Here a bit of a story.
I’ve created by mistake 2 iTunes accounts and I’ve bought iPhone apps under both of these accounts. A few days ago after I’ve (finally) upgraded my iPod Touch to OS4 I’ve lost all the apps installed on iPod except those ones for each I did create a backup on my PC. Trying to install back some apps I’ve seen that some of my apps were installed while other not. This was happen because, like I said some were bought under a different account. I will explain you in the next lines how to install all your apps, even those ones purchased under a different account.

The question was if is possible to cancel / delete / disable one of those two iTunes accounts so in the future I won’t repeat the same mistake of buying apps using both my accounts. Unfortunately there is no way to delete an iTunes account nor to merge multiples in one single account. The only thing you can do to assure that you’re not purchasing apps under the wrong account is to set to none the payment method from your account page in iTunes and of course to pay attention when purchasing the apps to be logged in under the right account.

Still there is a good part, authorizing your computer to work under both accounts will make possible to have on your iPod Touch / iPhone the applications bought under different iTunes accounts. So, if you want all the applications you’ve bought to be able to install on your iPod or iPhone you will have to login into your accounts, one by one, into iTunes, and then go authorize your computer for each.

Here the detailed steps:
1. connect your iPod Touch / iPhone to your computer
2. fire up your iTunes
3. go login into your accounts one by one (click in iTunes on iTunes Store from left menu then click on your account – top – right – under the search button)
4. after each login go Store / Authorize This Computer
5. after you’ve repeating authorizing your computer for each iTunes account go sync your apps but don’t forget to select all you have in the left side. Failing to select them all will make you loose what you already have installed on your gadget.

Now you should have all the bought apps on your device, no matter under which of your iTunes account you bought them :)

And another tip before you go – if you’d lost an app when syncing you can get it back at a no cost! If you know exactly the name of it go buy it again. You should get an message that you’ve already bought that app and asking you if you want it just to download it again. Tap yes and hooray, you’d get back your lost app. Now before you go look for your lost apps to recover them, make sure you are login under the same iTunes account from the moment you purchase them. Otherwise you won’t receive any message and you will just pay again for the same app!

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

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.

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

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.

So, how to disable it? In fact is very simple. Follow next steps:

1. Open My Computer
2. Look for iPod listed into the driver’s list. It will be somewhere at the bottom of it. If you want to disable the message for a phone or other peripherals is the same thing.
3. Right click on it
4. Properties
5. Click on Events Tab

6. choose from the list “take no action”
7. Apply
8. OK

Right now every time when you connect the iPod to your computer, the message “Select the program to launch for this action” will not pop-up anymore.

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

After four hours of trying methods to listen my computer mp3s on my iPod Touch I got finally the best / easy way even you’ll have to pay 4 bucks for Simplify apps for your iPhone / iPod Touch. But, after all, it doesn’t matter, you can play / listen your computer music without staying in front off ;)

1. open iTunes Store (tap APP Store icon) on iPhone / iPod Touch, buy and install Simplify ($4 – $6)

2. install Simplify on your PC / Mac or on your Linux OS (http://www.simplifymedia.com/download.html)
3. create a free account for Simplify
4. Go to Simplify Media / Options and add your music (it will takes time if you are adding tons of mp3s!)
5. run Simplify on your iPhone / iPod Touch and enjoy listening to your favorite mp3s :)

The worst part: Simplify is not running in background as the regular player of iPhone, if you close the application the music is stops :(
The Best part: you’ll have listed the lyrics and the info of your playing mp3 :) Karaoke?!? :))

PS. If you get busted playing with your home music during your work hours, by your boss, is not my responsibility if you get laid off! :P

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”.