Category: Technology

“Certificate couldn’t be read” errors in Mail.app

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Corporate mail servers often used SSL certificates, and sometimes these certificates expire. At that point you may start getting “Certificate couldn’t be read” errors in Apple’s Mail.app.

According to Apple, permanently accepting a self-signed SSL certificate may fix the problem.

  1. Click the Show Certificate button in the error message.
  2. Hold down the option key and drag the certificate icon out of the error window to your desktop.
  3. Double-click the certificate icon on the desktop, and choose X.509 Anchors from the pop-up menu. Click Add. You must have permission to administer the computer for this procedure to work.
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Java error message: Several Java Virtual Machines running in the same process

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When attempting to launch browser-based SCORM courseware, people have been getting the error: “Several Java Virtual Machines running in the same process caused an error”

Apparently many people have this issue since upgrading java. I came across it because it can affect the delivery of elearning courses if the learning management system relies on a java-applet based scorm adaptor to communicate.

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International calling: the big weak spot in iPhone service

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In planning for a trip to Europe a few months ago, I found that one of the biggest weak points in the iPhone package is the cost of international calling and data services on the AT&T network partners.

If you don’t do a little pre-trip planning, as soon as you get off the plane in another country and start using the phone, you will start ringing up enormous charges.

Voice: At the moment, there is no way to get really good per-minute rates for calling with an iPhone, until someone comes up with an iPhone application that really does SKYPE well. Even with AT&T’s “World Traveler” package (not to be confused with “World Connect”), you only save 20-30 cents/minute, and the per minute charge can remain quite high – often a dollar or more per minute. Still, it is worth the $5.99/month.

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Exporting high resolution Graphics from Microsoft Word 2003

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In Word 2003, it is not immediately obvious how to export pictures that have been inserted into a Word document. Even if you select “File: Save As…” and select the format “Web Page” in the “Save As” dialog, the images that get saved along with the web page are usually low resolution.

The solution to this is a menu selection “Compress Pictures” which is hidden in the “Tools” menu in the “Save As” dialog.

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SyncServer can take up 100% of CPU on OS X

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On an underpowered G5 iMac running OS X 10.4, I spent a lot of time troubleshooting performance issues. One of them was the “spinning beachball” effect, where some process would take over for a moment, resulting in everything else hanging until it released some CPU.

On at least one of these instances, launching Activity Monitor showed that Sync Server was taking up 100% of the CPU every few minutes.

Apparently this is a common problem on both 10.4 and 10.5:

SyncServer Problem Post on Mac Forums

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Voice recording with the iPhone

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UPDATE 2: March 27, 2009 I’ve been using QuickVoice for a couple of months now. It’s good enough that I use it to record piano sessions and meetings. It is pretty sensitive. I did purchase the 15.00 syncing software which you need to pull the files off the iPhone if you haven’t jailbroken it.
UPDATE: Jan 24, 2009 Since this article was written, the app store was launched and there are now many Voice recording apps for the iPhone. Click here to search for the latest list of Voice Recorder applications available in the iTunes Store

Now you can record your voice with the iPhone (or any other phone), and get speech to text functionality as well!

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