Daily Archives: January 19, 2009

Tips

iPhone woes – Apps Crashing and Lost Data

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Today, I finally encountered for the first time an iPhone bug. All of a sudden, all of my apps were crashing (apps fail to start). All apps except those built into iPhone are affected. I started to panic. I’ve got lots of data stored in those apps. Then googling while walking in the Vasona Park (raising much resentment from my significant other), I tried a few tricks suggested by others, like deleting apps, rebooting, and etc. Then I tried downloading another free app, voila, the problem went away. What a relief!

When I returned home, I decided to “sync” all my apps on iTunes. Boy, what a mistake! iTunes decided to remove all the apps I downloaded from within iPhone. I then realized how fragile iPhone data are. I was used to having all of data backup on Treo by “Backupman.” There is no such a thing existed on iPhone without jailbreaking iphone. (I will keep looking). I lost all of the password data I stored in mSecure App. Little did I know how critical it is for any of the iPhone App to have its down backup/restore solution without relying on iPhone. Unfortunately, mSecure does not yet have mBackup yet (due 1/31/09) and it’s too late for me. After trying Apple’s restore a couple of times, I gave up. It appears the data (>200 records) were gone forever. The other data sets (like Contacts) seem to be intact because I had them sync’ed to Yahoo’s Address.

The lesson learned:
1) Avoid storing data in iPhone or apps that store data in iPhone unless the app has ways to backup/restore the data to a desktop or a server somewhere else.
2) Only download essential apps to iPhone. Remove them if they’re not needed to reduce resource drained on the fragile, fancy, iPhone OS.

Movies

Movie Review: American Gangster

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Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington) was the early black mob figure in the 70’s that took advantage of the soldiers of Vietnam War to transport opium and the corrupt police department in New York City. Richie (Russel Crowe) was the incorruptible cop in New Jersey that chased after the new mob figure relentlessly and finally got the case cracked wide open and implicated nearly three quarters of the police department, thanks to Frank’s help. Richie even represented him as the attorney during the trial.

Frank Lucas started out as a helper/body-guard to a well-respected black mobster. Upon the death of the his boss, the streets turned into chaos with every crime figure carving out his territory. Frank, with his good marketing skill, came up with the “branded” “Blue Magic,” pure heroin, shipped directly from Southeast Asia courtesy of the military. When he got so big and the heroin shipment gets more risky due to the end of the Vietnam war, he caught the eyes of the good cop, Richie, who eventually brought him down, overcoming the negative resistance from the dirty cops of New York city.

This movie depicts several conflicts during that era: black/white, black/Italian mobsters, drug industry/police, American/Vietnam, Husband/wife, good cops/bad cops. I don’t think you can find a better movie script with a real-life story to back it up that makes it so believable.

Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe, as nemesis to camaraderie, performed so well in this movie. They should work together more often.

Movies

Movie Review: The Lake House

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The Lake House is another spin on “Back to the Future” except the time lag is only two years and it’s a love story between a career-minded, love-seeking woman doctor (who has a on-again/off-again lawyer boyfriend, Morgan) and a lonely architect man with family issues. The vehicle of communication is the good old mail box of the Lake House, architected by Alex’s father. It’s a beautiful house with glasses all over.

Sandra Bullock (Kate) and Keanu Reeves (Alex Wyler) made this love story come alive. The two-year time lag makes the love story quite possible. Of course, nothing makes the story more interesting by allowing Kate to rescue Alex and change the future. I watched this entire movie on my iPhone during babysitting. I guess this movie succeeded in keeping my eyes glued on the tiny screen for a very long time.