Trains, Tube and Blobs

Some weeks ago, I sent a twitter 'tweet' pondering the reason behind the closure of Blackfriars tube station in London for three years, and got a fascinating tweet back that told me that there was no such tube station, and never had been. Nuff said, it seemed.

But I was recently able to talk to someone who is in the 'Trains' specialist group (known as a 'professional network') of the IET, the Institute of Engineering and Technology. The IET are the people who you talk to in order to reach the cream of the engineering profession - so you get straight answers from people who know. So I asked two obvious questions: why was Blackfriars closed?; and why do trains always seem to be replaced by buses at weekends?

Actually, the answers are pretty obvious once you think about them in the right way... This is probably because engineering is often about completely understanding the problem first...

Trying to completely rebuild a busy Tube station in situ in these days of very protective safety legislation seems like a recipe for accidents, or else is going to increase the duration of the work. With this in mind, then a few years seems less unreasonable.

Weekend 'rail replacement' buses seem strange given the apparent increases in the number of people who seem to want to use the train at weekends in our 24-7 'world in recession'. But given that the alternative is either closing down the rail network earlier at might, or doing the work during the week, then the weekend seems like the logical time to do it. But then, when you think deeper, you wonder why there's so much maintenance needed? Maybe the answer is to look beyond fixing the immediate symptoms and fix the underlying problem...

All of which wonderfully illustrates what I think engineering is really all about. It isn't necessarily about getting your hands dirty, or making the tallest, widest or longest something. Instead, it is more about thinking about how and why things work the way they do (or don't), and particularly about understanding how and why things interact (or don't interact) in the ways they do. Try searching for 'IET: Beware of the Monkeys' on YouTube for another example...

Which brings me to my final engineering question of this blog posting: Why do chefs always make the blobs of fruit coulis different sizes?

Apple do Care!

Despite the fact that I have AppleCare on my main G5 Quad Mac, I've never needed to us it so far. But recently, the hard drive on one of my offspring's MacBook decided that it had become a mere lump of metal rather than a useful piece of storage, and so AppleCare was used for the first time.

After a quick phonecall where it was quickly established that I had done all the things that one could reasonably be expected to do (check the PSU, check the battery, check if it boots with various keys held down, reset the PRAM, reset the power management, etc.), things moved rapidly to an appointment at the Apple Store on Regent Street in London.

The Genius Bar runs a queuing system even though you have timed appointments, and so I joined the set of people sitting on the wooden benches at the top of the stairs. After about twenty minutes I was called, and the Apple Genius rapidly established that the MacBook hard drive was indeed as dead as I had described. Once a repair form was filled in and signed, I left, expecting a 7 to 10 day repair time...

On my way back home (trains will be the subject of a forthcoming blog posting, so I'll say nothing now) my mobile phone took a message from the Apple Store telling me that the MacBook had been repaired and was ready for collection. Total elapsed time from leaving the MacBook to receiving the phonecall was less than three hours. Needless to say, I couldn't turn around, but I was still hugely impressed at being able to get such a rapid and relatively painless repair.

So, the MacBook is well again and I have a happy offspring once more. The experience was far less painful and much faster than I was expecting, and I have to give Apple 9/10 for a job well done. I deduct one point for the long queuing time at the Genius Bar, and for not having anything on the web-site that says that you don't need an appointment to pick up a repair...

iPhone Photos won't download...

I'm delighted with my iPhone, but there are a few little problems, as with any piece of hi-tech gear. The biggest for me is downloading photos. For some time now, I have not been able to download recent photos from my iPhone 3G. The Apple Discussion Forums have those usual annoying 'answered' topics where the question isn't really answered, or else they simply haven't been answered at all!(There's plenty of room for improvement on this part of Apple's web-site!). There seem to be a lot of people who have similar ongoing problems - sometimes you just can't download photos from an iPhone.

I've been researching this in depth for some time now, driven by a need to get the photos off my iPhone! Here's what I've discovered, presented here is the hope that it will help others who have similar difficulties with an iPhone that takes photos but then won't let them out!

Things to try to get photos off an iPhone!

Symptoms:
- can't download photos (all or most recent)
- no photo thumbnails in iPhoto or Image Capture download dialogue boxes

Possible solutions (try them in this order):

1 Eject the iPhone
Close all applications
Reboot Mac (Apple menu > Restart)
Connect iPhone to Mac
Start iPhoto
Import

2 Reboot (reset) iPhone (hold square plus power)
You can reboot/reset the iPhone by holding two buttons at the same time:
- the sleep/wake/'power' button at the top right of the iPhone
- the square/home button in the middle of the lower part of the front of the iPhone.
Hold both of these buttons down until the screen goes black and the white Apple logo appears.
(You may get a red slider at the top of the screen - just hold those buttons!)
When the Apple logo appears, then you can let go of the buttons - the iPhone is now rebooting/restarting.

Note: Rebooting/setting the iPhone should not normally remove or delete any of your photos, settings, applications, or other information. In fact, it is good practice to reboot/restart the iPhone after installing any new applications on an iPhone.

Connect iPhone to Mac
Start iPhoto
Import

3 Try using Image Capture to import images (look in Applications/Utilities folder)
(Optionally, you can set Image Capture to start when iPhone is connected in future)
Connect iPhone to Mac
Start Image Capture
Import

(You can also use Thorsten Lemke's enduringly excellent Graphic Converter to download photos as well, although if Image Capture doesn't work, then GC seems to have the same problem.)

4 Rebuild iPhoto internal database
Close iPhoto
Duplicate your /user_name/Pictures/iPhoto Library folder first so you have a back-up/recovery folder
(right-click on the 'iPhoto Library' folder and choose the 'Duplicate' option)
Hold alt plus apple, and then click on iPhoto icon
In the dialogue box (pictured) choose the top three options, press 'Rebuild', and wait...
Connect iPhone to Mac
Start iPhoto
Import



5 Close iPhoto
Disk Utility -> Verify Mac HD
Disk Utility -> Repair Mac HD (2x)
Delete /library/preferences/com.apple.preview.plist
Delete /library/preferences/com.apple.iphoto.plist
Delete /library/preferences/com.apple.quicktime.plugin.preferences.plist
Reboot
Connect iPhone to Mac
Start iPhoto
Import

Finally, if all else fails:
6 Delete all photos on phone (you will lose them!)
Take a few photos with camera
(You may need to do 1,2,3,4...)
Connect iPhone to Mac
Start iPhoto
Import

Caveat: As with anything that is beyond my control, you do any of the above at your own risk, and I cannot be held responsible for any loss of photos, data, etc.