Oh, and thanks to Sam Aarons for letting me know that Peeks were being given away! I still have no idea why that news hasn’t reached Hack-a-Day yet…

Unlocked Verizon iPhone 4S To Work On U.S. GSM Carriers

This may be more of a problem with Verizon, but I really would love it if an unlocked Verizon iPhone 4S could be permitted to work on any GSM carrier in the world–including the United States. Currently, it only works on Verizon in the U.S. and GSM carriers internationally, but not AT&T, T-Mobile U.S., nor any other U.S. regional GSM carriers. I was going to buy an iPhone 4S, thinking that this was the dawn of the age of easy migration between wireless carriers, but upon learning about this crippling of the iPhone’s enormous hardware potential, I have resolved to not purchase one. I also find it absurd that Verizon will not let an Apple-unlocked iPhone 4S be permitted on its network. This stifles innovation and reeks of monopolistic practices. If iPhone owners got fed up with AT&T’s lack of expansive 3G coverage, they could switch to Verizon. If they got tired of Verizon’s slow 3G data speeds, they could easily switch to AT&T or T-Mobile. If consumers were allowed to freely flow between carriers, the superior carrier would have more subscribers by nature and not by force. I’d prefer it if companies would bring about this change by themselves instead of legislation forcing the change. Either way, it must happen eventually. Apple has the power to protest these anti-competitive habits by allowing the activation of U.S. SIM cards in unlocked Verizon iPhone 4S’s. I don’t know if this request will actually do anything, but it makes me feel better to know that someone will see this and might even stop a moment to think, “What if…”

Go to http://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html to send your own Enhancement Request.

A month or two ago, I bought a Peek on eBay for $22. I thought it might be useful, but it ended up being useless without the Peek service. So far, I’ve managed to upgrade the firmware, but I still need the Peek service to get it to work. Peek customer support has been unresponsive to my request to activate my Peek, so I now want to install Linux on this thing to at least get SOME functionality out of it. Unfortunately, without the GSM radio drivers of the TI Locosto chip, this device is still useless (even on Linux). My new side project is to now get access to TI’s Locosto dev info so I can make binary drivers for the chip for Linux. I would only be able to make binaries because of TI’s NDA.

Any help with this would be appreciated!

Here’s some info on the Peek’s hardware: http://elinux.org/Peek

All you need is an unactivated (never used) AT&T SIM card.

To start, go to http://www.att.com/ipad.

Scroll down to where it says “Need More Data?” Click on that link (or click here, but this direct link might not always work).

Click “Get Your Pass.”

You will come to a “Device Information” screen. Here is where you will enter a fake iPad IMEI and your unactivated AT&T SIM number. The IMEI should be in the form of 01222300******* or 01222400*******, where ******* is a random 7-digit number. The SIM number should be right on your SIM card.

As an alternative to guessing IMEI numbers, you can also get the IMEI from an iPad Wi-Fi + 3G in your local Apple or AT&T store. Just go to Settings->General->About to see it. Taking a picture with your phone would probably look less suspicious than writing the number down, but either way YMMV.

Click “Next.” If it doesn’t work, try again with another fake iPad IMEI. I got my first number to work on my first try (what are the chances), but the second valid IMEI I hit took over 20 more tries to get, so keep trying till you get it!

Once you get past this screen, you’re home free! All you need to do is enter your name, address, email, password for your new AT&T account, Credit Card info, agree to the terms, and your set. Also, from now on, you’ll be able to manage your account from the email and password you set up earlier.

Have fun with your new data plan!

Anyway, I need your help. I just need to print out the new X-carriage, get some M3x25mm bolts, buy some MDF for the Y-stage, and get a hot end. However, I don’t really know what to get. What are the recommended dimensions for the Y-stage (LM8UU bearings)? What’s the best hot-end for 3mm PLA that I can get in the U.S. for a Wades extruder?

Feel free to comment with your suggestions!

AAAAAAUUUUUGGGGGGHHHHHHHDSASDGFKLHASKJGHKLJAGLK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If you want to help me, see the post I made on the MakerBot Google Group.

tl;dr: Get 8mm smooth rods. They’re the best.

I was going to notify Vimeo of this huge security hole, but then, after test-downloading a track (it has since been deleted from my computer), I noticed that the bitrate of the file was 64kbps. 64kbps is good enough quality to give you a sense of the song but too poor quality to use in a video or listen to regularly. This way, they can give you a full preview of the song without worrying about piracy of the full-length song preview.

Clever Vimeo.

I also took an HD video.

On a slightly related subject, I finally assembled the Magnetic Rotary Encoder board!

Sorry for the poor DoF; I was shooting from a bad angle.

It’s pretty cool. The surface-mount soldering, while not impossible, is still a pain in the butt. Also, getting the rosin flux off the board was fairly difficult, too. I feel like Hackaday did a how-to for using flux, but I can’t find the post right now. If any of you has a good method or a link to a good method of removing rosin flux, leave a comment.