iOS 4 Upgrade Hangs on Backing Up iPhone

UPDATE 10/12/2011: My experience upgrading my iPhone 4 to iOS 5 was very different, it went flawlessly. It’s a phenomenal upgrade. My iPhone 4 runs faster and I have more functionality, what’s not to like? Want to know how to work around a slow iOS 5 update? Read Anticipating a slow iPhone/iPad iOS5 update?

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If your iPhone OS 4 update hangs, read on: My iPhone update to iOS 4 downloaded quick enough then the process seemed to hang on “backing up”. The progress bar was farther along on my first attempt but after a couple of hours I felt something was wrong so I canceled and started over again. Two hours in I’ve barely made any progress.

The Restore process described here worked well for me. Your milage may vary. My apps, music in playlists, movies, photos in albums, contacts, calendars, email accounts and contents were all restored. Restore brought back all the app data I care about like Shazam tags, Flight Track info, Geocaching saves — and I remained signed in on FaceBook, Urban Spoon, Qrank and many others besides (Pandora excepted, I had to sign in again and I had to key in my PIN number again for AT&T voicemail).

FOLLOW UP: How to legally downgrade an iPhone 3G from iOS 4 to software version 3 (and extend your warranty by 90 days) …

FOLLOW UP: Here’s a story which blames Spotlight for the sluggishness Turn Off Spotlight Search For Performance Boost on iPhone 3G Under iOS 4.

WARNING: 3G owners beware, iOS 4 slows things down and I would not recommend it to you — especially since most of the new features won’t work on this model (but folders, threaded emails and a unified inbox does work). 3Gs users seem to happier with performance and benefit from most of the new features. I strongly suspect that my battery life is now also worse.

Hey Wow! This was a fabulous Father’s Day …

Bo brought a tear to my eye with this sentimental card …

Unveiling Joe Treanor’s Headstone …

Hailey Treanor, Joe and Candi’s youngest, standing by her mother, reads a poem she wrote for the unveiling of her father’s headstone on the afternoon of Saturday 19th June, 2010. Joe passed away last August 17th, 2009. Happy Father’s Day for tomorrow Joe — we’ll be remembering you at breakfast with the family.

DRM Workaround for your Audio Books

This article describes a fairly simple method of using iTunes and free software on an Apple Mac to convert DRMed audiobooks into .mp3s that you can either burn to disk or use on players that are not compatible with DRM schemas. A method which does not involve decrypting, removing, reverse engineering or breaking the DRM — a questionable practice fraught with legal complications and consequences.