iPhone 2.0 Jaillbroken!!

OH HAPPY DAY!

Important: If you are going to follow this guide, then read EVERYTHING first, we take no responsibility if you mess up your phone.

Alright, so the PWNage 2.0 tool made by the iPhone Dev Team has been developed for a while, but now it is officially available to the PUBLIC! Which is good news for us jailbroken iPhone users (jailbroken means you can install any iPhone compatible program onto it, not just from the App Store). So now you can enjoy the App Store and enjoy Community Apps (applications made by the general public and by some well known hackers)! The possibilities are endless!! They put up the tool on Saturday and have already released an update (2.0.1) You can get it here. (Side note: only MAC users can use it now - Windows users will have to wait or try this)

When they first put it up on their site for download, they got flooded with downloads and their servers went down (supply and demand). But no worries that's all been fixed.

It's pretty simple to operate this program to jailbreak your iPhone. For a detailed guide to jailbreak click here. (Side note: for people who already have an activated working iphone on AT&T make sure to uncheck "Activate phone" in the Bootneuter section. Or else your phone won't make calls. If you accidently did it, no worries, it can be reversed.)

HAVE FUN!

(any questions? please feel free to ask.)

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Posted in: 2.0,apps,dev,hack,iphone,jailbreak,pwnage

The Plantronics Discovery 925 Bluetooth Headset - Yes, it's amazing!

If you live in California you're aware of the new "hands-free" law which went into effect July 1. Now under this new legislation, California drivers must use a hands-free device to use their cell phone while driving.

Over the years I have purchased and used my fair share of head-sets, ranging from corded, boomed, and Blue tooth. However, without fail each one of them had their flaws and just was not a sufficient substitute for speaking on the hand-set. Either people couldn't hear me over the roar of the wind and freeway traffic, or I couldn't hear them. The headsets ranged in price from $20-$125, and were all brand-names.

Enter, The Plantronics Discovery 925 Bluetooth Headset, it is everything I've been looking for, and MORE.

1: SOUND QUALITY: Usually when you're on a headset, people know it. Either the headset picks up more background noise, or the caller sounds "distant" from the microphone. Considering that this headset is so small, and barely has any boom, I thought for sure it would pick up background noise like crazy, and make my voice sound distant, but it was the complete opposite. Honestly, my voice and call quality sounded better than holding the hand-set. In the past, I was never able to hear myself speak when talking through a headset, whereas with the Plantronics 925, you can hear yourself come through the microphone loud and clear.

2. BATTERY LIFE: Plantronics has really thought of everything here when it comes to producing a quality headset. As you can see in the picture above, the really nice black leather carrying case also doubles up as a charger. So, if you use all the battery power in the headset, simply plug it into the carrying case/charger, and it will give it a NEW full-charge. Personally, I just put the headset in the carrying case/charger every time I'm not using it, so I have yet to run into any battery problems. Then, when I get home at night, I plug the bottom of the carrying case/charger into my computer USB port or wall outlet, and it charges overnight. I'm sure it would last several days to a week without recharging, but I usually charge all my other peripherals overnight anyways, so its not an issue.

3. COMFORT/STYLE: Since this headset is an in-ear device, you have to not mind having something in your ear while talking. Personally I like this better than the over-the-ear devices, due to the less amount of moving parts and form-factor. Plus, I think I get better sound quality by having it in-ear, instead of a small speaker sitting on the outside of my ear. Plus, I've owned 3-4 Motorola headsets that go over the ear, and after a few weeks to a month it started sitting on my ear weird, and the little flap started becoming less sturdy. If your ear is a funky shape, Plantronics gives you 3 extra different looking cushions, to ensure that it fits nicely and securely in your ear.

4. PRICE: The MSRP of this headset is $149.00, OUCH! However, there are a lot of retailers out there that sell it at almost half the price. For example, NewEgg.com, which is where I purchased mine from (received it in 2 days), sells the headset for $79.99--worth every penny!

In conclusion, if you are thinking of purchasing a headset, and are willing to spend up to $100 for a great quality device, you should seriously consider the Plantronics 925.

UPDATE: I've noticed that it works great for talking, but sometimes when I try to use the Visual Voice-Mail feature on my iPhone, it sometimes doesn't pick-up the connection, because technically it is not a voice-call. However, I'm sure the next iPhone firmware update will fix this.

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Posted in: bluetooth

Documistic.com: Marketing Made Easy

Documistic automates the management and distribution of a company's marketing campaign - making the Marketing Manager's job EASIER! What you do is upload all your templates for your employees to have immediate access to your flyers and postcards that you use everyday in your marketing, and let them have easy access to customize the personal info on the templates to fit their needs. It even offers the service of sending out the flyers for you!

Here's a visualization provided on the website of how the system works:

Great part is, it's a SAAS (Software-As-A-Service) platform that's run on the site, so that means no software to download and install.

So if you're a Marketing Manager (or someone who handles this stuff), Documistic will take out the mundane tasks of collaborating and let you get to focus on the rest of your job.

(I am a current employee of documistic. This is not a way of advertising for the company, but I am merely presenting it as an interesting, new idea to some out there. It definitely was new and interesting to me when I found out about it.)

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Posted in: campaign,distribution,documistic,flyers,manager,marketing,postcards,saas

African Playstation War

"Toward Freedom", a site dedicated to advancing human rights, released an investigative report on how Sony could have added fuel to a 10-year conflict in Africa's Democratic Republic of Congo. Sony's huge manufacturing needs required a rare metal called coltan. Coltan becomes a bluish-gray powder called tantalum after it has been refined. Tantalum can withstand extreme heat, so manufacturers use it to make electric capacitors. You and I both know that Sony and other manufacturers needed a lot of electric capacitors so the need for tantalum sky rocketed. In 1999, tantalum cost $49 / pound. In 2 years, it shot up to $275 / pound.

Researcher David Barouski commented:

[The] PlayStation 2 launch... was a big part of the huge increase in demand for coltan... SONY and other companies like it, have the benefit of plausible deniability because the coltan ore trades hands so many times from when it is mined to when SONY gets a processed product, that a company often has no idea where the original coltan ore came from, and frankly don’t care to know. But statistical analysis shows it to be nearly inconceivable that SONY made all its PlayStations without using Congolese coltan.

Now how does this tie to the war? This huge demand for coltan by Sony and other personal electronics manufacturers led Rwandan troops and Western companies to exploit the people and mineral resources of Congo, with prisoners-of-war and children often forced to work in mines. The Rwandans were shooting it out for the mines, which contained deposits of cobalt, uranium, gold and, of course, coltan. The estimates of the war’s dead range from hundreds of thousands to several million.

Sony ensures us that they are now taking steps to make sure that they do not use coltan illegally mined from Congo.

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Posted in: child labor,coltan,playstation,ps2,sony,tantalum,war

iPhone 2.0 Firmware Early???

That's right, folks. Someone has found the early release of the iPhone 2.0 firmware. Right here ( iPhone1,2_2.0_5A347_Restore.ipsw) People are actually using this as we speak and are downloading apps from the App Store!

Now before you do install this on your iPhone, you need to know that it's not the official release. You can either install it now and be the "cool" kid on your block by getting your grubby hands on it first, or you can wait patiently for the official release coming soon. Also this firmware upgrade will delete all your personal data before it updates itself (dont worry it'll make a backup of your data, but make sure you have enough room on your computer to hold all of). And if you have a "unlocked" iPhone, it will become "locked" -at least until the hacking community fixes that :) Now a bit of warning, Apple has something to say about firmware updates.

"Normally if you choose to update, the iPhone or iPod touch software is updated but your settings and media are not affected. If your device currently has a software version prior to 2.0 (1.x) and you are updating to software version 2.0 or later, all data on your device will be erased in order to perform install the new software. In this case, iTunes will offer to create a one-time media backup of your device depending on what content is on your device and what content is stored in the iTunes Library you are connected to. You should ensure that you have enough free space on your Mac or PC to accommodate a backup that matches the capacity of your iPhone or iPod touch (4 GB, 8 GB, 16 GB, or 32 GB) if you proceed with the this backup."

So that being said, to install this on your iPhone you will have to do it manually in iTunes version 7.7 by pressing the Option key (Shift if you're using Windows) when pressing the "Check for Update". Then select the .ipsw file manually. (If your download is a ".zip" file, rename it to ".ipsw" beforehand).

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Posted in: 2.0,apple,download,early,firmware,iphone,link,release,software,update

2 Layers of Blu-Ray not enough? How about 16!

"Pioneer Corporation has succeeded in developing a 16-layer read-only optical disc with a capacity of 400 gigabytes for the first time in the world." says Pioneer on their website today.


Each layer holds 25 gigabytes (the equivalent of one Blu-Ray disc). Having mulilayers on an optical disc has always been a hard thing to accomplish, but somehow Pioneer achieved 16 layers without having any crosstalk between them by using the same technology they developed in the DVD field. "Since the optical specifications of the objective lens, such as NA (Numerical Aperture), are the same as those for the existing BD discs, it is possible to maintain compatibility between the new 16-layer optical disc and the BD discs." That's good news. But word on the street says that it won't work in your new PS3. Great, now what new device do I have to buy just so I can watch a decent movie or play a decent game? We'll see where this goes.

Now when will this new technology be mass produced? Hopefully we'll find out July 13 when Pioneer will release details of this at the International Symposium on Optical Memory and Optical Data Storage 2008 (ISOM/ODS2008) in Hawaii.

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Posted in: blu,blu-ray,capacity,disc,dvd,layers,multilayer,pioneer,ray,storage

Netflix, but for magazines?

Yes, we are all familiar with NetFlix and their movie rental delivery service that changed the way people rent and watch movies. Netflix has allowed us as consumers to rent movies we probably would'nt have ever watched, did we not have a service that was mailing us new movies on a weekly basis.

Now take all that Netflix "goodness" and apply it to Magazines... I know, I know, at first glance it sounds like a waste of money. However, think about... Lets say you are already subscribing to one or two magazines. Take that money and apply it to this service, and now you can switch out your magazines on a monthly basis. Lets say for example that one month you wanted to try People magazine and later decide that next month you want to try Sports Illustrated, with this service you can.

The concept is nice, why get stuck in a year-long subscription to a magazine you might get sick of, when you can pay roughly the same price and have the option to change out your subscription at any time... Pretty cool!

The service is called MagHound, check it out here: http://maghound.com

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Posted in: magazine,maghound.com,monthly,netflix,subscription

Guitar Hero 4 vs Rock Band

Me being the music, video game, and technology freak - this is right up my alley.
I own Rock Band and Guitar Hero III for the xbox 360. I like both games but if you ask anyone, I play Rock Band WAY more than Guitar Hero.

That being said, looks like the tables are about to turn.

Guitar Hero has announced that they'll release a game much like Rock Band this October complete with a guitar, drums, and a microphone, called Guitar Hero: World Tour.

"*YAWN* We've already done that with Rock Band." you say. But have you been able to create your own music with Rock Band? Were your drums wireless? Does your guitar feature a touch sensitive interface on the neck where you can do guitar solos?? All this and more Guitar Hero: World Tour boasts.

So what does Rock Band have to say about this?

...Rock Band 2 this fall. :)
Details are slim to none on Rock Band 2 so far, except that it'll have new songs, new online features, new instruments and it'll be compatible with all those Rock Band songs you downloaded. Bad news (for non-Xbox 360 owners) is that it'll only be released on Xbox 360 this fall. The other platforms will have to wait...

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Posted in: featured,gaming,guitar hero,music,rock band

Google Apps: The one stop shop for Email, Online Docs, Calendar, and Basic Web Hosting.

When it comes to Email, Online Docs, Calendaring, and even website hosting, there are A LOT of options out there. However, most people aren't aware that Google is now offering FREE tools, that will host your Personal email account, Calendar, Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and PDF docs, and even your website, all for free.

When I first started working for a software company many moons ago, the company email system was provided through a third-party web hosting provider. Since the website was hosted with this other company, it was assumed that our email had to be hosted there as well. However, the SPAM protection from almost any third-party web hosting providers is horrible, and left my inbox flooded with SPAM messages everyday--it was frustrating to say the least. Finally, after some coercing, I talked the executives into transferring all email hosting to Google Apps, and within hours, my SPAM went from hundreds, to ZERO. Our company was able to keep the same business domain name, integration with Outlook, Blackberry's and even iPhone's, with little configuration changes. Our customers had no idea that we changed email providers, other than the fact that we actually responded to their messages quicker, now that we didn't have to fight through hundreds of pieces of SPAM.

Since that time I have transferred many of my clients over to Google Apps and they all love it. Plus, the web interface for sending and receiving email is fantastic as well--if you like the GMAIL interface.

A lot of people think that they won't be able to keep their custom domain name (business.com), but this is just not true. Google Apps is made for small to mid-sized businesses that need reliable email and web hosting, without paying the premium fees.

For more information, visit: http://Google.com/apps/

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Posted in: apps,calendar,email,email hosting,google apps,online docs,website

DropBox: Syncing files & folders between multiple computers

DropBox came out with a new file/folder syncing service that simply trumps any of the competition. Over the past six years I have tried many different syncing services, as many of my clients have desired to easily share files between multiple computers. However, in my pursuits I have never found a service that was really easy to use, for both myself and the potential client.
Finally, about 6 months ago I heard about DropBox, which at the time was still in Beta--and actually still is. (UPDATE: It is out of Beta) However, after watching the demonstration video on the website, I instantly fell in love.

Basically, DropBox creates a new folder in your MY DOCUMENTS directory, which acts like any other folder. Except, anything you do inside of that directory, also occurs on every other computer you've synced DropBox with. For example, if you throw some music in the DropBox folder, instantly the music appears on all the other machines. If you rename a file, instantly the file is renamed on all the other computers. Another cool feature of DropBox is its recovery tool. Basically, if you ever delete or overwrite something, with just a few clicks of the mouse DropBox allows you to go back to any previous version--Beautiful!
I have about 2-3GB worth of data on my Dropbox account and am currently syncing that folder between 3 Mac's and 2 PC's, one running XP and the other running Vista. It works flawlessly. Many times have I been working on a document at work, closed out of it early, then picked up from where I left off at home or on my laptop. The syncing occurs instantaneously and doesn't require any extra effort from the user.
As of today the service is still in Beta and is "Invite Only". If you want access to the service, post a comment and I will get back to you with an invite.

UPDATE: The service is out of Beta and can be joined by anyone.

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Posted in: drop box,dropbox,file sharing,file sync,multiple computers,sync