Justyn Smith | Blog » IT

iPhone 4 reception issue

Justyn — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 06:28:36 +0000

If you have been looking at news lately you would have noticed that the iPhone 4 loses signal when held in your left hand. It seems if you bridge the little gap on the stainless steel band at the bottom left of the iPhone 4, you lose signal.

You can watch the following YouTube video to see the problem in action.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=03PQyWp0mWE

iPhone 3G 3.1.3 sync with Debian

Justyn — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 05:12:37 +0000

This post is mainly for my reference but hopefully it may help some of you. I am running CrunchBang Linux 10 which uses Debian Squeeze as a base. I changed my /etc/apt.conf from “squeeze” to “testing”.

This is how I got my iPhone 3G to sync in Debian.

Step 1 – Install needed packages.
apt-get build-dep libgpod gtkpod ifuse apt-get install git libsqlite3-dev checkinstall

Step 2 – Install packages from Sid / Unstable.

libimobiledevice
libimobiledevice1
libplist1
libplist-dev
libusbmuxd-dev
libusbmuxd1
usbmuxd

sudo dpkg -i usbmuxd*.deb lib*.deb

Step 3 – Download and install ifuse
git clone git://git.sukimashita.com/ifuse.git cd ifuse ./autogen.sh --prefix=/usr make sudo checkinstall -D make install

Step 4 – Download and install libgpod
git clone git://gtkpod.git.sourceforge.net/gitroot/gtkpod/libgpod cd libgpod ./autogen.sh --prefix=/usr make sudo checkinstall -D make install

Step 5 – Download and install gtkpod
git clone git://gtkpod.git.sourceforge.net/gitroot/gtkpod/gtkpod cd gtkpod ./autogen.sh --prefix=/usr make sudo checkinstall -D make install

Step 6 – Create mountpoint
sudo mkdir /mnt/iPhone sudo chmod 777 /mnt/iPhone/ sudo useradd -G fuse

Step 7 – Get iPhone ready
Plug in iPhone, then run.
ifuse /mnt/iPhone mkdir /mnt/iPhone/iTunes_Control/Device/ sudo lsusb -v | grep -i iSerial (get the long iSerial number) ipod-read-sysinfo-extended /mnt/iPhone/

Now you should be able to load gtkpod and sync music to the iPhone.

CrunchBang Linux and EeePC 1000HE

Justyn — Sat, 08 May 2010 10:14:35 +0000

I was running Windows 7 on my EeePC and decided to get rid of it. I formatted my drive completely and installed CrunchBang Linux 10 (Statler). Statler is an Alpha release and based off of Debian Squeeze but still running the lightweight Openbox.

For those that are familiar with GNU/Linux know that CrunchBang Linux was using Ubuntu as a base, but now they are using Debian instead. You can have a read about why they switched to Debian.

For anyone with a low-end machine or even wanting to get a nice fast distro running I would highly recommend CrunchBang.

Hands-on review of 4th Gen iPhone

Justyn — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 21:54:11 +0000

It seems that Gizmodo have trumped Engadget this time with a hands-on review of the (possible) new iPhone that was found earlier this week. They pulled the device apart, put it back together and almost have confirmed authenticity.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxbHCR-W8zc

Gizmodo has taken a lot of photos and posted a lot of specs about the new iPhone. They were unable to boot the device which means Apple may have remotely disabled it.

Internode’s BigPond parody, you do the math

Justyn — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 22:46:03 +0000

Internode are doing a new ad campaign to try and lure BigPond customers across to their service. Whilst most ad campaigns are to try and get the consumer to buy their product, there needs to be some truth about the campaign.

One of Internode’s billboards shows a broken down blue Kombi van with an outback landscape. Most people will identify this as BigPond’s “I’ve been everywhere” campaign – BigPond’s wireless NextG service.

Internode's Billboard (click for full size)

What Internode’s slogan reads is “If you’ve been everywhere man, it’s probably time for an upgrade”. Now as you all know, Telstra have the largest NextG network coverage in Australia, so how can you upgrade? Well Internode aren’t offering a wireless service, they are offering their ADSL2+ Easy Broadband plan.

The billboards which reportedly have cost Internode $350,000 will have 29 shown in Sydney and 10 in Adelaide. The second ad campaign’s slogan says “Are you being taken for a ride?” which again shows the iconic blue Kombi van.

Internode's Billboard (click for full size)

Now why would Internode be trying to push an ADSL2+ connection to those in the outback on NextG wireless? They are most likely on that service due to being in the outback and not having decent telephone cabling or too far from the exchange.

Twitter hacked by Acai Berry spammers

Justyn — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 05:39:57 +0000

My Twitter account was compromised (I have since changed my password) which resulted in some of my friends recently receiving direct messages from me offering options to lose weight.

People that have had their account hacked will be sending messages similar to this one:

did not think i was really going to lose weight, i did it though! with this... http://tinyurl.com/yhbx5kl

Spam Message 1

Here is another screenshot with different messages.

Spam Message 2

Last but not least, one final screenshot.

Spam Message 3

As you can see, if you have a few followers they will get annoyed with your messages. I didn’t even know my account was compromised until my friend Ryan informed me about the message I supposedly sent him on Twitter.

I did some Google Searches on the issue and only came across one other post written by Graham Cluley dating back to May 24, 2009. I would like to know if anyone else has had this happen to them so please comment and let me know.

Some reasons I quit Facebook

Justyn — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 05:35:18 +0000

Come Monday, I am going on hiatus from Facebook. I figured I was going to quit Facebook and never come back to it but at the last minute I decided to deactivate my account and not totally remove it for good.

I will see how the next week will go not having Facebook and checking it every couple hours. Now, onto some of the reasons I have gone on hiatus.

1. Friends

One of the things with facebook is the friends aspect. It happened with Bebo and MySpace. It is like it is cool to have 300 friends but realistically you need to ask yourself who your friends are.

For instance, in the past month how many of your friends have written on your wall, commented on a status update or even commented on a photo of you? That’s right, it is time to delete some friends.

2. Games

Okay so some of the social aspect of Facebook is games, I get it. If that is the case why not have a game of UNO or Scrabble against one of your friends. I don’t like seeing posts about adopting a pig for my farm 10 times per day (yes I have hidden most things from my wall).

At the end of the day you need to work out how much hours are wasted playing a game like Farmville or YoVille on Facebook and ask yourself what have you achieved from the amount of time playing that game, or what are you working towards?

3. Emo-ness

I guess the word emo-ness fits into this. There isn’t a day go by where I don’t see a status update consisting of scenarios that you would find on FML or MLIA. Really, you have to tell everyone how much the world is against you, and have a big cry about it? This is another reason to cull your friends list I believe.

4. Misinterpretation

I’m sure you have come across a post where your not sure to take it seriously or not. I have come across this a couple of times. You cannot hear the voice inflections when you are reading text so it is diffucult to tell if someone is being sarcastic or serious at times. This can cause friction between friends or family.

5. Embarrassment

Remember that naughty message your loved one wrote on your wall? So do all of your friends. Facebook can be one of the most embarrassing things around. You could have people write things on your wall, tag you in photos that you wish were burnt.

The upside of this is you do have control over who posts on your wall, but do you really want to block everyone from writing on your wall? I thought so.

At least with my blog I control what I put up, the comments, everything. Yes, someone may write an embarrassing comment on my blog but no one sees that comment until I approve it or deny it.

Apple’s Tablet PC, possible video?

Justyn — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 20:41:05 +0000

With all the rumors going around about the new Tablet PC from Apple, possibly called iSlate as reported by Neowin, I decided to Google around a bit more and came across this interesting YouTube video.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIGd4aBzhTU

This is a nice looking concept of the Apple Tablet PC, and can’t wait to see what Apple has in store for us.

Optus Tethering on iPhone OS 3.1.2

Justyn — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 07:56:31 +0000

There is now a simple way to enable tethering on the iPhone 3G/3Gs using Optus without paying extra. Now if you do happen to get charged I take no responsibility.

Your iPhone must be JailBroken. Add http://apt.iphone-storage.de as a source in Cydia, then search for Tethering and install the one corresponding to your iPhone (Tethering 3G – 3.1.2 or Tethering 3GS – 3.1.2).

Once installed, reboot then open Safari and navigate to http://justynsmith.info/mobileconfig/au_optus.mobileconfig and install the mobileconfig file. Once installed you should be able to go to Settings > General > Networking > Tethering (on/off).

SLiM – Simple Login Manager

Justyn — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 11:18:57 +0000

I recently swapped from GDM to SLiM on my EeePC running Ubuntu Lucid Lynx 10.04 and decided to make a nice simple theme for it which you can download.

SLiM - crackware theme

SLiM is exactly that, a Simple Login Manager and it lives up to it’s name. Even being as simple as it is, you can still theme it and it has a configuration file which you can edit.