A 16 GB iPhone just made its way to my home today all the way from an US store. Even though I had “experienced” iPhone by reading about it and by seeing tons of videos on YouTube, using it live was a totally different experience.

iPhone is an amazing, astounding, remarkable, wonderful, incredible, marvelous product from Apple!

The sad fact is that I can use this phone only for the next 20 days after which my brother would take ownership! (He is the actual owner of this phone)

Sadder is the fact that I have to return using my HTC Touch. Believe me, HTC Touch UI is nothing compared to iPhone; same goes for the user experience.

Using iPhone in India

We all know that iPhone is available only in a few select countries and its also bound/locked to a particular carrier in that country. And if you are not lucky to be in that country, the only way to use an iPhone is by “hacking” it.

I spent almost 3-4 hours by going through the various forums to find the safest way of hacking the iPhone.

As you read more and more into these forums, rather than being informed, you end up in a confused state. You really can’t decide as to what method to use to hack your 500$ iPhone.

I am in no way an iPhone hacking expert but this is what I understood by going through tons of articles and forum posts. (Disclaimer: The information might not be 100% accurate)

First thing is to understand some of the terminologies associated with hacking the iPhone.

If you are planning to use iPhone in India you need to do all of the above. For some legal users of iPhone hacking might only involve “Jailbreak” which allows them to install third party applications.

Tools to hack iPhone

After going through the various forums, I narrowed down onto two tools to hack the iPhone (on Windows)

1. ZiPhone 2.6b
2. iPlus 2.0b

There is one set of users who have had success with ZiPhone and there is one set which believes that iPlus is the safest way of hacking iPhone.

The way ZiPhone breaks iPhone is different from the way iPlus does; ZiPhone permanently downgrades the bootloader from version 4.6 to 3.9 whereas iPlus downgrades it to a fake blank 3.9 bootloader. With iPlus you have an option to go back to 4.6 bootloader which is probably required to shield against future firmware updates from Apple.

Many believe that iPlus2.0b is the safest way to hack iPhone; however note that there is one issue found with using Fake Blank Bootloader. More details on this post. The issue is more of a warning and might occur only if you try to downgrade to 1.0.0 or 1.1.1 firmware.

ZiPhone has a very nice user interface and it almost tempted me to use it rather than iPlus. (Note: ZiPhone is probably an ideal tool to break iPod Touch)

However the inability to restore back 4.6 bootloader prompted me to use iPlus2.0b with the international payload. Though iPlus2.0b is command line driven, it did its work of breaking, activating and unlocking the iPhone with zero trouble.

The iPhone is currently activated on Airtel network and it should also work with the following service providers:

• Spice
• Vodafone
• CellOne

For using iPlus2.0, I followed the instructions given on this post:

• How to activate, jailbreak and unlock 1.1.4 firmware with iPlus (3.9 / 4.6 bootloader)

Also note that I skipped the loading of 1.1.4 firmware; You can skip this after confirming that you have 1.1.4 version of the firmware on your iPhone. To confirm the firmware version, you need to type in this code: *3001#12345#*

Also if you are not comfortable with this command line interface, the same developers of iPlus have come up with iLiberty+.

This UI wrapper for iPlus was released a week back and I thought it might be risky to try out a new untested tool. However I do like the concept of iLiberty+ where they have tried to design it as an extensible tool; users can download and place the payloads of their choice and select the same from the “Advanced” tab.

Disclaimer: This post is just my experience of breaking iPhone using iPlus2.0, if you bricked your iPhone using iPlus2.0 or ZiPhone I am not liable

Live photo gallery was one of the recent applications which got added to my favorite application list. In my previous post on Live Photo Gallery I had wished that the application provided integration with Flickr.

The Photo gallery team headed by Michael Palermiti has heard to this wish and the latest update of Live photo gallery now supports a powerful Flickr Integration.

Rather than going into the details of the feature, I will just embed the video created by Michael.

One of the best things about this tool is that now you could tag the photos/input captions/photo title and the same would be reflected on Flickr. So if you do have a Flickr Account, its time to switch from the default Flickr Uploader to Live Photo Gallery.

(Note: The Flickr feature is downloaded as part of the Windows update and is not part of the Live photo gallery download)

Other Related Links

• Blog Post on Official Live Blog
• Blog Post on Official Flickr Blog

ActiveSync, a synchronization program developed by Microsoft allows a mobile device to be synchronized with a Desktop PC. Other than syncing your contacts, calendar, tasks and notes you can also sync the Emails on the Exchange server.

ActiveSync also allows you to

1. Copy files between PC and the Mobile Device
2. Install/Uninstall Mobile Applications

ActiveSync can also be used to connect to a network or Internet. The connected device can use the computer’s network connection as if it were its own. You can use this feature to perform tasks such as downloading non-Outlook e-mail messages or to browse the Internet.

The above feature was the primary reason I wanted to setup a ActiveSync partnership via Bluetooth on my HTC Touch Smartphone. The device did have Wi-Fi capabilities;however the minute I turned it on, it used to suck the handset battery big time !

Fortunately Bluetooth wasn’t that damaging on the battery and hence is an ideal way to sync with your PC and also happens to be the best way to connect to Internet as well !!

Here is a step by step guide to setup ActiveSync via Bluetooth

(Note that the snapshots and features correspond to ActiveSync 4.5 and a Windows Mobile 6 powered Device)

1. Setup a Bluetooth partnership between the device and PC
   I am not going to write in detail about this step. The above process essentially involves turning on the Bluetooth on both your PC and Handset, making them discoverable and adding the Bluetooth device to the “Devices” list. Optionally you can also setup a secure partnership by associating a passkey.
2. Add Incoming Bluetooth COM port on your PC
   The Bluetooth Settings on your PC has a tab to configure the Bluetooth COM ports. Add one Incoming port (device initiates the connection) as shown below
   
3. Set the Bluetooth COM port in the ActiveSync connection settings dialog.
   
4. On your Handset go to Start -> Settings -> Connections -> Bluetooth
5. Your PC should be listed in the Devices Tab (If step 1 was successfully done)
6. Click on the PC device in the list to open the “Partnership Settings” screen. After clicking on the “Refresh” button, you should see a “ActiveSync” service listed as shown below
   
7. Open ActiveSync on your Mobile Device : Start -> Programs -> ActiveSync
8. Click on Menu -> Connect via Bluetooth ! If the ActiveSync partnership has been configure properly as described above, you should see activity on ActiveSync running both on PC and the mobile device. If your PC is connected to the Internet, the same will also be used by your Bluetooth connected mobile device.

If you had any trouble getting the ActiveSync to work via Bluetooth, feel free to raise the issue in the comments section

After switching over to HTC Touch, I did have a tough time configuring MMS on the handset. Matters were made worse by Airtel’s “amazing” customer care service.

Initially I was told that the settings would be sent to my phone and that this would avoid the pain of doing the manual configuration. The settings never came; after few more calls to the customer service, I realized that my old Sony Ericsson phone was still registered in Airtel’s database and they were trying to send the wrong setting.

I finally was able to manually configure the settings not with the help of Google but with little assistance from NowSMS.

So if you are stuck with configuring MMS for Airtel on a Windows Mobile device this is what you need to do:

Activate MMS (if you haven’t)

To Activate MMS, send a SMS with text “MMS ACTIVE” to 121.

Configure the GPRS Connection

1. Go to Start -> Settings -> Connections
2. Click on the Connections item
   
3. Add a new modem connection under MyISP
4. Input a name for the connection
5. Select the modem as “Cellular Line (GPRS)”
   
6. Click next and Input Access Point Name(APN) : airtelmms.com
   

Configure MMS Options

The MMS option screen was kind of hidden and I am not sure if its the same on Windows Mobile 5 as well. Here is how you access the “hidden” MMS options

1. Start -> Messaging -> SMS/MMS
2. Menu -> New MMS
3. Select a Blank Template
4. Menu -> Options -> MMS Options
   

Its kind of weird that I had to create a New MMS message to view the MMS options screen.

Select Servers tab and enter the information as shown on the below screen (This information is what I got from NowSMS)

Note that the Server name can be anything. Also the MMS connection should be pointing to the new modem connection that was created with APN airtelmms.com. This is accomplished by setting it in the “Connect via” box.

Once the configuration is done, set this new server configuration as the default.

That’s it You are now all set to send and receive MMS messages. Also the above steps can be used to configure MMS for any mobile operator, only the settings (Gateway,Server Address etc) would change and this data has to be got from the service provider.

The OSGi Alliance (formerly known as the Open Services Gateway initiative) is an open standards organization founded in March 1999. Over the past few years it has specified a Java-based service platform that can be remotely managed.

The core part of the specifications is a framework that defines an application life cycle model and a service registry.

The Framework implements a complete and dynamic component model – something that is missing in standalone Java/VM environments. Applications or components (coming in the form of bundles for deployment) can be remotely installed, started, stopped, updated and uninstalled without requiring a reboot – management of Java packages/classes is specified in great detail.

Life cycle management is done via API’s which allow for remote downloading of management policies. The service registry allows bundles to detect new services, or the going away of services, and adapt accordingly.

Whenever I tried to read and understand more about OSGi I always used to get lost and confused. If you read the Wikipedia article on OSGi or even check OSGi website for details I am sure you will agree/partly agree with me

Neil Bartlett, a Java developer and a consultant specializing in Eclipse RCP and OSGi is writing a series of tutorials on OSGi at Eclipsezone. It is one of the best series of articles I have read and will definitely help you quickly get started on OSGi.

Here is the list of articles published till now:

1. Getting Started with OSGi: Your first bundle
2. Getting Started with OSGi: Interacting with the Framework
3. Getting Started with OSGi: Dependencies between Bundles
4. A Comparison of Eclipse Extensions and OSGi Services

2 more articles from IBM Developerworks are worth reading !

1. Understanding how Eclipse plug-ins work with OSGi – By Scott Delap.
2. Explore Eclipse OSGi console – By Chris Aniszczyk.

As of Eclipse 3.0, the runtime is fully based on the OSGi notion of bundle (equivalent to Eclipse plug-ins). Also there are 4 open source implementations of OSGi R4 core framework specification available and if you have already installed Eclipse you can quickly start experimenting using Equinox.

The default shell on most Linux operating systems is Bash. And as with every other application (which I use extensively) the first thing I do is to search/use Keyboard shortcuts.

First I checked the Bash Reference Manual, however there was no mention of any keyboard shortcut in that manual.

A search in Google lead me to this post (via Digg). For those who are lazy to click on that link, here is the list

Ctrl + A 	Go to the beginning of the line you are currently typing on
Ctrl + E 	Go to the end of the line you are currently typing on
Ctrl + L               	Clears the Screen, similar to the clear command
Ctrl + U 	Clears the line before the cursor position. If you are at the end of the line, clears the entire line.
Ctrl + H 	Same as backspace
Ctrl + R 	Let’s you search through previously used commands
Ctrl + C 	Kill whatever you are running
Ctrl + D 	Exit the current shell
Ctrl + Z 	Puts whatever you are running into a suspended background process. fg restores it.
Ctrl + W 	Delete the word before the cursor
Ctrl + K 	Clear the line after the cursor
Ctrl + T 	Swap the last two characters before the cursor
Esc + T 	Swap the last two words before the cursor
Alt + F 	Move cursor forward one word on the current line
Alt + B 	Move cursor backward one word on the current line
Tab 	Auto-complete files and folder names

To be honest I didn’t know half of these shortcuts.
I am definitely going to use Ctrl + L extensively and will try to avoid Ctrl +C (Many a times rather than copying a line of text, I terminate a program by using Ctrl + C !! )

Ethereal is one of the best open source packet sniffer available today. It is available on both Windows and Unix Platform.

Detailed list of Ethereal features can be found here !

Richard Sharpe and Ed Warnicke have written an extensive user guide(450 pages) on Ethereal. The intent of the document was to improve the accessibility of Ethereal.

If you are new to Ethereal or if you are already using Ethereal this guide is for you

Download Ethereal User Guide V1.1

Digg This !

Nope I am not going to write a post listing the 100 Linux Tips and Tricks. I am just going to attach a nice book that I found while searching through by E-book collection

The book is pretty good for new Linux users and can help them to quickly get started on Linux ! I have checked the copyright and its free of charge.

Download PDF(1.18MB)

P.S. The search for this document was triggered by the recent installation of Suse 10.1. .