Still use less than 2G this month.

I switched to iPad 2, do more stuff, and yet I just check the usage.  Last month I only used 1.1Gb.  Damn it.  Really need to use more to justify the US$30.

So I installed iOS 5 Beta 2

To be honest, I was not so sure if I should try the iOS 5 Beta 2.  iOS 5 Beta 1 was not stellar, but it worked OK for me so far.  Installing a new OS always create some uncertainty on the stability of the system, not to mention the potential ruin of all the set up time I put in, like setting up all those passwords and user account and the whole 9 yard.  But eventually, I gave in, and did the installation.

The first thing I realized is that I have to install the new iTune 10.5 Beta 2 in order to make it "work" (particularly the wireless sync feature that makes iTune 10.5 Beta 2 special).  The second thing I found out was that the [Update] (hold ALT button and then click [Update]) doesn't work.  I read about someone finding a workaround, but I could not find the IP address that the workaround mentioned.  So I have to do it the regular way, meaning backing up the device using iTune 10.5 Beta 2, install the new OS using [Restore], and then restore the back up I made a while ago.

The whole process took about 30 minutes, and I didn't multitask much during the process (except typing this blog), worrying that I might ruin the installation if I didn't pay attention to the detail.

And the first thing that "surprised"  (should say PISSED) me was that NONE of my third party app were being backed up.  That means I have to spend all my time restoring all the apps and settings that I had been set up.  SON OF THE BITCH!  So I guess next time I have to make sure that all the apps were SYNCED to iTune before I do a backup, and then this whole RESTORE mess.  But VERY VERY FUCKING PISSED.

So since I've been gone so far already, I might just better off continue the journey. 

The next important thing about this update is wireless sync.  So I went ahead and did the set up, and sure enough, I was able to sync the content of my iPad 2 to the iTune on my Lion Preview.

In fact, after I downloaded AirVideo, I found that all the setting is still there.  It's just that the app was gone.  Odd.  Well, I should experiment more.

Now I was thinking, why sync with the iTune on the OSX Lion, when my closet server stays up all the time!  I should sync with THAT MACHINE instead!  But then I just found out that wireless sync ONLY works on Mac this time.  Sigh.  I also found out that iTune for Windows does not recognize my iPad 2 if I launch the app in Windows Remote Desktop.  So when wireless sync finally comes to Windows, I will have to sync it by physically walked to the machine and use the connected monitor and keyboard to do all the set up stuff.

(BTW, when not using remote desktop, both the backside and the front side of the USB ports can recongnize the iPad2.  Just FIY to myself.)

I will continue documenting once I find out more stuff about this new OS.

iPad 1 on the dark side, while iPad 2 on the bright side

People were asking if I were thinking of giving my iPad 1 to my mom or sell it or so.  I, however, tend to keep both for now.  Since iPad 2 is not hackable yet, and yet I still have need to try out hacks on iPad 1, so by keeping both iPads, I can access both the dark side and the bright side of the iPad world.

Lion Preview 4 is still too darn unstable for daily use

I was experiencing twice (probably even more) when I encountered problem trying to save SketchBookPro 2010 document and DazStudio 3 document on Mac OSX Lion Developer Preview 4.  The system will refuse me from saving file at any location, and eventually crashes.  I didn't lost anything particularly information because of such stupid crash, but it still piss me off to encounter such a situation.  So from now on I am switching back to the older snow leopard.  (Thanks goodness that OSX support having multiple OS on the same machine.

Painter 12 sluggish performance on Lion ?

I have OSX Lion Developer preview 4 installed on my machine.  This morning I installed Painter 12 on it, and found that the performance was pretty darn sluggish.  I wonder if it's the problem of the Lion beta or the Painter 12.

On the other hand SketchBook Pro 2011 works in silky smooth way, and so is Flash CS5.

So Apple really really want to make sure you paid the $99 to develop iPhone app on only ONE machine

I had iOS 5 SDK installed on Mac OSX Lion Preview, so I was all fired up to do some development, particular when I just got my new iPad 2 I brought mainly for this development effort.  Then, the deployment to the iPad 2 gave me headache.  After 2 hours of frustration, I found out that I have to revoke the old certificate and use the OSX Lion to regenerate a certificate again.

That's when I realized that Apple is really trying to make sure that the US$99 you paid for the development privilege works only on ONE OS environment.  If you several Mac OSX environment on your machine and you have multiple XCode installed in these environments, only ONE can be used to deploy to your devices.  Apple does that by having a public private key installed in your OS and make sure the development certificate only works with that key.  Yep, Apple goes so far to make sure that they got your money.  Good job.