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As a member of the geek community, I tend to get asked a lot of tech questions. As soon as people see the screen on my iPhone, the first question I get is “Wow! How did you do that?” I have non-standard icons, an awesome unlock screen, and the ability to answer texts without unlocking the phone. Should you jailbreak? What is jailbreaking? Let’s look at the advantages and disadvantages of each. Read more »
Late Friday evening, Apple issued an update to the iPhone operating system in a response to a well-known security vulnerability. iPhone OS 3.0.1 fixes a potential exploit which could allow a remote user to hijack any iPhone by sending a simple series of SMS (text messages).
This update was expected to be released before the BlackHat 2009 security conference last week, where a pair of security researchers who have discovered the flaw presented their findings. Back in 2007, Charlie Miller, security researcher and co-author ofThe Mac Hacker’s Handbook, demonstrated a WebKit security hole that allowed the hacker to obtain an iPhone user’s personal information. Apple patched the exploit a few days before the demonstration. By contrast, the SMS exploit was patched after Mr. Miller presented details about it. In the days leading up to the patch, I have expressed my frustration with the way Apple and AT&T handled the entire situation from a customer communication and customer service perspective. Read more »
Choreography has always been an art form appreciated by most. In fact, it’s frequently the wonder of observers, prompting many to ask, “how did they do that?” And this time, it’s no exception: Matt Robinson and Tom Wigglesworth did the synchronized thing with a bunch of HP printers, which won them a D&AD Student Award. While the video’s main focus is on printers, the product that is being promoted is HP workstation computers. Perhaps the logic goes behind all this is that “something must drive these printers, why not HP workstations?”
it’s probably a good thing that the piece contains such great musical accompaniment, since the sounds that most printers make would certainly scare some. Whatever the case may be, this is simply awesome. We love it!
Your mileage may vary. We’ve had reports of MMS working for some but not for others. It appears to be a carrier-based thing. It also might depend on whether the person who you’re sending the MMS to has an MMS-capable phone. If it works for you, please let us know.
It worked for me and it didn’t work for Lizette.
Please read the below instructions carefully to make sure that it works as intended
Thanks to our very own Ben Jarman for making this file
Mac users: open Terminal – located by default in Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal – and paste this code into it: defaults write com.apple.iTunes carrier-testing -bool TRUE Hit enter Windows Users: open Command Prompt – Start/Windows Logo -> Accessories -> Command Prompt – and type in: cd c:\Program Files\iTunes This will change your working path to C:\Program Files\iTunes (where iTunes is installed by default). Then type in: iTunes.exe /setPrefInt carrier-testing 1 Type exit and close out of the Command Prompt
Change the extension to .zip. Then change it back to .ipcc. If you’re on a Mac, it pays off to go to the “Get Info” context menu (accessed by right clicking the file) and change this from there.
Plug in iPhone. You can let it sync or not – your choice.
In iTunes, hold down the “Alt” key (Windows), “Option” key (Mac) and click on the “Check for Update” button.
Select the .ipcc file and let it do its thing.
Enjoy the tethering and MMS!
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As you might have heard, Apple on Wednesday announced an official Apple-unlocked iPhone for “legitimate” sale in Germany on Deutsche Telekom’s T-Mobile network. This announcement was set forth to “comply with a court injunction issued after Vodafone challenged its [T-Mobile's] exclusive lock on the device,” Aude Lagorce reports for MarketWatch. “T-Mobile will start selling the phone without a contract for 999 euros ($1,480) and continue to offer it at 399 euros when purchased with a two-year commitment, the company said in a press release,” Lagorce reports.Whatever you may think of the iPhone, $1500 (or $1480, to be exact), is a heck of a lot of “greenies” to shell over for a generation one product just to use it with other networks. Moreover, it’s not clear whether the phone will work as well on other networks as it does on T-Mobile’s network. For instance, will EDGE connectivity be functional on other carrier’s networks and will visual voice-mail work, since it’s a very carrier-specific feature that needs to be implemented on the provider’s end. (A little side note: I recommend using CallWave for voicemail even over the iPhone’s visual voicemail. I use it and have become addicted to the ability to check my voice messages not only in the order I choose to but to do so from any web-connected computer/device through a browser. I will be posting my review of CallWave later on in the week/end).The iPhone unlocking community, however, has been sucked dry of a simple unlock for iPhone firmware version 1.1.2 (the current version). I am attributing the lack of unlock availability to the hackers beginning to make economic sense of their work. As of this writing on November 22, 2007, unlocked iPhones are selling on eBay for about $100 over retail price. Seeing as to how the iPhone unlockers are first and foremost people who need to put food on the table (and all those testing iPhones don’t come free, you know?), they might be more inclined to buy a bunch of these iPhones, unlock them themselves, and sell the unlocked product for a profit. Sure, they would love to provide the rest of us with a simple and easy set of tools and instructions for iPhone unlocking, but not when they can make some money from their hard work. Is it wrong? In one word: no. In two words: heck no.While on the topic of right and wrong, here’s a mini-rant: it’s ridiculous enough that Apple has tied their phone to one carrier and is gauging the consumer for as much as a downpayment on a car for an unlocked version. The hackers (and the consumers) have every right to stick it to Apple by unlocking their phones and have them receive no recurring revenues from partnerships Apple made with the carriers. Sure, Apple is a business and they currently have a unique, top-tier product. But what will happen to those new 5-year contracts with the cell carriers when other hardware competitors announce similar phones? Heard of RIM’s announcement of late? No? How about that of Nokia? Of course, Apple is the innovator here and as always, pushes the innovation envelope. But when this innovation limits their potential market because of price (or is it snobbishness?), it’s just bad business. Not only does Apple run the risk of simply not being considered an option for a potential purchase next time, it’s also being challenged by such project as Google’s Android. What’s that, you ask? Well, if you’ve been under water or in an airplane with no internet access for the last two weeks, you wouldn’t know that Google has recently announced a plan to provide an open mobile O.S. for many different handsets. Perhaps the key word here is open. This means that anybody, anywhere can develop for the Android system. It also makes the hardware manufacturers competitive, providing incentives to bring their devices to market at a lower cost to the consumer.In an unexpected turn of events, however, we could be faced with completely opposite outcomes come next year. Why? Well, when other device manufacturers (like the ones mentioned above as well as those who partnered with Google to roll out the Android platform on their hardware – namely HTC) release their products, they might want to strike similar types of deals with the carriers that Apple has struck. For example, they might request a subscriber revenue-sharing model and then, for better or for worse of the market, lock their own devices to the network for exclusivity purposes. This won’t be good for the consumer in the short run. In the long run, however, it might not be so bad. Let me just throw this out here and see what you all think: as our needs evolve, our technology choices will become more specified to what we want to do. One of the types of devices that we depend most on, and we expect flawless reliability from, are our mobile communicators. To ensure this reliability, manufacturers will lock them down to the carrier and perhaps the carriers will evolve from being a simple utility to a life-style choice. This would be difficult to accomplish from the carriers’ side, but no so difficult from that of the hardware manufacturers.
In the Future:
In any way, there will come a time when Apple’s JesusPhone iPhone is faced with stiff competition. At that time, Apple better have its phone available to as many consumers as possible and make the entry to purchasing this phone as easy as they can. When will that be? I’m thinking in about a year, maybe two. This will give Apple enough time to make a second and possibly a third iteration of the phone (and maybe even make a few model lines) and add the needed features that the current version is missing (3G, Flash support, official 3rd-party apps). As for the competition, they will be on their first-generation products but will most likely be within reach of many more consumers because of their lower prices and not being locked to one carrier. And in any way this plays out, the end user is always the one to benefit. Don’t you love competition? I do.
If you’re an iBook or PowerBook user whose Mac was not so lucky to receive the 2-finger scrolling and 2-finger right-click options, there is a solution for you! The great people over at sourceforge.net have had a tool to enable this feature. It’s called iScroll (and it works perfectly with Leopard, on my iBook G4 1.2GHZ). There is a supported hardware page and the only thing you need to do to have some two-finger scrolling goodness on your “unscrollable” Mac is to run an install wizard and reboot. Then enable two-finger scrolling in the “Mouse & Keyboard” pane of System Preferences and you’re ready to go!
Make sure you grab the latest version (0.32 as of this writing on 11/18/2007) from the downloads page.I’ve become absolutely dependent on this little utility and can’t imagine using the aging iBook without it. On a side note and possibly a side rant (how can we be here at TechNest without one?) – shouldn’t it have been up to Apple to provide us with a software update to enable these features? Sure, they have a business to run and profits to make and the two-finger scrolling is a feature of the new notebooks, but we – the hardcore Apple/Mac fanboys/fangirls stuck with Macs when Apple wasn’t the coolest company on the block! They should have at least given us this feature to show their appreciation and respect! Here’s another one hoping that Apple isn’t becoming a Microsoft with a pretty face! (Microsoft, by the way, has gotten better about their practices. Apple: are you listening?).
