Windows 7 Vs. Snow Leopard

So, Apple is secretly working on its next OS, 10.6 Snow Leopard, while Microsoft is very publicly working on its next iteration of windows: Windows 7 (Catchy name huh?)
The Onion has made a nice looking graph describing the difference between the two:

And, although it is fuuny, I think the graph should look more like this:


To sum it all up... I think Windows 7 is going to be a huge hit when it comes out in Summer of next year, and I think it'll be just as big when the official beta is released in January. The leak of the beta is out now, and Ill let you know how it is once I've downloaded it, but Im sure itll be awesome. Its very exciting because Microsoft finally got it right. Windows 7 is definitely how vista should have been, it is smooth, simple and easy to use for ANYONE... even my grandma. I definitely recommend everyone to get Windows Seven when it comes out because microsoft has learned from their mistake *cough* vista *cough* and is correcting them. Windows 7 will be, unlike vista, released with major compatibility, have amazing performance, a nice EASY UI, and work well overall.

Useful Command Prompt Commands

I've been reading up a bit recently on command prompt because it is very useful at times (especially when you have an obnoxious relative that wont let you install anything on their computer in order to fix it). And so I decided that I should post any useful commands that I find, on here.

At (at a certain time, perform a function) Ex: at 12:00 cmd /c shutdown -s -t 35 -c "The computer is shutting down."

Subst (Assign a drive letter to a folder) Self explanatory

Wireless Printing for the iPod Touch and iPhone!

HP has just released HP iPrint Photo for the appstore. It is a free application for all iPhone OS users. The goal of this program is to enable photo printing wirelessly, and does not include the ability to print documents... however, due to the nifty screenshot feature, printing documents could be possible.
Just download iPrint Photo from the appstore and take a screenshot of the document you want to print. Then head over to iprint photo and select that screen shot.
This could easily be the start of a printing revolution for the iPhone OS, as more people will most likely begin integrating printing into document applications.
HP iPrint Photo

Easily explain virus's to your grandparents

This picture should make it easier to explain malware and virus's to your grandparents or un-conputer friendly parents.

The best Mac Vs. PC Video

This Mac vs PC video is outstanding... I actually do hope that they make it into a movie.

How To Enable Polygamy In Windows Live Messenger

Multi-Account Sign in in Windows Live Messenger!

Via Liveside

Many of you will have several WLIDs, and want to sign into Messenger with more than one of them. Until now you had to seek refuge in a patch or add-on to be able to do so. Not anymore! Microsoft’s John Weisenfeld just shared a little trick with me to enable this, which I’m going to share with you.

The trick involves registry editing, so please follow these steps very carefully:

1. Start regedit (admin)
2. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Live
3. Right click Messenger and create a new DWORD called MultipleInstances

REcreateDWORD

4. Right click the newly added registry key and choose Modify
5. Set the Value data to 1

REeditDWORD

6. Close regedit

All done! Now you can launch Windows Live Messenger as many times as you want, and sign in with as many WLIDs you want, on one computer. Just don’t try to sign in with the same WLID more than once on one computer or it will throw error 80071392 at you!

80071392

Enjoy!

Via Liveside.net

Windows Seven Pre-Beta WinHEC released

The WinHEC (PDC in China) distribution of windows seven was leaked onto the popular torrent sites earlier this week. Build number is 6956. Improvements include all the features that the blue badge added to 6801 (but in their full working version) as well as a new boot screen and faster boot times.
The WinHEC release was given to all attendees as Virtual Machine file and was converted into an ISO using the 6801 build disc.
Download the torrent file from your favorite torrent site or here

Windows Live Sync

Windows Live Sync was officially released today. Some users are reporting problems with installation on macs but overall I think the experience is decent. I'm sure all bugs will be worked out soon (although it probably should have gone to beta first).

Here's a picture of the online interface:


and here is the first live sync page:


The program on the PC does not have any GUI other than a settings page which includes encryption, remote access, and auto-start settings.

I've posted some questions regarding the differences between mesh and live sync on both the live mesh blog and the live sync blog, and I'll post their responses as soon as I see them.

-Laser

In With The New - Out With The Old

So, after reading a bit on Dave Taylor's website I decided that it would be a great idea to let my readers choose what I write about. Please feel free to email me any time to ask me questions, and I will respond on my blog. I will do my best to answer every question that is emailed to me. This does not mean that I will stop blogging like I used to. I will still be doing that just as much, and even more if I get more users on my blog. If I can get enough users that visit my website per day I will move the blog over to a real URL (not blogspot.com).

I'm looking forward to reading your emails!
Email me here!

Absolutely perfect site

Ever find yourself in a situation where some dumb guy (we'll call him fred) is asking you a completely obvious question and all he needs to do is google it?
Show him that he is being retarted and give him a link to letmegooglethatforyou.com

Ex:
Fred: Hi Laser, what do they mean by torrenting files?
Laser: Go here fred, it'll solve all those problems for you!

See, simple!

Add The Product Red Suite to your PC

Download it here
Place Theme in \Windows\Resources\Themes
Place Wallpaper in C:\Windows\Web\Wallpaper
Place Dremescene in C:\Windows\Web\Windows DreamScene (if you have ultimate)
Double Click Gadgets to install
Place Screen Saver in \Windows\System32

Enjoy!
Credit to Vishal from askvg.com

My new sony vaio ns!

Hey everyone, wanted to announce that I just got my new sony vaio laptop on November 19th! It is really cool, it has a pentium dual core CPU, 3 GB RAM, 160GB HDD, and an integrated webcam and mic. It is really perfect for me... great for blogging on, surfing the web, and doing my everyday tasks. Windows Live mesh works great on it, as does office '07. I just upgraded it to vista ultimate and I look forward to upgrading to the windows seven beta when I come back from FL in January.
Photo's later this weekend.

iPod Touch/iPhone Firmware 2.2 Released

Today Apple released the iPhone and iPod Touch Firmware 2.2. This update works on all iPods that run iPhone OS and includes the following features:

* Enhancements to Maps (iPhone Only)
o Google Street View*
o Public transit and walking directions
o Display address of dropped pins
o Share location via email
* Decrease in call setup failures and dropped calls

* Enhancements to Mail
o Resolved isolated issues with scheduled fetching of email
o Improved formatting of wide HTML email
* Podcasts are now available for download in iTunes application
* Improved stability and performance of Safari
* Improved sound quality of Visual Voicemail messages
* Pressing Home button from any Home screen displays the first Home screen
* Preference to turn on/off auto-correction in Keyboard Setting

I've also heard that the iPod Touch 2G speaker volume has been increased a little, you can now record audio through the headphone jack, and safari's layout has been tweaked.
Go ahead and upgrade through iTunes.

Windows Live Mesh and Logmein NOW WORKING!!!

After hours of struggling trying to get windows live mesh and logmein working on my mac I have finally figured it out! I was browsing the web looking for kexts, and constantly asking the friendly (but not very talkative) users on irc.osx86.hu for the whereabouts of a solution to this problem when suddenly I found it.
On netkas.org I found the solution (or at least explanation) for my problem. I needed to use the correct version of applesmbios to enable logmein and mesh. I needed a different version for when I installed silverlight, but then I needed another new one.
After googling around for the correct kexts i finally found McKill.ca. It had links to many ToH kexts which I promptly downloaded and searched through to find AppleSMBIOS.kext. When I found it I immediately installed it using kext helper and rebooted.
Voila, it worked... upon boot logmein's logo loaded for the first time and windows live mesh asked me for my username and password. Every thing worked fine!

Download the kext I used either from the original site or from uploading.com respectively.
Original Zip Archive (you only need applesmbios.kext inside)
or
Uploading.com

My New Laptop!

I am extremely excited because I just ordered my new laptop! I didnt exactly have enough money, but I ordered it anyway... I'll cross that bride when it smacks me in the face later.
Anyway, my new laptop is a Sony Vaio NS130. It has 3GB Ram, a 160GB HDD, Pentium Dual-Core CPU at 2.0 GHz, a 1.3mp Webcam, wireless n, and a DVD-DL burner.
Here are some pictures:





I'm going to be doing a lot of new stuff to my laptop including setting up my multi-system, platform syncing (non-cloud) live mesh environment once windows seven is installed. I'll go through how-tos and what-to-dos with new laptops once I unpackage it, and requests for videos or how-tos on programs that I use, or even ones that I don't, will gladly be accepted.

Re-Post: Techspot Map

Figured I would re-post the map of users on the blog that I posted back in late september. It has changed a lot since then!

Microsoft: Reflection on The Redmond Company

So, after watching Microsoft unveil all this new stuff at PDC 2008, and with all the hype about Microsoft right now, I figured I'd jot down my thoughts about them.
So far, I have been extremely impressed by how much Microsoft has improved everything that they do as a company - over the past year. I watched them first unveil windows live messenger beta 9 quite a while back, and I thought that it was really cool, but then later I saw them release the Tech Preview of Windows Live Mesh; I was blown away. I immediately began to use the preview of mesh, even though I only owned a single computer with one operating system at the time. It helped me to get files off my computer from school, and backup my important files online. Little did I know that this would turn out to be just a small achievement of the Redmond company.
Recently, Microsoft's two largest and best releases have been Windows Seven Build 6801 and the Windows Live Services. I am shocked by how improved wave 3 was compared to wave 2 (of windows live) and the azure site impressed me even more. Silverlight has really helped make all of Microsofts website look stellar and I'm sure it will push them back into the average home user's life.
On the topic of Windows Seven, I want to say just how much I love this operating system. I love how it has fixed every single bug I ever had on vista, I love its new countless features like the new calculator, paint, wordpad, superbar, aero peek, aero shake, jumplists, ie8, windows media player 12, system tray, network discovery, and... well, you get the point.
This operating system (in its full version), especially when integrated with windows live wave 3 (in its full version) will definitely make Microsoft a dominant company that controls the market, just like it did in the XP years, and like apple does now. Thankfully microsoft PCs are much less expensive then Apple computers!
I can't wait to buy windows seven when it comes out, and I also can't wait to try it on my new laptop... I mean; that's another story.

Introducing the Mircrosoft Store

Welcome the new Microsoft Store!

Microsoft seems to have learned that people judge a lot about a company based on their website (maybe they learned this from apple, who knows?) so apparently they decided to make their own online store. Go to MicrosoftStore.com to check it out, its really cool, regardless of whether you're in the mood to buy something or not.

Microsoft Mesh Pack

So, apparently,
"Microsoft has finally developed some real live Live Mesh apps that put the system to use. The four apps—called the MeshPack—include a collaborative crossword app, a digital bulletin board, a list sharing tool, and a collaborative group-polling tool. Unfortunately you need a PDC code to actually download any of them" -Lifehacker
When I read this I began to think...
I visited the website Microsoft Mesh Pack as directed, where they ask you for a PDC code. I didnt believe I had one of these, so I began trying things that might make sense, like "live mesh" and "windows" and such. Then I realized something... It was mentioned to me before that we could use our windows vista beta codes to install windows 7, and so I decided to try using that code on this website... maybe that was the PDC code microsoft spoke of?
In short, it kinda worked. I gained full access to the Dev Center for windows live mesh and windows azure, but I couldnt seem to find links to download the 4 new applications anywhere.
I took a lot of screenshots of my endevour, please feel free to look at them; I'm sorry that they arent in order.

Add extra features to Windows Seven Build 6801

Withinwindows.com:

Last week, I revealed a weird protection scheme around some unfinished features in Windows 7 (build 6801). I provided a buggy tool to enable the new Taskbar, then teased everyone with other features such as gestures, panning, and Desktop Slideshow. It wasn’t intentional, I just needed some time to rework the unlocking tool, which went faster thanks to some code snippets from my Vize friend surrounding the headaches of TrustedInstaller and PendingFileRenameOperations.

As the dialog indicates, patched files are not backed up. I suggest all users back up, by copying into a temporary folder somewhere, the following files:

\Windows\Explorer.exe
\Windows\System32\wisptis.exe
\Windows\System32\ieframe.dll
\Windows\System32\shell32.dll
\Windows\System32\stobject.dll
\Windows\System32\TabletPC.cpl
\Windows\System32\themecpl.dll
\Windows\System32\themeui.dll
\Windows\System32\powercfg.cpl
Understanding the risks involved in patching core system files, you may download a copy of the tool for x86 or x64 (available tomorrow). Please keep in mind this tool is not affiliated, sponsored, supported by, written by, or endorsed by Microsoft Corporation.

This tool is absolutely amazing and what it enables is well worth it. The only problem is file backups. I created a batch file to backup your files, download it here and run it before you install the bluebadge file from here

Windows Live Mesh for Mac

So, it seems that Windows Live Mesh Expanded to include Mac OS X 10.5.1 (or above) today.

Or, maybe they are just preparing by putting it in the dropbox??? I am going to switch over to my mac install from Vienna and I’ll keep you informed.

Mac version was released, beta version. Installation did not work on my hackintosh. This will be the end of my posting about mac live mesh until I can get it working on my mac.

Windows Seven: Compatibility

After installing windows seven I had some compatibility issues with a lot of programs; I decided to post all of the programs that I've found to be compatible or incompatible with Windows Seven on here.

EDIT: It seems like all the major problems I had have been fixed... shown below in the lists

Compatible:

Live Mesh:
Download this rar file and run the reg file that's inside. Then install Mesh normally.
Did not work for me on ie8, but installed fine off of google chrome. Had to download the file 3 times though.

Windows Live Betas:
Download from Download.live.com
Install normally
after errors come up saying install failed, just click try again.
Do above steps 3-4 times
Install successful!

Microsoft Office 2007

Google Chrome

WinRAR

iTunes 8

Incompatible:
None so far

Windows Seven: First Impressions

Ok, so, if you have been following my blog lately you probably know that I have been switching operating systems pretty frequently as of late, and that I now have XP, Vista, Leopard (10.5.1) and Seven at my disposal. If you havent been reading, then I'll catch you up. I have recently installed leopard on my machine and converted my old vista installation to a virtual machine. The vista VM was very slow, so I decided that I needed a new operating system of some sort. I downloaded and installed windows seven build 6801 in VMware and it worked great so I decided to use it as a main operating system in my bootloader.
Now I have come down to a final solution. The following will be my installation plan for the next few months. I have decided to partition my 140GB HDD into 2 partitions. The partition scheme is as follows:
I will install Windows on Partition 1 using 60 GB and Leopard on Partition 2 using the remaining 80 GB. I will store my pictures and media files on my External HDD so they may be shared on both operating systems.
My windows partition will house my copy of windows seven milestone 3, and I will upgrade it when the official windows seven beta is released in december, and then to the final version of windows seven in late '09.
My mac partition will house mac osx leopard. It will include XP, Vista, and 98se in virtual machines. These will mainly be used for testing and helping people with computer problems.
I will be running windows live mesh to synchronize my documents folders between my two main operating systems, and I am using plaxo to sync contacts and calendars. iTunes and iPhoto will sync with my external HDD which will in turn sync with windows seven's pictures and media libraries. I'll be using address book and ical in mac (not entourage), and I'll use windows calendar and windows contacts in vienna (I like to refer to Windows Seven by its code name).

I also have some pictures of my windows seven virtual machine installation for you to look at while I go copy my Vista virtual machine's files over to my external HDD. They are not of any special new features or anything, just of the installation mostly.
Here you go:






Here is a video of the new glow of the vienna start button.

Original Video- More videos on Youtube

I'll post new images (below) of windows seven features as I see them:

Election 2008

I thought it might be a good idea to post a msn video of live coverage on the debate for all of you who are following it (which should be anyone from America).
Enjoy!

Mac and PC can live together: Days 4, 5, and 6

Well, after a lot of work, too much if you ask me, I finally got everything working. Vista operates just fine, and everything is peachy.... well... kinda. I mean, it's very slow. I have to wait forever for it to load and operate correctly; it's quite a burden. I've decided to go back to a normal dual boot setup, but as you probably read in my previous post, it will no longer be with leopard and vista; I will have a shiny new Vienna and Leopard installation!
I look forward to getting Windows Se7en installed on my computer, even though it means that I'll have to re-install leopard. Thank goodness I bought that external HDD, I have a lot of backing up to do (don'cha know?). Hopefully everything will be back to normal operational status by the weekend, but I'll go with next week Wednesday at the latest.
On a side note, I'm really starting to like Minefield, but that's a topic for another day.

Windows Se7en Milestone 3

I recently downloaded windows seven (herein known as windows Se7en or Vienna) from a popular torrent site. The build is 6801. I installed it on a virtual machine on my new hackintosh and it works marvelously. I have never seen such an absolutely amazing operating system. The install was flawless, activation was flawless, and the desktop window management worked wonders! I used a patch posted on withinwindows.com to enable to new taskbar from build 6933 and it made the operating system even more stunning. I will have videos to post later, and many pictures of my experiences, but before those are all posted I would like to mention that this operating system will definitely constitute switching back to windows. I still love mac, but I think I'm going to have to go back to a legit dual boot, but this time with mac and vienna.
I'll be taking the video tonight and it'll be posted on youtube before the weekend.

Windows Live Mesh gets ready to step up to the plate

<a href="http://video.msn.com/?playlist=videoByUuids:uuids:ef14e276-0a31-4d26-ae90-0ffbd5a4730a&showPlaylist=true" target="_new" title="Live Mesh Promo Clip">Video: Live Mesh Promo Clip</a>

I used to use Windows Live Mesh all the time, but then when I got my iPod Touch and my new mac, it kind of didnt matter anymore because it wasnt released for mac yet. Hopefully they will release a mac version soon; this just looks too cool!

Mac and PC can live together

So, after my recent success with getting Kalyway 10.5.1 up and running on my Dell, and then successfully getting dual booting to work, I decided to take Mac and my relationship to the next level. I could by now easily boot from Mac to Vista without a problem, and both OS's worked just fine.
I decided that it was time to upgrade to boot camp, parallels, or vmware fusion.
First, I decided to compare the 3. I had a spare desktop computer lying around that also happens to be a hackintosh, so I took said programs for a spin.

Boot camp:
Basically... it just didnt cut it. It was basically the same setup that I already had, and required a reboot to switch operating systems. I prefer the chameleon bootloader, with a regular vista and mac install.

Parallel desktop vs vmware:
Both are very nice applications and have similar features to each other. Both include desktop integration that I thought was rather nice (vmware had unity, parallels had convergence). I prefer unity over convergence because it integrated the application into mac osx, instead of just adding a taskbar to the bottom of the screen. It treated each application from windows separately and nicely, instead of just basically giving it its own separate location.
Another thing I loved about vmware was the 12 month free McAfee virus protection. I just recently ran out of my anti virus subscription (Ok, I didnt run out... I just kinda deleted Live OneCare because it was so bad) and so I needed protection from the vast expanse that is "the internet".
Anyway... after looking over the products I decided to go with vmware. I backed up my mac to time machine on my 500GB External HDD and copied my windows files over to the remaining space. Then I hopped onto vmwares help page looking for a quick start guide. Low and behold I found one.
Day One (Friday):
So, I began to follow the guide until about 1:12 into the video. I only selected my vista partition and moved on. Then I was presented with a message box that the guy in the video did not receive. It warned me that I could successfully copy this parition to a virtual disk, but I wont be able to boot because my partition was not active. This was because of my chameleon bootloader being installed on my mac partition and thus making partition 2 active. I quickly loaded up diskpart and made my first partition active. I grabbed a soda while I waited for my computer to reboot, and to my surprise it was rather quick...
Regardless, I loaded up vmware converter again and repeated the process and this time I got no error messages when I selected only my vista install partition. I should also mention that I resized the virtual disk to 60GB on that page (in case that effects me later).
As I proceeded through the video I got to the part that he says takes 1 minute per GB. I decided to leave it to do its thing and go to sleep.

Day two (Saturday):
I woke up, grabbed my breakfast, and got to work. VMware converter was finished, and now the video told me to boot into my mac. Sadly, my mac was on the current hard drive, and was only 40 GB large, so I decided to format my entire HDD so that I could use all 150GB. I ran the Kalyway 10.5.1 DVD like in my previous post. This time instead however, I clicked on options when partitioning my HDD and I chose GUID. On the customize page this time I left everything as it was and clicked install.
The installation took about 20 minutes and I was hoping that the install would succeed (the last time I tried to use GUID on a mbr HDD and so it didnt work).
Well... it was almost predictable. GUID did not work, so I booted kalyway dvd again and used MBR instead.
After the install I was presented with a black screen that said that darwin had failed to boot my volume or something like that... I figured it just had trouble changing to MBR from GUID so I rebooted and it loaded fine.
It asked me if I wanted to import data so I choose to import from my time machine backup.
Time Machine finished importing and everything loaded and worked just as it did before I formatted.
I installed vmware on my mac and it installed perfectly, the User interface was really cool.
Then I copied the Virtual Machine files to my mac from my External HDD. I opened up Fusion and followed the instructions to add my vista installation. The first time I booted vista after the installation it was extremely slow, so I added another virtual core and more RAM.

Day 3 (Sunday):
Worked on fusion for a few hours, but I was very busy today. My installation was very buggy and corrupt even when booting normally, and now it is quite messed up. I've decided to copy all my files to my mac and then reinstall windows. I will install Vista, XP, 2000, 98, and Ubuntu and I will detail all of my experiences in more posts.
Days 4, 5, and 6 will be in a new post.

Still no iPod Touch 2G Jailbreak

Sadly the iPod Touch 2G is still not Jailbreakable (have you been wondering why I haven't posted much about it lately?). The iPhone Dev Team is working hard, but they don't seem to be making much progress. I have a lead on a friend who thinks he's got it working, but I doubt it. I'll keep you informed.

Dual Boot Vista and OSX86 the Easy Way

This is a complete guide to correctly dual boot Windows Vista and Leopard (OSX86). The Hardware I used was a Dell Optiplex GX620 SFF, but this should work for most computers.
This guide has taken me over 3 weeks to write and I have tried every possible logical combination of customized installs, trust me, unless you know for a fact that your computer handles this differently (i.e. vanilla kernals): do it my way.

Disclaimer: This Guide is for educational purposes only, I suggest you buy yourself an actual Mac. Also please do not post links to the Torrent’s as they will be removed.

Well, before we proceed with the guide, here is the stuff that you will need for a successful dual boot setup.
• Vista Already installed on your Primary Hard Disk.
• Kalyway 10.5.1 DVD. (Download this at the usual place)
• Chameleon Bootloader
• Windows Vista Boot DVD (Just incase something goes wrong)
• Some computer knowledge (Power User)

Well now that you have everything ready, let’s get started then. Keep in mind that this will take quite a while so do yourself a favor and find something else to do while you wait. I will let you know approximately how long each step takes.

• Vista must be installed on your HDD and must be the ONLY Operating System on there. I will not discuss tri-booting.
• Right click on My Computer and Click on Manage. Select Disk Management. Now create a new volume for OSX by shrinking the existing vista volume (right-click>shrink). Right-click in the unoccupied space to create a new simple volume. I recommend somewhere around 40GB for typical use, and about 100GB for lots of media and programs.
• Now restart the machine and boot into the Leopard DVD that you burned using the Kalyway 10.5.1 DVD Image.
• Press F8 as the darwin countdown begins and type -v at the prompt and hit enter.
• You should see scrolling text on the screen now. If the scrolling text stops anywhere then this install may not work for you. Post where it stops or Google the error.
• After a while you should be looking at the Leopard Installer. Click the right arrow to continue. The loading bar will be present for about 90 seconds.
• Once the Loading Bar disappears Select Utilities -> Disk Utility.
• Select the new volume you created earlier and format it as MAC OSX Extended (Journaled). Now the volume will be ready to install Mac OSX
• Now get back to the Leopard Install Screen by closing disk utility. Choose the partition that you made in the beginning and follow the instructions on screen.
• DON’T CLICK INSTALL. Now we will need to change the installations boot type. Click customize and change the bootloader from GUID to MBR. Make sure GUID is now unchecked. Don’t check anything else.
• Now click install… wait about 10 seconds and skip the disk check.
• The installation process will take about 25 minutes. When you come back you will most likely be greeted with a welcome screen. Click OK and continue to set up your new Mac as you would like.
• When you have finished setting up your mac you may find that you need drivers for video, audio, network, etc. to find these please google what you need or search it at the insanelymac.com forum.
• Now we will need to install the new bootloader so that you can also run vista. Please install chameleon now.
• Now you should be able to boot into both Mac and vista when you turn on your computer.

If something goes wrong and you can't boot into vista and you need to get in anyway, open terminal and execute the following commands :
fdisk -e /dev/rdisk0
flag 1
quit
reboot

Handy iPhone typing trick

From iPhone Alley

If you're like me, caps lock is rarely used on the iPhone but sometimes you just need the next couple of letters to be capitalized. A good example is if you're typing out something like "OK" or "IM", or any number of other upper-case abbreviations. Thankfully, iPhone's multi-touch is smart enough to allow you use the shift key just like you can on a computer. Simply hold down the shift key while you type on the iPhone's keyboard and every letter will be capitalized.

I've got to say thanks to iPhone Alley for pointing this out, I know I'll be using this trick a lot.

Easily Install Mac OSX on Dell Optiplex GX620 SFF (OUTDATED)

Edit: I have posted a new guide that makes this process much easier. Please read that instead.

Today I am going to show you how to install and dual boot Kalyway 10.5.1 (OSX Leopard) onto your Dell PC. My system specs are:
Optiplex GX620 SFF (small form factor)
2.5GB Ram
3.0 GHz Pentium 4 HT CPU
160GB HDD
default intel onboard graphics chip
VGA output ^

I have vista installed already (home premium) and nothing else (not xp or linux).

What you will need:
Kalyway 10.5.1
Chameleon Bootloader
Vista Preinstalled (or XP)


Step 1: Prepare your PC
You will need to shrink your XP/Vista Partition.
To do this in vista right click my computer and go to manage.
In XP you will need to find another program to shrink it because xp doesnt have this feature.
From there click disk management.
Choose your vista disc and rick click it>shrink partition
Choose a reasonable size of your liking. (I recommend about 40 GB)
Right click your new partition and create a new volume.

Step 2: Install
Turn off your PC and place the kalyway disc into the Drive
Press F8 when prompted and then enter -v
after about 8-10 minutes you will see the installer
open up disc utility from the menu bar and format your new partition (erase)
Now proceed through the installation until you are given two choices, install and customize. Select customize and select the MBR bootloader instead of the GUID bootloader.
Now click the install button.

Step 3: Final Procedure
about 20-25 minutes later you will be presented with the setup screen
set it up as you would like and then when it loads the OS open up iTunes. It will ask you to update, click yes or OK.
Then you will be presented with a few updates (probably 6)
Choose everything but the last one which should be 10.5.5
Do not update to 10.5.5 yet, we will do this in my next post in a week or so.
Once the updates are done please reboot the computer as it asks.
When your computer boots back up please install chameleon.

Now your computer will dual boot with Vista and Leopard.

Please ask me any questions you have in the comments.

My Rant Against Apple

Alright, someone had to say it. I think it has gone on long enough. Apple has gone too far with their "get a mac" ads, and especially with the validity of their commercials. I have been using vista since 1 month prior to its official release and I have seen it grow into an absolutely amazing operating system. I used to enjoy the get a mac ads, they were funny and valid, and very cool to watch. I would always unmute the TV when a mac ad came on so that I could watch it... I always loved the apple guy.
Now everything has changed. Apple has lost all of their creativity and had to find something to gnaw on while they thought of something new... they found vista. When vista started up it did indeed have a lot of bugs, and some were very unpleasant. Apple exploited this weakness, and especially given the fact that Microsoft did nothing to counteract the torment; vista's reputation went down the drain only 2 months after release.
Now, vista is a wonderful operating system, with barely any bugs, especially as compared to how it was before. There are two major bugs left in my opinion - which I will point out to attempt to prove that my views are unbiased - and they are:

1) Slow file transfer/copying
2) Trouble moving/deleting/copying files that claim to be in use, even though they aren't.

Lets look at the mac side shall we? Of course the apple operating system is flawless right? Quite honestly, I am unable to answer that question myself. I dont own a mac, so I cannot point out any bugs. I can however point out many bugs in other apple products, but due to apples primary concern being making money, rather than customer satisfaction/appreciation - they still have not fixed them.


1) iPhone/iPod Touch clock sync bug. Every time you plug in your ipod to itunes, the date will set itself back approximately 15-35 days.
2) iTunes intense slowness. I have never seen iTunes work as fast as it should, even though windows media player and others work just fine. I dont understand why it takes so incredibly long to find search results in the iTunes Store when google can find millions of results in .03 seconds.
3) Wifi problems on the iPod Touch 2G. Requires the user to turn the Wifi on and off twice before it will work again. A reboot rarely fixes this.
4) No flash player on iPhone? Seriously wtf mate?
5) No notes sync (unless you have leopard ($149) and mobileme($99))
And many more...

Vista works great for me, and my system is more than 2 years old. It doesn't have a vista compatible sticker on it and dell doesn't even ship vista with this model, however, it works great.

Here are some things that I require from Apple before I will ever be able to buy a mac in good conscience:

- Focus more on the customer, not on the money they bring.
- Sell OSX for Dells and other Computers... you'd end up making more money from people that would never end up buying a mac anyway.
- Stop killing competition, in a capitalist society it is necessary to compete for business. Apples grip over the Appstore is horrific and needs to be loosened.
- Quit ragging on other companies products in order to gain customers; this is the world of computers, not politics. Every time I listen to your damn ads I see noses beginning to grow longer. If you guys need to destroy other businesses in order to increase your own sales... well, I guess that doesnt say much about your confidence in your product does it?
- Listen to your feedback! We submit that stuff for a reason, it is a huge list of what we (the customers) want, and it means that you can make more money by making it for us. Apple, add a radio, use the bluetooth, integrate features of the jailbreak, and then create a new design and - boom! - you've got a new device that you can easily sell to millions of people for 300 bucks each!

I hope this impacts some of your decisions on whether you should get a mac or not... if I were you, I would go out and install osx on a pc... maybe if we do it enough then Apples capitalistic side will show and they will realize that they probably should remove the EFI restrictions and start to sell OSX for all computers.

iPhone Dev-Team Posts Progress

Well, sort of....
This morning at about 6am eastern time (which is 3am pacific, which leads you to wonder what they are doing up so late) the iPhone Dev Team posted their thoughts on the new 2.2 firmware betas and the iPod Touch 2G jailbreak.
There is good news, and there is bad news. Good news is, firmware 2.2 is pwnable on all devices that currently support pwnage tool... bad news is that they still haven't found a way to jailbreak the iPod Touch G2, or unlock the iPhone 3G. They seem confident, and I have faith in them, but I wont be able to stand it to have to wait as long as others have had to for the 3G unlock. The future seems gloomy for this new iPod, and we need someone to help us through this. Come on guys, we know you can do it!

Read the official post here:
http://blog.iphone-dev.org/

-Laser

iPhone Application Acceptance Process

The folks over at The Joy of Tech have posted this funny Flow-Chart of how apple decides how applications are accepted. It should give you a good laugh.

Apple Seeds iPhone OS 2.2

Even with the extremely recent release of iPhone OS 2.1, Apple has already begun to seed v2.2 to developers. v2.2 is rumored to include more bug fixes, push notifications and more GPS features. Don't get your hopes up for push notification though; iPhone OS 2.1 had them, but apple took them away.
Strangely, in this photo posted by GearLive it seems that you cannot download an iPod Touch G2 version, only G1. Maybe apple has other plans for the G2.

iPod Touch G2 Still not Jailbreakable

The iPhone Dev Team and Chronic Dev Team still haven't been able to Jailbreak the new iPod Touch. The new processor has destroyed the exploit that was found in the old processor, so the method that pwnage used no longer works on the new iPod. Hopefully they will find a way soon... very soon. In my opinion an iPod Touch G2 is worth only half as much as a Jailbroken G1 on 2.1
The speakers are quite amazing though.

Trillian Astra Beta Leak!

A while ago I posted about Trilian Astra becoming available to the public through torrent sites, recently however, I found a link directly from Cerulean Studios that you can download Trillian's current version from.

Cerulean Studios:

Build 83 features some massive new features for Trillian Astra, including official IRC and Facebook support with a few additional improvements to the user interface. As always, we’ve also fixed a handful of important bugs in our ongoing road to completion. New in 83:
- Facebook support: In addition to MySpace, Facebook join the ranks as the tenth service in our planetary system, denoted by the colors blue and aquamarine. Our first implementation features a News Feed, Notifiers for News Feeds, (instant update ‘toasts’ shown through windows near your system tray) and a Status Message update tool. You can now type in the Status Message edit area and update the status across all IM services and Facebook as well!
- IRC support: In response to our enthusiastic power user community, we’ve brought back our IRC plugin and updated it with some fantastic new features, such as brand new Chat Room and Server Browsers, channel management tools, encryption support, and a lot more advanced features.
- Better mail Info Cards: Info Cards for mail services such as Gmail have been updated with a new layout. Now they display name and excerpts from each email, as well as the icon of the domain where the mail was sent from.
- Cleaner Notifiers: We’ve cleaned up the layout for system tray Notifiers, where buttons will only be visible when you move your mouse cursor over them.
- Quick Reply through Notifiers: You can now have Trillian notify you when new messages arrive in a new or existing private chat session and quickly reply to them through Notifiers near the system tray. Like inside Chat Windows or on the tabs of Tabbed Containers, these Notifiers also show chat messages in neat chat bubbles.

You can download Trillian from HERE
And download the patch here

To install:
Run trillian-v4.0a-current.exe
When finished DO NOT press Launch, Close application instead.
Place patch.exe in C:\Program Files\Trillian
Run patch.exe and click patch
Click the browse icon
Navigate to /plugins
choose astra.dll
click finish

All done, now open trillian!

Thoughts on iPod Touch firmware 3.0

Heres a combination of my thoughts and Bkram1's thoughts on what should be in the new iPod/iPhone 3.0 software:



* Start up times - These things almost take 5 minutes to start up some times, they need to be able to start in 1 minute at the most!
* Stuck in the boot screen - Sometimes, you turn off your device and when you turn it back on, it’s stuck at that apple logo! You cannot do anything except restore which means losing all of your data, music, videos, Apps, etc.
* Copy and Paste - We know it’s not that hard Apple! We’ve seen third party developers do it, why can’t you?
* Podcasts - You should be able to download and subscribe to podcasts while you are not at your computer, if you are on a holiday, how are you supposed to get all of the latest episodes?
* Improved Springboard management - There needs to be a better way to manage your Applications instead of the annoying wiggle feature.
* Search - You should be able to search through your music library! You can do it on the iPod Classic, iPod Nano and even on the Remote App! Who can’t we search through the music on our iPhone/iPod Touch?
* 5 icon dock - This would be very nice, it’s the main reason I jailbreak my iPhone at the moment
* Themes - You should be able to customise the theme of the iPhone/iPod Touch. This is why a lot of people jailbreak. People like to personalise their things.
* More camera control - You should be able to zoom, focus, etc.
* Video - Why can’t you record videos? You can do it when it’s jailbroken!
* Push notifications - This was supposed to be in 2.1. Where is it?
* Respect the developers - Let them do a bit more, they are restricted by all of Apples rules
* Bluetooth - You should be able to use Bluetooth with your friends
* Sync over WiFi - When you walk into your house. your device gets updated automatically
* MMS - You can do this on most of the basic phones, why can’t the iPhone do it?
* iChat built in - Why not? We would have to use faulty third party IM Apps.
* Support for Nike + in the iPhone - It has Bluetooth, why can’t it support Nike +?
- iPod icon on iPod Touch (not music and videos)
- Voip for iPod Touch (basically the same as your less restrictions for devs)
- ability to sync notes with program of choice such as OneNote, or even something built into iTunes
- Use Free space on iPod as USB Drive
- Flashplayer/silverlight… (more importantly, the ability for plugins to be installed
- Full-Screen Safari
- A better notes application…. I mean, come on…. Apple can do better than a legal pad.
- A poof like application that allows you to hide ANY app or lock ANY app with a password. Good for parental controls (on anything) and good for hiding private data incase lost or stolen. (You could lock preferences.app, which would be very helpful)

My thoughts on the next iPod Touch (gen 3)
- GPS
- More memory - 256MB?
- IEEE 802.11n (wireless n)
- camera
- better speakers…. apple: drill some holes!
- Wifi anywhere (ok, not exactly what I mean… I mean the ability to purchase a 3G chip of sorts that would allow you to use the 3G network for Internet. It wouldn’t be for phones/calling, although you could use voip probably, it would be the iPhones plan with only Data… maybe something like 8-15 dollars a month, or maybe charge per minute) I think this would be pretty revolutionary (isn’t that what apple is about?) It would be similar to todays laptop cards that let you use a mobile service provider to get internet on the road.

This goes for apple products in general:
- Allow iTunes to sync your iPod with Windows Calendar
- Make MobileMe free…. Seriously, Windows live mesh is….


Most of these features should be pretty easy for Apple to implement into the next firmware, hopefully they release the next major update by the end of the year. What do you think?

View original post here

Please vote for the ability to have the five icon dock and the Music and videos icon into iPod (MobileMusicPlayer Flip); If we get enough signatures then maybe apple will incorporate these into the next firmware.

VOTE HERE

iPod Touch G2 does not work with all chargers

I have a Non-Apple iPod Touch Charger and a Non-Apple iPod Touch Dock. I recently sold my iPod Touch Gen 1 to a friend to buy my new Touch, and I brought it home and plugged it into my PC to charge. It charged to about 80% and then I took it to my room and put it on my dock. A warning symbol came up (it looks like the topic's icon) and it said that "charging is not supported with this accessory". Then I plugged it into my wall charger and it displayed the same thing.

I think apple has not allowed this new device to use anything but Apple accessories, so be warned - those of you who have older docks... they wont work on this new iPod Touch 2G.
This may be because they don't want to be sued for someone saying that the ipod doesn't get 36 hours of battery life, so they make sure that they MUST use verified chargers... or maybe the new iPod can detect if the wattage/output is not exactly right.
We'll see what happens with this....
-Laser

My new iPod Touch Generation 2!

Unboxing Video:


It is really cool.
New features:
New UI sounds for keyboard, mail, etc.
Volume buttons on the side
Speaker
Bluetooth (not yet usable)
New design with curved back
slimmer
lighter (weight)
iPod Software 2.1.1

The New iPod Touch (G2)

I think I'm going to get one of these.
Open for discussion.

Block ads on your iPod Touch/iPhone

Quickpwn.com:

-
Want to make websites load faster on your iPhone or iPod Touch? Don't you find ads on your mobile device annoying? Well, now you won't have to suffer these problems any more! You can block ads on your iPhone and iPod Touch simply by uploading and replacing the hosts file. To do this, you must be running firmware 2.0, 2.1, or any other 2.x firmware.


1. Click the below link to download the hosts file:
Download hosts file
2. SSH into your jailbroken iPhone/iPod Touch using a client like WinSCP
3. Navigate to /etc/
4. Replace the hosts file with the new hosts file that you downloaded
5. Reboot your iPhone or iPod Touch

This hosts file filtered a lot of ad networks. You won't see ads on any website, and now your mobile browsing should be very quick and painless. Enjoy! :)

Credit for this goes to James from James Is Bored.
-
I'd also like to point out that this is ideal for blocking other sites that you dont want, or for parents that want to block individual sites for their teen. Its easy to add sites, just visit http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm for a quick tutorial.

Important Update:

Quickpwn has been re-modified to completely support 2.1!
The dev-team has already released the new pwnagetool, but sadly, it is only for Mac. PC users do not need to be left in the dust! Download the new version of Quickpwn for 2.1 here
Use it as you would any normal version of Quickpwn...
Note: you do not need to be on a fresh 2.1 installation, and this will keep all your music and videos and data. If you are on 2.0.x then you must restore to 2.1 first. You cannot upgrade from jailbroken 2.0.x to 2.1, it screws it up.
Enjoy!

Jailbreak iPod Touch 2.1

2.1 has finally been Jailbroken! This tutorial will allow you to use cracked apps and Cydia and Installer 4 on your 2.1 iPod Touch (not iPhone yet)!!!!!!!!!!!!

JAILBREAKING 2.1 STILL ALLOWS YOU TO KEEP ALL YOUR MUSIC/VIDEO/CONTACTS/ETC. INTACT

This method only works on computers that can use Quickpwn (the dev team release).

- First of all you have to be on 2.1 on a FIRST GEN iPOD TOUCH! NO SECOND GENERATIONS.
- Download these files http://rapidshare.com/files/144550778/QuickPwnRC3.zip.html Its quickpwn with some bundled extras. (All Credit goes to jfb392 for the bundle)
- Alternative links:
- Once downloaded, extract the .zip files with an archiver, you can use any. If you don't have one, download WinRAR, and install it.
- Run QuickPwn. Choose iPod Touch. Then when it asks you to browse for the IPSW (iPod Software) file, pick the 2.1 Firmware file, and then go next.

*Note* The 2.1 firmware file should be located in C:\Users\%username%\Appdata\Roaming\Apple Computer\iTunes\iPod Software Updates\

- Once the QuickPwn process is done, the Pineapple, and then Spinning wheel should be up for a while, and it should reboot... don't worry it's fine.
- Now when your iPod reboots, installer and cydia wont be there!!! Dont worry... that should happen.
- Now download iphonebrowser

- Now on iPhoneBrowser, connect to the iPod and go to /System/Library/PrivateFrameWorks/MobileInstallation.framework
- Back-up your original mobileinstallation by copying it to your computer. Make sure not to copy it into a directory where the patched mobileinstallation file is.
- Drag over the patched mobileinstallation file and overwrite the old one.

*note* make sure you overwrite. DO NOT DELETE AND THEN COPY, you must overwrite the file.

- Reboot your ipod and you've got a Jailbroken 2.1 iPod Touch

TO GAIN ACCESS TO SSH SIMPLY INSTALL IT FROM CYDIA


PROOF





Credits...
mce0004 - for the ipodtouchfans post
jfb392 - For the Bundles... of course! You should thank HIM A LOT!!!
ZombieKiller - For finding out that the MobileInstalltion thing works...
Also, this wouldn't have been possible without planetbeing and #xpwn for making KBAG decryption easier.
Also, many... many thanks to the Dev Team on their great utility, and we would of never been able to do this with them!
jfb392, gets most of the credit of course! Good Work jfb392!
Me for fixing this thread up and making it neat. AND creating the image at the top

Use iPod/iPhone as a Wifi Adapter

*This is just a tutorial to make things clearer, all credit goes to the owner and creator, www.makkiaweb.net*


"iPhone Tunnel Suite" is an amazing piece of software.
I highly recommend it.


Let's get started:

*Make sure you have OpenSSH already installed and running on your jailbroken device*

1) Install iPhone Tunnel Suite and run the software

2) Click the "iPhone Tunnel" button

3) Log into your device using your OpenSSH username and password

4a) Now, in the program you're using to access the internet (Firefox, IE (bleh), and even bitorrent clients (works fine in my Azureus)) set up the proxy to use "127.0.0.1" as the SOCKS Proxy (version 5) and "1080" as the port.

4b) If you're in Firefox, type in "about:config" into the address bar, paste "network.proxy.socks_remote_dns" into the "Filter" box, and doubleclick on the entry in order to set it to "true" (if it is already set to true, you do not nee to do anything)

7) Enjoy your internet connection, tunneled through your iPod/iPhone!

New iPod's and iTunes

Today at Apples "Let's Rock" event, they released a new iPod Nano
a new iPod touch
and iTunes 8 with the Genius Bar and support for the new ipod touch and nano... There is a live feed from all sorts of sites, lets go with http://live.ipodtouchfans.comfor now.

iPod Touch Generation 2 Rendered images

Here are some images that were posted on ipodtouchfans.com that show what the new ipod touch will most likely look like. We don't know it's new features, although a friend of mine says that he thinks it'll have a GPS and memory card expansion. I disagree, but we'll see what happens on september 9th.

Here are the images (credit to shortperson1026):

Winpwn 2.5 Beta Released

CMW has just released the 2.5 beta of Winpwn. It is actually the full version, so download away! He says it is a beta because it is his way of giving a word of caution and to make sure you "use it at your own risk"
Check out the site here
and here are some download links and a torrent file.

DL Links (credit to atomicmufin from ipodtouchfans:
http://rapidshare.com/files/141109578/winpwn-2.5-BETA.zip.html
http://rs115.rapidshare.com/files/141119319/winpwn-2.5-BETA.zip
http://rapidshare.com/files/141123726/winpwn-2.5-BETA.zip.html

Torrent File:
Winpwn 2.5.torrent

ZiPhone shown to cause harm to iPhone and iPod Touch

The iphone dev team has just linked to a blog that has a post that is basically a rant against zibri. Compare it to Zibri's "facts" and then read the other post and then see who you believe.
Link to the iphone dev teams friend is here

Basically, ZiPhone uploads data to the iphone's Memory in a place where it shouldn't and clogs it up. This causes errors in the memory and then question becomes "When is my iphone going to crash?" instead of "Will my iphone crash?".

How to remove IE8 beta 1 and upgrade to IE8 Beta 2

If you are on vista, go here

On XP? Then go here

Basically, the short version is:

On vista, you will need to uninstall it through your installed updates inside of programs and features.

On XP, just run the SPUNINST.EXE file inside of C:\WINDOWS\IE8\SPUNINST

Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 available for download

Quote: Betacentral

According to AeroXperience, Internet Explorer Beta 2 has just been released internally, it is available publicly, but it is not on the IE8Blog or on Microsoft's IE8 Beta page (beta 1 is still there).
If you have windows vista or windows server 2008 then please follow this link to download it:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=6ef71415-646f-4279-8b6b-193435ab2d80&DisplayLang=en
if you have any other version then please visit:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/browse.aspx?DisplayLang=en&nr=20&productId=FED6228C-C43B-4086-BF09-2986B9CE4610&sortCriteria=date#

Enjoy!

I have just downloaded and installed IE8 and here are my results and my review:

Here are some screenshots of IE8 in action:

Full Page:
Compatibility View:

Suggested Sites:


Content page in IE Options


Privacy Page in IE Options


The toolbar:


Safety Dropdown on toolbar


Tools Dropdown on toolbar: