August 9, 2014 06:08
If you know me, you know that I'm a little OCD. It was killing me that my gmail and iPhone contacts were out of sync. So here's what I did to fix that:
- First turn on "Contacts" for iCloud in my phone settings
- Now all of my phone contacts are on iCloud
- Log in to icloud.com, and export all contacts as vCard file
- Go to Gmail and import the vCard file
- This creates a new group, "Imported on [Date]" with all of the phone contacts
- Find and merge duplicates
- Go through other groups and remove contacts from the "Imported on [Date]" group
- Now the only contacts left in the "Imported on [Date]" group are the new ones that were on the phone and not in gmail
- Organize and clean up those contacts, and delete the "Imported on [Date]" group
- Now Gmail has ALL of my contacts, organized in the way I want
- Go to the iPhone settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars. Add a new Google account and enable only "Contacts" for this account
- Go to Mail, Contacts, Calendars, and select this Google account as the Default account for Contacts.
- Disable "Contacts" for iCloud.
- Now any new contacts you create on your phone will be automatically copied to Gmail
- The last step is to ensure that any new contacts created in Gmail will also be automatically copied to your phone. In Mail, Contacts, Calendar > Fetch New Data, scroll to the bottom and select "Every 15 Minutes" for Fetch.
- Don't forget to backup your phone so that you don't have to go back and redo all of this.
All done! Now my existing contacts are synced on both accounts, and any create, update, or delete actions are synced both ways.
August 1, 2013 17:19
This weekend I took a trip to Tadoussac, Québec.
I arrived at night, and knew that this would be a great opportunity to see the sky without light pollution. I didn't want to wander too far from the road, since I had no idea where I was or what the terrain was like. But wow, even so, the sky was breathtaking! I've never seen so many stars in my life! I also saw two bats hunting moths, making high pitched squeaks. That was when I really thought "this is what I've been missing out on for all these years without traveling."
The next morning I was shocked to discover that the great black expanse I had been looking at the night before was not a forest, but the bay! I can't tell you how many times I had my mind blown on this trip.
I went down to the bay and got suited up for a boat ride. It was a little cloudy, grey, and drizzling, so everybody donned rain suits and split up into three Zodiac boats. The Zodiacs are smallish, fit 12-24 people, and are pretty low to the water. We then went out to the bay.
I was afraid we'd only catch a few glimpses of whales, but from a distance we could already see a lot of them spraying, and I knew immediately that I was wrong. We saw a few minkes, 3 fin whales (the second largest whale) who came up frequently but only showed us their backs. The most incredible were the humpbacks, who showed us their tails a few times. It was just incredible how massive and yet graceful and beautiful they were. A couple seals floated around, and on the way to the fjord we saw a pod of belugas, two of which got very close to the boat.
The water was mostly very choppy, but in one area of the bay it was completely still. Not a single wave, and you could see the ripples from the rain drops. It was so freaky and cool.
In the fjord we stopped close to some rocks where two seals were hanging out. They were really cute. The rocks were also covered in kelp and algae. Then the guide showed us a waterfall pouring from the top of massive 300+ foot cliffs. He said it swells after the winter when the ice melts, but it was impressive nonetheless. I think I lucked out getting on this boat because the captain seemed to give us a longer and more interesting tour than the others.
When we got back, I got lunch, and then looked at the tourist map. I noticed that instead of taking the street, I could take a "path" through the forest. On the map it was a straight line so I assumed it'd be a nice nature walk, but nothing particularly interesting.
I was so wrong. It turned out to be a mountain trail, with lots of wooden staircases, twists, and turns, and it took me to the top of a mountain, probably half the height of Mont Royal, but with an even better view. The view of the bay and lake was breathtaking. And since the map gave absolutely no indication of how nice this trail was, I only saw two other people.
I took a panorama of the bay, but then noticed some storm clouds, and it started to thunder. It was pretty terrifying being on top of a mountain with nothing but my camera, feeling the wind pick up and seeing the clouds approach very quickly. But I made it home before it started to rain.
I was planning to stay another night, but the forecast said it'd be rainy, so I decided to take the bus that had just arrived. On the way home, close to Québec City, it was drizzling on the left over the river, but the sun was shining on the right. And there was a beeeautiful rainbow stretching across the river. I could see both ends of it. A perfect end to this life changing trip.
July 16, 2013 04:55
On my connecting flight from Toronto, one of my favorite artists of all time Stevie Wonder was sitting in the row in front of me across the aisle. There was a period in college where his songs were literally the only music I listened to.
I learned that he was the closing act for the Festival d'été de Québec the following night. I would have paid the full $76 price for a 2-week pass just to see him but my kind hosts found me a ticket and I got to see him perform live for free! His voice is incredible and seems as strong as it was in the decades-old recordings I have. My favorite was "I Just Called to Say I Love You", he also played "My Cherie Amour", "Superstition", and many others of course.
Before the concert, my hosts also took me for a little walking tour of Vieux-Québec. C'est très charmant! It's so beautiful and clean, and feels very European. The view of the Fleuve Saint-Laurent was breath-taking, especially at sunset. I really love this city; it may have replaced Boston as my favorite. I'll definitely come back again.
For now I am stuck in Montréal, which so far reminds me very much of Chicago... dirty and crowded. I'll give it a chance though.
February 28, 2013 09:30
My laptop died on Tuesday so I bought a new 14" HP laptop with 32 GB of express cache and Windows 8. I love the new start screen and I found a nice tool called OlbyTile which lets you create nice looking tiles for your program shortcuts.
I also found a bunch of good icons online, but some of my programs were missing icons, so I made them.
This package includes FastStone Photo Resizer, Finale Notepad, Google Chrome, iTunes, PNG Gauntlet, PuTTYgen, TortoiseSVN, and WampServer.
Update: added Battle for Wesnoth and Finale Songwriter.
Download Windows-8-Metro-icons.zip
February 17, 2013 07:40
I've redesigned the website and I think it looks 1,000 times better. Still working on some pages, especially the home page and photography, while others have been moved around / split up, e.g. "about" is now mostly in "resume" (and resume is now a page and not a direct PDF download).
I added a new tab for my Viper and I'll be adding more for "travel", although I haven't really traveled, I do have a lot of pictures of Chicago, Boston, and London that I want to share. I intend the website to be more of a place where family/friends can keep updated, and less of a job portfolio focus.
And finally, make sure you check it out on your phone! That's right, andrewtweber.com is now mobile-friendly.