This is something I’ve joked about in the past with fellow filmmakers and photographers alike, how could Canon make you go one click away from wiping your card, just to check how much space you have left to shoot video?

Ok, so I did it…And I almost panicked..One of the thoughts in my head was, get back out into the crowd and just start shooting. But instead, I turned to my mate Peter Neill, who was taking photos, and told him what I had done. He told me, “put the card in your pocket, and we’ll try to recover it later…DO NOT shoot any other footage on that card..” Wise-words it turns out..I was so in shock I just might have gone out and shot more footage, thinking that there was no way back from a format. A delete all, yes….but a format? Surely all is lost, right?

Got home and tried a host of recovery software, CardRecovery and Stellar Phoenix Photo Recovery to name a few. Nothing worked. Each successfully “recovered” the video files, but the .mov files wouldn’t open in Finder, VLC or even MPEG Streamclip. So at this point I was really worried I’d never get the videos back.

Then I stumbled across this: PhotoRec

Open Source, multi-platform, FREE….

Worked like a charm! Got all my 1080p .h264 videos back.

I’m sure Stellar Phoenix and the rest do a great job recovering photos, but if you mostly shoot video on the 5D, make sure you use PhotoRec.

So if you ever stupidly do what I did….

1. Take the CF card out immediately
2. Use PhotoRec to recover your files
3. Sigh with relief

Living in Ireland, I was really bummed out to discover that Music Beta by Google is currently only available in the USA. But I found a simple way to bypass this by using a web-based proxy like ( Hotspot Shield ) while requesting the Invite. I waited about 4 weeks, and have been enjoying the new service for the past few days with my Irish-based Google account.

1. Use a web-based proxy like Hotspot Shield, and request the invite at music.google.com

2. Wait

3. Enjoy worldwide

Had the great pleasure of collaborating with author Greg Fromholz and actual design wizard John Ryan in developing an iPad book-app.

Greg’s a bit of a legend. I don’t read many books, but I could read Liberate Eden over and over. We’ve spent the last few months figuring out how to get this thing on the iPad, going back and forth between Adobe Digital Publishing and Baker Framework, trying to make user experience WAYYY better than simply an iBook, adding videos, beautiful graphics and style (JR).

You know what the irony is? When you read it, the graphics fade to the background, and you hear Greg’s voice come through. He doesn’t claim to have all the answers, but still dives deep into what it means to be human and what it means to have faith. And what sold me, is he doesn’t have a stick up his arse while doing so. This book is for everyone. And that’s why I think it’s great.

This is for all my friends who use iOS and Gmail IMAP. I’m not going to map out every single step, because if you’re doing this, you probably know enough about it already.

Setting your phone up like this will also allow you to ‘send-as’ another email address associated with your Gmail account.

Before you start please note:

• if you have lots of C+C (contacts and calendars) create a backup of them on your desktop by syncing with iTunes to Address Book and iCal. I’d advise you import your C+C into Gmail Contacts and Google Calendars, before doing this. Also I’d spend a few hours in the Browser view of Gmail Contacts and tidy up your Contacts, I bet there’s lots of duplicates, stuff that can be merged, deleted and fixed.
• when filling in the username fields always fill in the complete address (eg. yourname@gmail.com)
• Always fill in the ‘Name’ field appropriately as this is the name that will show up on emails you send.

Ok so you need to set up 3 separate types of accounts on the iPhone:

1. Google Mail (Notes)

2. Microsoft Exchange (Contacts, Calendars)

3. Other (Mail)

This may sound silly to set up 3 accounts, but trust me, this is necessary because each type of account has sync limitations. Once it’s setup right, you won’t have to worry about it again, and you can enjoy a perfect sync.

1. Google Mail (Notes)

• Setup with your gmail account as normal.
• I’d advise you to describe the account appropriately, otherwise it may be a little confusing down the line, especially if you have more than 1 Gmail account!
• Make sure you ONLY select Notes at the end of the setup.

2. Microsoft Exchange (Contacts, Calendars)

• Setup as normal. Leave the ‘Domain‘ field blank, and select ‘Next‘.
• A new field ‘Server‘ will appear. Type in ‘m.google.com‘ and select ‘Next‘.
• Make sure you ONLY select Contacts and Calendars at the end of the setup.
• Open up Safari on your iPhone. go to http://m.google.com/sync and sign in.
• Select the calendars you want to sync with the Calendar app on your iPhone.
• You might want to open Settings on the iPhone and choose your default contact and calendars so that when you create new contacts and events on your iPhone it is created and sent over the air to the cloud.

3. Other (Mail)

• Select ‘Add Mail Account‘. Type in details as normal.
• under ‘Incoming Mail Server/Host Name‘ type ‘imap.gmail.com’ also fill out your username and password.
• under ‘Outgoing Mail Server/Host Name‘ type ‘smtp.gmail.com’ also fill out your username and password, and click Next.
• Make sure you ONLY select ‘Mail‘ and click Save.
• This next part is only necessary if you have other addresses associated with your gmail account and you want to be able to send mail as.
• Open up a new message or Notes and type in a comma…select the comma and copy it to the clipboard. This is necessary because we need to paste it in later, when typing in a comma is not an option.
• Go back to the ‘Other‘ mail account. Select ‘Account‘, in ‘IMAP Account Information/Address‘ paste the comma at the end of the address, add a space, and then type in the other email address you want to send mail as. Click Done.
• The Address field should look like this  ’brian@gmail.com, sales@company.ie‘
• If you want to send from more accounts, simply repeat the last 3 steps with copy/paste the comma, space, and email address.
• Now when you are composing an email, if you click the ‘From‘ field, you will be able to change it to the other addresses.

Hope this helps,

J

UPDATE 18th January 2012

I’ve heard a few people have had intermittent problems with a ‘Password Incorrect‘ error popping up from time to time in relation to their Microsoft Exchange Sync Account. This doesn’t seem to affect the email or sync, but is painfully annoying, especially as you are obviously typing in the password correctly.

I don’t claim to know why this happens, I’m sure there’s a technical reason for it. Fix below.

1. Go to http://www.google.com/accounts/DisplayUnlockCaptcha
2. Type in your Gmail username and password associated with the Exchange account that is being problematic
3. Complete the Captcha and click Unlock

I don’t know why it works, but it obviously resets something between Apple and Google, and fixes the issue.

A fair few fellow footy (a lot of f’s there) lovers in Ireland with iPhones have since asked me for a how to, and while I’m more than happy to spread this gospel, writing this seems more efficient. BEWARE this will take you a minimum of 30 mins…Trust me, stick with it, it works…and once you’re up and running, it’s easy street and you can watch live footy from the palm of your hand, silently ignoring your friends and family.

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1. go into iTunes/iTunes store. Sign out of your current account. Go to the bottom of the store and change your iTunes store region to UK. In the Store, search for the Facebook app (or any free app) and select to download it. A pop-up screen will appear. Select ‘Create new iTunes account’. Proceed to create a UK iTunes account, you will have the option to select ‘none’ when it asks for Credit Card details (because you chose a free product earlier). Make up any address you like in the UK. You will only need a valid email address (that isn’t already being used by another iTunes account.

2. in your iPhone go to Settings/Store and sign out. Sign back in with your new UK iTunes account

3. Open App Store on your iPhone. Search for ‘sky mobile tv’ app and download it.

4. go back to Settings/Store and sign out. Sign back in with your normal iTunes account.

5. open the Sky Mobile TV app and click ‘register for sky id’ (unless you already have a sky id.

6. go back into the app and now select ‘login and register’. Login with your new id, and use a credit card to subscribe to the £6 a month fee.

7. This part is very important. This is what tricks the app into thinking you are using your phone from within the UK. go to www.12vpn.com – create an account and sign up for 6months or a year VPN(Virtual Private Network) subscription service. Once you have done that and have your 12vpn username and password, you are ready for the next step.

8. in iPhone go to Settings/General/Network/VPN/Add VPN Configuration. Fill in as follows:

Type: PPTP

Description: call whatever you like

Server: uk.12vpn.com

Account: your 12vpn username

RSA SecureID: Off

Password: your 12vpn password

Encryption Level: Auto

Send all Traffic: ON

Proxy: Off

Save

Toggle the VPN to see if you’ve typed everything in right (it will return an error if you’ve inserted your information in wrong) You know your in business if you see the VPN icon appear along the top of your iPhone beside your carrier and wifi icons.

9. make sure wifi and your VPN are both on. Now enter the Sky Mobile tav app again. Login with your Sky ID.

Enjoy

*once you have your VPN setup, a toggle will appear in Settings next to the wifi toggle. This makes it much easier and quicker to toggle your VPN on/off. You’re going to want to toggle it on and off as you use the mobile tv app as it uses up your 12vpn bandwidth while on.