I'm in the iCloud

At least I think I'm in the iCloud.

I wanted to set iCloud up so I could download the pictures I take on my iPhone to my home computer without having to connect the phone to the computer.

Turns out to do this I had to get the newest operating systems for my iMac. They no longer sell the operating system on a disc. You get to download it from the Apple Apps store.

I did that earlier this evening. It takes a while to download the 3.55 GB file. For awhile I wasn't sure it was even working correctly. Like I said it takes a little while to download the file. It took almost 3 hours to download the file.

Once that was completed it took another hour or so to install the new operating system. I also had to download the most recent version of iTunes. I think just about everything is up to date on my computer and everything should be working correctly.

I activated iCloud on my computer and my iPhone. Now I think if I've done this correctly when I connect to a Wifi network all my pictures and other info will go to the cloud. Now all I have to do is figure out how to access the cloud on my computer. But I'm going to do that tomorrow.

Figuring out E-mail with the iPhone

I’d thought that this would be a simple one but it didn’t turn out that way.

At first I couldn’t send any out going e-mails at all. I went down to a Verizon store and one of the people there helped me set up my e-mail.

All set right well not exactly. After a week, all of my in-coming messages were deleted except for the ones that were a week old or less. I had several years worth of messages. And they were all gone.

I looked through all sorts of settings on the iPhone to try and figure out how it might be causing this. I called up Earhlink my e-mail provider. They said I needed to check my iPhone and see that the settings were for incoming e-mail. I looked there. Under advanced settings there is a setting that says delete from server. The options are never, sever days or when removed from inbox. I’m pretty sure this was set to never. But I made sure that is what it was set on. I figure problem solved.

My e-mails continued to disappear. Another call to Earthlink. I was told I needed to check my POP account. And what is a POP account? Well here’s the definition:

A Post Office Protocol (POP) mail server.
A POP mail server (or simply “POP server”) is the most common form of incoming email server. Basically, the POP server is what receives the email and is almost always used with an SMTP server, which is the outgoing server.

The default setting for that was seven days. I can’t imagine why that would be the default but it was. I checked off of that. I think that did the trick because my e-mails are no longer disappearing.

I do have to say it would never have occurred to me that I needed to check in three different places to set my preferences on my in-coming mail.

In other iPhone news, I have a big think book that will tell me everything I need to know about the phone. Now to download endless apps.

As they say so many apps so little time.

I have a new iPhone

Yesterday my new iPhone 4S arrived. I had some problems getting it to work correctly.

I synced it through iTunes. About half way through the process (or at least I thought it was), I got an error message about not being able to access my Apple account. Wasn't sure exactly what to do. Decided to find a Verizon store and see if they could help me out.

Closest one was at Union Station. I drove down there. Turns out the phone had been set up and was working fine. Still not sure why I had the problem with the Apple ID.

Next thing was I tried to move all my contacts from my old phone to the new one. I down loaded the app that was supposed to do that. After setting it up, I was supposed to receive a code that I would enter and that would transfer all my contacts. The impression from the instructions was the code would pop up on a menu on the screen.

I receive a message with what I think is the code. I try and enter it. It was something like 640-2. Well the problem I had was I couldn't get the dash to work. In fact I couldn't get any punctuation marks to work at all. I tried many times but still couldn't get the thing to work.

I back out to the main screen. I notice that I have 4 text messages. It turns out these were the actual messages that had the code in it. I enter the code and my contacts are transferred. Yeah!

Next I try setting up my e-mail account. Turns out when I accessed iTunes all that information was transferred to the phone. I get my messages. Then I try and reply. Get an error message. I needed to enter a password. I enter my password where I think it should go. Still no luck. I decide be happy with getting the one thing to work and I go to bed.

This morning I get up and go to training. My trainer says once we're done he'll look at the phone and see if he can get it to work. We find another place to enter my password. I hope for the best. No luck.

I know there is a Verizon store near work. I take a little break and go there. The Verizon person is really nice. Says this should be easy to fix. He tries a couple of things and says well that should make it work. It doesn't. We are both puzzled by the fact that I can get messages but can't send them.

The Verizon guy decides to call Earthlink and find out what to do. I'm so very glad I took it to the store. Granted I could have called Earhtlink and probably could have been talked through the steps to fix this problem. But the Verizon guy knew exactly what he was doing and in a few minutes all was well.

Now I can really start to enjoy the phone and download all sorts of nonessential apps.