iPad Air 2 keeps beeping when connected to MacBook Air via USB cable.

I must admit this was quite weird. I connected the iPad Air 2 to the MacBook Air using the USB cable. I was expecting to see message in the iPad and MacBook to give access and trust each other but that didn't happen. All that happened was the iPad Air 2 just keep beeping and I couldn't unlock the iPad. As soon as I press the Home button and started to enter the unlock code the screen flashed off.

A search of the internet gave many suggestions such as faulty cable, hardware issue, but this didn't make sense. Using the same cable I was able to connect to a Windows 10 notebook, access and copy off all the folders containing photos and also perform a full backup and upgrade to the latest version of iPadOS 14.3.

Using the MacBook Air I could literally do nothing with the iPad.

Since I knew there was nothing wrong with the iPad or cable,  I did wonder if the issue may be the iPad was trying to draw more power than the MacBook Air would provide. The MacBook Air's battery isn't great even though it was fully charged and the MacBook Air was running with the power plugged in..

One of the things I wanted to do with the iPad Air 2 was to find out the battery health using coconutBattery on the MacBook Air. With the iPad continuously beeping this was not possible. The battery on the iPad Air 2 at that time was reading 75%. I decided to fully charge the iPad's battery and then see what would happen.

After fully charging the iPad Air 2 and connecting to the MacBook Air using the USB cable the beeping had gone and I was able to access the iPad Air 2 as normal. The iPad Air 2 battery was reading 88% capacity so there appeared to be no issue with the iPad Air 2..

Exactly what the problem was is hard to tell. The solution to access the iPad Air 2 was to fully charge the iPad, however it's not known if the connection was continue to work as the iPad's charge reduced. It does seem the iPad Air 2 was having a power issue with the cable. Perhaps there's a worn contact on the cable reducing the power/voltage available. Perhaps it's an issue with how much power the MacBook Air could provide. I don't know the exact reason but hopefully knowing how I got around the issue and that using a Windows 10 computer solved my problems, may help others.

Kelvin Eldridge

www.OnlineConnections.com.au

Is upgrading an iPad making the device obsolete?

Recently a person's iPad Air 2 needed to be upgraded from iPadOS 13.2 to iPadOS 14.3. The iPad had around 800 megabytes of space left, which was nowhere near as much memory as required to upgrade the iPad. The iPad did indicate a little more than 3GB was required to upgrade, but without deleting the users photos (or uploading them to Apple's cloud), the person didn't have sufficient free memory to perform the upgrade directly on the iPad.

When you don't have sufficient free memory to upgrade the iPad an alternative method is to use iTunes on a Mac or PC. I first tried using an older MacBook Air, but all that happened was the iPad kept beeping. Next I installed iTunes onto a notebook computer and performed the upgrade. It never ceases to amaze me how Apple's own equipment often doesn't work and yet a PC does. In fact I couldn't even connect the iPad to the MacBook Air to backup the photos. I performed a full copy of the photo folder and then subsequently did a backup using iTunes.

Note: When I plugged the iPad into the PC iTunes prompted to do a Download and Update, or just a Download. Actually I didn't want to do either but there was no other option to select. I'd recently learnt a lesson upgrading an iPhone, the Download and Update option also subsequently provided a backup option. The Update bricked the iPhone so luckily the backup had been successfully performed or the person would have lost all their content on the iPhone. I prefer not to be in the situation where a person can lose all their data. They tend not to be very happy at all if that happens.

For the iPad I choose to do the Download. Once that was done I had access to backup through iTunes. It's good to know, select Download, then do a backup, then do an upgrade is available. It's just not an immediately available option with Apple. I have found in the past Apple doesn't always do things in what I'd consider a logical order.

So how much memory was lost upgrading from iPadOS 13.2 to iPadOS 14.3? 

According to iTunes, before the upgrade there was 3.44GB of memory free, after the upgrade to iPadOS 14.3, the amount of free memory was now 1.48GB. That's a loss of nearly 2GB of memory that is no longer available to the user, or put another way, around 500 photos. Apple really should focus on providing smaller upgrades (or even reducing the size of the iPadOS code) as losing 2GB is pretty much equivalent to losing around 25% of person's available memory on the iPad.

Whilst I haven't really noted the amount of free memory lost in previous upgrades, you do have to wonder how much free memory has been lost over the years as Apple updates their iPadOS operating system.

An average person could only see this as a way that Apple is obsoleting their equipment and over time, forcing them to update their equipment.

Kelvin Eldridge
www.OnlineConnections.com.au

Print screen on the HP Envy x360 13.3-inch R5-4500U/8GB/512GB SSD 2 in 1 Device

Recently purchased a new HP Envy x360 13.3-inch R5-4500U/8GB/512GB SSD 2 in 1 Device and as expected, a new device means there will be some differences.

The first is there's no HDMI port to connect to a large screen TV.

Solution: Whilst I haven't tried this, based on my reading you can use a USB-C to HDMI cable or adapter and these are inexpensive and available in stores like Kmart and BigW.

Another issue is I often use the PrtSc (Print Screen) on computers to capture the current screen. There is no dedicated PrtSc key on the keyboard, but there is prt sc printed on the right shift key. There's nothing in the manual to indicate how to use this key.

I found two ways to use the Prt Sc key. The first is to press the Function key and then the right shift key whilst holding down the Function key. You can now use insert to insert the image into the program of your choice. But this has an issue. The first time you do this (and future times if you don't select an option) a One Drive option appears. If you select No Thanks, the image is copied to the clipboard as we're used to. I don't really want to copy the image to One Drive so I don't use that option. In other words don't ignore the prompt that pops up. I copy screen images from video files I create and if you haven't selected the option No Thanks, the Prt Sc doesn't work.

The second option is to use Windows Key + Shift + S. That is press the Windows Key, whilst holding down the Windows Key, then press and hold down the Shift key, then press the S key. This use the newer Snip & Sketch program. A line of options appears across the screen and the common ones I use is a to copy either the entire screen, or a section of the screen.

A lot of the time I now use the Snip & Sketch program for capturing screen images when I want to save the image, but the old Prt Sc button comes in handy for a quicker copy and paste option.

Kelvin Eldridge
www.OnlineConnections.com.au

Bark.com appears to have set up in Australia and are sending out leads.

Yesterday I started to receive "leads" from Bark.com. Now as a business leads are good, but in this case I'm concerned about the approach. I never contacted or had even heard of Bark.com and then out of the blue I start getting leads.

The first problem is my business appears to have been included as a supplier/member without my permission or knowledge.

The second is the leads aren't particularly well targeted. The leads have mostly been for physically damaged computers (broken screens) and that's not the type of service I offer. Leads are also mostly much further than I'd consider in terms of travel.

This looks like another company that just sets up and grabs some list of suppliers and then starts promoting themselves. People will think I've signed up with them and I haven't. The old fake it til you make approach. Seems to be the way businesses work now and that's their choice. It isn't the way I like to do business. Before a company promotes my services I'd prefer the company first get my permission. People don't know I haven't signed or joined the service. I have no track record with bark.com so potential customers have no assurance I'm a quality supplier or not. Doesm't give me confidence.

Interestingly the first review I read of bark.com was a supplier who felt most leads were tyre kickers. Looks like an opportunity I'm happy to pass on and leave for others.

Kelvin Eldridge
www.OnlineConnections.com.au

Interesting feature in PHP where if you do a $_GET on a variable that has a zero (0) value the result is empty and not zero.

Today I noticed a divide by zero error in the error log for my Voltage Drop Calculator. That didn't make sense to me because I test to see if a value is being divided by zero before doing a divide. That's pretty basic computer programming logic.

 However the test to see if the variable was zero wasn't working. If I put a number in the Cross Section field the calculation works perfectly. When I put a zero in the Cross Section field the zero was effectively being ignored. This didn't make sense to me.

I'll admit this is a limitation of my knowledge of PHP. Each programming language has it's quirks (features) and this is one of PHP's that I missed and to be fair, it was bad programming on my part.

When receiving the variable in the URL I would then use if ( $_GET['variable']) to test to see if the variable had a value. What I didn't know was a zero value is treated as being empty. Thus when I later tested the value of the variable against zero the test was false and a divide by zero would occur because the calculation would be performed.

What I really should have done (and have now done) in the code is to test if the variable was set. I've now updated the code to be, if ( isset($_GET['variable']) ) and the code works as it should.

I'm sure if I've made this simple mistake others may also fall into this trap. Hopefully others can learn from my mistake.

Kelvin Eldridge
www.OnlineConnections.com.au

Recovering files from a corrupted SD card and an SD card Windows suggested needed formatting. The SD cards were used in a Canon camera.

A family member gave me a couple of SD cards which had become corrupted. One was not able to be read, but the other one had three folders and one very big file which had non-English characters in the file name. A good sign of corruption.

The first SD card gave the following message.

The second SD card's file directory looked like the following.

Over the years I tried a few programs so like most people I tend to go back to what I know that what's worked in the past, plus I tried Microsoft's new Windows File Recovery tool. You would think Microsoft could produce the best tools, but in this case the Windows File Recovery tool was a waste of time.

I also tried a product called RECUVA, but the product was not able to recover anything.

Another company that has produced results in the past is called EaseUS and they have a product called EaseUS Partition Master, but that product didn't help. However in the menu of this product I was able to download their EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard and with this product I was able to find 751 files I could recover from the SD card with the corruption.

I started the recovery process for a subset of the files as the website said the free version can recover up to 2GB of data. Whilst true I found it would only recover 500MB. I then checked the website again and found the 2GB feature is unlocked if you share a post on Facebook or Twitter. For a moment I thought I perhaps should have tried their free trial on their pro version. I decided to test the free trial. No help as it only scans and displays the files found. No ability to recover.

In total there was around 3GB of data that could be recovered. With a 2GB limit it meant I need to find out more information about what the family member already had and what they didn't have. It turned out they didn't need the RAW files taken by the camera. Once that information was available I was able to complete the recovery of the photos.

Full credit to EaseUS for providing the ability to recover the person's photos for them.

Now for the SD card that just gave the message it needed to be formatted, I decided to search for another program since EaseUS couldn't help. I found an open source program called PhotoRec and tried the program on both SD cards. PhotoRec was able to recover most of the photos from the corrupted SD card, and also recovered a large number of files for the SD card that gave the prompt the card needed to be formatted. The only real issue is PhotoRec does not use the original file names, but instead gives them the next sequential number. Although to be fair, having photos even if the file names don't match isn't as big an issue as not photos at all.

Both EaseUS and PhotoRec produced results, although you can never be sure of what files were missed. EaseUS was able to identify three video files that PhotoRec did not detect.

One tip I'd like to share is if your SD card gives you issues, put it aside immediately and then use a recovery program. Don't keep using the SD card otherwise files may not be able to be recovered.

Another tip is don't use your computer to format the SD cards or delete or edit files on the SD card. To use and work on the photo files copy the files to your computer. To format the card or delete files use the camera. There's a feeling that incompatibility between devices may lead to corruption.

Finally don't just keep taking photos and videos on the SD card and think they're safe. Everyone now and then take a backup copy of the SD card. One day you'll be glad you did.

Kelvin Eldridge
www.OnlineConnections.com.au

Quick method on Windows 10 to make thumbnail for YouTube video.

When I upload videos to YouTube, a number of thumbnails are created for you to select from. Unfortunately, often the thumbnails don't highlight anything of particular interest in the video. For some time I've simply left the thumbnail as the default that was selected by YouTube. However, I thought there has to be a better way as I can't help thinking the thumbnail is an important bit of information that helps people to select a video.

Since most YouTube videos don't make much money if you're monetising them (I haven't currently reached that level), you really can't justify putting a lot of time into a thumbnail. Then the idea came to me. If I can watch the video and find the highlight, I can capture that highlight using the PrintScreen key, open Paint and paste the picture into Paint and save as a jpeg image. The saved image is perfect for YouTube and now you have a thumbnail you can upload that's much more interesting for viewers.

Kelvin Eldridge
YouTube channel