sync – Climb to the Stars

Photo Sync: Figuring Out Lightroom Mobile and iCloud Photo Library [en]

[fr] En train de me dépatouiller avec la nouvelle application Photos d'Apple et la version mobile de Lightroom. Pas encore tout à fait là (la connexion internet un peu lente et le grand nombre de photos n'aident pas).

In the background of my many days of “doing nothing” here in Kolkata, I’ve been trying to wrap my brain around how sync works for both iCloud Photo Library and Lightroom for mobile, particularly as I’m in the process of giving up on Google Photos. Agreed, it’s not exactly the same part of the workflow (getting photos onto my computer archive vs. getting them online/backing them up). But you know how my thought processes work by now, don’t you? 😉

Apple’s iCloud Photo Library seems to be working pretty well. The photos and videos sync, deleting one somewhere deletes copies elsewhere. It’s really clear they are “stored in the cloud” and you can download the full versions if you want. The copies are stored in one of these “Document Packages” which you can open like a folder (right-click!) — I’ve even created a shortcut to the 2015 folder in “Masters” so I can access the photos through Finder if needed. Added advantage, as it’s the native OSX way of doing things, photos show up in the “Photos category” when browsing for files to import into Lightroom, for example.

So, simply using iCloud Photo Library would be a way to get my photos into Lightroom without having to physically connect my devices to the computer.

But… Lightroom has its own system for this, so if it works, wouldn’t it be even better? So far, it’s not working as seamlessly as the Apple system. First of all, because I sync everything on my iDevices with iCloud photo library, Lightroom for mobile seems to import a copy of each photo from each device. Although there is an OK plugin to find duplicates in your Lightroom library, wouldn’t a workflow that doesn’t create them in the first place be better?

Two things that I wasn’t sure about, but I now know:

photos from your iPad/iPhone are added to the Creative Cloud and Lightroom Desktop full-sized; photos from Lightroom Desktop shared to iPad/iPhone through Creative Cloud are shared through their smart previews
the photos synced from your iDevices are made available in a folder on your hard drive, so you can easily drag-and-drop them into your normal archive folders.

I’m running a few tests to see what happens to photos I delete. The photos app seems the best place for quick-and-dirty sorting (if only because when taking photos I’m directly in that app). What I am thinking of doing is turning on Lightroom syncing only from either the iPad or the iPhone, to avoid duplicates. The iPad, probably.

But does that mean I need to open Photos, wait for everything to sync, and then open Lightroom mobile to do it? So far it seems that it’s the way it works — Photos doesn’t seem to be uploading anything in the background from my iDevices, and Lightroom definitely isn’t. This is good when you want to save bandwidth, but less good when your various photo containers are up-to-date and you want things to “just work” invisibly, behind the scenes.

As I’ve been saying for a while, I’m really looking for the day this stuff “just works”.

Sync Multiple Google Calendars on iPhone: Finally Figured it Out! [en]

[fr] Instructions pour synchroniser plus d'un calendrier Google avec son iPhone.

This is something that has been annoying the hell out of me for some time, now. I use at least half a dozen different Google calendars to keep track of my stuff, but when adding a Google account to iCal, all it does is add the main calendar.

I had come upon a hack which consisted in adding each Google calendar in iCal on the computer separately, rather than using delegation. A few weeks ago I was doing some digital housekeeping, and forgot why I had initially done that, and switched back to normal delegation. There went all my lovely syncing.

Let me explain things a bit more clearly:

I have a bunch of Google calendars.
I prefer using the iCal application on the computer and on my iPhone rather than the web interface.
I want everything to sync.

Now, getting Google calendar to sync with iCal on the computer is quite straightforward: add a Google calendar account to iCal following these instructions, and under the “delegation” tab, include any secondary calendars you may have.

It gets tricky with the iPhone. You might think that now that you have your Google calendars in iCal, you will find them on your iPhone if you configure your iPhone to sync calendars with your computer. But no. iCloud or no iCloud, that’s not how it works.

So, you can add a Google account to your iPhone under Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Add Account… > Google Mail. That’s fine if you have only one calendar, but not if you have more than one, because there isn’t anything like the “delegation” function you had in iCal.

So, if you have more than one like I do, here’s what you need to do:

Add your Google account as a Microsoft Exchange account as described here.
Head over to https://m.google.com/sync/settings/iconfig/, select your iPhone (or other device), and choose which calendars you want to sync.

It’s pretty straightforward, but (a) you have to know about it and (b) do not forget the trailing slash in the URL above. I kept getting “device not supported” and 404 errors which were driving me batty until I figured out what was the cause. Almost gave up!

Thanks a lot to @zecege who patiently tweeted to and fro with me while I figured out all this!

OS 10.6, iCal, gCal, and my iPhone [en]

[fr] Après ma mise à jour de OSX, petit problème avec iCal qui refusait de synchroniser avec mon iPhone les calendriers Google "délégués". La solution: ajouter chaque calendrier CalDAV individuellement. J'ai aussi trouvé la source des alarmes énervantes qui ont fait récemment leur apparition pour chaque nouvel événement que j'ajoutais: l'onglet "Notifications" dans Google Calendar.

I upgraded to OSX.6 (Snow Leopard) a week or so ago and discovered that iCal supported built-in sync with Google Calendar. I’d been using Spanning Sync until now (and was happy with it) but thought that if iCal did this out of the box, I might as well try it.

So, I set up delegation to add my multiple gCal calendars to iCal, but was disappointed that only my main calendar seemed to sync with my iPhone.

I found the solution to the problem here: how to make multiple Google Calendars in iCal sync with iPhone. In short, you turn off delegation, and add each gCal manually as a CalDAV account. Five minutes of work, but it works!

Since my upgrade I also had annoying notifications for each new event I created, even though I had turned off alarms in iCal. After hunting high and low, I spotted the “Notifications” tab in gCal calendar details, and discovered I had a series of default alarms set there for my main calendar. I turned them off, and while I was at it, linked my mobile phone to my account so I can get SMS alerts when I want them. (For once that this kind of stuff works with Switzerland too!)

Flock Sync Issue Solved! [en]

[fr] Problème de synchro de bookmarks avec Flock réglé!

Yay! The really exasperating behavior Flock was putting up by refusing to sync my favorites unless I restarted the browser has now come to an end.

It seems that a file named flock_fq_default_in.rdf (in Library, Flock stuff, profile, you’ll find it if you need to) was corrupted. So I shut down Flock a couple of times, made sure my bookmarks were in sync, and deleted the file.

Now everything seems to be running smoothly! Thanks to Mike for being my liaison in the resolution of this problem — and for the information to drop into the offices when I’m in San Francisco. I might very well do so!

Nokia 6280 compatible Mac :-) [fr]

[en] Nokia 6280 seems nicely compatible with OSX.

Faut que je passe annoncer la bonne nouvelle à MobileZone: mon nouveau téléphone (Nokia 6280) paraît joliment compatible Apple. Je découvre les joies de la synchronisation sous OSX avec mon MacBook: il faut brancher le câble (j’ai aussi relié les deux par Bluetooth, pas certaine que ce soit nécessaire), et sur le téléphone, choisir mode de connection par défaut pour le câble USB.

On peut ensuite synchroniser contacts (depuis Address Book) et calendrier (iCal).

Concernant le calendrier, j’utilise Google Calendar depuis un moment. C’est joli et on peut y accéder de partout à condition qu’il y ait un ordinateur connecté à internet à disposition. L’idéal serait de pouvoir synchroniser mon téléphone avec gCal, mais ce n’est pas encore vraiment possible (quoique… quelqu’un a le courage de tester GCalSync?). Voici comment je m’en sors:

je m’abonne dans iCal à mes calendriers Google (en read-only)
j’ai un troisième calendrier dans iCal que j’appelle “Phone”
dans les réglages de synchronisation, j’importe les événements créés avec le téléphone dans ce calendrier
de temps en temps, je l’exporte d’iCal, l’importe dans gCal, et transfère les événements sur les bons calendriers gCal (avant de vider le calendrier “Phone” dans iCal. A la synchronisation suivante, tout rentre dans l’ordre.

En choisissant le mode “Stockage de données”, on peut voir dans Finder le contenu de la carte Mini-SD. Du coup, voici la première photo publiée avec cet appareil:

Si vous allez voir la version originale de la photo, vous verrez que les bords sont un peu imprécis. Trop de compression ou bien (gasp!) zoom numérique à l’insu de mon plein gré?

PS: si vous n’avez pas encore de compte Flickr, c’est le moment de vous en faire un. C’est gratuit.