Everything Technology

Jailbreak iPhone 3G with 3.1.2 firmware! The Easy Way!

2010-07-28T17:57:00.000-07:00

I recently repaired an iPhone that needed a new glass and digitizer - my office is learning how to fix these so we can help out our users. The phone belonged to my boss' son. He said to keep it. This caught me off guard and had me stunned!

I took the liberty to learn how to JAILBREAK the unit (its now legal to do so) and see what works the best and easiest.

First off: Let me thank all of the communities on Twitter, ModMyI and mostly, GeoHot. Without these people, this guide would not be possible.

WARNING: I am using an iPhone 3G 16GB with 3.1.2 firmware with 5.12.4 baseband firmware so my guide applies to the phone I have using a Mac with Snow Leopard. I cannot take liability for your phone as this guide is AS IS.

Step 1) Fully charge the iPhone using the provided charger or using the cable on your computer. After fully charged, follow to step 2.

2) Download the IPSW (IPhone SoftWare) from this site: http://www.felixbruns.de/iPod/firmware/

Navigate to the iPhone drop down and choose iPhone 3G (3.1.2/ 7D11) - This is a big file so be patient. Make sure the size of the file matches as sometimes the download stops. It took me 2 tries to get the correct file.

Step 3) Download RedSnow 0.9.3 from here: http://wikee.iphwn.org/howto:rs9

Link is located at the bottom for Mac.

Step 4) After you have gotten all these done - Put your phone into USB recovery Mode -NOT DFU, we will do that in a later step. Itunes should say that a phone has been detected in recovery mode and must be restored. Press Option Key and CLICK Restore at the same time. This will bring up the browse box to select the IPSW you just downloaded. Select it and allow it to restore you phone. You should have a phone that will reboot and say that you need to activate (if your using ATT) or it will say that your SIM is not supported.

Ignore it and close iTunes

Step 5) Make sure your iPhone says SLIDE for Emergency. If it does, keep going

Step 6) Use Activity Monitor to Force Quite ITunesHelper - this will help us use RedSn0w without error.

Step 7) Open RedSn0w you downloaded - click browse to the IPSW you downloaded. It will verify and allow you to finish the modifications to the file. Once it is complete, you will have a box that will help you put the phone into DFU mode. Make sure you FOLLOW THESE EXACTLY as you will not see anything on the phone till the Jailbreak happens.

Step 8) Wait - this will take a bit and your iPhone will show progress on the screen. Once complete, you can slide to unlock.

Thats it. Complete. Easy.

If you use ATT, you will be online and ready to make calls. If your on another GSM carrier, you will need to use the unlock method which is another guide I am working on. Feel free to add your music and movies and apps to the iphone via iTunes AS A NEW PHONE. DO NOT RESTORE FROM BACKUP!

I hope this guide worked for you. If it did, please donate a few pennies or dollars to the makers of RedSn0w or other jailbreak communities. They deserve it as I didn't make anything except make the process into plain english rather than the gibberish that some guides have.

Email me if you have questions!

Simplify cleaning in your living areas - Porch area and Kitchen area

2010-03-28T19:42:00.000-07:00

I am in the process of doing a "simplify" routine for my apartment. My wife is constantly taking care of the baby and its hard.

Rather than blog about taking apart units and upgrading them, my next few posts will result in cleaning house to start your own simple life one room at a time. Your miles will vary as each layout of an apartment and house are totally different from one another. I will let you know mine and how it worked for us. We have more accumulated than most families so mine takes longer and so of this stuff sounds repetitive.

DONT THINK THIS IS A WHOLE DAY ORDEAL! Don't try to tackle it all the day - rest and enjoy your self. This is a good 2 to 3 hour cleaning that doesn't take that long but it will be easier in the long run.

We will start with the outside porch area.

We have two areas and this one is near our kitchen area. Fold up and move away all items from the porch area and sweep it all up. Those leaves from storms and wind as well. Once all is done, you can put your items back in place. Dust off the furniture and tables for outside and let dry. This might take 30 minutes to an hour. Mine took 15 minutes as we don't have anything out there but when we go outside there, we track dust and dirt in. This will prevent anything from coming in.

Now for the kitchen area. I went ahead and took everything out of the dish washer and put it away. Washed all the rest of the dishes by hand and by dish washer to get it taken care of. I cleaned the fronts of all appliances, cleaned the counter tops and the stove tops. Everything is now shiny.

Take your table and put everything aside. Dust your table, mop the floor (not before you dust your table!) and clean up. Put everything back. Either use a plug in Glade Scent or air misting spray. We use a spray as thats what we have but I am sure a plug in will last much longer.

That is what we have done so far. Next post will be the living area, fire place and desk area. This room is combined and I will try to have pictures as this is one room I have not done yet.

New project or Toy if you call it

2010-03-08T22:37:00.000-08:00

I have disbanded the cloudbook. I got an offer for it more than what I paid for it so its gone.

However, I have a new toy: an Apple iBook Clamshell Blueberry 300Mhz, 32mb ram, Os 9, 4gb drive.

To this day, I have replaced these parts and software:
1) Updated formware to 4.1.7 for memory issues
2) installed a 512mb pc133 chip in addition to the 32mb on board
3) upgraded the hdd from 4gb to 40gb
4) installed a new Airport card (apple brand)
5) Installed the latest version of Mac OS this unit can hold - 10.3
6) Old CDROM was acting like it didn't want to read certain discs, replaced the drive with another from eBay

Right now, all is working fine. I will go through a guide that tells you what I need to achieve this as the unit officially only supports 256mb addon memory. However, this firmware update listed above in number 1 will allow more.

All the parts were either free or low cost - with this you can have yourself a nice apple laptop. Pictures are coming soon. But if you look at this picture in this blog post, you will see it is a Chic notebook.

More to come soon! Stay tuned!

Running gOS on Cloudbook Part 2

2010-01-31T16:10:00.000-08:00

Welcome to part 2!

At this time, you should have a working gOS installation. Currently, the only things that should not be working (and I said should, depends on the wifi button if it was lid prior to install or if you cleared the bios) is the wifi and the cpu running at 600mhz rather than 1200mhz.

In this segment, I will show you how to get the wifi button workin in gOS. The only time you will have to do this (I recommend installing this anyway) is if you clear the CMOS it will clear the keycode from the keyboard or turn it off.

1) Boot into gOS and login.

2) Go to gOS menu > Accessories > Terminal. This will take you to the terminal command line for the OS.

3) Download wifid from this blog: http://www.cryptednets.org/?p=143 This program needs to be saved in /usr/bin

4) in the terminal type sudo chmod 777 /usr/bin/wifid
Type your password in to the terminal. This allows the file to be run in the terminal.

5) On that same blog, you will need to create a startup script to get the Wifi running.
I have copied and pasted it here:

Create a script with this path and name: /etc/init.d/wifi_power
#! /bin/sh
setkeycodes 6d 112
nohup /usr/bin/wifid &
exit 0

now run this command
update-rc.d wifi_power defaults

6) Now reboot your machine. You should see the Wifi Button light up upon boot and be able to use it. The button also works and turns it off. The setkeycodes it eh usb keyboard command that the button is set with memory 6d code 112.

This concludes the Wifi setup! Right now all we have left is the cpu speed issue! I will address this is part 3 - the finale.

Email if you have any questions! atharris09 -at- gmail -dot- com

Running gOS on Cloudbook Part 1

2010-01-30T16:15:00.000-08:00

As a new blogger in town, I took it upon myself to make my first posting reveal the easier way to get full function of the Cloudbook on gOS 3.1 Gadgets.

First off, make sure your Cloudbook is fully charged and you have your AC adapter. Most installation issues are attributed to lack of power. You will also need a blank DVD or CDR (both work just fine) and external optical dvd / cdr drive.

1) Download the gOS 3.1 ISO from www.thinkgos.com. This will take some time so be patient.

2) Use your cd burning program to burn the image to the disc. Do not just burn the iso to the disc. The file is a cd master image that will create the disc. Most programs use "burn image" or "burn cd master" as the name of this particular tool. Check your help file for your program for the precise name

3) Connect your external optical drive to the usb port located on the right hand side. Insert the disc PRIOR to turning on the cloud book.

4) Turn on the cloudbook and start pressing ESC. This will take some time and you may mess up a time or two. You should see a boot menu listing available boot devices. Press enter on the the DVD/CD drive - it should be labeled USB CD with a dash then the device name.

5) You will see the gOS menu. DO NOT BOOT YET. You will need to press F4 and choose safe boot graphics. Depending on how your unit comes up, you will need to choose this. Why? The cloudbook has a native resolution of 800x480 which is not a native resolution to gOS. Setting up this way will allow you to install and boot with the native resolution. The boot process will start at this point.

6) Choose the install icon and follow the instructions. This process will take over an hour depending on the drive speed and disc burning speed you choose. Make note of the user name and password you chose.

7) Once installation is complete and the cloudbook starts the reboot, eject the burned gOS disc and disconnect the drive. The gOS will start up and takes time, but once you get to the login screen enter your user name and password your chose during the installation.

This completes the installation. I should make note this install might not have the Wifi working if the wifi button is not lit. The CPU Speed will be half of the posted speed in the bios. How do you fix these? Check out part 2 when it is available. You are more than welcome to plug in a patch cable and use the update program to update all your programs when fixes are available.

Good luck - send me an email if you have issues. atharris09 -at- gmail -dot- com.