"And now for a taste of things to come"

Okay, not really yet as I'm just getting settled into the new digs. I just saw an opening to use a Mortal Kombat quote and that's a hard thing to pass up. I'd be one of the new geeks atom6 has been alluding to lately. When he tweets about pwning some kids on TF2, I'd be the one covering his ass from afar with a high powered rifle.

In short, I just started a new job that has been taking up all of my time lately but I'm getting into the groove now which lends more time to being able to post on things of a more tech savvy nature. So expect some posts on things such as Chrome OS, and Office 2010 (if I can get into the stupid beta...), as well as games, gadgets, and thingamabobs (I have twenty, but who cares, I want more (damn ex-girlfriends and their Disney movies!)). So hopefully you will all cut me more slack than Atom has and I'll be posting shortly and giving all the geek that's fit to print.

-GimpyGomer

iPhone 3GS – Jailbroken – Cyndia Installed - Pwnd

So, I have held out for a bit on looking up the tools for jailbreaking the ol’ iPhone. I figured, why change it if I have it so good right now, after my success with enabling MMS on my iPhone that is a good stopping place, right?

Well, there is only one answer. When you are a geek, you are never happy with what you have. You always need it to be faster, more powerful, elegant, you even want it to make you breakfast and call you daddy. We change things just to say we can and we flaunt our successes to others that don't quite get how it works, but would love the enhancements it if they did.

So, I took the plunge, I figured yesterday was a good time to “hack” it. Last time I had to search for just the right tool to get the job done,  I was always being thrown back errors about the IPSW file I was using. This is the file that makes up the operating system on the iPhone, changing version numbers for each upgrade, but I typically have some off shoot of the file the known file the programs out there like, which makes this a huge pain.

This time with the 3.0 bits on the 3GS, it wasn't any different from the times before, I attempted to use QuickPwn and again the IPSW file I was trying to se always came up with a “IPSW file not compatible.” Ugh, back to the grinder. I looked at redsn0w, yellowsn0w, every color of snow, not for me, nothing worked. So I took a further look, luckily for me my options are not limited to the OS X side, since I am running Windows 7 on my macbook as well. Program after program turned out to deal me a crap hand.

Finally, I did a Google search on 3GS jailbreak and found a site: http://purplera1n.com/ apparently this guy has unlocked the iPhone and doesn't have the blessing of the iPhone Dev-Team. I typically go with their tools because they are sound, but everything on their page this go round, was just not ready yet.. But I went to them first and found nothing that worked properly, so, why not try a new thing aye? Its the amazing exploration of possibly destroying my iPhone that drives me forward.

The site has two icons, if you are using Windows, you choose the Windows logo and vice versa. It appeared that all that was ran was a single file so, I figured, I wouldn't mind blowing away my hard drive or the iPhone so i ran it…wow, very pleased.

Instructions:

1. Plug in your iPhone and make sure to sync the baby with a full back up. This should be done before you try anything that could be catastrophic to your device. Duh.
2. Go to the website: http://purplera1n.com/ 
3. Click on the image that is associated to the OS you are running.
4. Run the file and allow it through your mesh of safety nets and virus scanners, I can attest that I did not blow my machine up ;)
5. It will roll your iPhone into recovery, or DFU mode, and will install an app on the phone called “Freeze.'”
6. Once this is done, your finished with the computer…wow, quick aye?
7. Disconnect the iPhone from the computer and run Freeze.
8. The only option you will have here is to install Cyndia, do it, that is were all of the 3rd party applications for the iPhone come from.
9. After this is done, call it a day, sit back and download new ringtones, themes, utilities, anything you can think of. If you have the 32 GB iPhone 3GS, you can pretty much install everything from Cyndia, lol, but who wants all that right?

My take on this:

I am an impatient person, so by nature anything that is right in front of me I will find a way to get or I will find a way around the block to get something just as good. This time I took the winding path because the iPhone Dev-Team is not releasing their tools until 3.1 is released by Apple. **That being said, I would like to clarify that purplera1n did not release software that was not ready, it works great for me.** As for the ease of which I was able to get what I wanted finished with as little grief as possible, I couldn't have asked for a better way of breaking the iPhone. I ran a single file, downloaded another from the phone itself and called it a day, it has by far been the best breaking experience I have ever done.

Also, as I stated above, I had AT&T by the nuts when I was able to work out getting MMS to work on my phone without them knowing and I was hesitant to break the phone while this was working because I thought I would lose that functionality. Guess what, I still have it. Because the method that is used in this breaking doesn't make you re-package or re-load a new IPSW, but only modifies the existing one, it didn't change any of those awesome settings that I had in place, allowing me to continue using MMS. Another +1 for this unobtrusive method. All in all, I am happy with the way things turned out.

Disclaimer:

I am in now way affiliated with purplera1n or iPhone Dev-Team. My words are from personal experience and unless you come grab my iPhone out of my hands you cant prove I have done any of this. Thanks ;)

Site changes: I am proud to announce the conglomerate of technological geekdom.

For the past month and a half I have been working to get some good articles out to the community and I think I have done an OK job. But I have decided that I want to make this an even richer environment and I cant do it all on my own. So, the time has come to add some other geeks into the mix.

The site has been changed to TekNation, a name symbolizing the goals of the group. In hopes that we can provide knowledgeable feedback, reviews, as well as nonsense and whatever else crosses the mind.

Please stay tuned, as the site will be changing over the next couple weeks, but my hope is that it will be better than ever once it is in full stride.

~Atom6.