Sean Walther's Blog

Help: My iPhone 3G or 3GS is slow, how do I fix it?

My iPhone 3GS (yeah, the “fast” one) has been getting slower and slower since the iOS 4 update.  Recently calls have come in without answer buttons popping up instantly.  Whenever I call up the keyboard I can now type an entire sentence before seeing anything show up.

I have found something you can do to fix this…

Here’s how:

1. Settings
2. General
3. Reset
4. You want “Reset All Settings” – be warned that you will lose all of your setting information.  Generally this isn’t much.  You will forget your saved WiFi networks, and any Sound / Wallpaper settings etc.  You will NOT lose any of your email account information, photos, songs, data, bookmarks, notes, or application information.

This helped me a LOT.  Of course I did spend a minute setting up my old settings again.

I’m not sure if this works because after a while the “Multitask” bar gets extremely long or what.  It just seemed like a big “Recently Used” applications bar to me.

Tags: help, iOS 4, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, Slow

Help: I Can’t log into Google AdSense

Yesterday I went to login to my Google Adsense account and found myself in an infinite loop of “Click here to login”, then “Sign up” as the only option.  There were no options to actually login.  This was very frustrating.

Normally I’m used to logging in with:

https://www.google.com/adsense/

This would usually redirect me to the site, and all would be fine.  Now when I go there, all I see is a “Sign up now” button.  If I click on “Sign up now”, there is a link that says “Already have an account?” and points to the help files for AdSense, which isn’t much help.

After searching around I ran into a forum post at WebmasterWorld.com, Can’t Log-in To AdSense – Asking to Update to Google Account.

There I found an answer from what appeared to be a Google rep:

OK, we think we’ve figured out what’s going on here (and by “we” I mean my friend the engineer).

It looks like this issue is only happening to folks who signed up for adsense before we asked everyone to use a google Account. When we migrated everyone over to google Accounts, if you used the same email address for your google Account as for your previous account, you may be experiencing problems with your login screen right now.

This also explains why so many WebmasterWorld people are seeing this problem, as you guys tend to be some of our most experienced adsense publishers.

We’re still working on correcting the issue, but I’ll get back to you as soon as we’ve got something in place. In the meantime, some publishers experiencing this same issue have reported that they can log in using this URL: https://www.google.com/adsense/login2. Let us know if you’re still having issues logging in using this URL.

Resolution – How To Login

The result, is try logging in using the following URL:

https://www.google.com/adsense/login2

Tags: AdSense, Google, Google Adsense, help

Help: Windows 7 install stuck at “Expanding Windows files”

I logged onto the Microsoft site this morning then purchased and downloaded an official copy of Windows 7 (build 7600 I am reading).

Up until now I have been using the Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC), build 7100.

The Problem

After following various instructions online about how to upgrade from the Release Candidate to the final version without a complete reinstall (despite the suggestion from Microsoft that you should install a fresh copy after the RC), I ran into a minor snag.

My install forced a reboot, and is now stuck at:

Expanding Windows files (18%)…

With the following lines cycling at the bottom:

Please wait…
Gathering additional information before expanding files

My computer is not frozen, I can move the mouse, or mouse over the “close” button.

How to fix it?

Just wait.  According to other sites online, all you need to do is wait for it to finish.  This can take up to an hour.

I will update this post with my results of … waiting (see the update next).

After leaving my computer for an hour and coming back, the install had moved forward.  The lesson is to just let Windows 7 do its thing, it will move on

UPDATE 2009-10-22 #2

It eventually got stuck on “Transferring files, settings, and programs” at 42%.  I left it for 3 hours, and had no change.  I restarted.  At least I reverted back to my old Windows without a problem.

I have since restarted the installation seemingly without the “18%” problem this time.

While I’d like to say that you’d hope Microsoft would make sure the install went through without a hitch (it is the first impression), I have to keep in mind that I am doing something that Microsoft does NOT recommend, upgrading from a RC version to the RTM (release to manufacturing).  Has anyone had the same experience doing an upgrade without altering the cversion.ini file?

UPDATE 2009-10-23 #3

Well after leaving the computer all alone, it was still stuck at 42% on the “transferring files, settings and programs” step.  I’m admitting defeat and will just perform a clean install sometime next week.  Too much work to do it now.

UPDATE 2009-11-12 #4

Finally, I wanted to post the final resolution.  I had to install Windows 7 clean.  After the previous stop points, it eventually just didn’t move (after leaving it alone for up to 24 hours at one point).  I have to say, the clean version is running excellent.

Summary, do a clean install.  You’ll thank yourself.

Tags: 7100, 7600, cversion.ini, frozen, help, install, Microsoft, RC, Release Candidate, RTM, stuck, Windows 7