Updating your iPhone to IOS5

Today when I went to sync my iPhone it told me that I needed to update to IOS5. There are a lot of changes in this version, so I though I had better do it.  I said yes and it began doing whatever it does when it updates and syncs. I continued working on the computer to get some things done that I needed to do. When I looked back at my phone it looked like it had synced, but when I went to iTunes on the computer it said,"An error occurred while backing up this iPhone (-5000). I went back to check my phone.  It looked OK, but when I tried to open on of my games nothing happened (a black screen).

It is such a horrible feeling when this happens. But I kept having to remind myself that everything was still on my computer because I have been syncing often. Even if it was not on my computer right now I have been doing regular back ups of my computer, so I could restore the data from a back up in the past. (REMINDER-Have you been backing up what you have on your computer to an external hard drive?)  It is hard not to feel panicked though!

When a sync goes wrong you can always choose RESTORE to restore your iPhone to the state when you got it. This will empty everything off of your phone, but remember it is still all on your computer. I clicked on Restore once and it seemed to get stuck again. So, I looked online. I have learned that you can find help for almost anything by typing it into a Google Search. I typed "problems with iphone update 5" into the search box and found this link http://www.zdnet.com/blog/storage/beware-the-ios-5-update/1553 The article described the same thing that had happened to me. That made me feel a little better. Reading it gave me the courage to try RESTORE again. This time it worked like it was supposed to. After the iPhone is restored I then chose to SYNC so that it put my calendar, contacts, and especially my apps back onto the iPhone. It is now all working again.

HELP, I've lost my Facebook Password!!

I just got a note from my friend, Ruthie who has lost her Facebook password for some reason. She asked me to help her figure out how to get it.

She had already done the first step that a person should do when they forget a password. On the login page she clicked "forgot your password?" and entered her email address. Shortly after that she received email with a link to set a new password to get into her account. The problem is that when this happened it connected her to an OLD account that she had created by accident. This account was empty, while the other one had 209 friends, photos and lots of messages.

I was not sure how to help her, so I did what I always do and went to the HELP section of the program. I learned lots of things that might be helpful someday:

1. All accounts are connected to an email address. In your Account settings you can put in a back up email address which will allow Facebook to contact you even if your first email address is gone. Having a second email address here is important. I am adding one right now. Even if you have to create a free gmail, hotmail, or yahoo account in order to have a second add a second one do it!

2. Some times accounts are Disabled. There is a whole section on disabled accounts that might be helpful to look at.

3. In extreme cases Facebook has a way that you can Restore your Account through Friends. This still involves communicating with Facebook through a recognized email address. If you can not solve your problem any other way you may want to look at this section. I had a hard time finding it and learned that which words you use is really important. I kept looking for "restore" and could not find it, but when I used "recover" it worked.

4. You can get to the Facebook HELP CENTER even if you are not logged in by going to the bottom of the login page and looking for the small word "help" on the bottom right side.

5. You are not supposed to be able to make more than one account with the same email address. With my email address I made a business page, but it is tied to my Facebook page and acts a little differently. You can also create GROUPS with Facebook to have a password protected space that only certain people can access.