emma

Update: After all that it turned out to be trivial to restore them from within Gmail and they've happily synced back to my phone now :) Thanks pir!

I still need to poke it in the right way to get them into Address Book without wiping again, but that's less of an immediate concern.

Original post:

Okay, I'm having epic tech fail lately and I've got my head twisted around so much that I need an outside observer to come in and tell me what I'm doing wrong, and what I need to do to fix it.

Problem: My iPhone and Gmail contacts have been wiped.

Background: I have my iPhone set up to sync contacts to Gmail via the Google Sync option, setting Google as an Exchange account on my phone. This generally works great, with some confusing discrepancies that don't seem to sync across.

What went wrong: I opened Address Book on my Mac, after having the hard drive replaced and reinstalled. Address Book was empty. I scratched my head, made sure the checkbox was ticked for syncing with Google, and fed it my password again. I remembered last time that it took a while having the address book open for it to sync up, so I left it be. Then I got a text from an "unknown number" and discovered that my phone had forgotten everyone except the few discrepancies that never synced back to Google in the first place.

Solution? I think the only way to fix it at this point is to do an iTunes restore. However, what do I do to prevent this happening again? What order to I need to turn things on, what settings do I need, to get it all syncing up merrily again? Before the HD crash, Address Book had my contacts happily synced so I know it must be possible, somehow. I don't want to get it all working again only to open Address Book and wipe it all over again.

If you can point me at an article that tells me exactly what to do and how then great. Googling for the topic is currently just confusing me further.

My mail server is currently down, in the middle of me considering switching my mail to Gmail/Google Apps. Yet more tech fail. So I'll get replies as and when, I suppose. I'll check back here tomorrow morning for definite, when I'll have time at home to try and fix this mess!

I've been having a dilemma over who to vote for in the upcoming General Election, but I have now decided. Basically, it boils down to me historically supporting the Liberal Democrats and my views lining up more with theirs than any other main party. I've done the Vote for Policies quiz just to make sure I am indeed still in line with Lib Dem views and confirmed that I come out on the side of the Lib Dems, and Nick Clegg seems like an alright sort of chap who I wouldn't mind being in charge, especially when given the options of the other two.

However, my local MP Jeremy Corbyn is a pretty decent chap as well, but is inconveniently in the Labour party. I do not especially want the Labour party to continue in power (though I also don't support the Conservative party and don't really want to see them in power either), and I wanted to support Lib Dems nationally.

I've thought about it a lot, done a reasonable amount of research, and decided that I will be voting for the MP who I think will best represent me in my constituency, even if he is in the "wrong team". He's gone against the party whip a lot when he disagrees with Labour and I like that. I also like that he disagrees with them on much of the stuff I disagree with them on. I used the quite cool site TheyWorkForYou which conveniently has all four PPCs represented there, and again, came out on the side of Jeremy Corbyn. Also, he has held this seat since the year after I was born (1982), received 52% of the vote in the 2005 election, and is unlikely to be budged now, so my voting for Lib Dem isn't going to achieve much (and I'm sure the Lib Dem PPC for Islington North is a decent sort of guy as well, but he's awfully young and therefore inexperienced compared to Corbyn, so I'd have more confidence in the latter).

I like egadfly's Voting Algorithm, and I agree with strawberryfrog in this case that Jeremy Corbyn satisfies the first rule. So my decision has been made :)

Now I just need to figure out what I'm going to do with the local election choice. I'm thinking of voting for the three Lib Dem candidates here instead. I applied for a postal vote to guard against not being able to make it for whatever reason on the day itself, so I want to have this decided and in the post by Tuesday.

Day 08 → A photo that makes you angry/sad

Missed this yesterday. I actually don't really want to do it right now either. My day had enough negative mood that I don't really want to dwell on it now, but I do want to keep the meme rolling.

Day 09 → A photo you took

I don't take many photos these days. While I do have a camera, it's an old 2 MP Fujifilm point and shoot, and I'm surrounded by enough good photographers that I both usually have enough photos of events and places where I've been, and feel a bit intimidated and don't feel like getting into it as a hobby myself. Instead, I have an iPhone, and take poor quality pics with that instead, such as this one:

Link

York Minster on October 31st when I was on my way to Whitby. It was a startlingly nice day, which was a bit of a shock to the system after getting a 7am train after partying at the Potion Bar the night before, but nice all the same.

Bonus picture that I took:

Bonus pic

My central heating has been broken in various ways for some time now because our flat management agency is utterly useless. Last night it gave up the ghost completely and the switch fell off, meaning we could not turn it on at all (as opposed to the timer being broken and the "always on" switch position being broken in the past, which we could work around). Given that I've been cold in my air-conditioned office all day and it's due to drop below freezing tonight, I came home and hacked at it until it made heat come out. I was quite pleased with my MacGuyvered clip, which is much better than a screwdriver duct taped in at the appropriate angle, which was my previous intended solution. We're going to be turning the power off at the wall from now until it gets fixed, and if I have my way, withholding rent as well.

Edit: Having issues with the image hosting. Working on uploading them to my webspace, but I'm having issues with that as well. Le sigh. Clicky links to Twitpic in the meantime.

Day 07 → A photo that makes you happy



Adorable little kittens. And look at the lighter one smiling! Reminds me a bit of my Sunday :) Though I am less feline, and thankfully so is the boy or I'd be sneezing a lot.

Hello DW!

So it looks like my last post here was in May. Oops? I'm still updating my LJ regularly, but I didn't want to start out a new journal by just cross-posting entries. It feels messy or something.

I'm going to experiment with posting the 30 days meme here, possibly even public, and see how that goes. I've already done 7 days on LJ, so I'm going to backdate the entries here to avoid being too spammy and annoying especially if you've already seen the entries over there. Click on over if you fancy reading.

Day 06 → Whatever tickles your fancy

A few of my favourite RSS feeds:

The Daily WTF
Autocomplete Me
Sleep Talkin' Man
Not Always Right

Plus the usual xkcd, Stephen Fry's blog, Can Has Cheezburger, thereifixedit.com, graphjam.com, etc.

Day 05 → Your favorite quote

"That which does not kill us makes us stronger" - Friedrich Nietzsche. This is how I dragged myself through my final A level exams when it was all I could do to get out of bed.

Day 04 → Your favorite book

This one's easy. Douglas Adams - A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The massive tome that includes all five volumes.

Day 03 → Your favorite television program

I've decided I hate this meme, as it's clearly torture. House is still a favourite. Stargate SG-1 and Battlestar Galactica are favourites from the past that I binged on to catch up and then watched the last season or two when it was being aired. I love them both in different ways. I'll always have fond memories of ER. I love a lot of medical and crime things.

Day 02 → Your favorite movie

I don't even have a handy site like Last.fm to go to here to jog my memory! I don't usually have favourite movies, just a handful that I like and can point to when asked. Amelie, Shawshank Redemption, Truman Show, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Terminator 2. There's a few.