Upgrading to a new iPhone SE

I got my iPhone 7 just over 5 years ago. It’s done a great job, and hopefully still has a bit more life left in it (I did get the battery replaced about 18 months ago). Today its replacement arrived - an iPhone SE (2020) (Affiliate link). No it’s not the fanciest iPhone available at the moment, but I’m on a budget and also preferred a similar form factor to the 7.

Looking at the specifications side by side, they’re actually remarkably similar, apart from the following:

They’re physically identical in as much as if you buy a case, it will fit either model.

Migration

To migrate to the new device, I used the 3rd options from this article - using iTunes to create a local backup, and then restoring this onto the new phone.

For the restore, I just plugged the brand new phone in (before I’d gone through the setup process) and iTunes then recognised it as a new phone and offered to do the restore process. A short while later it was all done.

Most apps restored automatically, but there’s a few that need extra help. (I’ll update this post if I find any others later on)

Microsoft Authenticator

Microsoft Authenticator has its own backup/restore process that is linked to a Microsoft Account. So make sure you’ve enabled backup on the old phone, then on the new phone sign in with your MSA and all the details will be restored.

Well, almost all. Microsoft 365 accounts will need an extra step where you have to re-confirm the QR code.

Because I have some logins where I’m a guest in the 365 tenant, I couldn’t figure out how to switch to the right tenant. This Stack Overflow answer summarises the steps required to switch organisations.

Australian Tax Office

The ATO app does separate backups to iCloud. Make sure you’ve done a backup on the old phone, then on the new phone go to myDeductions then Back up and select the existing backup to restore.

TestFlight apps

Any preview apps you’ve been testing won’t restore automatically. You’ll need to launch the TestFlight app and use that to install the preview app.

Banking

Your banking apps might also need some extra attention.

The following added 11th Jan 2022 17:00 +1030

Microsoft Teams

You will need to re-authenticate for each tenant you’re subscribed to

OneNote

Select which notebooks you want to synchronise to your phone

OneDrive

If you’re using OneDrive to sync your photos, it’s worth opening the app so it can re-synchronise.

MyMaccas

You’ll need to sign in again

Signal

You’ll need to sign in again. As part of this it asks if you want to transfer your account and message history from your old iOS device. For this to work, both devices need to have the ‘local network’ setting permission. You then use a QR code (on the new device) to pair with the old device and the data is transferred over.

Cibo

You’ll need to sign in again

Entertainment Book

You’ll need to sign in again

Bluetooth devices

Will need to be re-paired

The following added 13th Jan 2022 13:00 +1030

myGov Code Generator

The MFA app used for Australian Government services authentication (a pity they don’t make it easy to use a generic authenticator app rather than having to use their custom one).

Before you deactivate the old phone (or delete the app), sign in to https://my.gov.au/, go to Account Settings, then sign in options, myGov Code Generator app and click Remove. Once you’ve done this you can then activate the app on your new phone (which will require authenticating the app)

YouTube

You’ll need to sign in again. YouTube/Google may try to confirm the login with your old phone/app, so best to do this before you’ve lost access to the old app/phone.

And that iPhone 7?

Won’t be thrown away, but passed on to one of the kids to use. I’d like to think there’s another year or two left in it.

Running Speedtest on a Synology NAS

Yesterday I noticed that our home Internet speed seemed a bit sluggish. Logging into the modem showed that instead of the usual 48-50Mbps, we were only getting around 25 (and sometimes much worse). Restarting the modem did not improve the speed, so I resorted to calling our ISP (Internode). They tried a reset from their end (on the NBN ‘Node’ I believe) but still no improvement. They’ve logged a call with the NBN who are scheduled to investigate the problem tomorrow. Interestingly the Internode support person said I was the third person she’d dealt with in the last few hours with a speed problem in my area.

Anyway this got me thinking. It would be nice to have some kind of regular scheduled speed test running to be able to monitor (and possibly even be notified of changes) to our Internet speed.

Doing a search for “synology speed test” came up with How to Install Speedtest Tracker on Your Synology NAS, which I started to follow when I realised that actually I think this could be done through the Synology Docker UI, rather than using a scheduled task. Here’s what I did:

Installing Speedtest Tracker

1. In the Synology UI, open the Docker application.
2. Go to the Registry page, and enter speedtest-tracker

1. Select henrywhitaker3/speedtest-tracker, then click Download
2. At the Choose Tag prompt, select latest and click Select
3. Go to the Image page and wait for the image to finish downloading

1. Select the henrywhitaker3/speedtest-tracker:latest image and click on Launch
2. In Container Name enter Speedtest

1. Click on Advanced Settings
2. Under Advanced Settings tab, check Enable auto-restart
3. Under Volume tab, click Add Folder

1. Select docker folder and click on Create Folder
2. Enter speedtest and click OK
3. Click Select
4. In the Mount Path field, enter /config
5. Under Port Settings tab, select the 443 row and click on the - button to delete the row.
6. Select the 80 row and in the Local Port field, enter 8788

1. Under the Environment tab, click the + button to add the following environment variables. Refer to Marius’s tip on getting the values for PUID and PGID, and unless you also live in Adelaide you’ll need to change the TZ value to something from this list.

1. Click Apply
2. Click Next
3. Review the summary to confirm the details are correct then click on Apply

1. Switch to the Container page and confirm that the container is running.

1. Now browse to http://your-synology:8788 (Change your-synology to the IP address or name of your Synology). Either click the button to start the test, or just wait a minute or so (as it started automatically for me).

So now Speedtest Tracker application is running a test every hour. Over time, this should become a useful reference to map our average Internet speed (and be able to identify outages or degradations). Hopefully tomorrow it might also track the restoration of our speed if NBN can fix the problem.

Farewell 2021, Hello 2022

And so 2021 finishes and 2022 begins. 2021 has been a different year, not the least because I changed jobs and joined SixPivot in February! (more reflections on that next month).

Looking back on 2021, some of the technology highlights include:

• Passing 2 exams (and failing one)
• Getting a Synology NAS, new laptop and other related hardware for the home office
• Digging into Azure more deeply
• .NET 6 and Visual Studio 2022 launched

I’ve enjoyed helping out with the video streaming and production at my local church. I’m looking forward to continuing that in the new year, and as a result of that I also decided to step down in my role as a sunday school teacher - something I’ve been doing since my own kids were very little. I’ll definitely miss building some awesome train track layouts!

For the year ahead from a family perspective, there’s some milestones as our kids move to the next stage of their schooling.

I don’t have any plans to travel overseas. Microsoft have again decided to run the MVP Summit as a virtual event, which is a good call. Maybe one day I’ll get back to Seattle and Redmond, but not this year. It would be great to be able to safely visit interstate. There’s friends and new colleagues I’m really looking forward to catching up with.

COVID has obviously been ever present, if not so much physically in Adelaide and South Australia (compared to some parts of the world) but certainly in the news and impacting life. That’s changing now, thanks to the government relaxing restrictions now that vaccinations have been taken up by most people. Unfortunately that’s also coincided with the Omicron variant, so now all of a sudden we’re dealing with growing community transmission for the first time here and growing hospitalisation. That is concerning and a little scary.

Time will tell if 2022 sees the return of in-person events within Australia. We had a good run in 2021 with many of our .NET user group meetings being able to be held physically. I hope we can continue that, and ideally we’d be able to bring back DDD Adelaide. I’ll be taking a cautious approach - I don’t want to risk the health of attendees, or my own family.

I’m on leave for a couple of weeks over the Christmas/New Years break. We’ve been making the most of a local reservoir that’s opened up to the public and going for some great walks in the evenings (day light saving makes this easier too). I must admit I was a little sceptical when they first started the building process, but now having access to areas that were previous off limits (hence the old sign!) is great. And it’s been taken up by the local community with the car park often overflowing. Not sure what the large mobs of kangaroos think of all these new visitors coming to visit their home, but at least the ducks don’t seem to mind!

I do hope you have a safe, happy 2022.