2007 October archive at Monkeykit’s Blog

Archive for October, 2007

19OctInstaller updated to v3.0b for iPhone

Always thought that the “Installer” app was one of the best ideas ever. For those that don’t know what it is, it is an RSS style feed but rather than have it feed news stories, it feeds the latest applications, updates and what not. It’s sorta like (gasp) Windows update, but works much better because it doesn’t force you to install everything.

On the previous version, it function was great, but the UI was kinda left out in leftfield. (scrolling down about 6 pages past the dictionaries, books and other crap that I don’t really care about)

Now the great creators at Nullriver have updated the great Installer program that mimics the iTunes store. See the full description here: http://blog.psmxy.org/2007/10/18/nullriver-set-to-release-installerapp-30/

According to Nullriver, the new features are:

Redesigned UI
Collapsed groups on the Install page
“Recents” category on the Install page, for “Today”, “Yesterday” and “Older”
Ability to easily add/remove Sources
Abilty to easily install all available updates
A “Featured” page that currently is used as an info page
“More Info” no longer opens Safari

Seems like they really ramped things up after hearing the news that Apple will release an SDK for the iPhone and iPod touch February 08.

Unfortunately no pictures, of it yet, but when I will try to bring some to you soon.

Update: My friend at HighTechDad has posted images here: http://weblog.techdad.net/2007/10/19/iphone-apptapp-installer-30b3-released/

in apple, hack and iphone. 1 Comment

16OctBlog Action Day: Using car sharing programs like Zipcar, Flexcars

Zipcar grafix

So yesterday was Blog Action Day. It is suppose to be designed for bloggers to promote the environment because of this thing called Global Warming happening right this minute.

The San Francisco Bay Area is becoming more and more like Los Angeles with the amount of smog and air quality around here. Yeah, there are sure a lot of Hybrids around town and even SF Muni is replacing their gas guzzing buses with electric hybrid rides.

So what’ s a quick way to save the environment and also save your wallet. If you are like me, I don’t really need a car 24/7. Having to commute with public transportation is easy and cheap.

PROS:

Don’t have to worry about leaving the car outside and having some f*ker bang into it at night
Saves on upkeep of the car (ie. Oil Change, tire rotation and filters, car wash, etc.. )
You pay a flat fee from $8.75 an hour or $65 a day. Gas and insurance is included. And you can drive it up to 180 miles per day.
Drive a wide variety of cars, including xA, xBs, Civics, Versa and 3’s to Tacoma’s, Elements and even more luxurious options like a S40 or a 328i even
Cars are almost everywhere in the metro areas. Around my workplace, I can walk1 block and have access to 5 cars. Another 10 min walk would yield me 20 more available cars.
You book your car appointment online, through the website. Unlike a rental car company, there is no paperwork or going into their place to rent the car. The cars are out on the street!

Like any kind of membership inclusion, there is a small signup fee for it, but with the link here, you can signup through my referral and get $50 free driving credit. You have to pay a one time startup fee of $25, but in the long run it’s well well worth it.

Enjoy the rest of the day and please please try to change the way we use a car!

in tech. 0 Comments

15OctiPod Classic GUI on 5 / 5.5 Gen iPods hack!

I stumbled upon a hack this morning during my one hour of free time. This allows you to have Classic GUI on the 5th gen iPod. It’s not a hard hack to do, but it doesn’t have Cover Flow (yet!)

It’s an easy hack, but requires you to download several applications and Windows:

Download iPodWizard 1.3.7 here
Download the firmware here . Make sure you know if you which version of the iPod you have. There is a very suttle difference between 5th gen and 5.5 Gen!

Now follow these steps:

Select “Firmware File” as edit mode and press “Open Firmware” after.
Locate the folder where the you unzipped the 5G Classic Firmware.
Double click the file called “5G Classic Firmware”
Modify the firmware the way you want to. The background image is at index 138.
Press “Write” first and press “Write to iPod” next. Make sure you press “Write” first of the changes won’t be saved.
Go into your taskbar and look for the “Safely Remove Hardware” and unmount the iPod
Your iPod will automatically reboot itself with the new UI

Caution
There have been many reports of this firmware putting ipods into an endless boot loop.
BUT DON’T WORRY
This problem is not permanent, and is EASILY fixable.
But before you do anything, to help avoid this problem, Take caution to some vital steps in the installation proces.

Make sure you have the correct firmware for your ipod. If you have a 5g get the 5g firmware. If you have a 5.5g get the 5.5g firmware.
Make sure your using the latest version of IpodWizard. The latest version, 1.3.7, can be found on this site.
Make sure no other programs are accessing your ipod at the time of writing the firmware. Including Itunes.
Make sure you give IpodWizard time to write the firmware, it will alert you when the writing is complete.
Safely eject your ipod with the “Eject” button in IpodWizard.

If you install this firmware onto your ipod and it doesn’t start up, and remains at the Apple logo
Then it’s in a Boot Loop, but is VERY easily fixed
Press and hold the center button, and the play button at the same time, until the “Disk Mode” screen appears.
From here you can connect your ipod to your computer and safely restore your firmware Using any backups or other firmwares you may have. You can then use iTunes and restore your iPod back to the stock firmware

Don’t let this Cautionary Warning scare you out of trying out this firmware.
There have been numerous successful installs and the firmware is a great addition
The worst thing that can happen is you’d have to put it into disk mode and restore your firmware.
Which is a very small process, amounting in a few minutes of work.

Enjoy and let me know if you have questions

in apple, hack, how to and iPod. 1 Comment

13OctConfessions from a iPhone 1.0.2 with jailbrake from 1.1.1 jailbrake

That was probably one of the most longest “upgrades” of hacks I done in a long time. Longest in time, not because of pain..

Coming from the 1.0.2 firmware that was never upgraded to the latest 1.1.1 firmware, the end cause had me restoring to 1.1.1 because I had this weird 1.38 gb of used space on my iPhone. Where the phuc did that come from?

Anyways, I followed pages from the web like HighTechDad’s good writeup of his experiences using the jailbrake method and also iPhoneAlley’s blog on step by step what to do.

I ended up reading HTD’s notes first, but followed iPhoneAlley’s writeup line by line. Here’s my experience with it.

Was originally on 1.0.2 then used AppTapp Installer to Jailbrake. Installed multiple apps without any problems.

Following iPhoneAlley’s Doc:

Step #1) Synced, no problem

Step #2) Skipped, already on 1.0.2

Step #3) Failed. Had a lot of trouble SSH-ing. Realized I should of been SSH-ing and missed the step. Got upgraded to 1.1.1 doing a Upgrade, but noticed after upgrading, that 1.38gb were taken up by some random space. I typically only use about 2gb of my 4gb space, and I noticed during the upgrade process to the firmware, that there was warning message on the iPhone screen stating that I was running out of disk space? My guess is that during the upgrade, it copies the firmware file over and the jailbraken 1.0.2 version does not clean up the firmware upgrade during this process

Could not start on step 4. Had trouble trying to get a connection with iPhuc.

Ended up doing a restore, which bumped me to 1.1.1, but permanently deleting my hacks and all the things I done previously. I had to downgrade to 1.0.2 using iPhoneAlley’s instruction

Step #1) Make sure you hold down the Sleep/Wake and Home key for 10 secs. This will cold boot the iPhone and get into the recovery console.. I made the mistake of holding it just for 3 seconds and could not get the downgrade process to work with 1.0.2 firmware. (gave a error code 1).

Step #2-7) Went through without any problems. Just make sure you follow the guide by the word. Read and reread it again.

I would say this hack defintely helps the iPhone become better than it does. I have noticed that the speakers and speakerphone are much louder (50%) than before (big difference) and the iMap fix of deleting Exchange email automagically when it’s deleted off the iPhone!

Anyways, I’m calling it a weekend and enjoy my jailbroken iPhone. Sure some apps dont work yet, (like summerboard and customize) but like anything in the hack world, it’s a matter of time.

in apple, iphone, rant and stupid. 0 Comments

05OctBest. Screensaver. Ever.

I never thought that Japanese girls dancing could be so relaxing. This is a SFW screensaver I found from Digg today. With my dual 20″ monitor setup at work, the screen saver shows two different streams of videos for about 5 seconds, then switches to the current time, then back again. The movies are very unique and I guess something weird gestures makes this rather exciting.

Fortunately, its for both Windows and Macintosh, *yah*. You can find this here: http://www.uniqlo.jp/uniqlock

in apple, tech and windows. 0 Comments

Archive for October, 2007

19OctInstaller updated to v3.0b for iPhone

16OctBlog Action Day: Using car sharing programs like Zipcar, Flexcars

15OctiPod Classic GUI on 5 / 5.5 Gen iPods hack!

13OctConfessions from a iPhone 1.0.2 with jailbrake from 1.1.1 jailbrake

05OctBest. Screensaver. Ever.

About

Recent Posts

Twitter Updates

Recent Flickrs

B l o g R o l l

Search