The Letter
Dear Google, Inc.,
I’ll start this letter off by saying that, overall, I am greatly satisfied with the services and products that you offer. Gmail offers fantastic spam filtering. There are apps for pretty much anything you could ask for. I’m really looking forward to Google Wave.
I just have bone to pick with you. For a long time I was a Blackberry guy. Had both of my Gmail accounts linked to my Curve. Push email was a given. You could say I took it for granted. I figured it was just a standard feature with Smartphones. When I got an email in my Gmail inbox, it was immediately delivered to my handheld.
I got an iPhone 3Gs last week, and what to my surprise… I’m having to set my handheld to “fetch” my email every 15 minutes. Are you serious? Google? Are you there? What’s going on here? The iPhone has a friggin’ compass on it, for Christ’s sake! And you’re telling me that it’s up to my phone to keep checking my Gmail server for new mail? (Battery life??)
And it’s not like you’re unaware of the situation. You offer Calendar and Contact syncing via the Exchange Server. Gmail was intentionally left out? That’s the impression we’re left with. You couldn’t have spent the extra couple hours putting that code in with the rest of it?
To say the least, I’m greatly disappointed. This has FAIL written all over it.
In conclusion, I would only suggest that you get someone over there at the Googleplex to finish up what you started and implement Push email for the iPhone. Shouldn’t take more than a couple hours, right? You’ve probably got the code already written. Just push “compile” and release the update.
Thank You
David Garrett (Disappointed Gmail User)
Feel free to email me about this issue: godkillzyou@gmail.com (Warning: May take up to 15 minutes for delivery.)
A Temporary Alternative
I’ve found that MSGPush.com works very well for now, until this issue gets resolved. It involves a short setup process, but it does the trick. You have to set up a new Exchange Server account on your iPhone, but everything gets routed through your Gmail account.
This solution isn’t without its drawbacks. Because you have to set this up as an Exchange Server account, you’ll not be able to sync your contacts and calendars with Google. You can only run one Exchange Server account on your iPhone at a time.
Google, do you see what you’ve done? We’re stuck having to patch these things together ourselves. Please fix this.
Shortly following my posting of this entry, through the insight of those who left comments on my original entry, as well as from those sending me email comments, I’ve come to realize that I may have been hasty to place the entire blame of this “Error 4450” solely on Apple.
Here is what I originally wrote…
To Whom It May Concern At Apple, Inc.,
On my blog, I write mainly about philosophy, religion, skepticism, science and the like. But, by far, the most popular post on my entire blog is the post in which I discuss an error that occurs in iTunes – the dreaded “Error 4450.” In fact, my post is the first post to come up on Google when searching for “Error 4450.”
This error pops up when burning CD’s in iTunes. At different (seemingly random) times during the burning process, the disc will eject and a message will pop up saying that the burn process has failed, relating that the cause is “Error 4450.”
The “Comments” section of my post is filled with frustrated users searching for answers. People have tried everything from registry scanners, to different brands of CD-R’s, to disc drive lens cleaners. Nothing works.
On the Apple Support website, there is no official response to this problem. Then we go to the Support Forum portion of the site and we find countless users experiencing this same problem, with not a single bit of help offered from you, Apple!
In fact, Apple, you’ve been completely silent on this “Error 4450” issue. The name implies that it bears some type of significance. Your programmers must know something about this. And yet, as I’ve said, you remain silent on the entire issue. Do you intend on ignoring this issue indefinitely? Until we get frustrated enough to go out and find another media player that works better than iTunes?
Overall, I am happy with iTunes. But, to the degree that people have complained about this issue and, to their dismay, there having been nothing done about it whatsoever, I’m beginning to wonder if you (Apple, Inc.) aren’t taking your customers for granted. Have you become comfortable in your position?
It seems to me that it wouldn’t take much to solve this issue. Just a little attention and some debugging skills.
With that being said, I’m speaking for everyone who’s had this problem. Please, Apple, fix Error 4450, or at least let us know what’s going on with this problem and offer some type of help for those who are experiencing this problem.
Thank You.
P.S.
Please, don’t give us something ignorant like “uninstall and reinstall” because we all know this is a cop-out and does not fix the problem. We’ve all done this countless times before.
For those of you who are experiencing this error, I would recommend filing a bug report, even if you’ve already done so. You can do this in iTunes by going to this link. From this site you can provide Apple with useful information about your situation and the circumstances surrounding the occurrence of “Error 4450.” Under “Feedback Type” select “Bug Report.”
As I’ve said before on this blog, my main purpose for writing is to contribute to the wealth of information on the internet, to help make the internet a place where useful information can be found. I also think that, as one who values truth and intellectual honesty, it would only be right for me to acknowledge that I was wrong about my original post.
So, to conclude, thanks to everyone who brought my attention to where my arguments were flawed.
Introduction
“Windows cannot open this program because it has been prevented by a software restriction policy.” If you’re reading this, you’re more than likely intimately familiar with this message popping up on your screen. I’m also willing to bet that you’re pretty frustrated with trying to figure out what the hell is going on. Well, help has arrived.
I think what surprised me the most about this issue is how simple the fix is. I’d done a lot of searching on the internet, and every solution involved setting up group security policies, using a program called gpupdate.exe, and a slew of other options; none of which resolved the issue.
The Solution
Now on to the simple solution (I’m assuming you’re using Windows Vista Home Premium). In the Start Menu, click “Default Programs.” Next, click “Set Program Access and Computer Defaults.”
Now, scroll down to the “custom” box and check that. It will drop down a menu, giving a list of programs. Look for the heading “Choose a default media player:.” To the right of these programs, you’ll see a list of boxes saying, “Enable access to this program.”
All you have to do is locate Windows Media Center, or whatever program is giving you the headache, and click “Enable access to this program.” That’s it. You now have access!
I hope this helps!
Read a book. It’s good for you.
