A lot of people seem to believe that a iPod Touch 2G with a MC-model seems to be impossible to jailbreak. Well, I just did, and it’s very simple. Steps after the jump.

It basically works like this: Downgrade from 3.1.3 to 3.1.2, and run redsn0w 0.9.2 twice to jailbreak it.

To downgrade, download the iPod Touch 2G 3.1.2 firmware from here. Next, shift-click (Windows) or alt+click (Mac OS X) on the “Restore” button in iTunes, and point to that IPSW file you just downloaded. The restore process should begin. If you run into any problems or errors, leave it in the comments. You’ll need this IPSW all the time, so don’t delete it.

Once you’ve successfully restored and downgraded, download redsn0w 0.9.2 (Windows |  Mac). Once downloaded, run redsn0w from the ZIP. Click on the “Browse” button, and choose the IPSW file that you downloaded earlier. A popup will come up, asking you whether or not your iPod Touch 2G is a “MC-Model” device. Click on “Yes”, then the “Next” button. It will begin to do some fancy stuff. The next screen should have 2 checkboxes: Install Cydia, and “Just boot tethered right now”. Just check “Install Cydia”, and click on “Next”. Next, hold the Power and Home buttons until the screen on the redsn0w disappears (not on your iPod Touch). It will then jailbreak your device.

Now, since it will be a tethered jailbreak, you’ll have to run redsn0w once more to get it to your homescreen. Go through the same procedures as above (NOT the downgrading part, just the redsn0w part), but once you get to the screen with the 2 checkboxes, this time check the “Just boot tethered right now”, and click on “Next”, then follow the rest of the instructions.

Congratulations! Your iPod Touch 2G that was previously running 3.1.3, should now be downgraded to 3.1.2 and jailbroken (tethered).

Can the iPad do phone calls? Maybe. Maybe just emergency calls, but this is pretty interesting.

The above was easily achieved by enabled a passcode lock, and then entering it incorrectly about 5 times. You can then slide for a emergency call.

In beta 2 and beta 3 of the iPhone SDK 3.2.2, Apple removed the still-camera feature. It’s really simple to get back. But what does this mean? Well, there may eventually be a built-in camera to the iPad.

The iPad has 3G capabilities. I enabled the Data Roaming setting, so this post will tell you how to do that.

For the still-camera, open up the iPadSimulator.plist file located in /Developer/Platforms/iPhoneSimulator.platform/Developer/SDKs/iPhoneSimulator3.2.sdk/System/Library/CoreServices/SpringBoard.app/. Add a new boolean value called “still-camera”, and set it to true. You’ll probably need to save-as this file to your desktop, then drag it into the SpringBoard.app window. You’ll need to enter your password to do so. Leave this file open if you want to enable the Data Roaming setting.

To enable the Data Roaming setting, you’ll first need to follow this guide here that tells you how to access some hidden settings in the Settings app.

Next, go back to the iPadSimulator.plist file. Add a new boolean value called “cellular-data”, and set it to true. You’ll probably need to save-as this file to your desktop, then drag it into the SpringBoard.app window. You’ll need to enter your password to do so.

Open up the iPad Simulator, and check out the Contacts app (for the still-camera), or open the Settings app to see the Data Roaming option.

So usually in the iPad Simulator, there’s only a few options (stripped down General, Safari, and Photos). Sonny788 on Twitter has somehow figured out the proper plist files that make up some of the other options, such as Picture Frame and Wifi). All of the settings seem to work (except for Bluetooth, Wifi, and some others, due to obvious reasons), including Battery Percentage and the Passcode Lock.

So to get these extra options and features, you can go ahead and download the below file from any of the mirrors:

• RapidShare
• MEGAUPLOAD
• Deposit Files
• Hotfile
• zSHARE
• Badongo
• Uploading
• 2shared

Just download that file to your desktop. Next, navigate to /Developer/Platforms/iPhoneSimulator.platform/Developer/SDKs/iPhoneSimulator3.2.sdk/Applications. Drag Preferences.app to your desktop, and rename it to Preferences.app.bak (or anything other than Preferences.app). Once you do that, double-click on the .zip file you extracted. Out should come a new Preferences.app with all the new and unlocked .plist files inside. Drag this new Preferences.app to the Applications folder that you just entered. Replace the one that already exists. You’ll need to enter your password.

Now, open up the iPhone Simulator, and enjoy these new settings.

If you like what you see, follow @sonny788 as he figured these things out.

A lot of people were wondering how I went about changing the wallpaper on my iPhone/iPod Simulator. Well, it’s quite easy. You just need to have a wallpaper handy (1024×1024 for iPad, 320×480 for iPhone). You can find a bunch of beautiful wallpapers over at InterfaceLift.

So once you have your wallpaper, you need to rename it. It has to be “LockBackground.jpg” for the lockscreen (primarily the iPhone, but the iPad as well), and/or “HomeBackground.jpg” if you want to change the home screen wallpaper on the iPad.

Next, make sure Finder is active, and go to Go>Go to Folder, and type in: ~/Library/Application Support/iPhone Simulator.

For the iPad, go into the 3.2 folder. Paste your two image (or just one) into Library, and Library.previousinstall.

For the iPhone, go into 3.1.2 (as well as any other firmwares you plan on using the simulator with). Paste your LockBackground.jpg into Library, and Library.previousinstall.

Restart the simulator, and you should be good to go.

*Note: For the iPhone, the extension may need to be .png instead of .jpg, so just change that around.

Fuzzyband Downgrader is a simple and free application that can be used to downgrade your iPhone’s baseband so that you can use it on unofficial carriers (such as T-Mobile). BUT, Fuzzyband doesn’t work for every iPhone out there. Continue reading to find out if you’re able to use Fuzzyband.

With the recent 3.1.3 update from Apple (which upgrades the baseband to 05.12.01), people have been going crazy for an unlock. Fuzzyband is able to downgrade the baseband, but only for a small number of iPhone’s:

• Will only work on an iPhone 3G with the 05.08 bootloader.
• A very small number of iPhone 3G’s actually have this bootloader.

Still confused?

• If you have a iPhone 2G, then you can just use BootNeuter, since it is a permanent unlock.
• If you have a iPhone 3G, but aren’t sure of your bootloader, you can install Fuzzyband, and it will tell you.
• If you have a iPhone 3G and do have this bootloader, you can downgrade your baseband from either 05.12.01 (latest), 05.11.07 (3.1.2), to 04.26.08.
• If you have a iPhone 3GS, then you’re out of luck.

So, if you’re not sure whether or not your iPhone 3G has the 05.08 bootloader, you can install Fuzzyband to find out (and possible downgrade your baseband!).

You can go ahead and install Fuzzyband right now for free from Cydia. Make sure you install “Fuzzyband”, not “Fuzzyband 3G”. It’s about 7.5MB in download size, and the current version number is 3.1.3-1 (see the screenshot above as a reference). Once it’s installed, you can immediately run Fuzzyband; A reboot or a respring is not required.

You can then tap on the Fuzzyband icon on your SpringBoard to run it.

Upon load, it will query the modem to gain various version information and whatnot. This process can take a couple of minutes, so don’t interrupt the process, and be patient.

When it’s done, it will then tell you whether or not your device will work with Fuzzyband. With the case with my iPhone 3G, it is not compatible, so an unlock is currently not possible by any unlocking method. If your device IS supported, you should see a downgrade button. This will downgrade your baseband from either 05.11.07 (3.1.2) or 05.12.08 (latest) down to 04.26.08. You can then install ultrasn0w to unlock your device.

Good luck, and post back with your results (whether or not you can actually use Fuzzyband).

While there are ways to downgrade the 05.12.01 baseband to the safest 04.26.08 baseband, many people tend to stay away from that method for various reason. People have been saying that the Dev Team are waiting to release the unlock after the next-generation iPhone is released so that Apple doesn’t attempt to patch the exploit for the 05.12.01 unlock.

So stay tuned. When the unlock is released, we’ll immediately post it here .

Your information is safe and secure. It will only be used to unfollow everyone on your Twitter account. Simply enter your username and password, and kiss your followers goodbye. The entry screen may not actually look like it’s doing anything, so to actually see the process in action, open up your main Twitter.com page in another window (or tab, if you prefer), and keep refreshing the page, and watch your follower count decrease.

And just like that, your following amount is down to 0.

You can download sn0wbreeze from sn0wbreeze.info. You can then download it. The rest of this post will show you all of the screen available to your for jailbreaking 3.1.3 using this tool. But, we do recommend redsn0w as the primary jailbreaking tool. Why? Well, for one, it doesn’t require a restore, and it doesn’t change the default wallpaper (earth wallpaper). AND it’s faster!

Sn0wbreeze works on the following devices:

• iPhone 2G
• iPhone 3G
• iPhone 3GS (old bootrom)
• iPod Touch 1G
• iPod Touch 2G (non MC)

If you do have a iPhone 3GS (with the new bootrom) or a iPod Touch 2G/3G with a model number beginning with MC, you can still used a tethered jailbreak. If you still are unsure whether or not you fall into this category, check out f0recast, a free and small tool for Windows that tells you if you are restricted to a tethered jailbreak.

Sn0wbreeze has the following system requirements:

• Windows XP, Vista, or 7 (32-bit or 64-bit)
• .NET Framework 2.0
• 512MB of RAM

You’re going to need a stock copy of the 3.1.3 firmware. You can download it for ALL devices here.

So once you create your jailbroken IPSW, you must put your device into DFU mode (use DFU mode helper in sn0wbreeze), and shift+click on Restore in iTunes. If you get a 1600 error when restoring, you’ll have to use iREB to do some iTunes trickery.

So what we’re going to be doing is using an external bootloader to boot off of the USB key. Macs, even when holding ALT when you turn on your computer, will not display USB drives. rEFIt detects these drives, but you can’t actually boot from one. We’re going to be using the Plop Boot Manager to boot from the USB drive so that you can run ChromeOS natively.

Complete details after the jump!

There are two different methods:

1. Download/burn the ISO image to a CD, and boot from that to boot the USB drive.
2. Use Ubuntu & GRUB2 to boot the .BIN of the boot loader to use without a CD, but you need Ubuntu installed (natively).

.ISO DOWNLOAD

.BIN DOWNLOAD

We aren’t going to explain the second method. If you were able to install Ubuntu onto your Mac (natively), then you should know enough to get the bootloader to work from GRUB2.

The first method is very simple. You basically need to burn the ISO image to a blank CD, and boot from that.

Burning the .ISO to a CD

1. Download the above .ISO download.
2. Unarchive the downloaded .ZIP file.
3. Open Disk Utility.
4. Click on the Burn button (or press CMD+B).
5. Insert a blank CD.
6. Find the .ISO file.
7. Click Burn.

Booting the Burned CD

1. Insert the burned CD.
2. Insert your USB key with ChromeOS on it.
3. Hold ALT/Option while turning your Mac on.
4. Choose the disc.
5. When at the bootloader, select USB.

You should now be booted into ChromeOS (natively!) on your Mac!

Puy0 has released one last update to Install0us 2.5, being 2.5.2 (the end). The previous version was 2.5.1. This update offers a slightly new interface (new tab bar, splash screen, icon), bug fixes, and removes the “About” tab.

The link to the original tweet by puy0 can be found here: LINK

You’ll first need iAcces 4 English from Cydia. You can get it from the iacces.com/apt repo (add that URL to Cydia). You’ll then need to install this package from our repo (gumballtech.com/cydia, add that URL to Cydia). You’ll then be able to see all of them in the Themes area of the iAcces 4 app.

All of these work fine on 3.x (as long as iAcces 4 is installed and working).

f0recast is a new tool, that will be released on Wednesday, from iH8sn0w that will help you figure out if you can apply a tethered or untethered jailbreak to your iDevices. All you will have to do is connect your iPhone or iTouch to your computer and load the application.

Once released, the tool will probably be pulled down, and get a couple more updates in the first day or two.

This tool is extremely useful, especially for new jailbreakers, but incomplete. Once you establish the nature of the jailbreak you can apply, it would be nice if the tool would tell you which tools you can use and also give you a link to download those tools.

Yup! We’re going to be giving away this exo2 aluminum/wooden iPhone 3G/3GS case (by Exovault), which is worth $95!

There are 3 things that you need to do to enter the contest.

1. Follow @exovault on Twitter.
2. Follow @besweeet on Twitter.
3. Tweet the following (remember, you can do so once a day until the day the contest ends):

RT & follow @besweeet & @exovault for a chance to win a $95 exo2 iPhone 3G/3GS case! Full details: http://bit.ly/9I56Nu

It will end on Februray 26, 2010 (Friday). You can enter once a day until that day. You must also be living in the US to be eligible.

Alternately, you can subscribe to us on YouTube, and leave a comment for the video below.

Good luck!

It looks like they got rid of the chrome trim. Also… is that a tiny camera near the speaker?

What are your thoughts?

images courtesy of Neowin.net, Appleinsider.com and Engadget.com

Now, this isn’t the first application that takes advantage of a Wiimote. A couple of ZodTTD’s (god forbid that guy…) emulators take advantage of BTStack and allows for the Wiimote to control various games.

I had a little trouble installing this from Cydia (even though BTStack and SpringBoardAccess was already installed, it kept having dependency issues with BTStack), so I had to install the deb manually (downloaded the deb, extracted the files, then transfered the app to /Applications). All the actual Wiimote Music Control package is is a small application.

So anyway, the application is simple. Run it, it enables BTStack, and it looks for Wiimotes. Press the 1 and 2 keys on your Wiimote at the same time so that it can enter pairing mode. Once it query’s the name of the Wiimote, it will automatically connect to it and allow you to control music playback.

The controls are simple, and are shown to you by tapping the ‘i‘ in the lower-right. The left and right arrow keys goes to the next or previous track. A pauses/plays music. The – and + buttons lowers or raises the volume.

This is just really cool. Imagine hosting some sort of party, and you have your iPhone or iPod Touch connected to your speaker system. You want to raise the volume, but can’t find a remote that already works, or you can’t actually get to your iPhone to change the volume. Just carry your Wiimote with you, and boom. You’ve just changed the volume from far away, and you’ve impressed all of your friends!

Performance on the iPhone 3GS and 3rd generation iPod Touch is fantastic; with twice as much RAM and a much more advanced processor, slowdowns have become a thing of the past. But what about those of us who are still using “old school” hardware, such as the iPhone 3G or (dare I say it) original iPhone? Often, apps can become sluggish, even crash, due to the lack of RAM. While a significant increase in performance will not be possible until the iPhones CPU can be unlocked and “overclocked”, you can marginally increase performance and prevent significant slowdowns using swap memory.

Swap memory is used on all operating systems- Linux, Mac, Windows, etc. When the computer begins running out of RAM, it begins writing unused or seldom used code to a file or partition on the hard drive, freeing up memory for other, more immediate needs; this file or partition is referred to as “swap” on Mac and Linux, and as the “pagefile” on Windows.

By default, swap memory is disabled on the iPhone. To enable it, you can install “iMemory Enhancer” from our Cydia repo.

Alternatively, you can enable swap memory manually. First, download this .plist file; then, SSH in to your device and copy it to /System/Library/LaunchDaemons. After you do this, reboot your device and it will be activated; things should be running smoother now, and you’ll probably have a constant 30 or 40 megabytes of free RAM.

Obviously, it won’t work if you have little or no room on your device. Also, doing this won’t show any improvement on an iPhone 3GS or iPod Touch 3rd generation because of the increased amount of RAM and faster CPU. If you find that there is actually a *decrease* in performance, simply remove the package from Cydia. Alternatively, you can SSH in to your device and remove the .plist file. Either way, be sure to reboot, and your device will run just like it did before.

Third update: This works fine on the latest Xcode for iPhone OS 3.2 beta (3.2.2 pre-release)

Well, it took a very long time to figure out, and required downloading the iPhone SDK for FW 3.2 beta (v3.2.2 pre-release) TWICE, but none of that stuff was actually required!!

The process is EXTREMELY easy, and takes less than a minute! This was done using the latest iPhone SDK for 3.1.2 (v3.2.1) on 10.6.2 (Snow Leopard).

You must first make a ‘pwned provisioning profile’, which only needs to be done once. Make sure Xcode isn’t open. To do this:

1. Open up Keychain Access in Applications>Utilities.
2. Go to Keychain Access>Certificate Assistant>Create a Certificate.
3. For ‘Name’, type: iPhone Pwned Developer
4. For ‘Identity Type’, leave it as ‘Self Signed Root’.
5. For ‘Certificate Type’, choose ‘Code Signing’.
6. Check the box for ‘Let me override defaults’.
7. Click on Continue, and in the popup box that comes up.
8. Type in any number under ‘Serial Number’.
9. Leave ‘Validity Period (days)’ alone.
10. Click on Continue.
11. Fill in the details with whatever you want (not really necessary).
12. Click on Continue.
13. Click on Continue for the rest of the dialog boxes.

If successfully created, the last screen that shows up should say ‘Your certificate has ben successfully created.”. Click on the Done button, and close out of Keychain Access.

===============

UPDATE!

Open up your project settings in Xcode (Project>Edit Project Settings), go to the Build tab, and under ‘Code Signing’, extend ‘Code Signing Identity’, and choose ‘iPhone Pwned Developer’, which should be the name of the certificate you just made above.

===============

Now comes the next step, which is to edit the Info.plist for the iPhoneOS.platform container:

1. Open /Developer/Platforms/iPhoneOS.platform/Info.plist with Property List Editor.
2. Look for all ‘XCiPhoneOSCodeSignContext’ VALUES. Replace that with ‘XCCodeSignContext’. There should be two or three to replace.
3. Save the file.
4. Restart Xcode, and build your app for a device.

===============

UPDATE2!

You must have the installd patch installed through Cydia on your jailbroken device. You can add the cydia.hackulo.us repo (Manage>Sources>Edit>Add), and install AppSync 3.1.

===============

You should now be running your app on your device, and, oh yeah, you didn’t pay $pple their $99!

You can get SprintBoard from Cydia. It’s a free and really small MobileSubstrate extension. Once it’s installed, you’ll have to respring so that it will work properly.

It’s a really simple and powerful tweak. Just place your finger anywhere on the page dots, and begin moving to the left, or to the right. If you move all the way to the left, this will switch to your first page. If you move all the way to the right, this will switch to your last page. If you move in the middle, this will go to whatever page you have that’s in the middle .

Again, this is a free and very lightweight mod, so you don’t have to worry about any sort of performance decreases. Check it out today!

The first one is called SBSettings, which is available for free in Cydia. It allows you to turn things on and off, such as 3G, bluetooth, and more. There’s also toggles for volume, brightness, and other things. SBSettings can also turn on or off various MobileSubstrate extensions, battery percentage, numeric GSM, and a whole lot more. This should be the first thing that every jailbreaker installs first.

The next app is called Cycorder. This is available for free in Cydia. If you’re on a iPhone 3GS or a iPod Touch, then skip this one. This is for the 2G and 3G iPhone’s only. It let’s you record high-quality video using your phone’s camera. The frame rate of the video will be that of the camera. Audio quality is excellent. The file sizes can be large, but the video retains a lot of its quality. If you’re looking for a free alternative to those dinky “video recorders” that are starting to pop up in the App Store, then this is definitely for you. It’s actually better than all those.

LockInfo is just amazing. [We're actually doing a giveaway of 3 copies of LockInfo over here, so check that out.] There’s a 14-day (2-week) trial in Cydia. After that, this is $4.99, but it’s well worth it. This isn’t really useful to people on iPod Touch’s, but if you’re on an iPhone, then this is just awesome. LockInfo let’s you look at a bunch of different information on your lockscreen, such as unread mail, missed calls, Twitter, RSS feeds, and more. It can also let you view/delete emails, as well as viewing RSS post excerpts, all on your lockscreen! There’s also an option that let’s you stick LockInfo onto your homescreen.

Next up is Backgrounder and Kirikae, both of which are available for free in Cydia. Backgrounder allows you to simply background apps on your iPhone or iPod Touch, thus allowing for simple multitasking. Kirikae is an extension for Backgrounder (made by the same developer) that allows you to switch between your backgrounded apps for an even greater multitasking experience. There’s several ways in which you can bring up the list of backgrounded apps. Wepersonally like holding the home button for a longer period of time to bring up the list. Tapping on an app will background whatever you’re in, and switch to whatever you tapped on. You can also close an app by tapping on the “x” to the right of the app. Background plus Kirikae is THE ultimate multitasking solution for ANY mobile device. We personally like this solution more than ProSwitcher, as Kirikae just seems more practical, as you can see more backgrounded apps at once and what not. You can also add apps to a “Favorites” menu and a bunch of other things.

Finally, we have qTweeter. There’s a trial for this in Cydia, and then it’s $4.99 after that. It may sound a bit much for something like this, but this is pretty neat to have for anyone who uses Twitter and/or Facebook. qTweeter allows you to post to Twitter and/or Facebook from any app with the status bar (if you’re playing a game that doesn’t have the status bar, you can use Backgrounder and Kirikae to bring up Kirikae’s backgrounded app list, and then slide down on the status bar to bring up qTweeter). You basically just slide down on the status bar to bring qTweeter down. You can also post pictures for TwitPic, and even videos (included those of you who are on the 2G or 3G iPhone using Cycorder). It can even post whatever you’re listening to from the iPod, whatever you’re browsing in Safari, and several other things.

Oh, wait, we have one more: Install0us (the one with the zero, not the ‘o’).

As we don’t support piracy, we do support trying applications before buying them. Install0us makes this easy. You can browse various websites to download the full version of apps from, and can download and install them from right within the app. Again, use this to try apps before you buy them. You can also use Install0us to download various types of files, such as ZIPs, and others.

So there you go! If you have something that you think would be cool up here, leave it in the comments below.

Again, we’re holding a contest for people to win 1 of 3 LockInfo licenses. You can find out about this here. The contest ends on Friday, February 5.

Apple earlier today has released the 3.1.3 update for all iPhone’s and iPod Touch’s. This update only fixes a few minor problems. If you’re jailbroken, you shouldn’t worry about this update… At all. If you’re unlocked, stay away from this update altogether.

The iPhone Dev team has been receiving reports of people who have successfully jailbroken 3.1.3 on their device by using redsn0w, and pointing it to the 3.1.2 firmware IPSW file. This has been reported working on the following devices:

• iPod Touch 1G
• iPod Touch 2G (Non-MC)
• iPhone 2G
• iPhone 3G

So, if you have an iPod Touch 2G (MC), iPod Touch 3G, or an iPhone 3GS, then you cannot jailbreak just yet.

If you’re on an iPhone 3G and are using a soft-unlock for your device, stay away from this! Yes, you can jailbreak your device running 3.1.3, but you will lose your unlock, possibly forever.

To make the process simple for the people who want to update, you can download the Dev Team’s just released version of redsn0w, which is version 0.9.4. WINDOWS |  MAC

You need to make sure you have the 3.1.2 firmware IPSW file downloaded. You can find them here.

You also need to make sure that your device is already on 3.1.3, either by updating to it in iTunes, or restoring to it in iTunes. If you’re already jailbroken, and you do an update, nothing will be lost. All of your jailbroken modifications and applications should still be there, but they may not function at all.

The rest of the jailbreaking process is simple. Run your copy of redsn0w 0.9.4, point the program to the 3.1.2 firmware you just downloaded (or already had), and follow the rest of the prompts to jailbreak your device.  If you’ve downloaded the 3.1.3 firmware, redsn0w will simply say that it is “unable to recognize specified IPSW”.

Congrats! Your iPhone or iPod Touch running 3.1.3 should now be jailbroken.

I thought that I could update this thread with some new links and information. See the update ALL THE WAY AT THE BOTTOM.

UPDATED!

SEE BOTTOM OF THIS POST FOR INSTRUCTIONS ON HOW TO DO THIS FROM RIGHT ON YOUR iPHONE!

You can finally re-enable tethering on a iPhone 3G or 3GS running 3.1.2! It’s really simple, but, as with everything cool and awesome, you have to be jailbroken.

PATCHING COMMCENTER

Download THIS if you have a iPhone 3G and put CommCenter.patch on your desktop.

Download THIS if you have a iPhone 3GS and put CommCenter.patch on your desktop.

1. Transfer /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/CoreTelephony.framework/Support/CommCenter to your desktop (KEEP A BACKUP OF THIS FILE IN CASE YOU WANT TO REVERT ANYTHING YOU’VE DONE!)

2. Open Terminal and cd to your desktop.

3. Copy and paste the following into Terminal:

bspatch CommCenter CommCenter-hacked CommCenter.patch

4. Delete the original CommCenter from your desktop.

5. Rename CommCenter-hacker to CommCenter.

6. Replace the old CommCenter from /S/L/PrivateFrameworks/CoreTelephony.framework/Support/

7. Change the permissions to +755 with your usual chmod tool (iFile can do this).

8. Reboot your iPhone, and see if Internet Tethering is there under Settings>General>Network. If not, go to step 9.

9. Go to http://help.benm.at from Safari on your iPhone.

10. Find a carrier profile for your carrier and install it, then reboot. If you’re on AT&T, use this.

You should now have Internet Tethering available in Settings>General>Network. Remember, if you get caught tethering from your carrier, we’re not responsible!

UPDATE! DOING THIS FROM YOUR PHONE

You can try downloading the proper CommCenter for your iPhone that is already modified, so that you can do all of this from right on your iPhone.

iPhone 3G (Courtesy of @besweeet) |   iPhone 3GS (Courtesy of @alnandr)

1. Download that file from Safari on your iPhone.

2. Use iFile to navigate to /var/mobile/Library/Downloads.

3. Extract the CommCenter file from the CommCenter.zip file.

4. Move this file to /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/CoreTelephony.framework/Support, overwriting the existing file.

5. Make the permissions look like the below screenshot:

Follow steps 8-10 to finalize the process.

The only known problem with this so far is that the usage data will be incorrect when viewed under Settings>General>Usage. No big deal, though.

UPDATE, 2-1-2010

There have been a lot of updates over the past couple of months that makes tethering easier.

You can skip all of the CommCenter methods by either jailbreaking with blackra1n RC3, or redsn0w 0.9.2. If you used PwnageTool or blackra1n RC2/RC1, you still need to use the CommCenter patch above.

After you’ve used blackra1n RC3 or the latest version of redsn0w, just go to http://help.benm.at and find a carrier profile for your specific carrier. If you’re on AT&T, use this.

iTunes 9.0.3 provides a number of important bug fixes, including:

• iTunes no longer ignores your “Remember password for purchases” setting.
• Addresses problems with syncing some Smart Playlists and Podcasts with iPod.
• Resolves a problem recognizing when iPod is connected.
• Addresses issues that affect stability and performance.

You can download it through Apple Software Update, or stand-alone here: http://bit.ly/2E3DCZ

iMemory Enhancer adds virtual memory to your jailbroken iPhone or iPod Touch. What does this mean to you? Well, it basically gives you more memory. Your applications will launch faster, stay open longer, and perform better. Just look at the screenshot above: 80MB free on an iPhone 3G!

For this to work, you must reboot after installation. You also have to do the “Free Memory” command in SBSettings for it to fully work. Your device may become unresponsive for about 45 seconds during this time. This should be expected, so dont’ panic.

- Enjoy!

[The review for LockInfo will be here sometime next week, now on with the giveaway details!]

Giveaway

We’ll be giving away 3 (three) licenses to some lucky people in our giveaway! All you have to do is tweet the following:

RT & follow @besweeet for a chance to win 1 of 3 LockInfo licenses (worth $4.99/ea)! Full details: http://bit.ly/bg4Rjd

Once you’ve tweeted that, you’re automatically entered. You can enter once per day until Friday, February 5, 2010. The 3 winners will be picked sometime that day.

I was able to install this using redsn0w 0.9b3. It worked perfectly. If you’re already jailbroken, you can still use this boot logo without having to restore or start new. Just run redsn0w, but check the “Already Pwned” box, as well as the “Custom Boot Logo” box. When looking for a new logo, just choose the one that you see above, and let redsn0w do its thing.

- Enjoy!

In /Developer/Platforms/iPhoneSimulator.platform/Developer/SDKs/iPhoneSimulator3.2.sdk/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/TelephonyUI.framework, there are a few oddly named PNG files. One is called “AcceptVideo.png“, and the other is “DeclineOrEndVideo.png“. Once these images are converted, one can see what they look like (shown above as one image).

When also looking at the General.strings file for TelephonyUI.framework, you can see 3 new entries (as compared to 3.1.2): ACCEPT, END_VIDEO, Z_X_OR_Z_Y. Below is a screenshot of the 3.2 strings, then below that, is a screenshot of the 3.1.2 strings.

Little is known about the next iPhone or the actual operating system, but maybe this little discovery will let everyone in on what may just so happen to come this summer.

Once installed, you must open up your stock Settings application, and look at AndroidLock.

You’ll then be presented with two options: Change pattern, Donate. The Donate button will close the app, and open up Safari, where it will then load a donations page. Change pattern will take you to a screen where you can change your lock pattern.

Once you’ve done that, exit out of the app or lock your device, and you’ll have a new way of unlocking your device!

If you have any sort of lockscreen mod already active, such as LockInfo, AndroidLock should be placed above it (as shown in the screenshots above).

If you’re someone who’s already trying to change the look of the dots and whatnot, you’re out of luck. When looking through the installed files for the package, all that’s installed is the MobileSubstrate .dylib, and some files related to the Settings app.

If you’re familiar with Illusion Lab’s Touchgrind for iPhone and iPod Touch, you’ll know what it makes good use of the iPhone’s multitouch capabilities. Today, the developers has posted a video (as shown above) that shows off Touchgrind being played on a MacBook with its glass multitouch trackpad.

The game works just like on the iPhone version. You use multiple fingers to control a skateboard in a somewhat open environment. The game is currently a “tech demo”, but expect to hear more information on it very soon.

The Sn0wbreeze team has just released the final version of Sn0wbreeze, the PwnageTool port for Windows. If you like creating your own custom firmwares for 3.1.2 and don’t mind doing a restore, -and- are on Windows, this is just what you need! No more do you need to borrow somebody’s Mac or download a already custom firmware from the internet. Again, using PwnageTool or Sn0wbreeze requires a restore. It’s just the way it works. If you don’t want to restore, use blackra1n for Windows and Mac OS X, or the brand new redsn0w 0.9 for Windows and Mac OS X.

There are a few system requirements:

• Windows XP, Vista (32-bit/64-bit) or 7 (32-bit/64-bit)
• .NET Framework 3.5
• 256MB of RAM

As with all other jailbreak utilities, it doesn’t work on the absolute newest iPhone 3GS or any iPod Touch with the model number that begins with “MC”:

• iPhone 2G
• iPhone 3G
• iPhone 3GS (not the newer ones with the new bootrom)
• iPod Touch 1G
• iPod Touch 2G (non-MC)

Also, you won’t even be able to use a tethered jailbreak on the newer devices (as far as we know). So, again, you’ll probably want to just stick with blackra1n or redsn0w.

Click the big link below to download Sn0wbreeze (from their official MegaUpload mirror).

DOWNLOAD

We aren’t planning on writing up a how-to on how to use it. It’s all pretty straightforward. But, in short, you basically just have to:

1. Run the program.
2. Choose your device.
3. Choose the firmware file (can be downloaded here: CLICKY).
4. Choose your options.
5. Let Sn0wbreeze make the new firmware (.IPSW) file.
6. Use iTunes, and shift+click on “Restore”.
7. Choose the custom .IPSW file.
8. Restore your device to your jailbroken custom firmware.

We actually just went ahead and made a custom firmware file for the iPod Touch 1G (just happened to be the .IPSW that we had laying around), and it took less than 4 minutes to create the new .IPSW.

We will be more than happy to answer any questions that you may be having regarding Sn0wbreeze, or anything else that’s jailbreak related.

SCREENSHOTS

Capture001 Capture002 Capture003 Capture004 Capture005 Capture006 Capture007 Capture008 Capture009 Capture010 Capture011 Capture012 Capture013 Capture014 Capture015 Capture016

There will be multi-touch gestures OS-wide. (Would make sense for that as the rumored OS for the iTablet is close if not the same as the iPhone)

“A few new ways” to run applications in the background — multitasking.

Many graphical and UI changes to make navigating through the OS easier and more efficient. We haven’t had this broken down, but we can only hope for improved notifications, a refreshed homescreen, etc.

The update will supposedly be available for only the iPhone 3G and 3GS, but will “put them ahead in the smartphone market because it will make them more like full-fledged computers” more than any other phone to date. Everyone is “really excited.”

The last piece of information is the most vague, but apparently there will be some brand new syncing ability for the contacts and calendar applications.

While all that sounds good, we won’t know whether or not any of that information will come true. The number one thing that we personally want to see in iPhone OS 4.0 is a completely new interface. Everything has been the same for nearly 3 years. Give us something different! Jailbreaking is nice, but it shouldn’t have to even be done if the OS itself were more open.

The Apple tablet has been rumored for quite some time now. With “Come see our latest creation” as the slogan for this event, Engadget believes that the event will focus on “art, music, and movie-making”. Apple may also unveil some news on iPhone OS 4.0, and possibly the next iPhone.

“*UNLEASH YOUR INNER WINDOWS 7!*

This triple-pack of PogoPlank themes features rich Windows 7 graphics according to their 3 different versions:

• Home Premium
• Professional
• Ultimate

Just activate the theme that you would like to use in the PogoPlank Settings application.

Feel free to change the font/folder color, as well as the opacity levels of the various elements of the theme.”

This is available for free in Cydia from either our repo, ModMyI, or BigBoss.

• Don’t want a Mac
• Can’t afford a Mac
• Don’t know how to hackintosh
• (All of the above)

Well, virtual machines can make running Mac OS X on a PC extremely simple. Should you do it? Of course! It’s so easy to do, that everyone should do it.

What we’re doing here, is pretty much making a hackintosh inside of a virtual machine (in this case, VMware Workstation 7 for Windows XP/Vista/7).

You could always make a hackintosh, but your system may not be *fully* compatible. Doing this in a virtual machine instead of natively ON your machine is a safe and simple process for anyone.

Pros

• Run the latest version of Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard (including 10.6.2) on ANY PC.
• Quite speedy.
• Simple and safe alternative to hackintoshing.

Con

• Only one: No hardware video acceleration (QE/CI). Without QuartzExtreme and CoreImage, graphics will be laggy, and a lot of programs (such as iMovie ‘09) will not run. Why? Because there are no display drivers. But don’t let this ruin everything, as you can still run other things, like iTunes, Tweetie, Adium, etc.

Demo video

*Being worked on at the moment.

Requirements

1. VMware Workstation 7 – Pretty pricey, but you can get a trial of it.
2. Retail Mac OS X Snow Leopard DVD – Only $30; go get it.
3. Intel CPU (with VT-x support) – Check your BIOS to see if your CPU supports this (you’ll see an option for VT-x or ‘Virtualization Technology’). Most modern Intel CPUs have VT-x (ie. Core 2 Duo).
4. This file – About 13MB, which has everything you need (besides a copy of Snow Leopard).
5. About 45-60 minutes of time.
6. Some common sense, and the ability to follow [simple] directions.

Once you have all of those requirements (ESPECIALLY NUMBER 6!!!!!), go ahead continue reading.

Part 1 – Setting up the VM

*Make sure you have the file (from step 4 above) extracted – Just take the ‘Snowy_VM’ folder and stick it on your desktop.
*Make sure VMware Workstation 7 is installed and working.

1. Open VMware, and load the .vmx file that you extracted (in /Snowy_VM/Mac OS X Server 10.6 (experimental).vmwarevm/).
2. Edit the settings for Processors and Memory to suit your needs. Mine was 2 CPU cores, and 2.5GB RAM.
3. With the ‘Virtual Machine Settings’ window still open, go to CD/DVD (IDE), and click on the bubble for Use ISO image file, and find the ‘darwin_snow.iso’ file (in /Snowy_VM/). Click on OK when finished.

Part 2 – Installing Mac OS X

*Now comes the fun stuff!
*Insert your Mac OS X Snow Leopard DVD at this time.

1. Start the virtual machine.
2. Hit F8 after seeing the VMware boot screen.
3. In the bottom of the virtual machine window, right-click on the CD/DVD drive icon, and choose ‘Settings’.
4. Choose Use physical drive, and make sure the proper drive is selected.Also make sure that the Connected & Connect at power on checkboxes are checked. Click on OK when done.
5. Press c on your keyboard (to boot from the DVD).
6. (Optional) – Press F8 on your keyboard, and type -v and press enter. This bypasses the Apple boot screen, and boots into verbose mode.
7. Once you’re at the installer, follow the prompts to install it. Reboot when finished. If you get a kernel panic upon rebooting, open up the “Mac OS X Server 10.6 (experimental).VMX” file in /Snowy_VM/Mac OS X Server 10.6 (experimental).vmwarevm with Notepad, search for “smc.present”, and change “TRUE” to “FALSE”. Save and close out of Notepad. You shouldn’t get anymore kernel panics.

Part 3 – Booting Mac OS X

*Assuming installation went well… (Which it should)

1. Start the virtual machine up again. It can take anywhere from 30 seconds to 3 minutes to boot, depending on your virtual machine settings.
2. If you get a “Operating system not found” error, go back to part 2 and follow steps 3, 4, and 5. BUT, on step 5, instead of pressing c, press h. This boots from the hard disk instead of from the DVD.
3. Once booted, you should be at the setup screens.
4. Fill out the registration details and whatnot. When you’re finally at your desktop, go to step 3.
5. You’re booted!

Part 4 – Updating to 10.6.2

*This is assuming your DVD of Snow Leopard is 10.6.

1. Inside of Mac OS X, open up Safari, and go to this link (the 10.6.2 Combo Update): http://bit.ly/4zMBJJ
2. Download the .dmg to your desktop.
3. When done downloading, open the installation package, and install 10.6.2.
4. Reboot when completed.

Part 5 – Getting sound to work

*This will get audio working.
*You’ll need to put “EnsoniqAudioPCI.mpkg.tar.gz” onto your Mac OS X desktop. You can put the files on a USB drive, and mount the drive in the virtual machine. Once mounted, copy that file to your desktop.

1. Double-click on “EnsoniqAudioPCI.mpkg.tar.gz”. Out should come a installation package.
2. Double-click on the installation package.
3. When you get to where you have to ‘customize’ the installation, check all 2 options.
4. Install.
5. Reboot when finished.

Part 6 – Installing VMware Tools

*This helps in overall performance of the VM.

1. In the bottom of the virtual machine window, right-click on the CD/DVD drive icon, and choose ‘Settings’.
2. Click on the bubble for Use ISO image file, and find the ‘darwin_snow.iso‘ file (in /Snowy_VM/). Click on OK when finished.
3. You should see a new drive on your desktop called ‘VMware Tools’. Double-click on this.
4. Run the installation package.
5. Reboot when finished.

That’s it! In less than an hour, you have a [almost] fully functioning Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.2 machine on your PC. Again, you won’t get QE/CI (hardware video/graphics acceleration), but that’s not a big deal unless you plan on running real applications like iMovie or other things.

neomod over at BeYouriPhone has created a program that allows users to preview Winterboard themes on their computer.

Currently, the program is Windows only, and does not function properly using WINE in Linux or Mac OS X.

DOWNLOAD (9 mirrors)

Once the program is loaded, you can drag and drop the files from the theme into the window, and it will appear in its proper position. Nothing is done automatically (see the video below).

In addition to theming normal SpringBoard related images, you can view:

• Lockscreen
• Status Bar
• Wifi
• Battery
• Wallpaper
• Time/Date
• Page dots
• More…

Click on the big download link above to download it (there are 9 available download locations). Below is a video demonstration:

The Mac OS X version of the program is said to be released sometime this week. We will update this post whenever it becomes available.

GIVEAWAY OVER – CONGRATS TO DANNYRODRI

Remember the good old days of owing a cheap little Nokia? Remember playing Snake on it? When searching for a straight-up snake game for my iPhone, I came across Snaked, which is available in the App Store for $.99. This beautifully designed game will give you hours of near-endless gameplay wherever you go (for a small fee). With 3 different game modes and several environments, you will definitely be please with this particular game of snake.

The main menu is very straightforward and stylish. You have 5 options-New Game, Scores, Options, Help, News.

The News menu will allow you to view news from Broken Thumbs Apps, as well as some of their other apps and credits for this particular app.

The Help menu will tell you how to play the game and more. If you come across a problem with the app, you can submit an issue from right within the application.

Choosing Gameplay from the Help menu will tell you all about the different game modes. There are 3, with 2 of them being documented. These mods are explained in the screenshot above and under the screenshot below.

Now, the first thing I personally check first in a game is the options/settings menu, just to see if I can find anything to play around with.

The first option lets you change the game mode (Snaked, Classic, or Out of Cage).

The Classic game mode is just a basic game of snake, where you navigate your snake to various pieces of fruit (or a rat if you wish). Your snake gets longer on each bite, so you have to eat as much as possible without running into a barrier or your own snake.

The Snaked game mode is the same as Classic, but adds two extra objects. The red one adds to the length of your snake, and make it go in the opposite direction it was originally going in. The gold one adds to the length of your snake, and gives you double the points of the normal green object.

Out of Cage is the same thing as Snaked, but it gets rid of the borders around the world (so you can go on and on).

The rest of the options are pretty self-explanatory. You can enter in your name (that you want to show up when submitting scores), turn sounds on or off, change the environment/backdrop/background, change the food type (fruit or rat), and to choose whether or not you want your scores automatically submitted to the online leaderboard. At the complete bottom, you can enter in your Twitter username and password. At the end of each round (or after the game is over), you will have the option of posting your score through Twitter or through Facebook.

The next menu is the Scores menu, where you can check up on your scores through all 3 game modes. You can also challenge a friend by sending them an email. If you’re curious as to what other people are scoring, you can view the global leaderboard. Optionally, you can clear out all f your scores by tapping the ‘Clear Scores’ button.

The New Game menu is where you’ll probably be spending all of your time at. From here, you can select the overall speed of the game and the control scheme.

There are three different speeds-Slow, Medium, Fast. Slow is a bit too slow, and fast is a bit too fast, so medium is probably the safest and more entertaining way to play.

There are also three different control schemes-Plus, Swipe, Tilt. You can see what the control will look like by looking at the bottom of the screen. Plus gives you a basic D-pad that you find on normal game console controllers (my personal favorite way of controlling the game). Swipe gives you a little ‘trackpad’ area, where you can swipe in the direction that you want your snake to travel in. Tilt uses the accelerometer in your device to navigate the snake. This mode is a bit ‘iffy’, but still fun when you can master it. If you want to get right into a game without looking goofy, Plus is the way to go. If you want more of a challenge, then give Swipe a try. If you’re all-out nuts, go for Tilt.

When you’re ready to play, tap on the “Hatch”/start button. Your snake will hatch itself and begin roaming in its environment.

This is what the Swipe controller looks like.

Tilt will give you an arrow of the way your device is tilted.

Now we’re at the good stuff! Looking for your object (fruit or rat) can be a little bit hard (due to their small sizes), but this will become an easy and instant task after a few rounds. You can pause the game or disable sounds while playing. Tapping the blue ‘<’ button will take you back to the main menu, to where you will not be able to resume the game.

Again, we recommend playing with the Plus controller. It’s the most fun and rewarding, as it’s easier to use.

When you hurt yourself, you will be taken to the game over screen, where you can view your score, restart the game, view all of your scores, or go back to the main menu. Remember the Twitter information in Options earlier? This is where it will come to play, since you can tweet your score. The tweet will look like this:

I got 200 points playing Snaked! Play #Snaked today!http://bit.ly/aRjAa

You can also share the same thing on Facebook.

As for the gameplay itself, it is very fun. Whether or not you like snake, it doesn’t matter. You will enjoy playing this app. By adding two extra objects, it makes the game more challenging and even more enjoyable than it already is. The only con that I can think about for this game is the mediocre sound effects; they’re too corny. Hopefully they will be changed in the next version. After thinking about it, the corny sounds are pretty funny .

So that about does it! This is a very fun app with an elegant interface and cute graphics that will catch the attention of anyone. Whether or not you like playing snake, you will like playing Snaked. As it is only ninety-nine cents in the App Store, you have nothing to lose and so much to gain. Check it out today.

GIVEAWAY TIME!

We’ve received one (1) promo code to give away (more may be on the way). To enter, just leave a comment to this post. We will assign all participants with a number. We will then use a random number generator to pick the winner. Contest ends tomorrow at 8:00PM EST (Sunday, January 10, 2010). Good luck!

Vote now!

1. iPhone 2G
2. iPhone 3G
3. iPhone 3GS (not on latest bootrom)
4. iPod Touch 1G
5. iPod Touch 2G

So all devices (except for the LATEST iPhone 3GS and the LATEST iPod Touch [3G]) will be able to use these custom IPSW files. We personally recommend using blackra1n, as it’s easier, faster, and doesn’t require a restore.

The application itself requires:

1. Windows XP, Vista/7 (32-bit or 64-bit) – Vista/7 requires the application to be run as administrator (right-click>Run as Administrator [IF UAC IS ENABLED[).
2. .NET Framework 3.5 (probably installed)
3. 256MB of RAM

DOWNLOAD

Again, we recommend using blackra1n for all your jailbreaking needs: BLACKRA1N

SCREENSHOTS

People familiar with the matter say the first external build of the software — labeled Mac OS X 10.6.3 build 10D522 and weighing in at 665.7MB in barebones delta form — includes a total of 221 code corrections to 92 distinct system components.

Among those components receiving the most attention are AppKit, CoreMedia, Desktop Services, FileSync, Fonts, HIToolbox, iCal, Mail, MobileMe, and QuickTime Player X, those same people say.

Other individual and welcomed enhancements include improvements to Snow Leopard’s automatic spell correction, and fixes for crashes while printing and using AppKit, the Dock, iCal, Mail, Photo Booth, Rosetta, Spotlight, Screen Sharing, and Software Updater.

In total, nearly 60 individual pieces of crash-prone code have reportedly been addressed as of build 10D522.

Apple also reportedly noted four known issues with Wednesday’s beta, including hangs in iTunes, and potential anomalies while updating applications, viewing Display preferences, and navigating the ColorSync Utility Filters tab.

Source: Apple Insider

A rundown of Palm’s updates:

1. Video recording on webOS 1.4 – Also uploads to YouTube, Facebook, etc.
2. webOS 1.4 coming in February as an OTA update – Adds Flash 10 Beta.
3. 3D gaming (The Sims 3, Let’s Golf, etc) – Can be pushed OTA, US only, Pre only (no Pixi support [yet]).
4. Palm Pre Plus – Double the memory (16GB), new design, exclusive to Verizon.
5. Palm Pixi Plus – Wifi, multiple colors, exclusive to Verizon.
6. New app that turns your Palm Pre into a router.
7. New app distribution – Push apps to your device OTA.

The Palm Pixi Plus looks very stylish in different colors!

Source: Engadget

Dell announced earlier this morning at CES, that they are planning on releasing a gaming netbook. Yes, netbook. This 11.6″ powerhouse features a Nvidia GT335M GPU, which is said to be able to play Modern Warfare to at 1920×1080 with high settings enabled (maximum texture settings for the game is “extra”) at 30 frames per second.

There’s actually two GPUs in this netbook. While using the alternative GPU, you can get around 6.5 hours out of it. In “gaming” mode, you can get you about two hours of “intense gaming”. This netbook also features DisplayPort, VGA, and HDMI outputs.

Coming later this year, it will cost “less than $1,000″, probably $999.99 for the base model.

Sources: Engadget / CNET

Changelog

1.0

• Initial Releease

PhoneArena received what could be the actual specifications of Apple’s rumored iSlate tablet computer. Apple is expected to announce something bit on January 26, which could possibly be their tablet. It still isn’t 100% confirmed that Apple is even working on such a device, but all the rumors are pointing out for that to be true.

The actual hardware specifications of the iSlate is that of a normal computer (7.1″ screen, 2.26GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB DDR3 RAM, 120GB HDD, 2 USB 2.0 ports, webcam, gigabit Ethernet, wireless-N, bluetooth). Something that hasn’t really been rumored at all is the supposed built-in projector, which should be able to project the iSlate’s display (mirror or extended?) onto something (such as a wall).

What’s also interesting is the operating system. It’s running Mac OS X ‘Clouded’ Leopard v10.7. It includes the basic applications that you see in normal version of Leopard (iTunes, Mail, iChat, etc). It will be able to “Browse & download apps from the App Store”.

There isn’t really any word of there being 3G built-in to the device, but everyone is hoping for that. Only time will tell if any of this is the real deal!

If you were redirected from the YouTube video, go to the bottom of the post for information on the above screenshot.

Compared to the last one, this is fairly simple. Install the following:

1. QuickWidgets
2. Better Tap To Unlock
3. 5 Icon Dock
4. Reflective Dock
5. Categories
6. CategoriesSB
7. SBSettings
8. qTweeter
9. StatusNotifier
10. iBlank

Use iBlank to make a bunch of blank icons that match the layout that you want. Use Categories to make folders of your apps. That’s basically all there is to it.

For this one, just install the 6 icon dock, and put the icons that were previously in your dock into their own folder with Categories. Then put all your folders into the dock. The max icons you could add to the dock is 8, so you can have anywhere from 0 to 8.

Twitastic is a simple little application that let’s you quickly post to Twitter. It only costs a dollar, but that is actually a lot to ask for for an app like this. Read on to find out why.

The goal of this app is simple: to provide users with a quick and easy way to post tweets to Twitter. Once you enter in your credentials by tapping on the gear in the bottom-right, you can enter in your username and password (as shown in the screenshot above). Tap on the Connect button in the upper-left to save your information and to begin tweeting.

To begin the tweeting, just tap on the blue callout that’s on the screen. You can then begin typing whatever you want. When you’re done, tap on the Update button in the upper-right. It doesn’t take but a couple of seconds for it to post. That’s all there is to this $.99 app.

There are quite a few things that could be done to this app that would make it even better:

1. Splash screen (Default.png) – This is extremely easy to implement. Nearly every application has one. Having something like this will make the app a lot more professional and whatnot.
2. First-run popup – Maybe have a box that pops up when you first start the app that tells the user a little bit on how to actually use the app,
3. Straight to settings – If there isn’t a username or password saved in the app, then having the app go straight to the Settings screen would be a bit more appropriate.
4. Security – Every user is at risk here. While looking at the small preference file for this application, you can easily see, in plain-text, the username and password of the person who used this app. This isn’t safe for anyone. Anybody could quickly jailbreak a device and gain access to this information. It’s best to put this into the keychain on the device, or encrypt this information in some way.
5. Keyboard return – Have the actual Return key on the keyboard slide the keyboard away, instead of having to tap on the button in the upper-left.
6. Character counter – Knowing how many characters are in a tweet is very important to users of Twitter. Since the max is 140 characters, it’s a necessity to have a character counter of some sort.
7. Tweet clearer – After posting the tweet, the text in the box should automatically be cleared.
8. Tweet history – It would also be nice if one could view a list of tweets made with this app.
9. Nicer settings screen – Let’s face it: I’m sure everyone could agree on the fact that the Settings screen is very plain.
10. Emoji support – Try sending a tweet with emoticons. They’ll end up as question marks when viewing it.
11. API name – When looking at the name of the client that sent the app, it says ‘API’. Having it say ‘Twitastic’ would be great.

That’s about it with Twitastic. In my opinion, $.99 is a bit much to ask for for this app. Making it free seems fine. Maybe sticking some ads in there would yield more revenue. My verdict is to not buy it. There are many free alternatives to this.

PreBrowser is a Palm Pre style full screen web browser for jailbroken iPhone’s and iPod Touch’s. It provides a very nice interface for browsing the web. While being very nice, it’s $1.99 in Cydia. The same developer has actually made a $.99 for the app store called ‘Full Browser‘. That app is actually easier to use and has more up-front features, such as speed dial for web browsers. Which one should you try? Continue reading to find out.

The app lets you make multiple tabs. similar to the way the Palm Pre does it. You’ll get a interesting cover art view of your pages when you have more than one tab up.

At the top of the screen, you get your basic address bar. At the right of it, you get the favicon for Google. Tapping on this will replace the address that’s in the address bar with search terms (that you can enter and search for on Google).

In the upper-left, you’ll see a menu button which brings down a rather small list of options. They are all self-explanatory.

When you tap on New tab, a new blank page will come up. Now, in the middle of the screen, you’ll see a small blue circle button. Tapping on this will bring up the list of tabs, similar to the way the Palm Pre does it. It may take up to 5 seconds for this view to actually display itself on the screen, probably since the app has to render the reflection and whatnot. You can throw a tab away to close it.

The app seems to have a couple of bugs. Go to where you can view your tabs. Move  your tabs as shown in the picture in the screenshot after the previous paragraph. Take a screenshot. You’ll notice that your tabs are where they were before you took the screenshot. Go into one of them. Then go back to the tab view. You should see weird glitches as shown in the above two screenshots.

While this app looks nice, I don’t see it as a Safari replacement anytime soon. You’re better off paying a dollar less and buying the app this developer has made in the app store. It does more, is easier to use, and costs less money. OR, you can just stick with Safari, since it’s free and easy to use.

This poll ends on 1/1/2010.

OMG Pirates! is an iPhone app by the creators of Zombieville USA, Mika Mobile. Those of you who play Castle Crashers on the Xbox will feel right at home with OMG Pirates! OMG Pirates is an action “beat-’em-up” game, which places you as a ninja fighting off hordes of pirates who are invading your village.

The gameplay works like a charm – the ninja star on the left is used to move your character around the screen. Unlike Zombieville USA, where you could only move left and right, in this game you can move in any direction. As explained in the tutorial in the game, the green button does different things depending on when you press it. If you press it when you’re running, you can do an awesome ninja jump, and if you press it while you’re standing still, you can dodge/counter.

Even on easy mode this game gets challenging fairly quickly. The kinds of pirates have great variety and overuse of the bombing pirate gets really annoying.

I’ll give this app a score of 9/10, I say buy it.

And if you’re good, you can cheat your way through the levels, as shown below.

QuickBrowse is a all-in-one ’social web browser’ that accesses several mobile versions of popular websites. The interface is very straightforward and stylish. While having a small price tag of ninety-nine cents, it also weighs in at 0.3MB. The latest version (2.0) adds support for Meebo, Google Wave, and Twitter’s new mobile website.

The app is very simple. Load it up, tap on a site, and enjoy your web browsing. Each website has its own color design that matches the color scheme of the actual website, so everything matches. The title of the website that you’re visiting is shown at the top of the view. You also have the normal set of navigation buttons on the bottom.

The websites available are:

1. Bebo
2. deviantART
3. Digg
4. Facebook
5. Flickr
6. FriendFeed
7. Gmail
8. Google
9. Google Wave
10. Last.fm
11. Meebo
12. MySpace (THIS PLACE IS STILL AROUND?!)
13. Orkut
14. Twitter
15. YouTube

Again, all websites go straight to the mobile version of the website chosen.

That’s basically all there is to this app. While looking nice and is easy to use, I have to give this app 2.5 stars. It is only a dollar (plus tax…), but is this really necessary? Most people would like to use Safari for mobile web browsing anyway, since they can view history, add new bookmarks, etc. It is a good idea, but I don’t see this really being worth anything.

\offtopic

Just noticed that iTunes considers this application to be a game. “You must be at least 17 years old to download this game.” It then lists various reasons why:

• Infrequent/Mild Profanity or Crude Humor
• Infrequent/Mild Alcohol, Tobacco, or Drug Use or References
• Infrequent/Mild Mature/Suggestive Themes
• Frequent/Intense Sexual Content or Nudity

/offtopic

Giveaway

Hidden in this post are 3 links. Each link leads to a basic webpage with the promo code, which can be redeemed for a free copy of this app. *If you redeem a code, reply to @besweeet on Twitter!*

There have been ways to make your own ringtones for a long time. I’m going to show you two of these ways. There are simple software-based solutions, both freeware and shareware, but we’re just going to be using iTunes and a few other things.

The first method involves using iTunes to make a new 30-second audio clip from your existing song(s), changing the extension, the adding to your device. The second method is a little more ‘dirty’. We’ll be listening to the 30-second ‘preview’ of a ringtone with an iPhone, recording that ‘preview’ with Audacity, then saving that ‘preview’ in the proper format. By ‘preview’, we mean the 30-second audio that you can listen to for the ringtone. The preview is actually the whole ringtone, so you aren’t going to miss anything when recording.

Method One – iTunes

What you’ll basically be doing is telling iTunes to only listen to 30-seconds of the song of your choice. We’ll then use iTunes’ included exporting options to convert the full song into the 30-second .m4a file. Once that’s done, we’ll be changing the extension from .m4a to .m4r.

So go ahead and open up iTunes. To make sure that your song will be converted into the right format, go to the preferences for iTunes. In the ‘General’ tab, click on ‘Import Settings’. Under ‘Import Using’, make sure ‘AAC Encoder’ is selected. Click ‘OK’ when finished.

Find the song that you want to make a ringtone out of. Right-click on it and go to ‘Get Info’. Go to the ‘Options’ tab. Notice the ‘Start Time’ and ‘Stop Time’ boxes. Edit these numbers to be 30-seconds or less. When done choosing your segment, click on ‘OK’.

Now, right-click on your song once again, and click on ‘Create AAC Version’. iTunes will now make a new version of your song using the 30-second segment you have just chosen.

When it’s done converting, go to your library and find this new 30-second piece of audio. Right-click on it and go to “Show in Finder” (Mac OS X), or “Show in Explorer” (Windows). Change the extensions from .m4a to .m4r.

In Mac OS X, right-click on the file, and go to ‘Get Info’. Click on the arrow next to “Name & Extension”. Change the .m4a to .m4r. Delete this file from your iTunes library (without deleting the actual file if it asks), and drag the .m4r into it.

In Windows, you’ll need to ‘Show extensions for known files’ under the second tab in the ‘Tools’>’Folder Options’ section of any Explorer window (just open up the Recycle Bin and enable extensions). Next, right-click on your file and go to ‘Rename’. Change the.m4a to .m4r. Delete this file from your iTunes library (without deleting the actual file if it asks), and drag the .m4r into it.

You should now see your ringtone under the ‘Ringtones’ section on the left side of iTunes. Sync if up with your device and test it out in Settings>Sounds.

Method two – Going HARDCORE

What you’ll basically be doing, is, while playing the preview of the ringtone on your iPhone, recording it with a freeware program called ‘Audacity’. You’re going to connect your iPhone to your computer via a normal 3.5mm audio cable (looks like this, same connection on each end). Connect one end to your iPhone, and one end into your computer’s microphone port.

So go ahead and install Audacity, if you don’t already have it installed. WINDOWS |  MAC OS X

Next, plug in your iPhone to your computer’s microphone/line-in port. Queue up your ringtone in the iTunes application. Begin recording with Audacity, then being playing back the ringtone. When it’s done, stop the Audacity recording. Trim out the blank portions of the audio.

Go to File>Export. Fill in the tag data if you want. On the next screen, under ‘Format’, choose ‘M4A (AAC) Files’. Give the file a name, and save it to your desktop. It may ask you to install the FFmpeg libraries. Go to Preferences>Libraries, and follow the instructions to install it. When it’s done exporting, close out of Audacity. Now we need to change the extension from .m4a to .m4r.

In Mac OS X, right-click on the file, and go to ‘Get Info’. Click on the arrow next to “Name & Extension”. Change the .m4a to .m4r. Delete this file from your iTunes library (without deleting the actual file if it asks), and drag the .m4r into it.

In Windows, you’ll need to ‘Show extensions for known files’ under the second tab in the ‘Tools’>’Folder Options’ section of any Explorer window (just open up the Recycle Bin and enable extensions). Next, right-click on your file and go to ‘Rename’. Change the.m4a to .m4r. Delete this file from your iTunes library (without deleting the actual file if it asks), and drag the .m4r into it.

You should now see your ringtone under the ‘Ringtones’ section on the left side of iTunes. Sync if up with your device and test it out in Settings>Sounds.

So there you go! A few different and free ways to make your own ringtones.

You can download the source files here: http://github.com/rpetrich/ProSwitcher

The current version is 1.1.0 and weighs in at 161MB and is iPhone OS 3.0 compatible. You’ll be playing as Kal Wardin to “prevent mankind’s annihilation”.

“With Earth no longer able to sustain life, huge artificial satellites called “near-orbitals” were constructed for people to live on. To protect themselves, the near-orbitals banded together to form N.O.V.A., the Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance. Now, a strange threat has emerged from the darkness of space. A Marine ship, reported missing just a week ago, has suddenly reappeared and is headed directly for he near-orbitals, ignoring all communications. Against his will, retired Marine hero Kal Wardin is forcefully returned to active duty to prevent mankind’s annihilation.”

There are 13 ‘insane’ levels, 5 different environments, and 6 different weapons (the basic set of FPS weapons, such as a shotgun and rocket launcher).

The game also features multiplayer, where you can play locally (bluetooth or wi-fi) or online against players online (wi-fi, doesn’t mention anything about 3G). You can play with 1-4 players (don’t you think 2 should be the minimum?) on 5 different maps. The multiplayer features uses ‘Gameloft LIVE!’.

Compared to ngmoco’s Eliminate, you only have to pay the one-time fee of $6.99, which gets you both single player and multi player gaming. Eliminate requires people to purchase ‘power cells’ once they run out (usually take 5-10 minutes). Players of Eliminate have to wait 4 hours until their ‘power cells’ replenish. Alternatively, they can purchase these ‘power cell’s. With N.O.V.A., you jus pay $6.99, and play whenever you want without having to worry about such a ridiculous thing.

Have you purchased it? Let us know how it is in the comment below. Feel free to link to your own screenshots (direct links please, imageshack.us is preferred).

Microsoft Corporation, a little while, has released an iPhone app for their Bing search engine. It boasts a beautiful interface, as well as voice search, which works very well.

Upon loading Bing for the first time, you’ll be asked if you want the app to use your location. This information will be used when searching for directions and viewing your location on the map.

On the main screen will be the image of the day. As with their browser version of Bing.com, you’ll be able to view information about the image. Just tap on a semi-transparent square to view some facts about that part. The bottom bar has some basic navigation buttons, as well as a few extras. The button furthest to the left brings you back to the home screen, which can be pressed at any screen you’re on. Next to that is the back and forward buttons. These are also shown on every screen. The two buttons on the left are only shown on the home screen. The one next to the gear toggles the ‘Images, Movies, Maps, etc’ buttons. The gear itself will bring up a settings menu (shown at the bottom of this post).

At the top of the screen (in every view) is the search bar. To the right of it, is the microphone button. This let’s you speak into your device so you can make voice searches. This works very well.

All three of the above searches were performed using the voice search feature. The application picked them up on the first try. Voice recognition does require data access to function. It took maybe 1 to 2 seconds after speaking the words for it to actually show up in the search bar. All websites that are tapped on open up in the same application, not in Safari.

One downside encountered here is that you can’t copy the URL of a link. You can tap and hold, but nothing will happen (except that the entry will turn blue).

The maps and directions portion of the Bing app both work just like the stock Maps application does. Enter in a location, and it will take you to it. When finding directions, you need to be a little more specific with the locations. Adding the city seems to work all the time. Entering just a street address with no city doesn’t seem to work. Voice search does work with maps and directions.

The settings portion of the application (can be accessed from the home screen) let’s you change simple settings, such as screen orientation, units, editing safe search, and clearing search history. The buttons and information are all straightforward.

For being a free app at its first version, it is very nice. It’s pretty much recommended for everyone to get this app, even if you don’t use Bing as your search provider. Being able to use voice while having a nice and slick looking interface has won me over from using Safari for quick searches.

Access the Gumballtech.com website, YouTube, and Twitter, all from one awesome app! v1.0: INITIAL RELEASE – Tap on “More Info” for more information.

Access the Gumballtech.com website, YouTube, Twitter, and Podcast, all from one app!

CHANGELOG

v1.2

1. Removed the “Forums” URL (due to inactivity).
2. Fixed the splash screen problem where it doesn’t fade away properly.
3. Fixed the “Podcast” link (it now works).
4. Fixed some other small things .

v1.1

1. Added splash animation.
2. Remade all the logos/images.
3. Added Forum view.
4. Added Podcast view.
5. Fixed the network activity spinner in the status bar, where it wouldn’t stop spinning if a user taps on the stop button.
6. Added smilies/emoji/emoticons to the credits/about page .

v1.0

1. INITIAL RELEASE

CREDITS

Design/Code: @besweeet

Code: @shabzcohelp

First, you need to install ‘Veency’ in Cydia.

Next, on your computer, open up a VNC client. Windows users can get RealVNC’s viewer. Compared to most other viewers (like TightVNC, UltraVNC, etc), this one seems to update the screen the fastest. Download it, open it up, and type in your iPhone’s IP address into the ‘Server’ box and press connect. If you didn’t tell Veency to have a password (in the Settings application), then it should show your device’s screen right away.

Mac users can also use RealVNC’s viewer. I can’t seem to find the download link for it, so here is the .app. Mac users can also use the built-in VNC client, but it doesn’t update the screen nearly as fast as RealVNC. With Finder active, press Cmd+K. Then, type in the IP address of your iPhone, and connect. If you didn’t tell Veency to have a password (in the Settings application), then it should show your device’s screen right away.

That’s about it! The process is simple. Install VNC, then connect to your iPhone with a client.

SEGA on the 1st has released Super Monkey Ball 2, packed with lots of new features and levels to choose from. Before making this purchase, ask yourself: “Am I jailbroken?” If you answered yes to this question, read the rest of this post. If you answered no, you may leave if you wish.

In short, if your iPhone or iPod Touch is jailbroken and you try to play this game on it, all you’ll get is this:

It doesn’t matter if you’ve legally purchased it or illegally downloaded the IPA of it, it won’t work. But don’t worry! There is a quick and simple, but maybe annoying to some, fix to get you playing.

Open up Cydia and install “SwapMode”. Open up the app, and turn “Game Mode” ON, as shown below:

A popup will come up. Just tap ok, and your device will respring with all MobileSubstrate extensions disabled. Try starting up Super Monkey Ball 2 now. Instead of the black screen, you can actually get into the game:

It is somewhat of a hassle to live without your precious mods, but if you want to play the game, this is your only choice.

We decided to email SEGA about this, and we received the same exact response as others have gotten (here). Here is their response:

SEGA is aware of the recent issues with Super Monkey Ball 2 and would like to assure users that there is no issue with iPhone or iPod Touch standard systems and the game. The issue only occurs when an iPhone that has been modified (for what we assume is development purposes). Due to the many different configurations that can be used for a modified phone we are unable to test those systems and accurately gauge any issues that a modified configuration may cause the game. We will continue to test Super Monkey Ball 2 on our end to ensure that it offers the standard iPhone and iPod Touch systems only the best gaming experience possible.

Best Regards,

Evan

SEGA Customer Support

If you clicked on the link right before their response, you’ll see that it is exactly the same. Apparently they know about this. Maybe it is a coincidence with jailbroken devices? Maybe they are trying to fight piracy? We don’t really know. Maybe they will happen to release an update soon that let’s it work on all devices.

Google Wave/Chrome/OS, Ramp Champ, SEGA, & your user questions.

My Podcast Alley feed! {pca-9f36558360a95edce2a2160f2df72409}

31 minutes, 50 seconds, 7.28MB (32Kbps). Show notes below. DOWNLOAD |  ITUNES

Google Wave is a very nice and free online collaboration tool, which allows users to directly interact with each other through text, audio, and more. You can even see people typing as they are typing, which is very neat. It’s currently in beta, and you will need to be invited by someone to join at this moment.

Google Chrome is Google’s very own web browser. After doing a speed test of Safari, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Camino, Chrome came out on top (click here). It’s free for Windows and Mac OS X.

Google is also working on a totally new and somewhat unexpected project. They’re going to make their own operating system, mainly geared towards netbook owners who spend all their time and work using their web browser. It’s called Chrome OS.It’s a highly modified version of Linux that can boot in under 10 seconds. All it is is a browser window that let’s you do all your things in a fast and safe environment.

Ramp Champ, by Icon Factory, the makers of Twitterrific, has gone free this past weekend (and still is) in the iTunes store. If you don’t know what it is, it’s a very fun carnival-style skeeball game with very nice graphics and gameplay. There is even an easter egg (there are easter eggs in all of Icon Factory’s apps), where you can get two special trophies to add to your loot. You can get them by going to the ‘Redeem’ section of the game, and holding on your ticket count for 5 seconds. The credits should come up, to where you can then redeem these two new prizes. The game also features extra addon ramps for $.99 each.

SEGA this past week has released Super Monkey Ball 2 for the iPhone and iPod Touch. It is available for $9.99 in the iTunes store. BUT, if you are planning on purchasing it and you are jailbroken, you may want to wait. This game does not work for jailbroken users. There is a simple workaround for this, though, which involves installing an application called “SwapMode” from Cydia, which allows users to switch to a “Game Mode”, which disables all MobileSubstrate extensions. Doing so will allow you to play the game, but this can become somewhat annoying after a while, since you have to enable and disable Game Mode to get your mods back or thing like that.

Apple and Psystar have basically finished their legal proceedings. Psystar doesn’t seem to be selling anymore computers with Mac OS X preinstalled (they barely sold 800 of them anyway), but have come up with “Rebel EFI”, which allows users to install Mac OS X on any PC with ease, but at a price of around $70. Rebel EFI is actually based off of free open-source code (boot132). There is a free and just as easy alternative to this called “Empire EFI” that can be downloaded for free here.

We’ve received a bunch of user questions this week, ranging from jailbreaking to the Magic Mouse.

I’d like to thank Alan (http://twitter.com/alnandr, http://youtube.com/alnandr) and James (http://twitter.com/jdrydenme) for being on the show. They may be on next week as well!

This was the first episode of the podcast and it was rather… Not too bad or not too good (to say the least). Next week’s show should be a lot better and more fun. Stay tuned for it!

LIVE stream below!

Want to be a guest on our upcoming audio podcast?

It’s all very simple. If you’ve ever watched or listened to other tech talk shows, this is going to be something like that, but just with different topics. Also, you get to be in it!

Requirements

There are some requirements that you need to meet before being considered:

1. You must be 15 years of age or older.
2. You must have a Twitter account.
3. You must have Skype.
4. A Google Wave account isn’t required, but it’s highly recommended.
5. A webcam isn’t required, but it’s recommended, if you want to be on the live Ustream video stream of the show.

You must meet the first 3 requirements (no exceptions).. If you don’t, then come back later when you do. If you do, then send us the following in a message from the ‘Contact‘ page with the subject “Podcast”:

1. Name
2. Age
3. Location & time zone
4. Twitter
5. Skype
6. Some details about you

What’s in it for you?

Well, let’s just say that money won’t be involved (keep reading). You’ll mainly gain publicity in what could potentially become a popular show (or somewhat popular…). If you are someone who regularly is a guest or does a good job, you may be in for something. You’ll have a higher chance of getting something if we get a sponsor or two, so make sure you do good (if you’re even in the show).

Visit the ‘Contact‘ page, and send us a message with the subject “Podcast”. We’ll then review you and contact you.

The show will be distributed in iTunes and some other podcast sources. The show will also be streamed live on Ustream. If you have a webcam, you will be shown in a 2×2 video (me, you, and 2 others).

Format of the show

Discussion topics will be distributed over Google Wave and Skype. We will begin the show with a small introduction (name, location). We’ll then move on to cover various topics. Near the end of the show, we will be answering listener questions that are sent in via email or the Ustream chat room. That’s about it! The show will be edited and put online a few days later.

Questions? Send us an email using the form on the ‘Contact‘ page.

We tested 10 different websites with 5 runs each using WebWait, a nice little website that can calculate the time it takes to load a website a number of given times/intervals. You may be saying to yourself that this website isn’t accurate. Well, we think it is, so that’s what we used.

Here’s exactly how we did the testing. We tested each browser one-by-one. We started with Safari, and then used Firefox, Chrome, Opera, and Camino. Noted was the file size of each browser. Next, a acid3 test was taken. We then began the speed tests with WebWait.

Tested were 10 different websites:

1. Google.com
2. Yahoo.com
3. MSN.com
4. Apple.com
5. Microsoft.com
6. Gumballtech.com
7. YouTbe.com
8. Facebook.com
9. Bing.com
10. Wikipedia.org

We tested one website at a time. There were 5 runs for each website, with a 5 second delay in between each run. Each time for each pass was recorded and averaged. This was done throughout all 5 browsers.

The results were somewhat surprising. Below are the results. You can download the original Excel worksheet (.xlsx) here.

You can see that Chrome has won most of the tests. It actually doubled Firefox’s score. Safari and Opera were tied, and Camino was just bad. Maybe it had the swine flu?

So there you go! Chrome is the winner. It is now my primary browser. My previous primary browser was Firefox. Sure, you don’t get all the fancy plugins, but who needs them anyway? Certainly not me! Chrome is fast, stable, lightweight, and has themes.

Guide has been updated a bit. Includes links for blackra1n RC3 & all firmware files for all the iDevices. First video was made a long time ago. New video coming soon!

Geohot has released his jailbreak program, called “blackra1n“. This small Windows-only program lets one jailbreak their iDevice (iPod Touch or iPhone) running 3.1.2, which is Apple’s latest version of the iPhone operating system. This is the only jailbreak solution that jailbreaks 3.1.2, as well as all devices. There is one problem regarding iPod Touch 3G users: this is currently a tethered jailbreak, meaning you have to have your iPod Touch 3G connected to the computer to enable the jailbreak. If you don’t, or if your iPod Touch 3G happens to reboot, you’ll be out of luck.

Follow the simple tutorial below to get started. If you’ve never done this before, don’t sweat it! It’s extremely easy. It only takes a few minutes and does the job without any problems or loss of files. There is also a video of how to do this at the bottom of this post (in HD).

Before we get started, you need to make sure that you are on a device with 3.1.2. You can either update it to this, or do a restore, which I recommend doing, because everything will be nice and new. I doubt there will be any errors during the jailbreak process if you happened to do a update and not a restore. You can download your firmware .IPSW file here: http://bit.ly/XLIp

Once your device is on 3.1.2, follow the below steps to jailbreak your device. It’s a very quick and painless.

WINDOWS, RC3

MAC, RC3

1. Plug your device in. Make sure iTunes is closed.
2. Run ‘blackra1n.exe’ or ‘blackra1n.app’.
3. Click on the ‘make it ra1n’ button. The jailbreak process should begin on both your computer and iDevice.
4. After the jailbreak process is complete, run the ‘blackra1n’ app. Here, you can install Cydia, Icy, and/or Rock. Cydia is still the most popular form of installing jailbreak-only packages.

There you go! A simple 4-step jailbreak process, all made possible by Geohot. If you have any questions or comments, make a comment to this post, or send a email: contact@gumballtech.com.

I have also made a video showing you how to do all of this.

One of our great friends and followers, Conor Reid (Blog |  Twitter), has made his own NaNoWriMo, called “Blood on the Golden Horn”. It consists of over 55,000 words. A note from the author:

Before you download, keep something in mind. This novel was written in only 30 days. It is not the greatest novel ever written. I realize that it is not that good. I realize that there are countless spelling and grammar errors throughout. I realize that there are massive gaping plot holes all over the story. And yes, I realize that there is pretty much zero characterization. But you know what? I don’t care. I wrote a novel, and it’s a novel I’m proud of! So I hope you enjoy it! And, if you have any suggestions on how to make it better (of which, I am expecting quite a lot), please feel free to email me. My email is solidreid@gmail.com. I hope you like my novel!

DOWNLOAD (PDF, 438KB)

For other formats, please click here.

Here is a video on how to get these going:

This poll ends on Satruday.

You can install PogoPlank from Cydia. The app is $1.99. After installation, you will have to respring. You may at first become uncomfortable with the new change, but you will quickly love it.

After opening up the settings application for PogoPlank, you can turn it on or off (from the general tab). You can also see the latest tweet made by @PogoPlank.

The Themes tab will let you customize your PogoPlank environment. You can change the overall theme, opacity, and other things. You can download more themes in Cydia. In my opinion, the default one looks the best.

The Categories tab is where you will spend most of your time. This is where you will actually make your folders and put your apps into. You must have at least 5 folders, but you can make more than that if you wish, as only 5 will show up on the PogoPlank board.

Once you make a folder, tap on it to go inside. To add an app, tap the Edit button, then the plus. Once you’ve added an app to a folder, it won’t show up anymore when you try to add more apps. You can swipe to delete an app, or delete it while you’re in Edit mode. You can also sort apps by tapping and holding on the icon to the left of an app. Any changes you make to PogoPlank will automatically respring your device when you exit the app.

That’s all there is to it! For $1.99, you cannot miss the opportunity to really make your iPhone or iPod Touch stand out from the rest of them. This is definitely one of the coolest things you can do to a jailbroken device. Hop to it!

Check out our video below!

First, I would like to thank Optimized Cable Company for sending me this. They are a fairly new company based in Issaquah, WA ( ). They sell all sorts of audio/video accessories and supplies, such as HDMI cables, DVI cables, wall plates and mounts, etc. They are now featuring gaming accessories. They are definitely worth a look!

There are a lot of different component cables for the Nintendo Wii, all with varying prices. There are some that are cheap, but you get what you pay for. This particular cable is available for $17.99 + free shipping, and is usually $28.99. The cable itself is 5 feet long, which is plenty. The cable is fairly thick. The nubblets that plug into your TV are nice and thick as well, so you don’t have to fight with unplugging it (unlike Apple’s composite cables…).

Now that you have a component cable, will you get HD picture? No! Instead, you’ll get a very nice looking 480p picture. Compared to the composite cables (480i), text and video is much much clearer. Text is crisp, textures look nice. It’s almost like it is in 720p, but it really isn’t. I was able to instantly notice a difference after changing the resolution settings in Wii settings>Screen>TV Resolution.

Should you get this? Absolutely! If you play your Wii on any sort of HD TV, then this is highly recommended. 480i doesn’t look very good on a 55″ LCD TV. Using this component cable will make every single thing look a whole lot better.

Wii Component Cable, $17.99 + free shipping

Check out our review video below!

Downloading iPhone apps for free (illegally) is a very controversial subject. Should you do it? Will you get caught? Is it even worth it? Well, most people would immediately say yes. We are just going to say: maybe. While the primary goal of iPhone pirating is to provide users with a try-before-you-buy downloading experience, many users abuse this and download and keep as much as they can get. So, should you do it? Continue reading to find out.

Hackers were working on cracking apps before the app store was unveiled. This gave them a head start on cracking them. In late 2008, apps were cracked, and were being available for free download online in rapid succession. Hackulous was basically the birth place of these cracked applications. Appulous then became the index where users could easily find all of them. There was then an iPhone application for jailbroken users, called Installous, made by ‘puy0′. Installous was still a project based with a homebase at Hackulous. He recently left them, and made a slightly different application called Install0us. Both Installous and Install0us easily lets users browse various application databases to download and install them from right on their device, wherever they are.

The iTunes App Store is filled with tens of thousands of applications. MOST OF WHICH are very poorly made and cost a decent amount of money. If you actually buy the applications, the total amount of money spent on apps can really add up quickly. Do you think it’s really worth money to purchase something that you’ll either never use, find no interest in, or will soon delete? This is what this is all about: trying the applications before you buy them.

So, should you do this? Well, ask yourself: Will I only be doing this to try the apps before I buy them? -or- Will I be leeching my heart out to save money? If you answered yes to the first question and no to the second, then go on reading the rest of this post. If you answered maybe or no for the first question and yes for the second, then press either CTRL+W or CMD+W on your keyboard. Leeching and being a pirate isn’t what this is all about.

If you really want to go through with this, make sure your iPhone or iPod Touch is jailbroken. You must then add cydia.hackulo.us (if you want Installous) and/or cydia.install0us.com to Cydia under Manage>Sources. If you aren’t sure which application to install (Installous or Install0us), then install them both and try them out to determine which one you should use. Install0us has more features compared to Installous.

Once they are installed, open them up. Installous will automatically load http://appulo.us. Install0us will need you to enter in a website. You can then search for the application that you want. Most popular applications are in the Appulous database. Smaller ones are not (a good thing for independent developers).

Remember:

IF YOU LIKE THE APP, BUY IT!

Developers put a lot of time and money into making these apps for you to enjoy (that is, if you are legit). Most of the apps cost a dollar or two, which isn’t much money anyway. Really evaluate the applications before determining whether or not you should pay for it or delete it (DON’T KEEP IT IF YOU DIDN’T PAY FOR IT).

“A collection of 58 beautiful Christmas wallpapers. Included are the .thumbnails of each of them, so that when you browse the wallpapers in Settings>Wallpapers, it won’t become unresponsive.”

Multifl0w is an app by Aaron Ash (@aaronash). Along side Backgrounder, you can experience true multitasking on your iPhone or iPod Touch, similar to the way the Palm Pre manages multiple backgrounded apps.

The app should be available in a few days in both Cydia and Rock for between $4 and $6. If you have Kirikae installed, it must be uninstalled. Multifl0w will work on all devices, but will work best on the iPhone 3GS or the upper-model iPod Touch 3G (because they both have twice the memory as all other devices).