Dual Boot Your iPhone!
Thursday, March 13th, 2008 | Apple, Hack, Tools, Utilities, iPod | No Comments
A big problem with the iPhone is that every time Apple releases a software update, those that have unlocked or used some sort of Jailbreak software on it find themselves with an expensive phone that no longer works. A combination of this and the recent release of the iPhone SDK had me thinking about whether or not it would be possible to run multiple versions of the system software so that if an update (or an application I might be testing) were to ruin the phone, there still would be another, working copy available.
This would prevent me from having to do a full-reset anytime I screw up, and/or find myself with a dead phone…… the question then becomes, is it possible to dual-boot an iPhone?
YES
I came across an article last night which tells you exactly how to be able to dual-boot your iPhone in different versions of the system software.
A word of warning though, this is no easy task and primarily involves using the command line, so I would not suggest this for the novice user.
The article was written in part by Jonathan “NerveGas” Zdziarski, a programmer notorious for his iPhone hacks as well as author to recently released book, iPhone Open Application Development. Zdziarski was also the creative mind behind a whole gamut of other iPhone innovations – everything from a Nintendo Emulator to even developing an initial technique that would enable the usage of SSH in your iPhone apps. You can find his blog here – www.zdziarski.com/ but if you really want the most up-to-date scoop on iPhone enhancements/hacks, head on over to their irc channel – #iPhone.
In case you just upgraded your iPhone’s firmware to 1.1.4, here’s a post regarding how to jailbreak it from cre.ations.net, or you can go directly to the source and download ZiPhone.
[original source - iPhone Atlas -- photo credit: the Boy Genius Report]
Yahoo Wants You To Stalk Your Friends – Introducing Fire Eagle
Friday, March 7th, 2008 | API, Beta, Mashup, Tools, Twitter, WebApps | No Comments
Yahoo recently launched Fire Eagle, their first Rails-based web-app that enables you to share your location with other users/services in a variety of ways. It’s still in “beta” mode, but they were smart and came up with a clever way for you to instantly get an invite – By using an already-made mashup incorporating the instant updates. In this case, they chose to use Twitter to interact w/ their api. And after looking at the sample code, it’s pretty easy to setup too. In order to get an instant invite to check-out this beta-release for yourself:
1) First you must have a twitter account (which if you’re reading this blog i’m assuming you already do, even if it was only used once to see what the whole “Twitter” thing was about), you will then need to “follow” DangerDay. That can be done by clicking on the follow link in his profile page or by simply twittering “follow dangerday”
Danger Day will then immediately return the favor by following your twitter account as well, thus enabling you to be able to direct message each other.
2) Now that you’re following DangerDay, you need to get an invite, so next up is direct messaging dangerday with the word “invite”. Once again, this can be done by twittering “d dangerday invite”
DangerDay will then respond with a link for you to follow, enabling you to sign-up on the FireEagle page for an account…what a nice guy
3) Now once you’ve got your account squared away, why not test it out with dangerday? In order to update him as well as the entire Fire Eagle Service as to your location, all you need to do is direct message him again with “u location_here”.. for example: “d dangerday u Atlanta, GA” – that will let dangerday AND Fire Eagle know that I’m currently in Atlanta, GA.
This service, like all other social-dependent ones, will live or die based on whether or not developers get involved and come up with interesting mashups. Right now there are already popular sites that could benefit from being able to twitter or IM an updated location (or be automatically fed coordinates via GPS enabled phones), a good example would be the social travel site Dopplr. This dependency on developers adopting their free Yahoo service isn’t something that I feel is lost on the guys behind this project either – they’re using standardized, open-source tools like OAuth that coders are already familiar with. If they make it easy to incorporate, then they’ve got a better chance of someone using it in their application, even if just for fun. If it was incorporated into a web-app, just using the user’s IP would result in knowing their location and being able to update the service….so the possibilities are endless.
It’s already been incorporated into Facebook so that you can easily stalk follow your friends, I’m sure they’re always just dying to know where I am at all times. Although I will say this – A service like this could come in handy if you were part of a big group trying to meet-up in a crowded location (i.e. somewhere in Austin this weekend for SXSW). One SMS sent to Fire Eagle and then all your buddies would know where you were (i.e. “Already at the bar waiting for you guys to get here!”). And if your phone has GPS enabled, I wouldn’t have even had to send the text, Fire Eagle gives you the option of letting your phone auto-update their service with your whereabouts. Now to find out where another user is, you would only have to use something as simple as the twitter or AIM example from above. So to show you how this works, let’s go back to our good friend dangerday. Direct message him with “q brentter” and it’ll respond with my most recent location (for you non-twitters, that means you’d type: “d dangerday q brentter” but without the quotes).
With the recent release of the iPhone SDK, I can only imagine this service being experimented with alongside the new framework – Erica Sadun in fact has already released an application for your iPhone called firefindme that does just that but without using GPS. Instead she uses another Yahoo service called Zone Tag, which was initially released as a way to geo-tag your Flickr photos based on specific “location tags” that you would assign them (or if you had a phone w/ built-in GPS, it would automatically do it for you).
So far the Developer section of the Fire Eagle site has been steadily growing, with it currently showcasing quick starts, examples api code (right now though only in javascript, php, perl, python, and ruby), and options on various open-source ways to authenticate user sessions. It also looks like they’re hoping to build an application gallery/showcase into the site.
This has some pretty good potential, although personally I feel it’s somewhat of a stretch for it to be utilized in anything major.
And i’m not even going to get into how privacy goes through the window if your phone is sending a webservice updates on where you are. Marshall Kirkpatrick from ReadWriteWeb shares similar concerns about the idea of allowing others to track your every movement (You are given the option of it not automatically pinging your GPS enabled phone to update your location, but just like when Facebook announced their new “mini-feed service,” it just gives give me a the creeps)
[source for some of this information came from Jesse Newland's Blog - SoylentFoo]
Video of Twitter Broken Down Into Plain English
Thursday, March 6th, 2008 | Twitter, Video | No Comments
Found via one of Chris Brogan’s tweets, this is a shining example of what happens when you realize the need to explain a social trend/community, have a camera handy, and enjoy making collages/paper cut-outs.
Created by the folks over at CommonCraft, this is a great 2.5 minute video explaining Twitter – from it’s beginnings to it’s common usage in today’s society and more importantly, why you should be using it too. Really nicely done, this doesn’t look like it was just thrown together in a few minutes, it even sounds like they put some effort into making the narrator’s voice come out clean and crisp…i.e. actual production values… As far as I’m concerned, this is the new PSA for Twitter.
Nicely done.
You can read more about it and even see some of the great comments left on their original post – CommonCraft Explains Twitter in Plain English
Microsoft Released Internet Explorer 8 beta 1 For Public Download!
Wednesday, March 5th, 2008 | Beta, IE8, Microsoft, Software Update, WebApps | No Comments
Microsoft just released their latest version of Internet Explorer 8 beta 1 to the public on their “Internet Explorer 8 Readiness Toolkit” site.
On the main page is a message from Chris Wilson, IE Platform Architect: This release contains some great advances in Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and layout, programming model, performance, reliability, usability and service integration. We are eager to ensure that the transition to Internet Explorer 8 is seamless for you and your audience, and to give you a head start on using many of the new features with your sites and services. We encourage you to test your sites and services, and our platform implementation, and give us feedback!”
One of the interesting new features they talk about is something called “Activities:”
These activities/services are supposedly going to be available to developers to tweak enabling 3rd parties to offer mini-web-apps to integrate within the browser. There are a few other “features” they highlight on the site, so go check it out if you have any interest.
For direct download links:
Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 for Windows Vista x64 Edition and Windows Server 2008 x64 Edition
Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 for Window XP SP2
Domain, IP, and Hosting Tools – Find Out If Your Webhost Is Just A Reseller
Sunday, March 2nd, 2008 | Site Information, Tools, Utilities, tests | No Comments
Here’s a collection of tools that come in handy when researching domains, hosting providers, or even just checking up on the rank of your own website:
Who Is Hosting This? -
Find out who is hosting your hosting provider! It’s a great tool to see if you’re getting ripped off by going through a re-seller. Why use a middle-man when you can go straight to the source?
MyIPNeighbors.com – Find out what other domains are hosted on your IP. Perfect for seeing who else is on the same shared-hosting server that your account uses.
BustaName.com – Fast domain searching, including the ability to check a bulk list of domains to see what is available!
Popuri.us – A great tool that with one click can tell you the link popularity of any domain based on its ranking (Google Page Rank, Technorati, Alexa, etc..)
BuiltWith.com – Website and SEO analysis. Find out what technology/software a website is using, even what type of server and advertising programs it has in place!
Find out who your neighbors are! You can use the above tools for a variety of purposes, including checking up on your competition as well as making sure your webhost isn’t just a re-seller. Instead go to the source for cheaper rates!
Other Places You Can Find Me:
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