Tech

I was recording a podcast last night on my Macbook, we were about an hour in and shock horror! Garageband froze! Visions of losing all the witty banter haunted me like a nightmare about being naked in school. But luckily, I was able to get it all back in moments, and hopefully this tip might help someone else save their work too.

There we were, nattering away, doing our best to be funny (more on the results later), when Alex suddenly noticed that the counter on Garageband had stopped running. Wiggling the mouse about, the spinny beachball reared its ugly head and we figured now was a good time to take a break to let it settle down.

About 30 minutes later, we figured there was no choice but to kill it. After we checked the size of the project file (about 550MB), we figured enough had been written that we wouldn't be losing much. So, after some serious "Force Quit" action, we re-opened Garageband, only to see this:

There was nothing there! We double checked the file size and it was still around half a gig. So while we were somewhat worried that we might have to remember and repeat the evening's spontaneity, we were reassured that somewhere in there, the recording was waiting for us to find.

After a little fiddling, we figured out that all we needed to do was look inside the project package by command-clicking on the file and selecting "Show Package Contents":

This opened the project as a handy folder. And lo and behold! Tucked away within the Media folder was an audio file containing the whole recording. Even the bits after we thought it had stopped!

So all we had to do was take a copy of this .aif file and re-import it into Garageband, then we were back in business!

Instructions in Brief

So, in summary:

1. Command-click the problem Garageband Project and select "Show Package Contents"
2. In the window showing the package contents, open the Media folder
3. Copy any .aif files out of the package and put them somewhere safe
4. Import the .aif files into a new Garageband Project

This tip is for Garageband '09, but may work just as well for earlier or later versions, although the location of the audio files may vary.

So there we go! Hope this is of help to those of you with broken recordings. Stay tuned for details of the podcast we recorded last night, it was the first, experimental edition of what we hope will become a weekly extravaganza of laughs, anecdotes and general oddness. See you soon!

 Yesterday saw the release of iPhone OS 3.0, with a raft of improvements and new features. Excitement was such that a misreported delay in the release resulted in a flurry of angry tweets, followed by a series of slightly miffed corrections. Despite this, the release went ahead as planned, for most people.

iPhone developers had been given beta versions of the OS, so they could test their apps and make use of new features from day one. As a developer, I had been working with the betas, and was keen to install the release version for any bug fixes that went in, and to be sure apps on my device would work the same as for everyone else.

However, upon trying to update through iTunes, I was presented with a dialog telling me that "3.0 was the latest version", as far as it was concerned, 3.0 beta 5 was the same as the final release. Not only that, but Apple had removed the GM seed download from the developer site.

Luckily, there was help available in the developer forums. I've condensed these tips below:

Instructions

1. IMPORTANT! Sync your iPhone in iTunes, to make sure you have all your settings backed up. You will be wiping your phone later, so make sure you have all your media and applications in your iTunes library, too (I forgot to do this and lost a day's notes and text messages!)
2. Unplug the USB connector from your iPhone and power it off (with the red slider).
3. Make sure iTunes is open on your Mac. Hold down the Home button on your iPhone and reconnect the USB connector.
4. Keep the Home button held down until you see the "Connect to iTunes" screen on your iPhone
5. iTunes will bring up a dialog: "iTunes has detected an iPhone in recovery mode". Click OK to start the recovery process. iTunes will download and install the latest version of iPhone OS.
6. Once your iPhone has been recovered, select your backup to restore your settings
7. Sync your iPhone to restore all your applications and media

And you're ready to go! For more detailed instructions for steps 2-5, see this support article.

This seemed to work great for everyone in the forums, but I should add a disclaimer that you do this at your own risk, and I'm not responsible for any lost data, etc.

Now I can get back to work on version 1.1 of Togolon!

I'm really rattling off these resolutions! Last week, I finally finished my first foray into iPhone development: Togolon!

Given incessant ranting on the blogosphere, I was expecting this process was going to take anything up to a month to complete, but to my surprise, Togolon was approved in a mere 5 days. This left me in a bit of a flap, as I haven't finished the website yet, but still, a nice surprise.

Togolon is an accelerometer-based puzzle game, the aim of which is to "toggle" all the red tiles green before the time runs out. Simple concept, but has been driving my beta testers (read: friends in the pub) mad :-)

Its been a great way to learn the API, too. Nothing like having a project to help you pick up a new skill. Must say I've been consistently impressed with how complete and easy-to-use the tools are.

Downloadable from iTunes Today!

Disgruntled developers around the world were (at least partly) appeased today as Apple lifted the NDA on the iPhone API.

After opening the iPhone up to third-party developers, Apple has raised the ire of many a bedroom programmer by exercising what some might deem a draconian level of control over their App Store. Aside from complaints about (arguably unfairly) rejected applications, chief amongst developers' grievances is the highly restrictive NDA that effectively prevented anyone discussing the development process of their apps.

Any programmer who isn't gifted with a god-like understanding of all things technical will inevitably reach for community code samples and tutorials every now and then, so it is easy to see why this would pose a problem. Not only was developer collaboration curtailed (sacrilege in a community that abhors reinventing the wheel), but developers with rejected apps were not permitted to discuss the reasons they were given for the rejection, leaving others reluctant to even begin development for fear of their work being wasted. So frustrated were those using the API, that the site F*cking NDA was established to aggregate complaints from Twitter, along with numerous online petitions and blog entries.

In response to this, Apple placed a statement on the developer program site, announcing the removal of the gag:

Being in the midst of dabbling with the iPhone API, I was somewhat relieved to see this. Let the idea-sharing commence!