Divergent Thought

         by Josh Barfield

With the release of iCloud and the potential it provides there is a lot of confusion about how to set everything up in a multi-account environment. I’m going to detail how we plan to configure everything for our devices and what we expect the outcome to be.

First, a few details. iCloud allows server side storage and synchronization for many items. Those include:

• Mail – (provided @me.com address – not your existing email)
• Contacts
• Calendars
• Reminders
• Bookmarks
• Notes
• Photo Stream
• Documents & Data
• Find My [Device]
• Storage & Backup

The scenario:

We have one central Mac that all of our devices sync with. We have an iPad 2. I have an iPhone 4 and my wife, Sandi has an iPhone 3GS. Her 3GS currently syncs with her own user account and iTunes account (Apple ID) on our Mac. I exclusively use my iPhone, so I want all of the syncing on it to be around my account. She exclusively uses her iPhone, so she wants all of the syncing on it to be around her account. We both use the iPad but she uses it more than I do. I would like some things synced to it but other things should be synced with her account such as calendar and contacts. We are alright with using two separate Apple IDs for purchases – you can always authorize one account for the other device to share apps and avoid multiple purchases. This way her apps stay with her device unless I want to share. We don’t care about sharing photos via Photo Stream. In fact, I will likely not use it. I want Find My [Device] to be under the same account for all devices for easy access.

The solution:

First I’m going to define an iCloud master account. The master account is the one configured in Settings -> iCloud on your iDevice. The master account must sync Photo Stream, Documents & Data, and Storage & Backup. Mail, Contacts, Calendars, Reminders, Bookmarks, Notes, and Find My [Device] are all optional. They can sync with the master account or with a second iCloud account.

I will configure my iPhone with my Apple ID and my iCloud account. This iCloud account will be the “master” account. Since I am using the master iCloud account for all of my syncing, that’s all I need to do for my iPhone.

Sandi’s iPhone will be configured with her Apple ID and with her own iCloud account. We want her data only syncing with herself, so there is no need to use the previous master iCloud account on this device. That’s all she needs for her iPhone

The iPad will be configured my Apple ID and with the master iCloud account and set to sync Documents & Data, Storage & Backup, and Find My [Device]. Photo Stream will be turned off because I’m not using it. We will then add another iCloud account to the iPad via the Mail settings. This will be Sandi’s iCloud account. Her iCloud account will be configured to sync Contacts, Calendars, Reminders, Bookmarks, and Notes. These will sync with the cloud and with her iPhone, and will not sync with my iPhone.

Lastly we will want to share a few calendars between accounts. From either account we can create a calendar on iCloud and then share it with another iCloud user. This makes the calendar show on all devices and just like that we’re connected.

There are obviously many different ways to approach device syncing and accounts  but I believe this will be the smoothest for our uses. I’m really looking forward to the ease of connectivity that this software is going to provide!

They’ve changed the billboard. This one is boring. The movie also looks pretty silly. Jim Carrey is getting old.

I’ve begun searching for a solution to the following: I want multiple bootable partitions on a USB flash drive.

Notes:

• Apparently Windows will only see one partition without hacks.
• If I can’t get around the above, the Windows/FAT32 partition needs to be the main visible one.
• Going to need some sort of boot loader to pick the OS.
• Planning to put this on a 16GB stick. Don’t want to use up too much space with OS clutter.

UPDATE: 05/17/11

I’ve played around with some different options and settled on a single FAT32 partition with Slax/syslinux offering up a few different OS choices. I’ve added an ophcrack image, a BartPE image, and a TAILS image (runs off Debian Live). Everything is working mostly how I want it to except I’ve run into a bit of a snag with some linux distros. You can move the kernel and intird files around all you want (as long as you update slax.cfg) but they’re very picky about their squashfs files. If the name of a squashfs file from one distro to another is the same you can’t use more than one. I’ve dug around a bit and can’t find a way around that for now.

Earlier I mentioned that I had set up a reverse SSH tunnel for VNC so I could remotely work on my mom’s laptop. It’s pretty straight forward but I wanted to explain exactly how I set it up.

One of the reasons I like this so much is I don’t have to worry about the various locations mom’s laptop might be. No punching through firewalls or mapping ports through routers. All of that configuration is done on my end. All she has to do is open a file I placed on her desktop.

OS X (10.6.7 is what I’m using) has built a built in VNC server and VNC viewer. Everything needed is already on your machine; you don’t need any extra software to make this work.

On your machine (the one we’re connecting from):

Navigate to System Preferences -> Accounts and enable create a new standard user. I called mine tunnel. Give this user a simple password that you don’t mind sharing.

Navigate to System Preferences -> Sharing and enable Remote Login for the user you created.

Make sure port 22 is forwarded through your router/NAT and is allowed through your firewall.

To make things simple you might want some sort of DNS updater.

On her machine (the one we’re connecting to):

Navigate to System Preferences -> Sharing and enable Screen Sharing. I enabled it only for her user name. ¹

While in the Screen Sharing pane click on Computer Settings. Check the VNC viewers may control screen with password: option and enter a password.

Open your favorite text editor and type in ssh USER@IP -R 5900:127.0.0.1:5900 - where user is the user you created previously on your machine and IP is the IP or host for your machine. Again, a dynamic DNS updater would be ideal here. Save this file with the extension .command so the user will be able to launch it via Terminal. You’ll need to change permissions on this file to make it executable.

Open the file you just created. It should ask for the password ² for the user you created above. Once entered the tunnel should be established.

Back to your machine (the one we’re connecting from):

Now that the tunnel is established from the other end open Finder and navigate to Go -> Connect to Server (command+k). The server will be vnc://127.0.0.1:0. If you previously enabled screen sharing for a specific user name you’ll need to enter those credentials now.

You should see a window open with the remote desktop within!

Years ago when the iPhone had been out for a few months I had made a rant about some features I felt were missing. At the time I was using an unlocked iPhone with T-Mobile service. A lot of my complaints were directed in the AT&T direction. On the cusp of a new iOS release and with possible new hardware coming this year I want to take a look at my original rant, compare with where we are today, and discuss any new things I feel are lacking.

The original rant, circa December 2007:

iPhone, unlocking and AT&T

I often wish I didn’t have to deal with the unlocks and jailbreaks for my iPhone. And I’ve told myself that when they release a new one, I’ll probably switch to AT&T. I’m currently sticking with T-Mobile because it’s [much] cheaper and has pretty decent coverage in my area. So I started to think about all of the odds and ends of the iPhone that irk me and I came up with this list. I think if all of these items were satisfied in iPhone 2, I would switch to AT&T like Apple wants me to. Forgive me if I get carried away. In no specific order, I wish for:

• Copy and paste
• Multiple SMS recipients
• MMS (SMS pictures, picture messages)
• SMS “Call” button at the bottom of the history
• Charge indicator on computer
• Syncable to-do items (sync with iCal/Mail)
• Syncable notes (not this IMAP inbox note junk)
• Emailable/exportable contacts or contact info (I want to share!)
• Uncrippled Bluetooth (sync, file transfer, etc)
• Some Apple spin on a chat client (seamless EDGE <-> Wifi)
• More control over ringtones (schedules)
• Some sort of file manager
• “Rules” (think Mail.app) for calls and SMS. Missed call from X = Email to Y
• Flash!
• iTunes music lyrics

Looking back at my wish list I see a lot of items that have been added, a few that will likely never be added, and some that I still long for. While we’re at it, I’ll lump in a few new things that bug me.

Copy and paste were added to iOS to the rejoicing of the masses. I’m happy with the implementation. SMS and MMS work pretty well and I don’t have any real complaints in that department any more.

I’m still searching for a good way to handle to-do items. I do not understand why Apple does not have an app that just lists my to-do items from iCal! It seems so simple to me. Am I missing something here? The same kind of goes for Notes. It could be as simple as having a Notes pain pane in iTunes that lets me type/edit and sync. So simple!

Flash never was a huge deal for me. I think I was just on the bandwagon of haters at the time. Now I couldn’t care less that we don’t have Flash in iOS. If the battery life savings claims are true [and I believe they are] then it’s better that we don’t have it.

I doubt Apple will ever un-cripple Bluetooth profiles or give file manager control over the OS. I don’t think those are make or break features for their target demographic. The tech in me says this is a mobile computer. I want to be able to fully utilize it as such. I would really like to see some sort of AppleScript for iOS. Being able to configure rules for mail/calls and time based event triggers has so much productivity potential.

Everyone is talking about notifications in iOS 5. I agree, the current system needs a revamp. I don’t have any ideas there but I’m excited to see what Apple will cook up. At the end of the day I really enjoy my smart phone. Life would be quite different without it. I don’t know that I’ll ever be content with the feature set but complaining about it makes me feel good!