blog.eliduke.com

August 1, 2011

Custom Contact Info for the iPhone Lock Screen

This past weekend in Seattle my good friend @bookis lost his iPhone. He thought he left it at the bar, but maybe it was in the taxi on the way home? He’s not really sure. We called the bar the next day and also tried getting a hold of the taxi company. It was a lost cause.

But even if someone had found the phone and wanted to return it, they’d have no idea how. His phone was password protected (as it should be), so all they’d be able to do is try to guess his password and make an emergency call. That’s it. There would be no way for these hypothetical good samaritans to have any idea who’s phone they’d found and do the good deed.

Why hasn’t Apple addressed this issue?

Well, there is a very simple solution to this problem, and it starts with a piece of scrap paper and a sharpie marker.

Setting Custom Contact Info on the iPhone Lock Screen

The first step is to write your contact info on that scrap piece of paper with that sharpie marker I mentioned a second ago. I’d recommend your name, email address, and a phone number of a friend or family member. Then take a picture of it with your iPhone. Make sure you put the paper down somewhere with good lighting and hold steady when you snap the photo.

Once you’ve got a good photo, you’re ready to set that photo to your lock screen. Tap the button on the bottom left corner.

Setting Custom Contact Info on iPhone Lock Screen: Tap Corner Button

Tap “Use as Wallpaper”

Setting Custom Contact Info on iPhone Lock Screen: Use as Wallpaper

Zoom and drag the photo around until it looks good and fits on the screen. Make sure that all your contact info is clearly readable and in between the lines, then tap “Set”.

Setting Custom Contact Info on the iPhone Lock Screen: Move and Scale

Then tap “Set Lock Screen”

Setting Custom Contact Info on iPhone Lock Screen: Set Lock Screen

And that’s it! Done and done. The next time you see your lock screen it should look something like this.

Custom Contact Info for iPhone Lock Screen

Oh, and you should password protect your iPhone. Now.

[Big ups to @brke for helping me simplify this process immensely. Also, I wrote this entire post (including uploading the photos) on my Dell Mini Hackintosh while riding Amtrak Cascades from Seattle to Portland.]

1 comment
July 26, 2011

I think I just shot myself in the foot

I really like Flickr. As of this writing I have a little over 33,000 uploads (mainly photos) that cover the span of about 7 or 8 years of my life. And so, my heart dropped this afternoon when I thought for a second that I had deleted my entire Flickr account and all my memories along with it.

* * *

About 6 months ago Flickr rolled out a new feature allowing current users to sign in with their Google ID. I was pretty excited about the idea of getting rid of an online profile/email address, so I jumped on the bandwagon: I linked my Google ID with Flickr and then promptly deleted my Yahoo ID. I only used it for signing in to Flickr and there was no reason to keep it.

Fast-forward 6 months and here I am, trying to get caught up on my photos, and getting frustrated with the fact that Flickr just can’t seem to “remember me” anymore. I had to sign in to Flickr after every time I closed my browser. Everything worked great with my old Yahoo ID, but for some reason the Google Sign In was having problems with cookies.

So this afternoon I decided I’d had enough. I decided that having a Yahoo ID was worth it if I didn’t have to sign in to Flickr 4 or 5 times a day (I’ve got A LOT of uploading to catch-up on). My first step was to create a new Yahoo ID and they hooked me up with “eliduke [at] rocketmail [dot] com.” Sounds like a pretty sweet email address to me.

Then I went searching for some instructions on how to get my switch on. It had been 6 months since I switched to my Google ID, and I was definitely a little rusty. Luckily, I found this Flickr Help page rather quickly, and on that page I found the following topic:

Flickr Help: I setup logging in with Google/Facebook on the wrong account.

The subject matter wasn’t exactly what I was looking for, but it certainly applied. And there were instructions right there on how to “unbind” my Google account from Flickr. I followed the steps as directed, removed my Google account, and then clicked the these instructions link.

Flickr Help: How do I sign in using Google or Facebook?

It was there that I found instructions on how to sign in with Google or Facebook. The first question that you see there is “do you already have a Flickr account?” Yes, I do. So I proceeded. I made sure I was logged out completely and then tried to log back in with my new Yahoo ID, but Flickr thought that I wanted to create a NEW account. No no no. I want to just link my new Yahoo ID with my old Flickr account. I tried a couple more times thinking something was just off a bit, and then I realized that something was a bit more than just a bit off.

Six months ago when I linked my Google ID to Flickr, I deleted my Yahoo ID. Deleted it. Gone. My only connection to Flickr now was Google, and just a few minutes prior I “unbound” that from Flickr as well. I had unintentionally orphaned my Flickr account. It was now floating somewhere in limbo, waiting for its judgement.

And it was right about that moment that I noticed another topic on the Flickr Help page about deleting a Yahoo account.

Flickr Help: I'm going to delete my Yahoo! account. What happens to my Flickr photos?

It was there that I realized the gravity of the situation. By removing my Google account from the equation, my Flickr account no longer had an owner, and, according to Yahoo, if you do that “you will not be able to sign in to your Flickr account … this will delete your Flickr account as well, including all of your photos.”

Fuck.

I immediately wrote Flickr an email pleading for help and then sat around feeling sorry for myself. Later that night I was talking to Robin about in on the phone and she wondered if I still had access to my Flickr account through Safari on my iPhone. Like, was I still logged in there and could I go in and transfer my Flickr account over to my new Yahoo ID. I passed it off as impossible at first because the second my phone tried to use its cookie to access my Flickr account it would certainly get booted off.

Wrong.

Flickr: Somethin' Ain't Right Here

There are two strange things going on here, and I’m still not quite sure how this worked. As you can see in the upper right corner, I was “Signed in as elisfanclub”, but just below that it says I was signed in with my “Yahoo ID e18f0f2f…” What? How did that happen?

Maybe Yahoo puts that safety mechanism in place in case someone does exactly what I did. They create a temporary Yahoo ID as a place holder until all the switching and swapping gets worked out. Whatever they do, it worked. I was able to transfer my Flickr account from the temp Yahoo ID to my new one.

Crisis averted. Memories saved.

* * * UPDATE 7.27.11 * * *

Here’s the email I sent Flickr.

Hello Flickr,

I have found myself in a bind and am worried that I won’t be able to recover. Please help me.

A few months ago I switched my flickr login from yahoo over to google and was very happy to be rid of one more profile on the internet. I only used my yahoo account for logging into flickr, so it seemed like a good move.

But recently I was getting annoyed with the fact that flickr would not remember me when logging in with google. I had to login after every time I closed my browser, and I realized that I would gladly have an extra login if I could just stay logged in. I had already deleted my old yahoo email address, so I went over to yahoo and created a new one and then went searching for instructions to switch over to that one.

I found this listing on the help page:

http://www.flickr.com/help/signin/#9538181

It gave me instructions for unbinding my flickr or google
account, which I followed, thinking that I could THEN
connect my new yahoo account. So, I clicked on the link in
Step #2, removed my google account from my flickr account,
and then tried to reconnect with my new yahoo id. But each
time I try logging in with my new yahoo id it tries to
create a NEW flickr account for me.

At this point I started searching around a bit more and then
found this listing on the help page:

http://www.flickr.com/help/signin/#102

And then I got really worried. Since I don’t have any ID
associated with my flickr account anymore, does that mean
it’s totally unrecoverable? Will my photos be deleted? Is
there ANY way around this?

Please help me. I have been an AVID flickr user for almost 5
years now with over 30,000 uploads.

Thank you,

Eli Duke
flickr.com/elisfanclub

And here was their response.

Hello Eli,

Thank you for contacting Flickr Customer Care.

As I understand, you wish to confirm if your “elisfanclub”
Flickr pro account is no longer recoverable including your 30,000 uploads. I am glad to look into this matter for you.

Eli, please know that your “elisfanclub” Flickr pro account is still active, and you may sign in to it at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/elisfanclub/

You will need to use the Yahoo! ID that you used when you created or merged the account. The Yahoo! ID associated with this account is XXX.

When entering your Yahoo! ID, please enter it exactly as
shown above. If you are having trouble signing in, you can use the “Forgot your ID or password” link on the sign-in page. If you are still unable to access your account, you may need to contact Yahoo! Account Verification for help with your Yahoo! ID. You can do this using the following page:

http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/edit/alternate_email/general.html

If you’d like to speak to someone on the phone, the Account
Verification Department can be reached at: 866-850-4303

For users dialing from outside the United States, you can
reach us by calling: 00 + 1 408-349-1572

The Account Verification team is available between 6 a.m.
and 6 p.m. Pacific Time, Monday through Friday. Please be aware that you will be asked for all of your verification information before we can offer assistance.

Moreover, please know that it isn’t possible to switch from
signing in with a Yahoo! ID to a Google account. We appreciate your patience and understanding regarding this matter.

However, if you still need further assistance, please don’t
hesitate to reply to this email with the following additional information:

- Are you still unable to sign in to your “elisfanclub” Flickr pro account?
- A detailed description of the issue you are having
- The exact steps taken that lead up to this event
- The full and exact text of any error messages you received
- The Web address of the page you are seeing the issue on
- Flickr account Web address

Once we have this information, we’ll be more than happy to
help you in whatever way we can.

Thank you again for contacting us. If you have any other
questions, please feel free to reply to this email.

Regards,

Mika
Flickr Customer Care

It certainly does make me feel better knowing that they have an Account Verification Team, but there are definitely parts of that email that make me think they didn’t even read my email.

But, it’s all water under the bridge now.

2 comments
July 13, 2010

Renee Hartig

About a month ago I was at the Alberta Street Fair with Nate & Ingrid, and we stumbled across an artist that we really liked: Renee Hartig. She does skies and clouds in a way that truly speak to me. I really wanted to buy one of her pieces, but I just couldn’t afford it. So, I took one of her cards and left it at that.

A few weeks later I found her card sitting on my desk and thought I might as well send her an email, just letting her know that I appreciated her art. She wrote back thanking me, but also saying that she’d followed a link in my email “signature,” found a photo that I took in Tasmania, and wanted to create a painting from it. Amazing. I said, “Hell Yeah.”

Here’s the photo:

Tasmania: On the road to Hobart

And here’s the painting:

Image from Eli Duke - Oil on Canvas

You can see her other work at Studio Hartig.

1 comment
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