.

What the… So even after 3 years now I still have to wait another month before I can get the discount on the iPhone 3GS? I will be calling AT&T about this next week so I’ll update this post if anything changes but I just couldn’t believe that.

But now to the real problem. I bought the iPhone 3G last year for my line with a discount and Apple/AT&T were fine with giving 1st generation iPhone owners a discount because they knew this was the strongest part of the user base. If someone was willing to drop $600 on a phone the first year, you know they are coming back to upgrade.

However, this year is different. If you purchased an iPhone 3G last year when they were released, you won’t be eligible for an upgrade discount until December. Let me see if I understand this correctly. The same people who were camping out and waiting in lines for hours wrapped down the street and around buildings are the same people you are going to make wait until December to get the advertised price on the new version? I can’t believe they didn’t consider this. Would it really hurt either company to drop the term between equipment upgrades down to 12 months?Especially since they are obviously on a 12 month release cylce for the iPhone product.

This is why I don’t think you will see people camping out (maybe in the crazy downtown New York and California areas) and standing in long lines for the iPhone 3GS. I know for sure I won’t be.

Maybe if these companies should spend more time focused on improving their products and services and less time with the lawyers and marketing departments figuring out ways to squeeze more and more money out of their customers.

Reading anything on the Internet has become a full-on nightmare. As media outlets attempt to eke out as much advertising revenue as possible, we’re left trying to put blinders on to mask away all the insanity that surrounds the content we’re trying to read.

It’s almost like listening to talk radio, except the commercials play during the program in the background. It’s a pretty awful experience. Our friend to date has been the trusty “Print View” button. Click it and all the junk goes away. I click it all the time and rarely print. It’s really become the “Peace & Quiet” button for many.

Readability is a browser bookmarklet (sort of like a bookmark on steroids). You can install Readability by visiting the Readability setup page.

On Mac OS X I use CyberDuck for FTP and TextMate as an editor.

In case you are on Windows, though not as good, you can use FileZilla and Notepad++ and accomplish a similar setup and functionality.

This is the perfect combination and the price is much better than Dreamweaver. CyberDuck is free and a license to TextMate is only $56. The windows combination is completely free.

The syntax highlighting on TextMate is great and when you start using the bundles and snippet functionality of TextMate, you’ll quickly realize what you’ve been missing.

If you have any stories about using this setup, feel free to share. Or if you have used a different combination of tools (other than Dreamweaver) lets hear it.

dscacheutil -flushcache

Hosted Exchange

Pros:

• Integrates well with Windows OS & Outlook (only a pro if you use them)
• ActiveSync keeps an open connection so what you are looking at is always the most recent status of the data
• 3rd Party Providers – Companies can license the exchange platform and resell the services. This creates competition and that is always good for the user.

Cons:

• The only full integration with Hosted Exchange can happen in Outlook (this could be a pro if you prefer Outlook)
• Setup can be tricky if you aren’t a Windows/Outlook power user
• ActiveSync requires an open connection so this can be a power hog on mobile devices

MobileMe

Pros:

• Cross Platform support – Integrates well with Mac OS X and the Mac suite of apps as well as supports Outlook
• Fully integrates with iPhone
• Easy setup
• Sync’s Email, Calendars, and Contacts but ALSO allows for file storage, photo storage, etc.
• Better online web application

Cons:

• Only works with iPhone (if you are using a different mobile device… too bad)
• No competition – Apple owns and offers the technology but no one else is able to host it for you

The requested resource has been assigned a new permanent URI and any future references to this resource SHOULD use one of the returned URIs. Clients with link editing capabilities ought to automatically re-link references to the Request-URI to one or more of the new references returned by the server, where possible. This response is cacheable unless indicated otherwise.

The new permanent URI SHOULD be given by the Location field in the response. Unless the request method was HEAD, the entity of the response SHOULD contain a short hypertext note with a hyperlink to the new URI(s).

If the 301 status code is received in response to a request other than GET or HEAD, the user agent MUST NOT automatically redirect the request unless it can be confirmed by the user, since this might change the conditions under which the request was issued.
W3C Hypertext Transfer Protocol

This is particularly useful for search engines like Google, which will carry over page rank to the new page if this status code is seen. If you do not need to indicate permanent displacement, you can accomplish redirection by setting a Location header in PHP. The location header does the actual redirection to the new location, and can be used by itself.

If you set the Location header by itself, PHP automatically sets the status code to HTTP/1.1 302 Found.

Note, if you attempt to send headers after content has been sent, you will get a warning like, “Warning: Cannot modify header information – headers already sent by …”. Watch out for empty lines and spaces between PHP open and close tags.

Here is the code to do this in PHP…

<?php
// Permanent redirection
header("HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently");
header("Location: http://www.example.com/");
exit();
?>

Just make sure you put these lines in your page before any other content is sent out. The http://www.example.com/ part can be changed to whatever the new address for this resource is.

The only problem is that each device OS has a different location to find this serial number. This article explains how to find the serial number in your iPhone device. It will also work for the iPhone 3G since they use the same operating system. And it should also work the same for the iPod Touch.

1. From the main screen on your iPhone/iPod Touch, tap the “Settings” icon.
2. On the Settings screen, tap the General section.
3. Now tap the About section.
4. Scroll down a ways and you will see an item for “Serial Number”. That’s it, read that off to the support person and you’ll be on your way.