Category: Observation

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Upgraded My 1st Gen. iPhone to 2.1

Pwnage ToolEven though I am not in Hong Kong and on vacation in Beijing I am blogging and keeping an eye on the iPhone hacking community.

In the past 14 months I had unlocked/restored my iPhone over 30+ times, and documented my experience and findings with fellow readers. Much of these repeated unlocking and restoring was because I was testing various “unauthorized” 3rd party applications (“hacks”) for the iPhone, and some of them were not as stable as they should be. Even with authorized 3rd party applications my iPhone was sluggish and crashes when I run some of the applications.

When Apple claims that the iPhone firmware 2.1, released on September 12th, will correct much of the problems I’ve been encountering, I was again excited for the possibilities of returning my iPhone (1st generation) to its efficient spiffy 1.x state. Unfortunately, since my iPhone is unlocked and jailbroken I had to wait for the iPhone Dev team to upgrade their hacking tool, Pwnage Tool.

Continue reading “Upgraded My 1st Gen. iPhone to 2.1”

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Google Launched Satellite

Actually, technically it is GeoEye who launched a mapping satellite on September 8, 11:00 (PST). It has a capability to collect 0.41 meter ground resolution black and white images and 1.65 meter color images simultaneously. Although, there is no mention of Goolge in GeoEye’s press release, but the satellite has a Google logo on its side and the Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page attended the launch.

As US licensing restrictions limit commercial images to a half-meter so will this addition improve the qualities of Google Map and Google Earth? Do we really need more accurate images?

May be with Google having private access to a satellite there will be more up-to-date imageries in future Google products.

Will this be the first of many satellites exclusive for Google’s Android phones?

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Google Gears Arrives in Safari

On the weekend Google released its Gears technology to the Safari browser on Mac OS X.

You may still have to click on the “Mac” platform link if the Gears’ platform test script still claims that your Safari browser is not supported. Alternatively you can go directly to the Gears Macintosh platform .dmg download.

For those who does not know what Gears is you can check out Gears’ FAQ page. In short it enables web developers to create offline versions/components of their web applications.

Like with most things that Google does, Gears is opensource. Although this is true I am still trying to figure out why one would code to Gears rather than the more Standards compliant HTML5? If anyone like to share their thoughts, please submit a comment below.

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QuickPwn for Macintosh Released

Yesterday the iPhone Dev Team released QuickPwn (the Torrent link) for Macintosh. This is the Macintosh OS X version of the same tool they released for Windows users several weeks ago.

The different between this tool and the Pwnage Tool the iPhone Dev Team has also released for the Macintosh is that the QuickPwn will not require a restore using iTunes, therefore a bit friendlier to layman iPhone users (junior hackers) who need to unlock and jailbreak their iPhone (1st generation) or jailbreak their iPhone 3G. iPhone Dev Team says the Pwnage Tool will still be enhanced and supported as it will be the tool for iPhone users who like to customize their .IPSW package for the iPhone.

I personally have not yet use this tool as my iPhone has already been upgraded to iPhone firmware 2.0.2 using the Pwnage Tool for Macintosh.

Please feel free to share your experiences; either good or bad, here via comments.

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Twitter Updates for 2008-08-13

  • getting ready for work again; on a Hump Day. #
  • is off to work. Late… late… late!!! #
  • is off to lunch. I guess Starbucks again. #
  • back from a Starbucks lunch. #
  • had a chance to catch Canada cyclist leading his olympic event in Beijing. #
  • is done work for the day #
  • Now have to decide what to have for dinner #
  • Finished a curry beef dinner at home #
  • @laylomay sorry for the late reply. The one I went to last night was Shake ’em Buns, and yes they do have veggie burgers #
  • is going to bed now. Good night all. #
  • @laylomay Triple O’s is the other burger joint I like in HK. The third is MOS Buger #
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Twitter Updates for 2008-08-12

  • is off to work. #
  • trying to figure out what to have for lunch. It is always chore to decide what to have each day. #
  • @dapunster I find TextMate to be the best editor for developers on the Mac. I use to use BBEdit but converted about 4 years ago #
  • just finished my lunch at Starbucks; again. I’m sure one of these days I’ll be tired of the food at Starbucks. #
  • I wish we can simply take a pill(s) to receive the nutrition required for the day. Saving sit down meals for when we have the time to do so. #
  • is done work for the day. #
  • Now waiting to take away my burger at one of my favorite burger joint in HK #
  • off to bed. Goodnight all!! #
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Beijing 2008 Olympic Medal Tally

It is surprising how difficult to find the latest official updates of medal counts from the Beijing 2008 Olympic.

After a Google search and ignoring all the scammers who try to make AdSense income, I finally found a list at Yahoo Sports, but the one that is most up-to-date is the 2008 Olympic Medal Count on Wikipedia. This further proves that people-power on the Internet is much faster and better, and Crowdsourcing is a practical and achievable future for project development.

As of 15:30 (HKT GMT+08:00), China is currently leading the medal count.

2008 Olympic Medal Count