I’ve tried everything: unplugging and replugging my iPhone, turning it OFF and ON, checking my iPhone for restrictions (none) and finally syncing it. The damn iTunes didn’t let me rearrange the apps. The screen with iPhone’s apps pages was greyed out with no chance of selecting the apps or pages.

After all, even worst, I couldn’t transfer any of my purchased apps from iPhone to computer. Tried to deauthorize / re-authorize my computer but it didn’t work out as well.

After 30-40 minutes of doing all of these and tired of looking on internet for answers I decided to restore the Norton Ghost back-up and then I was able of transferring the apps to my PC and then rearranging the apps on iPhone from within iTunes 9.0.

You might ask yourself, do I need to reinstall the computer operation system to get back to normality? If you don’t have a back-up of your system, as I had, you can try and I have the feeling that will work also, to uninstall and reinstall iTunes but try an older version. As I said I am using now iTunes 9.0 and seams just fine. Go for it.

Leave a reply here if works so others (including me) will know another solution to solve the problem besides reinstalling the OS or using the back-ups.

As a conclusion, I think this is an iTunes software bug. Another guessing is that iTunes is getting somehow corrupt after a while and is giving this error which is going everyone crazy.

Being for so much time interested in iPhone apps I’ve got already a pretty good idea of what apps deserves attention and who doesn’t. I tested a lot of iPhone apps to get a good approach to them. Of course is a matter of personal preferences but at least for the newbies this article will help to decide what to buy.

1. First type of apps which I find really useless is “To Do’s” / “Tasks” apps. Is not that I don’t find interesting the way you can schedule your daily tasks but since iPhone is already giving you the chance to add “to do’s” within it’s calendar using push notifications, I don’t see any reason to buy such an app. I’m using a very powerful combination of Google calendar and iPhone calendar and this is all anyone needs.

2. “Battery” apps – that apps showing you all kind of metrics about the battery level, time left for playing games or for browsing the web, etc. These apps have a single but big problem – you have to open the app to see these battery stats. I’m not saying that is not good at all, but I prefer the iPhone native battery level icon so I can see the battery status all the time.

3. “Web Browser” apps – those “revolutionary” apps coming everyday on Apple Store. I’ve tried two of those and believe me, is nothing really exceptional about. Maybe the “tabs” feature can be interesting but I’m still using all the time the native web browser who’s coming with the iPhone.

4. “WI-FI finder” apps – very useless. Why to buy such an app when is clear that if you don’t have WI-FI the app itself cannot detect WI-FI spots? Here I’m talking about iPod Touch and not iPhone of course. If you have an iPhone and a data plan so you can go on internet anytime you want, why you’ll need WI-FI spots anymore? One of the most useless iPhone app ever.

5. “Alarm” or fancy “clocks” apps. Why to buy those apps when iPhone has a built-in alarm app and of course has a watch like any other gadget on the planet?

6. “Weather” apps. Actually I’ve found a few very interesting in terms of design, I used them for a while but I’ll never get back to them. Is the same reason – iPhone is offering through its Weather app all you want to know about weather. Still I will go maybe for a weather app which supports push notifications when weather changes drastically.

7. “Notes” apps? No way! iPhone has already a similar app and is doing an excellent job. You can even send emails through iPhone Notes app.

8. “Music player” apps. Another useless app. Since I can play music on iPhone within its native built-in music app and I can even listen the music in background when open other app, there is no good reason for me to spend money on similar app.

9. “Email” apps. The native iPhone email application is doing a damn good job, why to buy another similar one? The email built-in app has push notifications and you can add as many email accounts you want. Apple will still have to work a little to improve it but, so far I know, is the best you can get.

10. “RSS reader” apps. This is one of the most wanted iPhone app and in the same time is giving me the biggest frustration because there is no real time RSS reader for iPhone with push notifications. I’ve tried a lot of RSS readers but with no luck. And by the way, you’ll have to pay in extra for any RSS feed you subscribe to. I’m not telling that I’ll not go for a RSS reader with a working real time notifications but since I’m trying to find one for such a long time I just gave up.

This list can be even much longer but I’ll stop because I just wanted to say that the built-in features, iPhone is coming with, are doing the most of the job. Not saying that you won’t find iPhone apps much better or interesting but you can go for the basics using without any problem only the built-in apps.

You can take it as a challenge and give me a reason to buy any of these. You better have a damn good one :P

Actually it is a way, easy enough to transfer all your purchased applications from iPod Touch / iPhone to your computer / iTunes. It was a lot a workaround for understanding how to copy these apps to iTunes but finally I did it. The best part – there is no need to buy a special software to transfer these iPhone / iPod Touch applications to your computer! And NO – you don’t have to buy those apps again :)

Since it was a tricky situation I will explain you step by step how to do this. And actually is not that complicated as you might think now.

1. Open up iTunes and connect your iPod Touch / iPhone to your computer.
2. Go to Store (top menu) and click on Authorize Computer.
3. Go to Advance (top menu) and click on Turn On Home Sharing.
4. Go to File (top menu) and click on Transfer Purchased from “your_name” iPod.

Now that you transferred all of those iPod applications to your Computer you have to find them and copy them in a safe place on your hard drive(s) just to make sure in case of iPod failure or Windows problem you still have your purchased apps. You can install them with just a double click – will go automatically into your iTunes Applications.
The default location for your applications should be: C:\Documents and Settings\YourName\My Documents\My Music\iTunes\iTunes Media\Mobile Applications\

Here some print screens if you have a hard time locating the menu.

The (partial) solution was offered here but because I still wasn’t able after reading the article to copy these purchased applications in my iTunes, I digged deeper and I’ve found that actually I have first to Authorize Computer and to Turn On Home Sharing in order to have working the Transfer Purchased menu option.

It would be more easy if Apple would make this things obvious and all of us won’t be forced to lost hours googling for answers. Unfortunately Apple doesn’t offer a easy way. Maybe Steve Jobs thought that we are all tech gurus and we don’t need any hint.

What is Notes actually doing is sending emails when the iPod got network connection, a kind of “send it later” email functionality, which is not really bad if you have to compose a few email when let’s say you aren’t home, with no internet connectivity. In other words you can use the boring time spent on the bus writing emails which will be delivered to their destination when you arrive home or at a whatever place with internet connection.

To use this amazing email functionality all you have to do is to open Notes from your iPod Touch,

Notes app iPod Touch

tap “+” sign (top-right corner),

Notes app iPod Touch

write your email and then tap the Email sign (bottom-left, that “letter” sign).

The email will be sent as soon as you’ll get network connectivity on your iPod Touch.

There is a chance to get the following message: “Cannot Sent Mail. An error occurred while delivering this message.”

As you can see I received the email sent while offline, so, don’t worry, the email will be sent.

If your iPod Touch is jailbroken and you’ve got Installous you may have to give an answer to its troll bridge in order to access appulo.us website. Because I was looking for so many times for answers too, I thought it will helpful for others to find the answers on one website page.

If you’re not finding the answer you need for a Troll Bridge question, write the question down here. May be someone else is helping you. If you have a question which is not listed on this page, please leave your question and the answer here and you’ll help others.

Troll Bridge Answers

The following list of Questions and Answers from Troll’s Bridge is the most complete list on the web. If you think of copying it on your blog please give me the credits and specify my blog as source. I have been working for a while to put all this questions and answers together and I will really appreciate if you’re doing like this. Thanks!

Besides this, this list is updated on a daily basis and I am confident that you’ll find all the answers you need for Troll’s Bridge and will be no need to look elsewhere for answers.

Pass your comptia a+ with testking by using the up to date ccda questions and ccie brain dumps.

Check out the following:

Simplify Photo
Simplify Media
Air Video

Fortunately there is a solution, even a easy one:
1. turn on your computer and connect your iPod Touch / iPhone to it.
2. hold down both, the power and the home buttons (the iPod Touch / iPhone will power off after 10 seconds)
3. after theiPod Touch / iPhone powers off, release the power button (but keep holding down the home button)
4. in no more than a couple of seconds, you should hear that Windows sounds that means the iPod is being detected by your computer again.
5. release now the home button, and your iPod will be back alive, in DFU mode.
6. open iTunes (if is not already open) and restore your iPod Touch / iPhone firmware.

Your iPod Touch / iPhone will not be jailbroken now, but at least will be functional.

So, what I discovered? The best iPhone apps for all PDF’s readers is Stanza! From now you can change the font of any PDF, in any way you want: font size, font color, etc. Just amazing! Sorry, but I have to go now to read these one thousand PDF books waiting for me! :p

In order to make working the sync I had to setup the Outgoing Mail Server or, simple, SMTP server on iPod. No matter if you are planning to do the same or you just want to install other similar app you have to type the following data in the requested fields:

1. Host Name: smtp.gmail.com
2. User Name: here you type your gmail address
3. Password: your gmail account password
4. Use SSL: ON
5. Authentication: Password
6. Server Port: 587

SMTP server setup iPhone

If you’re still wondering how to transfer photos from iPod Touch / iPhone to your computer there is a simple way (actually, two ways, depending of your computer settings) to do it and YOU DON’T NEED ANY SOFTWARE! Yes, it’s true, to get the synced photos off, you’ll DON’T need to use a third-party tool.

The Solution(s):
A.
1. Plug in your iPod Touch / iPhone.
2. This will pop-up a new window “Select the program to launch for this action”.
3. Click on Microsoft Scanner and Camera wizard / Next.

4. Select de pictures you wanted transferred to your PC and Click Next, give to the group of pictures a name and choose a place to save this group of pictures.
5. Check Delete pictures from my device after copying them if you want to have this pictures only on your PC.
6. Click Next and all your selected pictures will be transferred from your iPod Touch / iPhone to your PC.

B.
1. Plug in your iPod Touch / iPhone and there will be no such a message “Select the program to launch for this action”. See How to enable “Select the program to launch for this action” message.
2. Go to My Computer and right click on User’s iPod (or User’s iPhone’s I guess for iPhone users).
3. Click on Get Pictures. It will pop up a new window like the following one. Click Next and follow the same steps you get used to follow for transferring files from other devices like a photo camera, etc. This steps are described in the previous method, as well.

The more contact codes we add here, the more chances to win we have in this nice iPhone / iPod Touch game, Agency Wars.

Your code can be located in Contacts (bottom right) / My Code.

My Agency Wars code is 209158.

ADD me!

So, what is the best apps that I play with on my iPhone iPod Touch?

So far the most important one is Touch Todo. Is a scheduler, a To Do application which is giving you the chance to synchronize your Google Calendar with iPhone / iPod Touch. No matter where you add a new task to do, on Google Calendar or directly into your iPhone / iPod Touch using Touch Todo, you can synchronize them both for more control and accuracy without any third part application.

Another iPhone / iPod Touch useful application (maybe I should put it on the first place) is Jaadu, a remote desktop app which is giving you the total control over the PC. You can do anything you want with a computer using this application. Of course there are lots of remote desktop applications but in my opinion Jaadu is the best.

The iPhone that I’m using daily is IM+ with push. It helps me to keep in touch with my friends wherever I have WIFI connectivity. I can chat with friends on Yahoo Messenger, Skype, Twitter, GTalk, etc. The only thing I don’t like is that is not supporting more than one account to log in on Twitter.

Because I like to read the daily news I’m using Pro RSS which in my opinion is the best RSS reader for iPod Touch / iPhone. To tell you a secret I have in my RSS list only the TechCrunch feeds. It seems that they have the best articles about technology. And who doesn’t like news as this one?

Notes PRO is a gorgeous mobile application. I still stick with it from that day I discover it! Writing notes and update them to Google Docs within a single tap. Don’t you find it amazing?

Enough for today. I’ll come back with another iPhone apps I’m using for a while and you can’t miss them,too.

1. Go to Settings, General, Keyboard and turn ON Enable Caps Lock

2. double tap the Shift Key from the iPhone / iPod Touch keyboard. The Shift Key button will became blue permanently as long the CAPS LOCK is enabled. To disable it, tap once the Shift Key.

No need for a new application :)
Cons. CAPS LOCK is being disabled when you go from letters to numbers and come back. You will have to double tap again the Shift Key if you want CAPS LOCK enabled. Kinda annoying if you have a mix of CAPS LOCK letters and numbers (e.g. a password).
Tested on version 2.2.1

What I discovered it’s quite helpfully for everyone I guess. It’s about making shortcuts / icons on the screen for preferred web addresses. This means when you are accessing frequently some websites, you can create icons directly into the applications list onto your iPod Touch / iPhone screen and you can access these websites very easy and fast.

Steps:
1. open Safari Browser on your iPod Touch / iPhone
2. open your preferred website
3. tap the “+” sign on the bottom of the screen

4. tap “Add to Home Screen”

5. give it a name and press “Add”

Now you’ll have a small print screen or the website icon, as an icon into the apps list on your iPhone screen :)
Nice huh? ;)

After that, tap the one you want to uninstall and then press on Modify when it comes up in the upper right corner.

You’ll have there the option to remove or re-install.

1. press menu button and after that press the hold button (on the top of your iPod).

2. go to pictures / saved photos and you’ll find there the screen shot :)

Wondering what you can do with these screen shots? If you have a blog about iPods/iPhones, you’ll find this screen shots very usefull.

I couldn’t find yet a free app to download these screen shots on my pc, but as soon I get some of them I’ll be back with another article.
Till then, have fun! ;)

UPDATE: I got a really good application, not free unfortunately, very good for downloads from iPod Touch to PC – Touch Copy

Here is the screenshot of my iPod display ;)

The best way is to auto arrange apps software icons.
To do this, follow the next steps:

Solution:

Go to Settings / General / Reset / tap Reset Home Screen Layout

The bad thing is that you will see, after this reset, some changes on bottom bar and maybe you’ll have to add again your 4 preferred apps icons there. But after all, at least, you don’t need to download any software to auto arrange your icons and is a simple and elegant method ;)

There is another method to get the icons in a specific order, but everyone knows that is a pain to move the icons one-by-one. This is possible keeping a finger on one icon until all icons start wriggling. After that you can drag the icons you wanted, one by one, on another screen. This method still can be good if you want to move only a few icons, or if you want to add add/delete icons on the bottom bar. In this mode you can also, delete the apps touching the red “X”.