Looking back at 2009, the most popular Art of Geek blog post was “Lock your Mac’s screen like in Windows, Snow Leopard edition”, which received a lot of comments from people who just didn’t seem to understand why we didn’t just use Mac OS X’s screen saver locking feature. Regardless, it’s nice to see so many early adopters of Snow Leopard visiting!

Sorry for the short post, but it’s late, and I want to squeeze in a viewing of 2010 before I hit the sack.

Well as the old saying goes, give a man a fish and he can feed himself for a day, teach a man to fish and he can get rich selling fish to other suckers (or something of the sort). So it is that Apple has given us the tools in Snow Leopard to fend for ourselves. Once again, Automator, Services, a custom keyboard shortcut and the good old bash Terminal are all we need to get the job done. Read on for the step by step instructions on how to make “Shift+Command+. (period)” toggle the display of hidden files in Finder.

Choosing a template for your Automator workflow

1. Open Automator (in your Applications folder) and choose Service from the list of templates provided and click the Choose button.
2. In the left hand column under Library, select Utilities.
3. In the second column, drag “Run Shell Script” to the right hand pane.
4. At the top of the right hand pane where you dragged the Run Shell Script action, click on the right-hand popup menu and change “any application” to “Finder”. This sets the service so it only appears and can be activated by the keyboard shortcut when Finder is the active application.
5. Then click on the popup menu next to “Service receives” and choose “no input”. It’s important you do this step after step 4 because if you do the reverse, Finder won’t be available as an option in the right hand menu.
6. Copy and paste the following text into the empty text area of the Run Shell Script action:

osascript -e 'tell application "Finder" to quit'
SHOWHIDDEN=`defaults read com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles`
if [ $SHOWHIDDEN -eq 1 ]; then
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -bool FALSE
else
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -bool TRUE
fi
osascript -e 'tell application "Finder" to activate'




Completed Automator action, ready to save (click to enlarge)

7. Choose File–>Save, and give the new service a meaningful name like “Toggle Hidden Files” that will appear in the Services menu. Once you’ve done that, you can go to the Services menu (located in the current application menu, next to the Apple menu) and your newly created service should appear there. You can even run it, it’s already fuctional, just lacking a keyboard shortcut.
8. Open System Preferences–>Keyboard–>Keyboard Shortcuts and select Services in the left column.


Setting the keyboard shortcut (click to enlarge)

9. Scroll down to the bottom and under the General category, you should see your newly created service listed there. Select it, then Double-click close to the right side of the selected line to reveal a field where you can enter a custom keyboard shortcut. Enter “Shift+Command+.” (might as well keep it consistent with the shortcut used in open/save dialog boxes), and then quit System Preferences.

That’s all there is to it. The really nice thing is built-in keyboard shortcuts override custom ones, so pressing “Shift+Command+. (period)” in an open/save dialog will not execute this service.

Finder Busy Error (click to enlarge)

Service Execution Error (click to enlarge)

Since the Finder will be restarted cleanly (using an AppleScript call to request it to quit), any tasks it is currently executing such as a copy operation, emptying the trash, etc. will prevent Finder from quitting and pop up the two error messages displayed on the right, without any modification to Finder’s preference plist file. If this happens, simply click “OK” to clear the two messages, wait for the Finder operation to complete (or cancel it) and try again.

I’ll reiterate how dumb it is that we have to implement this ourselves, but this oversight seems completely insignificant when we consider that instead of implementing a single keyboard shortcut that less than 1% of users will ever use, Apple have given all users a powerful and easy to use set of tools to add a keyboard shortcut for almost anything they could ever want to accomplish with one. Now go fish!

I also added two extra lines at the end of the shells script to improve usabiliy. Previously, after the action was executed, Finder would in most cases not end up being the frontmost application anymore since upon quitting Finder, the next application that is running would now become frontmost. The added two lines simply add a quarter second pause so Finder has a chance to relaunch before running the open command which brings Finder back to the front if it isn’t already.

I also changed the execution order a little bit so that the Finder is quit first before the plist modification takes place. That way if the Finder can’t be quit because it’s busy, no change will take place. This will prevent the state of hidden file display from unexpectedly changing between reboots or logouts if you unsuccessfully executed the service and Finder couldn’t be quit.

In Mac OS X, the closest thing we have is the “Require password to wake this computer from sleep or screen saver” check box in the Security system preference pane (in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard). Then what a lot of people do is set a screen corner to activate the screen saver (via the Exposé system preference pane). Then just before they walk away, they move the mouse into the designated corner, wait for the screensaver to kick in, then walk away.

If you have OS X’s Fast User Switching enabled (via the Accounts system preference pane), there’s a second way to lock your screen which is a bit more like the Windows method. By selecting the “Login Window…” option from the Fast User Switching (FUS) menu in the top-right corner of your screen, you are taken back to the login screen while your user session continues to run in the background.

While the Mac OS X solutions works fine, some of us regular Windows users just prefer a more direct method of locking the screen similar to what is offered in Windows. I was one of those people. I liked the Fast User Switching method for locking my screen, but didn’t want to have to enable FUS to get it because I’m the only person who uses my Mac, and I didn’t want to give up the extra menu bar real estate to the FUS menu. In addition, the FUS method requires two clicks, which is one too many clicks! Ideally I wanted a single click solution or one which can be quickly activated with a hotkey.

In my searching, I found a Terminal command on MacOSXHints (it’s been posted so many times in different hints and comments too numerous to give credit to individually) which activates the “Login Window…” function from the FUS menu, even if FUS isn’t enabled! The command is as follows:

/System/Library/CoreServices/Menu\ Extras/User.menu/Contents/Resources/CGSession -suspend

“Now we’re getting somewhere”, I thought to myself upon finding that little gem. If I could turn that into a double-clickable script or application, I could add it to the Dock and could lock my system with a single click of the mouse. Even better, using keyboard automation software like Spark or similar, you could even map a keyboard shortcut that would launch the script or app with the press of a couple of keys.

So to cut an already long story short, I figured out how to create a shell script and using XCode bundled it as an application. I won’t go into details on exactly how I did either, mainly because I did it a long time ago, and frankly can’t exactly remember, and that wasn’t the point of this post. Not being an artist, I borrowed Apple’s icon from Mac OS X’s Security Preference pane (thanks Apple!) and made it the icon for my new application bundle which I called simply “Lock System”. You can download the Lock System application from the link at the end of this article.

Once you’ve downloaded and extracted the zip file. Just move the Lock System application to your Applications folder (or anywhere else you want to keep it). I keep mine in ~/Library/Scripts so I can access it via the AppleScript menu. Then add it to your Dock or put an Alias on your Desktop for quick access. Finally, create a keyboard shortcut in Spark (or similar) for launching Lock System (I like Command+Shift+L), and that’s it! You can now lock your Mac like you do on Windows. Enjoy!

Lock System should be compatible with Mac OS X 10.3, 10.4 and 10.5. Anyone out there who can confirm if it still works in Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, please post your results in the comments, thanks! [Edit: See my update at the end of the article. - madgunde] This software is presented as is and with no guarantees. You use it at your own risk, so don’t be coming back to me to complain that it’s hosed your system (which would be hard to believe anyway). I’ve been using it for years now and am only sharing because I thought others might appreciate it.

Download Lock System (12KB .zip)

The Apple remote only handles so much unfortunately as we know all too well. Switching from Front Row to DVD Player or any other app can’t be done for instance. The little white device becomes nothing more than a poor paperweight in fact when trying to control any app that isn’t specifically a media or presentation tool. We normally get around this limitation by keeping a wireless keyboard and mouse handy, tucked away and out of sight until needed. Well I’m happy to report that our days of getting off the couch to reach for a keyboard or mouse are finally over because a handy little iPhone/iPod touch app has just rendered those battery sucking peripherals obsolete!

ControlPad's user interface is simple and functional.

ControlPad by Tienshiao Ma (link to developer’s blog) is a simple yet beautifully executed app that turns your multi-touch Apple iDevice into a wireless keyboard and mouse. As you can see from the image on the left, the interface divides the screen into a two button touch pad on top and a keyboard on the bottom. Communication is done using standard VNC protocols, so no installation is required on Macs running Mac OS X. However, because it’s VNC, it can be used to remote control any PC and OS that has a VNC server installed. The developers website even has step by step instructions for configuring your setup whether it be running Mac OS X, Windows or Ubuntu Linux.

Since I’ve already got my Macs set up to control via VNC and Screen Sharing, it took zero configuration on the computer end to start using ControlPad. It even automatically detected my Macs using Bonjour, so all I had to do was select my Mac from the list, enter my VNC password and within seconds I was controlling my Mac’s mouse and keyboard using my iPhone. It’s that simple. You can of course manually enter and save your PC or Mac’s network info and password to recall later with just one touch. If it wasn’t obvious, your Mac will need to be accessible over a WiFi network or via the internet and your iPhone or iPod touch will have to have network connectivity to be able to communicate with the computer. It even works on iPhones connected via a 3G or EDGE cell network over the internet.

The virtual touch pad is very responsive and allows you to do all the standard mouse click, double-click and drag operations. It even supports tap to click and two finger drag to scroll like the trackpads on Apple’s notebooks, which is a godsend if you’re surfing the web. To round out the features, the virtual keyboard seems to support all they keys you’d find on a full-size keyboard, and even supports modifier keys for key combos like Command+Option+Esc or Command+Tab. So there’s almost nothing you can’t do with this that you could with a real wireless or wired keyboard.

It’s hard not to love ControlPad for iPhone/iPod touch. The app isn’t perfect, but there’s not much to gripe about either. In my testing it has been fast, stable and responsive. I don’t really have any complaints, but I do have a couple of suggestions for improvements I’d like to see in a future update:

• It only supports TCP/IP port numbers up to 32767, even though port numbers upwards of 50000 should be perfectly valid. Update: Since the original review was posted, ControlPad has gained support for the full range of TCP/IP port numbers.
• As a Mac user, I’d like to see a per connection preference to have the ‘alt’ key aptly renamed ‘option’ when controlling a Mac. Update: The latest versions of ControlPad now seem to detect Mac hosts and displays a properly named ‘option’ key instead of ‘alt’.
• It would be nice if we could get a landscape keyboard when turning the device on it’s side. Since there wouldn’t be any room for the trackpad in landscape mode, it would be nice to be able to hide the keyboard to use a larger full-screen trackpad. Tilting the iPhone back to portrait mode could then return it to the default split-screen layout. Update: The developer did one better in a later release of ControlPad. Not only does turning the iPhone into landscape mode give you a landscape keyboard (thank-you!), but you can hide the keyboard and get a spacious full screen trackpad, great for doing extended complex mouse operations.
• This is a bit of a long shot, but one thing that I miss while using ControlPad to type on my Mac is the iPhone’s predictive spell checker. Maybe in a future update they could add a little text entry buffer so you could type your text with spelling correction on the iPhone, make any corrections and then send it all to the computer as keystrokes. That way we could benefit from the iPhone’s excellent typo correction system. Something you only realize you rely on when it’s suddenly not there to fix your clumsy thumbs’ mistakes.

ControlPad is available from the iTunes App Store for $2.99 CDN. In my opinion it is a must have app for any iPhone or iPod touch user who needs to control a Mac or PC that doesn’t have a keyboard or mouse within reach or if you want to do away with a mouse or keyboard altogether such as in a kiosk, presentation or home theatre setup. It works as advertised.

Rating: 4.5/5 Upgraded to 5/5 because of improvements added in the latest releases.
Product: ControlPad for iPhone and iPod touch
Version: 1.1.2 (iPhone OS 3.0 tested)
Price: $2.99 CDN
Developer: Tienshiao Ma
Website: http://www.tienshiao.org/iphone-apps/controlpad/
iTunes Link: Download ControlPad

The story really starts to pick up as you get closer to the end, really giving you a sense of urgency. I won’t go into any detail so as not to spoil it for any of you, but I have to say, the ending of this game rocks on such a high level. It makes the epic-ness of the settings and bosses seem utterly trivial. When the curtain falls on the final cutscene at the very end, which I can only hope is setting things up for a Resistance 3, I almost felt like getting up and applauding, it was that awesome. I don’t remember the last time a video game ended on such an awesomely epic note, and this is leading me to believe that this might very well be one of the most epically awesome game endings ever, maybe even THE most epically awesome game endings of all time.

Now let me be clear, by ending, I’m not talking about the last boss battle, or the final level of the gameplay. I’m talking about how the story closes. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare has an awesome ending, but not epic, and Fallout 3 has an epic ending, but not awesome. Metal Gear Solid 4 has an epic story, but the ending was somewhat drawn out and melancholy.

You think THIS is epic? Click to enlarge.

So am I completely out to lunch or did you feel the same way when finishing it? What games that you’ve finished would you rank amongst the most epically awesome game finale’s of all time? Let me know in the comments, because I’m having a hard time remembering much past a year ago.

If this is a problem that plagues you, and getting your calling, internet, emailing, media or gaming fix is more important to you than avoiding frostbite, then maybe the Etre Touchy gloves by Etre Ltd. just might be the solution you’re looking for. These gloves, reminiscent of sniper’s gloves, are missing the tips of the index finger and thumb on both hands, allowing you to have full utilization of the two most needed digits to control pretty much any portable digital device, from iPhones, Blackberries, and iPods to PDAs and portable game systems like the Sony PSP and Nintendo DS.

Etre Ltd. was kind enough to send me a pair of Etre Touchy gloves to try out late last year, so I figured I’d put them through their paces and let my readers know what I think.

The pair I tested were medium size, which should have been fine as I usually wear a medium glove, but these 100% acrylic woven gloves are pretty stretchy, so I probably would have done better with a small size, only they were only available in medium or large at the time. I have fairly large hands, but there’s not a lot of meat on them, so while the medium were a perfect fit for the length of my fingers, I found the gloves felt loose and I often had to pull them down at the wrists because they had snaked their way up and gotten a little bunched up on the palms. I just checked their website to see if a small size was now available and to my surprise I see that not only is small still not an option, but medium isn’t either. Hmmm. Doesn’t bode well. I’m suspecting that they are just trying to clear out remaining inventory, but maybe they’re just making room for a new and improved model, who knows.

One of the things I was most curious about was would wearing such gloves make me feel or look out of place. After an initial adjustment period where I was constantly fidgeting with my index finger and thumb, I did get accustomed to wearing them, and they were quite comfortable. I also think they’re rather stylish and go with most casual or business casual outer wear. The colour is relatively neutral, a dark charcoal grey, however they could do without the turquoise trim around the openings of the cut off digits. I’m pretty sure I know where my index finger and thumb are, I don’t need it pointed out to me, and I certainly don’t need to draw attention to the fact that my gloves are missing parts. I guess it’s a fashion thing.

I used a wide range of electronic devices while wearing the gloves, and have to say, they work as advertised. I had no problems at all operating my iPhone, Blackberry, digital camera or Sony PSP while wearing the gloves and it certainly beat not wearing gloves on those chilly autumn days. I say autumn because these gloves are too light for our cold Canadian winters. If you live in a milder part of the world where the temperature doesn’t drop much below 0° C, then these gloves will do a fine job of keeping your hands warm whenever you need it. However, they aren’t adequate much below that. Besides, it’s not a good idea to have exposed skin outdoors at below freezing temperatures. I should also point out the Etre Touchy are rather well ventilated due to their woven fabric, so they do a poor job of protecting your hands from the wind.

My next test was to try driving with them on. At first I though they’d be great for controlling the car stereo during my morning and afternoon commutes, and while that is true, the texture of the acrylic fabric is just way too slippery to feel comfortable (or safe) driving with them. They just don’t give you a very good grip on the steering wheel or stick shift. It didn’t help that they felt a little loose on me, so I also found them slipping on my hands and bunching up, requiring me to regularly pull them back down whenever I was stopped at a traffic signal.

Art of Geek’s Buying Advice

So what’s the bottom line? The Etre Touchy are a decent and comfortable light walking glove for above zero temperatures when you need to be able to use your electronic devices outdoors, and they work well for this purpose. They’re stylish and warm as long as it’s not too windy out, and pretty decent quality for their price. If you’re looking for a pair of gloves that fits this description, and have large hands, then this might be the right glove for you. If you need your gloves for driving or colder temperatures, I don’t recommend them.

Rating: 3.5/5
Product: Etre Touchy gloves (Charcoal with turquoise trim)
Price: £14.99 GBP (Approx. $26.32CDN/$20.94US)
Company: Etre Ltd.
Website: http://www.etretouchy.com/

Before the PS3, I gamed on my Mac, so I’m no stranger to game dry spells. Typically, when I found a game I really liked on the Mac, I’d play it to death, mainly because there wasn’t much else to grab my attention. This was the case for games like F/A-18 Hornet, Quake III, Unreal Tournament, Ghost Recon and the Rainbow Six series. So it didn’t bother me that much, and there were already far more titles I wanted to play on the PS3 in it’s first year than I was used to on the Mac platform.

It’s somewhat ironic that having played games on the Mac for 16 years, it’s only after I finally make the switch to a console that Mac gaming starts to make a strong comeback thanks to strong Mac sales and the switch to Intel processors, which have made technology like Cider possible. But even though the Mac games industry is making a strong comeback, I don’t see myself leaving my PS3 to switch back…ever. Mainly because I don’t miss the time, hassle and expense of trying to keep my gaming rig current enough to maintain decent frame-rates. Not to mention having to hunt down and install the latest patches manually. I can play games just as graphically rich and complex as what I’m used to on a computer with next to zero hassle. I spend much more time just playing the games I like rather than messing around just to get the game to work well (or at all).

I remember complaining last October about how hard the 2007 holiday season was going to be on my wallet. The PS3’s third year started off with a bang and continued with a steady flow of blockbuster titles. With Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, The Orange Box, GTA IV and Metal Gear Solid 4, among a slew of other titles, the PS3 was finally coming into it’s own. Those four games alone were practically enough to sustain me through most of 2007. So much so that I found myself passing on plenty of games that I probably would have picked up had I had the time to play them.

This holiday season is making last year seem practically bare in comparison however. The list of new games I want to play is becoming overwhelming. Not just for the time I would need to devote to playing them, but cost as well. I can probably only justify picking up about 4-5 games this holiday season, and I’ve already hit that limit. To give you an idea of how discouraging that is, take a look at my holiday 2008 short list, of which I’ve already bought the first five:

SOCOM: Confrontation
Dead Space
BioShock
Fallout 3
LittleBigPlanet
Far Cry 2
Resistance 2
Mirror’s Edge
Call of Duty 5: World At War
Need For Speed: Undercover

All of those games were either just released in the last three weeks, or are being released within the next three weeks. On top of that, there are 5 or so other promising games being released within the same six week window that I’d also be considering if there weren’t so many competing for my time and money. I gotta draw the line somewhere, after all.

While most games take nearly the same toll on my wallet ($60 plus tax), not all games are created equal with respect to the amount of time they will demand. Now don’t get me wrong, the longer a game captures my attention and interest the better. But the downside of long games, or games with a high replay value is they hold you up from being able to try other games, much to the satisfaction of my budget.

Thankfully, three of the five games I’ve already purchased will likely be an excellent value in respect to keeping me occupied for a lengthy amount of time, each for slightly different reasons. SOCOM: Confrontation is an online tactical squad-based shooter, so while it doesn’t have a lot of depth and variety, the nature of this type of game is that the variety and challenge comes from the online experience of playing against other human beings. There’s no end to this type of game, it’s really just a question of if you want to play it enough to make time for it.

Fallout 3 is just an enormous game with so much to explore and so many quests to do. If it’s anything like Oblivion, the previous game released by Bethesda, I can probably expect anywhere from 75 to 125 hours of game time. This is the type of game that I can get lost in and lose hours at a time exploring the rich world that has been created for me, and that I won’t want to put down until I’ve completed it, or at least the main quest, since you could play through a game like this 3 times and never experience everything the game has to offer.

LittleBigPlanet, with it’s user-generated levels and built-in level creator has the potential to keep me occupied forever. By the time I’ve completed the single-player story levels, I’m sure there will be an already enormous amount of user-generated levels to try out. So many that it will be pretty much impossible to play them all because new levels will be added faster than I could play them. On top of that, I can play with up to three friends (or strangers) in a sort of coopetitive manner that will provide no end of fun. The fact that it’s a game my wife actually wants to play means we’ll likely have to cut back on our TV time, which isn’t a bad thing at all in my books.

So somewhere in between those three games, I’ll be finishing Dead Space, a very good sci-fi thriller/horror and BioShock, one of the most highly acclaimed games of 2007 for XBox 360 and PC. Both of which offer a solid amount of game time for single-player story games. My plan is to try and get through both of them before all my time gets sucked up by the other three. Then I can trade them both in to help finance the acquisition of one more game on my list this holiday season. Deciding on which one is going to be tough though. Which one would you pick?

One of these days, the reason this site goes down might actually be the old Mac server I’m running it on, but darn if that thing just doesn’t keep on running like the energizer bunny. For those who are curious, this entire site (blog and forums) are hosted on a circa. 2000 PowerMac G4. Originally a 400MHz G4 processor, I’ve upgraded the cpu to a 1.4GHz G4 and have 1GB of RAM installed. It’s running the latest version of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard Server quite nicely. But I’m afraid that’s the last major OS X release this hardware is going to see since Apple has already announced that Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard is going to run on Intel Macs only. Fortunately, we probably won’t see Snow Leopard until late next year at the earliest. In the meantime, I’ve got my fingers crossed that this workhorse continues to serve up pages reliably for another couple of years at least.

I had staked out the establishment the evening before to confirm they had received their iPhone 3G shipment. My earlier recon mission was a success, arriving just in time to catch them moving several nondescript boxes from the trunk of a car into the store. Further interrogation revealed they had received 25-30 8GB units, and 5-10 16GB units. This was all I needed to know.

So I was fairly well prepared this morning. I had an umbrella, windbreaker and a little folding camping tri-pod seat (I don’t want to call it a stool, because of the obvious homonym which is just begging to have a joke made of it). There I waited patiently for the store’s 10am opening. In the pouring rain. After about 30 minutes of waiting, one other soul pulled up and got in line behind me, but then got discouraged after 20 minutes of soakage and left. At maybe 8:45am, another guy showed up, immediately followed by a third who had been waiting in his car for probably the last half-hour, but decided that being warm and dry was more important than being first or second. I guess he drew the line at being 3rd.

Luckily, we didn’t have to wait that much longer as three employees showed up at around 9:20am, and agreed to let us wait inside after I asked really nicely (desperately). Rather than keep us waiting until opening time (10am), they got started at 9:30, which was a smart move, considering that by this time there were now probably 8-10 people waiting behind me, and things were not going to go smoothly, as you’ll soon see…

So they brought out the two 16GB iPhones I asked for, got the account transfer completed for both mine and the missus’ mobile numbers while I carefully opened the boxes and inspected the iPhones for any obvious visual defects. While they were attempting to ‘unbrick’ the white iPhone by connecting it to their PC running iTunes, I was miffed to see that my black unit had a small hairline crack leading from the headphone connector on the top. Memories of my experience buying the first iPhone in Buffalo came back to haunt me as I asked them to go and grab a replacement unit for me before they allocate the last one to someone else. It turned out they only had around five 16GB units in total. Everyone in line behind me was waiting for the 16GB model. Some poor schmuck just lost his chance of walking out with what he was hoping for…

They were still having no luck unbricking using iTunes on either of the two PCs in the store. They told me they were pretty sure I could do it myself at home, so I packed up the wife’s iPhone and told them I’d do that. I just had to wait while they transferred the account activation over from the iPhone with the crack in it to the replacement. This is where my luck got worse. Rogers dealer activation website was now inaccessible under what surely was an insurmountable load of requests to activate new iPhones.

They retried several times, and then said, “no problem, we’ll just call it in.” BZZZZZZT, sorry, try again. Now, the Rogers dealer activation phone line, which they had no problems getting through to minutes earlier was returning a busy signal. But not just any busy signal, that fast busy signal that tells you that not only is the Rogers PBX system sitting in a corner in the fetal position sucking it’s thumb, but the Bell telephone circuit which feeds it is lying next to it unconcious and drooling. Sigh.

So the result was, I had to leave my iPhone in the store so they could try activating it again later. I took my wife’s with me so that I could attempt to unbrick it in iTunes myself at work. The whole process thus far took around an hour and twenty minutes. In that time, only one other person had walked out of the store with activated iPhones, the guy who was behind me in line. Had my first iPhone not had a crack, I would have been the first. I really felt for the 15-20 people who were now waiting in the store to get one, and getting impatient. The store had resorted to filling out manual activation forms and telling customers to come back to pick up their iPhones later.

To unbrick, or not to unbrick, that is the question

As soon as I was able to do so, I connected my wife’s white iPhone into my MacBook Pro and launched iTunes to see if I could ‘unbrick’ it. It showed it was trying to connect to the iTunes Store, but after a minute or two, failed with the following error:

“We could not complete your iTunes Store request. An unknown error occured (-4).”

I found reports of others having the same error, so figured I’d keep trying, as someone had reported success after about 15 attempts. After probably 10 attempts, it was partially successful, having unbricked the iPhone, but not completing the registration process in iTunes, so it wasn’t allowing me to sync the device with iTunes. I was OK with that, since I didn’t want to sync it with my Mac anyway. I just wanted to get the iPhone functioning.

I went back and picked up my black iPhone 3G from the store mid-afternoon, figuring that the store should have worked out it’s technical issues and/or the servers and customer service lines should be less stressed by then. When I got there, they had already taken care of activation with Rogers but explained that they still couldn’t unbrick via iTunes and that it was an issue with the iTunes Store being overloaded. Not a problem I told them, since I was successful in unbricking the first iPhone myself, I figured I’d get mine working with a bit of perseverance.

Coincidentally, as I was walking in the store, I ran into the guy who had been second in line this morning, who hadn’t been able to unbrick his two iPhone 3Gs. I recounted my experience and suggested he just keep trying and it should eventually work. He didn’t seem too happy, but at the same time was relieved and thankful for the information.

After getting back with my own iPhone, I had a bit more luck getting it unbricked than for my wife’s. It still took close to 10 attempts to finally get through (getting the same -4 error message as the first one got), but when it did eventually work, it let me get through the full activation/registration process. Once complete, I selected my syncing options, and was finally syncing all my contacts, calendars, mail accounts, music, photos, podcasts, videos and applications. It took a while, as expected (I sync’d about 8GB of content), but otherwise had no issues. Mission accomplished.

I couldn’t help but wonder to myself and out loud in the store, why on earth did the stores insist or bother trying to unbrick the iPhones in-store if customers could do it themselves at home? This would have reduced the wait times for customers waiting in line, and gotten customers home a lot quicker, even if they couldn’t use their iPhone right away. I guess if the process had worked as planned (and the iTunes Store hadn’t buckled under the load), it would have only been about a 2 minute process, and customers would be able to start using their iPhones immediately. I’m guessing this was one of the complaints that Apple had received from the previous iPhone launch, but it’s a good example of how the best intentioned procedure can end up backfiring if not implemented or planned properly.

The takeaway for Rogers and Apple

While we might cut Apple a bit of slack considering how large a product launch this was (it launched today in 21 countries) and even Rogers (they’ve probably never had to deal with a product that was in such high demand on day one), it’s a perfect example of why a lot of companies choose to do staggered product launches. Apple compounded the problem by not only releasing the iPhone and iPod touch firmware 2.0 the same day, but also launching the App Store the day before. So on top of the hundreds of thousands of new iPhones being sold and activated today, you had possibly millions of original iPhone and iPod touch owners hitting the iTunes Store’s servers as well to get the latest firmware and download the new mobile apps.

The official Canadian iPhone launch was a complete fiasco by any measure, and both Rogers and Apple have squandered a huge customer loyalty/satisfaction opportunity. Instead of blowing away customer’s expectations, they have pissed a lot of customers off. Most of those customers will most likely get over it, and once they have their iPhone in-hand will probably forget all about it or say it was all worth it because the iPhone itself will greatly exceed their expectations. The only thing that probably helped limit the amount of unhappy customers is the fact that the iPhone 3G was in relatively limited supply. I hope for both Rogers and Apple’s sake that these issues get ironed out tout de suite!

Rogers and Fido (owned by Rogers) essentially have identical service plans, which can be seen here and here respectively. While the lack of an unlimited data plan on the surface might seem like a major issue, it’s important to put things in perspective. Since no one can theoretically USE unlimited data in any given month, having an unlimited plan is really just a way to make people feel at ease that they will NEVER incur any data usage charges. One can argue that the same thing is accomplished by simply having a plan that has a high enough data cap that you’d never have to worry about hitting it.

Unfortunately, Rogers data plans don’t even come close to satisfying this, but not all is doom and gloom. With the entry-level data package’s 400MB per month of included data, you could check email, weather and stocks several times per day and do a bit of web surfing once a week or so and be fine. Just avoid using YouTube, the iTunes Store or AppStore until you have a WiFi connection. For those of you willing to dish out $115 to get the 2GB plan however, things don’t fare much better though. Sure, you can do the above activities 5x more than those on the $60/400MB plan, and even enjoy a bit of daily YouTube or iTunes downloads while on the go, don’t expect to be able to watch YouTube videos every day to pass your 30 minute train ride to and from work, because you’ll use up that 2GB of data real fast.

OK, so our data plans suck compared to the US, who get unlimited data for $30/month. So while we have a bit of breathing room to enjoy the features of the iPhone, we’re still stuck keeping an eye on our usage if we want to avoid expensive overage charges. If it were any other cell phone, we wouldn’t mind so much, but the iPhone is such an internet-rich device, and so fun and useful, that it really is a shame that we don’t have plans that let us truly use and enjoy the device.

So what else is there to complain about? Well, the lack of call display and a decent amount of included sent SMS text messages (only 75 on the $60 plan), which requires you to spend an extra $15 or more on an “iPhone value pack”. SMS texting is another one of the iPhone’s strengths, with it’s IM-like interface. Once again, Rogers iPhone plan stifles a great iPhone feature, rather than encouraging it’s use. The lack of call display is frankly a joke in this day and age. I’m surprised they aren’t charging us extra for “touch tone” service too.

Then there’s the matter of the unlimited evenings and weekends included with every plan. Rogers defines “evenings” as after 9pm. Me thinks they’re stretching the definition of evening pretty far. To have your evenings start at a more reasonable 6pm is going to cost you an extra $20/month for an iPhone Value Pack that includes call display and 10,000 sent text messages. Gee, thanks!

One positive to the Rogers and Fido plans is the inclusion of unlimited WiFi access at any Rogers or Fido WiFi hotspot. For those living in urban areas where these hotspots are readily available, this will be a major benefit, but will be hit and miss depending on the individual. Most people will likely not make any use of this feature whatsoever though, which means it adds very little value to the average user.

These plans frankly weren’t a big surprise to me. Rogers is in a very different market situation here in Canada than say AT&T south of the border. AT&T was in a floundering position and desperate to increase it’s market share, with other providers competing on the exact same GSM technology. Here in Canada, Rogers is the only GSM provider, and is already in a dominant position. They have zero competition for the iPhone, period. Bell and Telus’ networks are just not compatible with the iPhone’s GSM standard. The situation isn’t going to get any better until either Bell or Telus convert their network to GSM, or Apple releases a version of the iPhone that’s compatible with the CDMA/EVDO technology that Bell and Telus use.

If there’s any upside to Rogers iPhone data plans however, it has to be that they’re a major improvement over any previous data plans Rogers has offered before. When I first covered using an unlocked iPhone in Canada back in September of last year, we were paying $10 for 10MB per month, on top of your voice plan, and 3¢ per KB thereafter! To put that in perspective, it would have cost nearly $12,000 to use 400MB of data on that plan, which could lead to some nasty surprises for anyone not savvy enough to watch their usage.

Rogers overage charges are now a much more affordable 50¢ per MB for the first 60 MB, 3¢ per MB thereafter. Meaning that an overage of 100MB that used to cost $3072 would now only cost $31.20. It’s hard not to argue this isn’t a huge leap in the right direction. If there’s anything to be positive about with the introduction of the iPhone to Canada, this has got to be it.

Rogers, in what seems like a feeble attempt to instill suspense, is advertising that “Something really big is coming July 11th”, as though we’re all supposed to be in the dark about what that something is. Someone should ring up Ted Rogers and let him know that mystery teaser ads are much less effective if everyone already knows what it is. OK, ribbing aside, clicking “Learn more” brings you to the Rogers press release archive, and if you scroll down to June 9, you just might find this press release which confirms the mystery device is the iPhone 3G. Pricing is listed as $199 and $299 for the 8GB and 16GB models respectively, with a 3 year contract.

No plan pricing details are provided, so looks like we’ll have to wait a bit to find out how much they’re charging for data and if you have to sign a 3 year data contract in order to purchase the iPhone 3G at the discounted price.

Fido’s website on the other hand, is being ultra-original by announcing “Something really cool is coming July 11th”. See what they did there? They used the word “cool” in place of “big”, and suddenly they have a completely original advertising campaign. Somebody worked overtime to come up with that I’m sure. Clicking the ad on Fido’s website links to this press release which details the same handset prices as Rogers, but no additional details.

Now the question that I’m sure many of my readers really want to know: Once the iPhone officially comes to Canada, will owners of unlocked 1st gen iPhones be able to use their devices on Rogers or Fido without having to hack them anymore? In other words, will we be able to install the firmware 2.0 update, plug in our SIM card and activate our iPhones through iTunes or will we have to keep playing the firmware update hack game? I will be sure to update you all once I find out, but we probably won’t know for sure until shortly after July 11.

So, are you planning on buying the iPhone 3G once it comes out in Canada? If so, are you new to iPhone or will you be upgrading from a hacked iPhone? Let us know in the comments below.

I’ve wanted to change the header background for a while to make my website more ‘my own’. The previous gradient/pattern was based on the default image that came with the wordpress template I based my design on, called Blix by Sebastian Schmieg.

This new header background image is based on a great photograph I came across (shown above, click for the full size image), which was taken by Kevin Hiscott, who was kind enough to give me permission to use it for my website (thanks Kevin!). Check out his photo blog, Portway Ave : No Exit, if you want to see more of his work. He’s got a lot of great photos on there that showcase his talent. From the looks of some of the photos on his blog, he’s also a Mac fan, which means he’s got taste too.

Now as I mentioned, I also changed the Art Of Geek logo. Specifically, I’ve updated the gadget icons to be a bit more current. I’ve also made the entire logo a bit bigger, to fill the height of the header more. Can any of you identify the make and model of each of the gadgets featured in the new logo? Post your guesses in the comments. Bonus points to the first person who can correctly identify what gadgets have been added and removed from the previous logo!

Unfortunately my PS3’s age falls on the wrong side of that expiry date. Unfortunate because last night, my PS3 died. I was sitting on my couch racing a virtual VW Golf GTI around a virtual track in Gran Tourismo 5: Prologue (a fantastic racing simulator, by the way) when suddenly my PS3 beeped 3 times, shut itself off and just sat there with a flashing red LED. My first thought was that the game had just crashed really bad, so I tried turning the unit back on using the DualShock 3 controller. Nothing. I then tried pressing the power button on the front of the unit, the red light turned solid indicating the system was in standby mode. Another press and the system turned on, beeped 3 times, flashed a single amber LED and promptly shut itself down again with the flashing red LED as before.

I tried everything I could think of, including letting it cool off for over a half-hour and trying again, turning off the physical power switch in the back of the unit and even resetting the unit by holding the front power button for 10 seconds while turning on the physical power in the back. I also tried swapping out my upgraded 120GB hard drive with the original 60GB hard drive that came with the unit and even tried powering it on with no hard drive installed. Same thing every time.

So I called Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA), and they’ll be shipping me a pre-paid shipping casket box for me to pack my beloved console’s remains in and send it off to be replaced. Since it’s out of warranty, it’s going to cost me $160 CDN plus tax. Not too bad considering repairing any electronics these days usually costs an arm and a leg and a new PS3 would cost me $400-500. Still, it hurts. But what hurts more is knowing that I’ll likely be without it for 7-10 days, by the time I get the shipping box, send it back and receive the replacement.

The replacement will most likely be a factory re-certified unit, which basically means refurbished. Sony assured me that the replacement is shipped out 3-4 business days after receiving the defective unit. This is a relief as I expected it to be more like 1-2 weeks. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I get a working PS3 unit in time for Grand Theft Auto IV’s release on April 29. It’s already bad enough that I can’t play Gran Tourismo 5: Prologue, which I just got 2 days ago.

I hope Sony’s standards for cosmetic beauty are strict, I’d hate to get a replacement PS3 that was in worse physical condition than mine is. The customer service operator told me they would ship my GT5P game disc back with the replacement unit, since it’s stuck in the drive with no reasonable way for me to get it out myself.

So I’m trying to look on the bright side. I still have the hard drive with all my game saves on it, which should work fine once installed in the replacement PS3 I get back. This is a good thing since I haven’t backed up my data in months. Also, not having the PS3 at home to keep me occupied will mean I have some free time to do other things, like work on my website, get out and enjoy the fresh air, and spend more time with neglected loved ones. I’m just bummed I won’t be able to taunt XBox 360 fanboys about the RROD anymore. Ah, of course I can, my PS3 will have to die at least twice before I have to worry about losing that privilege.

My confidence level in the rep I was speaking too wasn’t the highest at this point, since she had to put me on hold for several minutes to research the answer to every single one of my questions, all of which were pretty straightforward, like “how do I pay for my repair”? I wasn’t impressed and even asked for a supervisor to whom I expressed my disappointment with the poorly documented process, and the lack of training provided to the call center staff. He did apologize and understood my frustration, but said I was the first to raise an issue about the process with him. He did say he would pass my feedback on to the appropriate channels, and provided me the phone number of the repair depot in Ontario where my PS3 was being shipped so I could provide them with the credit card info by phone.

I called the toll free number for the repair depot, and the phone was promptly answered by a guy who shall remain anonymous to protect his job. After bringing him up to speed with my situation, he told me that he couldn’t take my cc info until they had received my PS3. He did confirm that there was definitely two different sets of paperwork/instructions for in and out of warranty repairs, and agreed that I had been provided the wrong ones. He instructed me to simply attach a copy of my receipt to the form as it instructed. When they receive it, they assume the in-warranty status has already been confirmed by the call centre and don’t bother checking the purchase date, so my repair would be covered under warranty.

So I did as I was instructed and am keeping my fingers crossed. I’ll be sure to update this article with the outcome of this ordeal.

As an aside, the shipping and repairs are all handled through Purolator. Like many consumer electronics manufacturers these days, Sony has contracted out the shipping and repairs of their Playstation products, at least here in Canada. I don’t blame them, Purolator probably does it all cheaper and far more efficiently than Sony could do it themselves. This also explains why Sony’s support staff are somewhat clueless as to the actual behind the scenes process.

I dug out the old USB hard drive that I had last used to back up my PS3, and restored the last backup dated October 30, 2007. So I’ve lost about 5 months worth of game saves. Not the end of the world as I had finished a few games recently and already traded them in. The saves I will miss most are from Oblivion, which I had recently finished the main quest in, but still planned to go back and try to finish all the side missions. Probably about 10-20 hours of gameplay lost. The second worst loss is my progress in Assassin’s Creed, which I have been already been having a hard time motivating myself to play with all the other great games vying for my attention *cough* Call of Duty 4 *cough*. With the new COD4 maps coming out today and Grand Theft Auto IV hitting stores next week, I’m afraid my chances of picking up Assassin’s Creed again are getting pretty slim…

So a quick stop at home to collect my unused games and I was off to EBGames to pick up a couple of DualShock 3’s. After coming home from my little shopping excursion, and struggling with the hulk-proof plastic packaging, I was finally able to plug the two new controllers in to charge them. This is the bittersweet thing about most geek kit. The euphoria experienced by getting a new toy home and unboxed is invariably doused by the unfortunate necessity to charge it’s batteries for 8 hours. Not wanting to use the controller while it’s charging for fear of upsetting the battery Gods (hey, the first charge is the most important one in a young battery’s life!), at least I could hold and visually inspect it.

My first impressions:

• It’s a tad heavier, but not in a bad way, more in a good way.
• It feels much more solid. My old Sixaxis controllers seemed to creak and flex a bit if I applied twisting pressure with both my hands. When I do the same on the DualShock 3, it doesn’t budge. It’s solid as a rock.
• It’s plastic shell is completely opaque, unlike the Sixaxis which was slightly transluscent.
• Besides the above and the DualShock 3 badge on the front, it looks and feels identical to my old Sixaxis controller, which is good because the Sixaxis is the most comfortable controller I have ever used for long periods of time.

So overall, I’d say the DualShock 3 is a nice improvement over the Sixaxis, and there’s absolutely nothing to complain about as far as I’m concerned. Sure, it still doesn’t come with a USB cable, but I think in this day and age of conservation, we have to support such decisions, even if their reasons for doing so were purely economic. Given that the controller is essentially disposable, at least we won’t start building up a collection of redundant USB cables. It’s bad enough we’re throwing out the entire controller when the battery dies. OK, so maybe there’s one thing to complain about: a removable battery would have been nicer to the environment, although most likely at the cost of aesthetics and rigidity.

Before I got to bed, and after the dual DualShock 3’s had had a good 7-1/2 hours of charging, I decided I didn’t want to wait until the next day to feel the force feedback love. So I fired up Super Stardust HD for a quick asteroid smashing session and was pleasantly greeted by the soothing pulses of Immersion’s patented force feedback technology. While SSHD might not be the best game to showcase the new controller’s capabilities, it was enough just to get a feel for it and also to confirm that you can easily turn force feedback on/off via the menu that appears when the PS button is pushed. It felt good to have force feedback back, as though for a brief moment all was right with the world. Now if Infinity Ward just adds force feedback support to Call of Duty 4 for PS3, all would be right with the world.

Well, if Bell is allowed to get away with it, looks like the honeymoon may be over. News broke yesterday in major news outlets, technology blogs and internet forums that Bell Canada has been traffic shaping the wholesale internet connections they provide to competing DSL ISPs who rely on Bell’s infrastructure to provide their service. That’s right, Bell is dictating their competitor’s terms of service. The worst part about it is Bell failed to notify any of their wholesale ISP customers that they were going to do it.

While some will say Bell has a right to manage their network to ensure all their customers enjoy good performance, it’s hard to see how this doesn’t run afoul of anti-competition laws. Bell sells a lot more than just internet service after all. They’re probably best knows as a telephone service provider, but are also the major satellite TV provider in Canada. When Bell started throttling traffic for their own Sympatico customers, it was already crossing the line since the services that were getting throttled, VoIP and P2P file-sharing are both upcoming competitors to traditional telephone and cable/satellite TV service.

By applying their traffic shaping to competing DSL provider’s wholesale lines however, Bell has stepped so far over that anti-competitive line that it’s not even a line anymore, it’s a tiny spec way off on the horizon. A deregulated DSL marketplace is supposed to promote healthy competition. One of the ways companies compete is by offering better service. But rather than compete fair and square, Bell is abusing their monopoly on the DSL backbone to force their competitors to reduce their quality of service to the same low level as Bell’s. So consumers are left with no choices if they want to deal with an ISP that doesn’t utilize traffic shaping, since the only other alternatives for most are the local Cable monopoly providers, most of which also throttle their customer’s connections.

If this is allowed to continue unchecked, how long before we see YouTube or iTunes downloads get speed throttled? With more and more of the world’s communication and media traveling over the internet, the internet monopolists will have more and more power to dictate how we use our internet connections. As a telecommunications and media competitor, Bell cannot be trusted to be impartial in choosing what protocols and services to apply traffic shaping to.

So what can we do about this? Get the word out. Stop doing business with Bell and let them know why. Write a letter to your local MP, the CTRC and the Competition Bureau of Canada, and let them know you think what Bell is doing is unacceptible, and that network neutrality is not only very important to you, but that you consider it essential to promoting open competition, innovation and free speech on the internet as well as Canada’s competitiveness in the global information economy.

If you would like to support CAIP in their efforts please file submissions with the Commission over the next week to show your support for the request for interim relief. These submissions don’t have to be very complicated.
All that you need to do is:

1. Click on the following link:
   http://support.crtc.gc.ca/crtcsubmissionmu/forms/Telecom.aspx?lang=e
2. Select “Part VII / PN” from the list.
3. Insert the CRTC file number (# 8622-C51-200805153) into the “Subject” Line.
4. Insert the following suggested text into the “Description / Comments / Questions” box:
   “I am writing to express my support for the application that CAIP has filed with the CRTC regarding Bell Canada’s throttling practices. I believe that these practices contravene Bell Canada’s duties as a common carrier and that the Commission should direct Bell to immediately cease and desist from throttling the traffic of independent ISPs.”

As someone once said, if you don’t do your part to try and stop this, then you forfeit your right to complain about it, ever.

“You cannot install Mac OS X Update Combined on this volume. This volume does not meet the requirements for this update.”

At first I thought my OS installation was corrupted, but before I reached for my Leopard install DVD to do a clean install I decided to investigate whether one of the recent Apple software updates may have caused the problem. I hadn’t installed the recent Safari, Security and Time Machine & AirPort updates on my Mac mini, so I installed each, one at at time, and then attempted to install the 10.5.2 Combo update after each to see if at any point it would give me the same problem I’m having on my MacBook Pro. I installed the Safari update first, followed by the latest security update, after both, I had no problems selecting the boot volume for the 10.5.2 Combo Update, but after installing the Time Machine & AirPort Update, the Combo update now said my mini’s boot volume did not meet the requirements for the update, just like my MacBook Pro!

A quick search through Apple’s Support forums didn’t reveal any other reports about this issue, so I posted a topic there and it quickly got responses from others who have run into the same problem. One post lead us to the culprit, which was that the Time Machine & AirPort Update changed the build number of Mac OS X from 9C31 to 9C7010. Since the latest Combo Update available as of this writing is for build 9C31, it won’t let you install overtop of the newer build.

So great, we know what the cause is, but what’s the solution? Unfortunately, we’ll have to wait until Apple either releases a new Combo updater for build 9C7010, or for Mac OS X 10.5.3 to be released, which will have a new Combo Updater. Otherwise, right now, the only workaround if you really need a reinstall to fix a problem would be an Archive and Install or Format and Install using your original Leopard install DVD–which isn’t a solution at all.

Thankfully my problem is minor enough that I can wait, but for those who are having bigger issues, and for my own peace of mind, I hope we don’t have to wait too long for a proper solution from Apple.

1. Enter the following command in Terminal:
   sudo defaults write /System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion ProductBuildVersion 9C31
   This is all one command. Enter your admin password when prompted and hit return.
   If you’re typing manually, be 100% certain you type it correctly with all spaces and upper/lowercase letter exactly as shown. If you are going to totally screw up your system, this is the most likely point it will happen! This will change your OS X build number to the previous build so the Combo update will install.
2. Correct permissions on /System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist using this command:
   sudo chmod 644 /System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist
   This is so you don’t get a javascript error trying to run Installer. Again, this is all one command and be certain you type it exactly as shown, otherwise you could really screw something up.
3. Install the Mac OS X 10.5.2 Combo update and reboot.
4. Install the Time Machine & AirPort Update and reboot.
5. Install the Security Update 2008-002 v.1.1 (Leopard) and reboot.
6. Install the Safari 3.1.1 Update and reboot.
7. Repair disk permissions using Disk Utility.

Everything seems to be working right so far, and I’ve confirmed that the permissions on /System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist are correct. You can check by entering the following command in Terminal:
ls -l /System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist

The result should look exactly like this (although the date/time may be different):
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 479 Mar 13 14:03 /System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist

Good luck and if you’re brave enough to try this, post your results in the comments.

Bell was scheduled to suspend my Sympatico DSL service at midnight, so I decided I’d stay up and wait for it to happen so I could connect my new Thomson SpeedTouch 516 DSL modem up in preparation for my TekSavvy DSL service to be activated in the morning. So I figured I’d get some last minute email and websurfing in and then settled into playing Call of Duty 4 online on my PS3. In other words, what I do almost every night. My plan was to play until I lost connection, then install the new DSL modem, then go to bed and reconfigure my router to connect to Teksavvy in the morning. Midnight rolled by and I was still taking out tangos. One o’clock AM came and went and I was still defending democracy from terrorists. By around 2:15 am, I decided that my tour of duty might never end, and called it quits for the night, Sympatico Internet connection still operational. In the back of my mind, I worried that Bell’s delay in disconnecting me was going to delay the activation of the new TekSavvy connection.

Looks like those worries were unfounded since when I got up this morning at 7:00 am, I found my AirPort Extreme router’s connection light flashing amber, indicating a connection problem. I connected the SpeedTouch modem to the phone line and was happy to see the DSL and Internet status lights turn solid green. A few minutes later, I had my AirPort Extreme reconfigured with the TekSavvy settings and was connected to the Internet with our new static IP. A quick trip to my domain registrar’s self-serve website to reconfigure the artofgeek.com domain to point to our new IP and disable dynamic DNS and I was done. Then it was just a matter of waiting for the change to propagate to Internet DNS servers around the world and we were back in business. Total downtime was under 6 hours.

First impressions? My web surfing seems a bit faster, and my wife said the same thing when I asked her if she noticed a difference, but the difference isn’t immense from the limited amount of time I had to test it. There’s not much else to say at this point. It’s an internet connection, and it’s working. If you have any questions about our transition or the service, post them in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer them.

As you can see, the download speeds seem pretty consistent around 4,270kbps. The upload speeds vary more, but solidly between 500-600kbps. I only wish I had done these same tests with my Sympatico connection while I still had a chance. Keep in mind these speeds may vary depending on the time of day. I’m fairly impressed since right now is near peak hours for internet usage (between 9-10pm). I’ll run the tests again at different times of day to see if it stays consistently fast or not.

See you all when we’re back up and with a static IP address. No more short bouts of downtime because I have to reset my router. Yippee!

The world of emulators on the Mac is very diverse. I had a lot of choices available to me of which version of Lode Runner I wanted to run, on which computing platform and using which emulator. I ended up choosing the original Lode Runner game running on the Apple II, and rather than using a traditional emulator, I decided to go with one that came packaged as a Dashboard widget, that way I could quickly jump into a game of Lode Runner no matter what I was in the middle of doing, and just as quickly put it away when I’ve had my fill. Following these step by step instructions, you’ll be able to get your Lode Runner on too.

1. Download the AppleIIGo Dashboard widget from the developer’s website and then click “Install” and “Keep” when Mac OS X prompts you asking if you want to download and install the widget.
2. Download the Apple IIe ROM image from here. Extract the zip file if Mac OS X doesn’t do this for you automatically.
3. Download Lode Runner for the Apple II from here and unzip it.
4. Call up Dashboard, and click the bottom right hand corner of the AppleIIGo widget where the little “i” is.
5. On the backside of the AppleIIGo widget, click the “Disks” button, followed by the “ROMs” button. Two Finder windows will open. Click the “Done” button to flip the widget over.
6. Drag the file APPLE2E.ROM file that you unstuffed in step 2 to the Finder window named “ROMs”.
7. Drag the file named loderunner.dsk that you downloaded and unzipped in step 3 to the Finder window named “Disks”.
8. Call up Dashboard again and click on the little “i” to bring up the AppleIIGo settings again.
9. Select “loderunner.dsk” from the “Disk Drive 1:” popup menu, and then click the “Restart” button.
10. Play Lode Runner.

Here are the controls:

A more complete list of controls and commands are available here, including editing commands for creating/modifying your own levels.

Hit any key to start a game. Collect all the barrels until the exit ladder appears, then climb up the ladder to move onto the next level, all while avoiding the bad guys chasing you. Remember that bad guys will pick up barrels they walk over, which they will drop sometimes on their own or when they fall into one of the holes you’ve dug.

The only two caveats with playing Lode Runner like this is that there is no sound (the AppleIIGo emulator doesn’t support sound), and the screen can be a bit small. Those shouldn’t really get in the way of some good old school fun though, since the sound isn’t important to gameplay, and the graphics are simple enough that you shouldn’t have a problem seeing all the detail you need. Of course, you can theoretically play any Apple II game using the AppleIIGo Dashboard widget. If you successfully get any other classics running, tell our readers about it in the comments!

Have fun, and let me know what level you manage to reach. So far, I’m up to level 5.

To play or download an Apple II game at Virtual Apple, click on a letter at the top to browse their archive, then click the title of a game you want to play/download. The download links are in the right hand column.

If you get any other games working in the Apple IIGo Dashboard widget, let us know in the comments!

For the longest time I got around this by using an AppleScript, which I placed inside my ~/Library/Scripts/Applications/Safari/ folder (where “~” represents my home folder). Then whenever I’d switch monitor setups, I’d simply run that script from within Safari via the AppleScript menu on the top right side of the menubar. The AppleScript menu can be enabled using AppleScript Utility located in the /Applications/AppleScript/ folder. For those interested, this is the script I used:

tell application "Safari"
set the properties of front window to {bounds:{1, 23, 1200, 1194}}
end tell

You can copy and past that code into Script Editor and save as a script with an appropriate name like “Set Window Size – External Display”. Just substitute your own values inside the curly brackets. The values correspond with x,y screen coordinates measured in pixels from the top-left edge of the screen, and indicate the location of the top left and bottom right corners of the window. In this case, my script told Safari to set the top left corner of the front window to 1 pixel from the left and 23 pixels down (to accomodate the menu bar), and the bottom right corner to 1200 pixels from the left and 1194 pixels down.

This script has worked well for me for several years, but it wasn’t quite as convenient as I would have liked since it required me to navigate and click on the Script menu, then click on the script I wanted to run. Being the lazy computer user I am, I’ve longed for a solution that would take one less click and would be even easier to activate. Then one day, I came across a useful hint in the ehmac.com forums about this simple javascript that you could save as a bookmark that would make Safari’s window full-screen:

javascript:self.moveTo(0,0);self.resizeTo(screen.availWidth,screen.availHeight);

This was in response to a Windows switcher who really missed a simple way to make his browser window go full screen like Windows does when you click the maximize window. Thought it was pretty handy, so I added it to my Safari Bookmarks bar and called it “Full Screen” and left it there untouched for several weeks. Turns out I never want my Safari window to fill my screen since my displays are all fairly large and wide.

I guess today I had an epiphany. Lightning had just struck my brain (that had to hurt)*. If a Javascript can set my window full-size, then it should be able to set the window to any arbitrary size. Looking at the full screen javascript, it was ridiculously obvious how to modify it to fit my needs. Simply substitute the desired width and height in the resizeTo section like so:

javascript:self.moveTo(0,0);self.resizeTo(1200,1170);

You could even specify a custom window position by changing the x,y coordinates in the moveTo section if you wish.

This in itself is quite brilliant, but still a bit inelegant having bookmarks named “Full Screen” and “Big Monitor” taking up all that space on your Bookmark bar. So I came up with some nice simple bookmark names that visually represented what I wanted to accomplish in a way that would look a bit like an icon, and take a minimal amount of space on my bookmark bar, as seen in the image to the right. So from left to right, I have |-| to resize the Safari window for my small display, |+| to resize the window for my large display and |‹ ›| to resize the window full screen.

This is how they appear in my Bookmarks window:

(Click to enlarge)

Just to clarify, the “|” character is achieved by pressing shift+\, and the ‹ › characters are created by pressing shift+option+3 and shift+option+4 separated by a space on a Mac. These symbols are smaller than the standard less than and greater than symbols “< >” and make for a nicer looking icon in my opinion. I was also trying to make all three “icons” appear as similar in size as possible for consistency sake and to strengthen the illusion that they are icons. What you name your bookmarks doesn’t make any difference to how they work, so be creative if my choices don’t fit your likes or needs. If you think you’ve improved on my names, let me know in the comments!

Having one-click access to these controls directly within the window is not only more convenient, but also more intuitive. It may not seem like a huge improvement over my previous AppleScript solution, but when you do the same operation multiple times a day, every day of your life, all those clicks really add up. Sometimes, it’s the little things that make all the difference.

It was really surreal, and took me back to a dark time in my life when I had to deal with those kinds of problems on a daily basis. A time I never want to have to revisit again. I feel so dirty. I’m going to have to spend an extra amount of time using my Mac to try and cleanse me of this disgusting feeling.

It amazes me that PCs still ship with floppy drives in them to this day. Apple’s first floppy drive-less computer, the original iMac will celebrate it’s 10 year anniversary this year. It’s been over 9 years since Apple dropped the 3.5″ floppy drive from all it’s products. Really punctuates the Windows PC industry’s bizarre obsession with outdated technologies, doesn’t it?

Our government, via the CRTC, have been trying their best to inject some competition into the Canadian telecom market for a few years now, but phone number portability and competition in the DSL and home phone markets will only make a difference if customers actually start switching. It’s understandable that the majority of Canadians are reluctant to switch from one of the major providers to a relative newcomer, but really, what have you got to lose besides maybe a little inconvenience?

Up till now I was content to pay a premium for my Sympatico high-speed DSL internet service from Bell for the peace of mind of knowing I was dealing with a large incumbent that had the resources and experience to give me a reliable connection. I switched to Bell from Rogers when Rogers threatened to cancel my service because I was exceeding their monthly data transfer allowance. Bell’s Sympatico service had no such limits.

But recently, Bell Sympatico implemented traffic shaping to limit the speeds of P2P filesharing transfers during peak hours to a maximum of 30KB/s. I was resigned to live with that, provided it didn’t get any worse.

As someone who hosts their own webserver, I’ve always wanted a static IP address, but because I only run it as a hobby, I couldn’t justify the $100/month it would cost me to get a business internet account, which is usually the only way to get a static IP from Bell or Rogers. To make matters worse, business accounts are usually even more limited on data transfers than consumer accounts. So I’ve been resigned to using dynamic DNS solutions to keep my artofgeek.com domain name properly pointed to my server at home.

Last weekend, I was seeking advice about email server configuration on the ehmac.ca forums and user John Clay was kind enough to respond recommending I switch ISPs to one that doesn’t block mail traffic and offers a static IP. He then mentioned that TekSavvy, a local Ontario DSL ISP offers static IPs for just $4 extra per month.

That sounded too good to be true, but I was definitely intrigued. A quick visit to the TekSavvy Solutions website later, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that I could get the same speed of DSL service with unlimited bandwidth AND a static IP address for $4 LESS per month than what I was paying Bell. The icing on the cake was that TekSavvy does not shape traffic or block any ports AND, you can use any standard DSL modem to get your connection.

So let me sum up:

• Same speed as my existing Sympatico service.
• Unlimited bandwidth usage.
• Static IP address for hosting my server.
• No port blocking of any kind.
• No traffic shaping or speed limiting (hurray for Bittorrent!).
• Can supply your own modem.
• $4 less per month than what Bell is charging me.

That’s $43.95/month. Wow. Game over. I’m sold. So I called Bell today to cancel my service, followed by a call to TekSavvy to subscribe to their DSL High Speed Internet Unlimited residential service.

Now to be fair, you still have to buy a DSL modem, which TekSavvy charges $100 for, plus $10 for shipping. But here’s where TekSavvy’s open modem policy comes in. A 5 minute Google search, and I found speedtouch.ca that sells the exact same modem TekSavvy was going to sell me (the Thomson SpeedTouch 516) for $50 + $12 for shipping. Bell was charging me a perpetual $2/month to lease my modem, and you have no choice but to buy or lease their modem. So as long as my new DSL modem lasts more than 2.5 years, it’ll pay for itself, and I’ll save an additional $2 per month after that.

So that’s it. With just a bit of hesitation, I took the plunge. My service is scheduled to switch over from Sympatico to TekSavvy on March 18, 2008. There will be a bit of downtime during the switch, but hopefully not more than 6-12 hours. Afterwhich the Art Of Geek website should be even more reliable than it’s ever been. The most common cause for the site being inaccessible has been the dynamic IP changing every time my modem or router had to be rebooted. This will no longer be an issue. To top it all off, I will be free to run my own email server if I want to, and I can look forward to getting my bittorrent files downloaded in record time again. Needless to say, I’m really stoked about the switch.

So if you’re curious about how the switch goes, check back here after March 18. I’ll be sure to update the Art Of Geek blog on how it goes.

That being said, they had a pretty decent hardware design concept, a very usable OS (although the interface was a tad childish for my taste) and a promising platform/application distribution strategy. But one thing they have never been is particularly successful in the overall handset market. So I’m a bit confused (and saddened) by this latest news that the Borg has gobbled up Danger, Inc.

“Sure, the folks in Redmond didn’t get their grubby mitts on Yahoo! (yet), but at least they picked up a little something for their mobile division, namely: Danger. According to news just crossing the wires, the monolithic company has picked up the Sidekick-creators for an undisclosed amount, and will subsequently fold the phone-maker into its mobile wing. Is there a Windows Mobile version of the Hiptop in our future? Survey says yes.”

There’s no doubt this has something to do with RIM and iPhone’s threat to Windows Mobile, as well as the impending Google Android threat, but at first glance, it’s difficult to understand what Danger might have to offer Microsoft.

Danger used to be a hardware designer, so Microsoft may be looking to enter the handset market with this purchase. But if they wanted a cool hardware design, they could have done better than Danger, who aren’t exactly selling HipTops by the truckload. Why not buy Motorola’s mobile business instead? Motorola is officially considering divesting itself of it’s mobile phone unit, after all. I don’t think this has to do with hardware though. For one, Danger has all but given up on the hardware, just one look at Danger’s website makes that imminently clear. Other than in a YouTube video, I can’t find pictures of their HipTop anywhere.

Microsoft also runs the risk of pissing off their existing Windows Mobile license owners. Something they can’t afford to do right now. They did that in the DAP market when they launched the Zune, which has failed to make any serious inroads against the iPod/iTunes juggernaut while at the same time weakening their existing PlaysForSure Certified for Windows Vista licensing effort (what was up with that rebranding move anyway?!?).

I also find it hard to believe that Microsoft sees any real value in Danger’s software, given that Microsoft has their own mobile phone OS. Microsoft has demonstrated long ago that it doesn’t need to pay for a good software idea, they can simply borrow it and make it their own. So what is it then?

I believe the answer to that question lies in these images from Danger’s website. One depicting the “Danger experience” and the other of their new business model:

These images depict a total solutions company. A company that can offer everyone in the ecosystem value, and more importantly provide a source of income from all levels. Microsoft’s current offerings only directly targets the OEM handset makers and the end users and completely leaves out the service providers, where most of the money is. Meanwhile, Microsoft’s two biggest competitors, RIM and Apple, have already figured out how to tap into the service provider revenue stream. RIM by providing the backbone service to it’s mobile email offering, and Apple by giving it’s partners a very compelling phone to lure subscribers with, as well as back-end services like the iTunes WiFi Store as well as email/information services through partnerships with other providers such as Google and Yahoo!.

Danger, once largely a handset OS/hardware company has already done all of the legwork to turn itself into an end-to-end solutions company. So by buying Danger, Microsoft acquires much of the knowledge, technology and relationships it needs to shift from being simply the maker/licensor of the Windows Mobile OS into a complete solutions provider in a bid to better position itself against the offerings of it’s competitors.

Overall, this seems like a smart move, but how easily it can be accomplished has yet to be seen. Danger’s technology has been about open standards and the use of Java. It’s no doubt going to take a lot of work to integrate it with Microsoft’s proprietary OS and APIs, but probably not as much work as trying to develop a similar solution from scratch, especially considering Microsoft is late to the party and was obviously completely unprepared to deal with not one, but two giants suddenly entering the market.

Unfortunately, there’s very little doubt that the current Danger mobile OS’s days are numbered, much to the sorrow of current HipTop/Sidekick fans. Less clear is the fate of the HipTop swivel screen form factor. Microsoft might choose to develop it further and use it to release it’s own handset (a.k.a., the Zune phone), or they might continue to license it out for others to build and brand as their own. What they choose to do really depends on how big the market is for the swivel device. Given that it wasn’t that wildly successful to begin with, Microsoft might just let it die a quiet death.

So HipTop/Sidekick fans, what’s worse? The form factor disappearing altogether, or living on it’s existance running the uninspiring Windows Mobile OS? Sound off in the comments or discuss it in the Art Of Geek forums!

I did some searching and couldn’t find a Canadian flag wallpaper anywhere on the web, so I decided to take matters (and PhotoShop) into my own hands and create one. I figured I’m probably not the only one who has wanted to do this, so I’m making my simple creation available for others to download and enjoy.

So how do you get it on your iPhone? Just right-click (or ctrl+click) the image on the left and choose “Save linked file” (or whatever the equivalent is on your browser/OS of choice) or click the image to open the full size version in a new window and drag it to your Desktop. Then add it to iPhoto and put it in a Photo Album that you have set to sync with your iPhone in iTunes and sync your iPhone to transfer it over. On the iPhone, open Settings–>Wallpaper and choose the image from the appropriate photo album and voila! Windows users, just do the equivalent steps for Windows using your photo organization/sync method of choice.

More advanced users may choose to copy the file directly to the iPhone’s wallpaper folder using scp or sftp. If you fall into this category, then you already know what you’re doing, so you don’t need me to spell it out for you.

Enjoy!

P.S. If you’re wondering how I got the screenshot of the iPhone lock screen, I followed this hint from ZDNet.

News broke late Thursday night on TUAW that a 1.1.3 jailbreak solution for Windows had been released to the public by Nate True, a former iPhone dev team member who went rogue. About five hours later, they reported that a Mac solution had been released by Nate.

This most recent jailbreak solution is probably the easiest yet, although there’s good reason for that: it requires that your iPhone be running either firmware 1.1.1 or 1.1.2, and already be jailbroken with Installer.app already installed. Also note that as of this writing, the Mac version of the jailbreak is compatible with Intel Macs ONLY, so if you have a PowerPC Mac, you’ll have to wait until a universal version is released, or borrow a friend’s Intel Mac or Windows PC. Regardless, I highly recommend that you read the appropriate article for your OS of choice, as well as all the user comments before undertaking it yourself. Could save you from making a big mistake.

The jailbreak and instructions are available on Nate True’s blog, but I found a great tutorial on iClarified.com for both Mac and Windows which I used to do my upgrade. Fellow Canadians and others wishing to use their unlocked iPhones on non-approved carriers will be happy to know that this jailbreak solution also handles activation, and software-based sim unlocks remain in place. I can at least confirm that the iPhoneSimFree unlock I used to unlock my iPhone is still in place.

Before performing the update/jailbreak, I uninstalled any third party software leaving only SSH, BSD subsystem and Intaller.app on. I recommend doing the same if you’re planning this operation as it appears that any software left on the iPhone will need to be uninstalled and installed again to function. I also made sure to sync my iPhone one last time with iTunes to backup any data. Once done, I began the update/jailbreak process.

For those interested and haven’t been following my experiences from day one, here are the deets on my iPhone:

• 8GB model, firmware 1.0.2 out of the box.
• Jailbroken, activated and unlocked with iNdependence and iPhoneSimFree.
• Updated to firmware 1.1.1 and jailbroken/activated using iNdependence.
• Updated to firmware 1.1.2 and jailbroken/activated using the iPhone Dev Team solution.
• Operating on Rogers in Canada with a current Rogers SIM card.

During the upgrade, when the jailbreak terminal script was attempting to download the 1.1.3 firmware from Apple, as well as the patch file, I got a curl error and it appeared as though the download failed. Then, uploading the modified firmware to my iPhone completed nearly instantaneously, instead of taking minutes as per the instructions. I confirmed my suspicion that something was wrong when I checked my Mac’s /tmp/data directory for the firmware file and patch files, and found both were 0KB in size. Suspecting that the company firewall I was connecting from behind was preventing the script from downloading the files, I deleted the entire /tmp/data directory and started over from the beginning using a different internet connection and the files downloaded normally.

So if you are seeing curl errors and/or the firmware upload to your iPhone is happening too quickly, you might be having internet connectivity issues. This is proof that this initial jailbreak solution doesn’t have many checks in place to make sure each step is successful before proceeding to the next step, which means you need to be extra vigilant that you’ve read and understand all the requirements and follow the instructions carefully!

My upgrade went pretty much as detailed in the iClarified tutorial, including the “Main script execution failed” error while installing the 1.1.3 soft upgrade, which many users are reporting, after which it appeared as though my iPhone was trying to shut down (got the spinning cogwheel). After waiting at least 10 minutes for it to reboot, I force rebooted it by holding the sleep/wake and home buttons. After rebooting, I was greeted with a friendly message explaining how to edit the home screen. My iPhone was successfully updated, as can be seen from the Settings–>General–>About screen:

Post update, these are the issues I ran into, and how I solved them:

• EDGE settings got wiped and Settings would crash when attempting to re-enter my Rogers EDGE APN info. Resetting the network settings in Settings–>General–>Reset–>Reset Network Settings solved this issue and I was able to enter my EDGE and WiFi settings without issue afterwards. EDGE and WiFi both work fine.
• The OpenSSH server didn’t work. I reinstalled the BSD subsystem, rebooted my iPhone and then re-installed OpenSSH. Had to do this twice to get it to work, but it’s fine now.

Otherwise, everything is working great and as expected. Here’s what I’ve tested:

• I can send and receive telephone calls normally and I get notification of missed calls.
• Voicemail notification continues to work, pressing the voicemail button dials my Rogers voicemail number as it did before.
• I can send and receive SMS text messages, sending to multiple recipients work!
• Seems to sync without issues using iTunes 7.6.
• Safari works fine, including the new web clips on the home page feature! All my bookmarks and cookies are still there.
• Mail works fine and all my mail and settings are still there.
• iPod feature works fine, music, video podcasts tested OK. All my content was untouched.
• The wiggly icons/icon rearrangement feature on the home screen works great!
• Calendar and reminders work fine. My Calendar data was intact after updating.
• Stocks & Weather widgets functioning fine. My settings were untouched.
• Google Maps works, but locate me doesn’t function at all (expected and noted by others). My map bookmarks are intact. The new hybrid view seemed not to be working at first, but I suspect it was displaying cached information or was a problem on Google’s end as it’s started working fine.
• Camera, Photos, Contacts, Clock, Calculator, YouTube and iTunes WiFi store work fine. All my settings and data are intact.
• Installer.app works fine as do the third party programs I’ve installed and tested so far, although there are some minor glitches I’ve encountered, which are to be expected. Some apps are no doubt going to need to be updated, but my most important ones, iSolitaire, Converter, Books and mobileChat seem to work fine. The HP series of calculators work mostly, but don’t display the options correctly when you tap the HP logo.

So that’s it in a nutshell. I hope I haven’t forgotten anything. Please post your own experiences and/or questions in the comments.

Now iTunes 7.6 appears to be safe. I’ve installed it and have synchronized my jailbroken and iPhoneSimFree unlocked 1.1.2 firmware iPhone without any apparent issues. Might be a good idea to hold off a few days just to be sure, but so far so good. If you have a hacked iPhone and have updated iTunes to 7.6, let us know in the comments how it went. Please include details about your hacked iPhone (firmware, hacks applied and unlock method if applicable).

This really is ‘the basics’ and is designed to be a README FIRST for someone who just started thinking about buying and unlocking an iPhone. This glossary assumes you know what an iPhone is, are pretty familiar with cell phones and their features and are a competent computer user. If you’re the type of person who can’t get anything done on your computer or cell phone without calling someone for help, then this isn’t for you, but if you were that technically challenged, you probably wouldn’t be reading this in the first place.

So without further ado, on to the glossary!

Jailbreak

Apple designed the iPhone to make it difficult to hack for both security reasons, and so they could maintain greater control over how it was used. As such, they have not provided any means for end users to modify the built-in OS X operating system or install additional applications. Jailbreaking refers to the act of circumventing those controls or locks to enable write access the the iPhone’s OS and storage. An iPhone that has had this done to it is considered jailbroken.

Activation

Activation is the act of plugging your iPhone into your computer and running iTunes in order to ‘activate’ it’s features, something you need to do when you first take it out of the box or restore it’s firmware using iTunes. Activation in iTunes is usually a one-click process, but only if you have an officially supported carrier SIM card inserted. If it detects your SIM card is not an approved one, it will simply not allow you to activate your iPhone, which makes it pretty much useless except for placing emergency calls (e.g. 911). This is where the activation crack is needed. You need to jailbreak before you can crack it’s activation since it requires you to modify the iPhone’s software. Often the tool you use to jailbreak will also crack the activation.

Unlock

Most cell phone providers in North America sell mobile phones that have been locked to only work on their own cellular network in order to make it inconvenient for customers to switch to competing cellular providers. The iPhone is no exception. So if you buy an iPhone from the U.S., it’s locked to only work on the AT&T network in the U.S., even though the GSM technology the iPhone was built on was originally designed to make it simple to switch networks simply by swapping out a little chip called a SIM card. Basically, if a non-AT&T SIM card is inserted in an unmodified iPhone, it will be rejected by the phone and you won’t be able to connect to any cell phone network for voice or data. Unlocking is the act of modifying an iPhone to make it function with SIM cards from other GSM providers.

There are several different methods that can be used to unlock an iPhone, including a hardware unlock which requires you to physically open the iPhone and solder some connections, a “TurboSIM” method, which uses a special SIM card which must be purchased and most popularly, software unlocks which simply require you to run an unlock program on a jailbroken and activated iPhone. There are both commercial (e.g. iPhoneSimFree) and free (e.g. AnySIM, iUnlock) software unlock solutions available.

Firmware

The firmware is simply the iPhone’s operating system and software that makes the iPhone work. Apple periodically releases firmware updates which fix bugs and add new features via iTunes for Mac OS X or Windows. So far, Apple has not forced users to update their iPhone to newer firmware versions, but that doesn’t mean it might not happen in the future. Updating is of course mandatory if you want to take advantage of any new features they contain.

So far, each new iPhone firmware update Apple has released has undone the jailbreak and activation crack, requiring new solutions to be developed. Even restoring your iPhone with the current firmware requires you to re-apply the current jailbreak and activation crack, which sometimes requires you to downgrade your firmware first. The unlock may or may not have to be re-applied however, depending on which solution you use. So far the iPhoneSimFree solution has survived every firmware update Apple has released to date, and this is the one I’ve used on mine and my wife’s iPhones. Newer free unlock programs seem to survive now as well, but don’t have as proven a track record as the commercial iPhoneSimFree solution and even got a bit of negative publicity for rendering iPhones inoperable when firmware version 1.1.1 was first released, although a fix was eventually released weeks later.

Keep in mind that just because an unlock has survived firmware updates in the past, that’s no guarantee that it will survive all future firmware updates, but it does bode well. As always, unless you’re the adventurous type and doesn’t mind being the guinea pig, wait for others to update their firmware and run the new jailbreak/activation cracks and give the all-clear before proceeding with it yourself.

Baseband modem firmware

Like most complex gadgets these days, the iPhone is made up of many smaller complex components, each of which may have it’s own little bits of software driving them. One such component is the iPhone’s cellular modem or ‘baseband modem’, which is what allows the iPhone to connect and communicate via voice and data on the GSM network. The baseband modem has it’s own firmware (often referred to simply as baseband, or the baseband) that is periodically updated by the main iPhone firmware updates. You shouldn’t really have to worry about dealing with this at all, unless something has gone horribly wrong and you now either have a corrupt or damaged baseband modem firmware, or a firmware version mismatch, which happens when you downgrade the iPhone’s firmware in iTunes, since iTunes will not downgrade the baseband modem firmware. In either of these cases, symptoms will generally be problems or a complete inability to accept/make incoming or outgoing calls, SMS messages and access EDGE data services.

EDGE

EDGE is the cellular data network that the iPhone uses to connect to the internet from almost anywhere you can make a cell phone call. Any iPhone data application such as email, Safari, the Stocks and Weather widgets, YouTube and iTunes Store will use the EDGE network, if available, to connect to the internet and send/retrieve information. Note that like all other cellular services, you do have to pay extra for EDGE data usage, and it can be VERY expensive, especially if you don’t have an EDGE data plan, or you go over your plan limit. You can check your EDGE data usage under Settings–>Usage from your iPhone’s main screen. Accessing the EDGE data network normally requires you to have the correct APN settings entered in Settings–>General–>Network–>EDGE. If you want to make sure you never access the EDGE network, to avoid usage charges for instance, simply leave these settings blank.

Wi-Fi

Wi-Fi is your common wireless computer network that many homes, schools and businesses use to network computers. The iPhone will prompt you to connect to any available Wi-Fi network it detects when it attempts to connect to the internet BEFORE it will use an available EDGE network. This is great, since using Wi-Fi doesn’t incur any airtime charges on your cellular phone bill. The downside is free Wi-Fi networks may be limited where you go, especially outside of urban areas. Some Wi-Fi networks cost money to use, but are easy to spot, since you’ll be prompted by a web page to log in or purchase time when you try to visit any page in Safari. Many hotels, airports, coffee shops, conference centres and even some large urban areas have such paid wireless networks available and they can be really worthwhile if you have some time to kill or really need to get access to some web sites where EDGE would be too expensive. You’ll have to do the math and decide for yourself depending on your carrier’s rates and your data plan, if any.

Epilogue

I’m guessing that if/when my carrier here in Canada (Rogers) officially begins offering the iPhone for sale, that I will no longer have to deal with cracking the activation of my iPhone since iTunes will recognize my Rogers SIM card as an approved one. From that point on, if I have no desire to install my own software hacks, I should be able to upgrade my firmware without having to worry about re-hacking my iPhone. Since Apple has already committed to opening the iPhone to 3rd party software development beginning sometime early next year, my days of hacking my iPhone to install the programs I want on it will hopefully be numbered. I really look forward to the day when updating my iPhone’s firmware is as simple as Apple intended, but in the meantime, I’m thankful to all those hard working individuals who have made it possible for me to own and use this wonderful device in Canada now.

Please note that I have not tested the new version myself, so run it at your own risk. I’d suggest reading through the comments on this TUAW article and maybe scanning the posts in the Hackint0sh forums to see if anyone is having any problems before proceeding. Please note that this jailbreak/activation solution DOES NOT handle unlocking. This will require an extra step using an unlocking program such as iPhoneSimFree.

Now I say it’s relatively simple because it is somewhat lengthy, with many steps to follow, but the hard stuff is automated, so as long as you are comfortable following step by step instructions and are fairly familiar with your OS of choice (Mac OS X or Windows), you should be OK. Whether or not it’s worth upgrading to the latest firmware really depends on who you are and how you want to use your iPhone, or more specifically, in what language. Besides the likely bug and security fixes (like the Safari TIFF file exploit, which has been closed), the only new features seem to be better support for typing and using your iPhone in other languages. So unless you want/need the better language support, have bought a new iPhone that came with firmware 1.1.2 out of the box, or, like me, you absolutely have to know you’re running the latest firmware “just because”, you may want to just sit this one out and wait for the next firmware update.

[Update 2] A lot has happened in the iPhone hacking world in the past week. On October 10, the iPhone Dev Team published detailed instructions for jailbreaking and activating iPhone firmware 1.1.1. Within 24 hours, the folks at iPhoneSimFree, confirmed that their unlock solution in conjunction with the iPhone Dev Team’s hack would enable unlocked phones to be fully operational running the latest firmware. They also released an update to their SimFree application which repaired iPhones that had previously been bricked due to corruption of the baseband radio firmware caused by some of the free unlock solutions. I can confirm that the combination of hack and iPhoneSimFree does in fact work, and quite well.

The main problem is it a very lengthy process and I wouldn’t recommend it for anyone without at least a basic understanding of Unix terminal operation. It’s also risky–one small mistake could mean having to start all over from scratch or worse, permanently damaging your iPhone. I performed the operation on my iPhone, and it took the better part of half a day to complete, with lots of waiting and a fair share of frustrating moments. The instructions make some assumptions about your level of knowledge, which will require you to fill in the blanks yourself in a couple of steps. I also found a slight error in one step dealing with the jailbreak operation which I found I had to skip in order for the jailbreak to work. The solution also leaves you with an inoperable YouTube application, which is a bummer. Otherwise, the operation was a success*, but the ordeal made me hesitant to go through it all again with my wife’s iPhone, so I decided to hold off updating hers until an easier solution became available.

Thankfully for me, my wife and other Mac users holding off updating their iPhones, a new version of iNdependence for Mac OS X (currently version 1.2.3) makes the process of updating your iPhoneSimFree unlocked iPhone much easier, and much less risky. It’s still a multi-step process, but the documentation, located in the application’s Help menu, is very well written and the entire operation is handled by the application in conjunction with iTunes–no terminal commands required! Better yet, iNdependence activates your iPhone correctly so the mobile YouTube app works!

Here are screenshots of iNdependence’s five tabs (click each to enlarge):

Before using the app to update my wife’s iPhone (firmware 1.0.2), I wanted to test the solution on my own iPhone already updated to firmware 1.1.1. Following the easy instructions provided by iNdependence 1.2.3, I restored and downgraded iPhone back to firmware 1.0.2, then proceeded to update back to firmware 1.1.1, activate and jailbreak. The entire operation took about 1-1/2 hours, but I was taking my time, making sure to read each instruction more than once just to be safe. When I was finished, I had a fully functional* unlocked iPhone running firmware 1.1.1, that still supported the installation of third party applications.

Last night I used iNdependence to update my wife’s iPhone from firmware 1.0.2 to 1.1.1. It took about an hour, and the steps were the same, only I was able to skip the firmware downgrade steps, since her iPhone was still running the older 1.0.2 firmware. The update went without a hitch, and she is now happy that her iPhone is just as up to date as mine. Since I’ve performed the update on two iPhone’s now, I’m confident in recommending iNdependence 1.2.3 to those of you who have iPhones that were unlocked using iPhoneSimFree’s solution provided you are somewhat knowledgeable about computers and are comfortable following detailed instructions.

Please note that this solution is currently only tested with the iPhoneSimFree unlock solution, and from what I’ve read DOES NOT support any of the other software unlock solutions. My understanding is that iPhones unlocked using the free unlock solutions (AnySim, iUnlock) will be returned to a locked state once updated to firmware 1.1.1. There is some news reported today about an updated free unlock solution that supposedly works on iPhones that have not had their baseband firmware tampered with yet. Unfortunately, I can’t vouch for it since I haven’t used it, so proceed with caution. Since the commercial iPhoneSimFree solution is the only software solution that not only has survived the 1.1.1 firmware update, but even managed to repair iPhones that were damaged by other solutions, it may be worth paying the $60+ just for the peace of mind, at least until the other solutions can prove themselves.

* Note: There is one little glitch that exists regardless of whether you use the manual or iNdependence method to update your hacked iPhone’s firmware to version 1.1.1: the iPhone keeps forgetting the EDGE APN settings (Settings–>General–>Network–>EDGE) every time you reboot your iPhone. Thankfully, there is a relatively easy fix courtesy of the Hackint0sh forums which entails manually entering the settings in the /var/root/Library/Preferences/com.apple.carrier.plist file.