CNET TV: Jailbreak the new 2.0 iPhone software Video

Over the last year we’ve discovered some interesting things about the software used in the iPhone. These “hacks” , “exploits”  and “techniques”, or whatever you want to call them, are valuable – not only from a financial perspective (so scummy people can sell unlocking software) but also from a strategic point of view. Think of it like a game of poker, showing your hand too early would certainly make you lose “the game”.

The majority of iPhone users are not technical – they want an easy, one-stop, simple application that will allow them to quickly and painlessly unlock their phone. If we were to release a crummy command-line based tool that does the immediate job that everyone is screaming for, we’d only end up in the following situation:

1) The technique is released to the world and people use this technique to quickly create GUI apps that they charge cash-money for, or re-release something hacky and horrible that bricks lots of devices, or for example disables the WiFi that then causes more stress that ultimately comes back to us

2) The technique is exposed to the vendor, allowing them to locate and repair the security hole. Sometimes these security holes span product versions, for example: between the first generation and second generation iPhone. In such a case releasing the knowledge in the middle of the product development cycle is pointless and risks the “usefulness” of the technique – especially if there are existing hacks/techniques that work just fine.

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Sounds like a good deal, right? All you have to do is get Firefox 3 during Download Day to help set the record for most software downloads in 24 hours – it’s that easy. We’re not asking you to swallow a sword or to balance 30 spoons on your face, although that would be kind of awesome.

The official date for the launch of Firefox 3 is June 17, 2008. Join our community and this effort by pledging today.

Visit the Firefox World Record Page

Redmond, WA – As the Mozilla Foundation releases Firefox 3 and tries to set a record for most downloads in a day, they will be receiving help from an unlikely source: Microsoft.

Steve Ballmer announced early Monday that Microsoft would be halting development on Internet Explorer 8 and focusing the company’s efforts on Firefox 3.

“I’m going to be downloading it myself, and I’ve told all our employees to download Firefox 3 on Tuesday and instructed our programming teams to start working on making the open source browser better rather than stumble around with Internet Explorer 8,” said Ballmer. “I mean, why bother?  Firefox 3 has the ‘AwesomeBar,’ you can’t seriously expect to compete with that, can you?”

Microsoft abandons Internet Explorer 8

HTC today unveiled its next generation business phone, the HTC Touch Pro.

The HTC Touch Pro was rumoured to be announced in last months unveiling of the HTC Touch Diamond but HTC have waited until today to unleash their latest and greatest offering.

The Touch Pro features Windows Mobile 6.1, HSDPA (7.2mbps), 2.8″ VGA screen, 3.2 MP camera, 512MB flash and 288MB RAM, Wi-Fi, GPS, bluetooth and a slide out 5 row QWERTY keyboard. All of the specs are backed up with a 1350 mAh battery so battery life shouldn’t be too bad on this device. The Touch Pro also has similar styling and the updated touchflo interface introduced with the Diamond.

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Lotto millionaire Luke Pittard has gone back to his old job at McDonald’s – because he’s bored. Wealthy Luke, nicknamed McMillion by workmates, won £1,369,847 and hasn’t cashed his pay cheque since his return. Luke, 25, said yesterday: “It’s not for the money. Earning £5.85 an hour doesn’t bother me. But I needed to start doing things. You can only go shopping a certain number of times before you start seeing the same things. It was getting boring and repetitive and I put on a stone in weight. I was eating constantly. I enjoy going to work. It’s better than staying at home all day.”

All my mates work here. People don’t tell me what to do and when it’s busy I don’t get stressed any more. It’s like I’ve never been away.”

Luke added: “I carried on working for six weeks after winning the lottery but it was impossible because the customers wanted to know why I was still here.

“One of the girls used to ask everyone, ‘Do you know who you’re being served by? He earns more than this McDonald’s’.

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Yeah! Forgot to mention that I got my exam results back from the Law Society the other day, and I passed both of my exams that I wrote! 85% for Attorney’s Accounting, and 58% (quite good) for Wills and Estates!

*Takes a bow and starts to study for the next 2*

iPhone "This message has not been downloaded from the server" error message!!!

Well, if you have an Apple iPhone and have setup your Mail Application to download your email onto your iPhone, you may start noticing that you sometimes receive the following error message while you are attempting to view an older email:

(1) Why does it happen?

The short answer is "I am not 100% sure why, and Apple have not said why!", but all I can really do now is to google it, and make up my own mind!

My Guess: I don’t think that the Mail application on the iPhone actually saves any attachments on the iPhone when you download emails! It saves the body of the email, but NOT the attachments.

Why? Because if you attempt to browse an older email, which has an attachment, it gives you the message "Loading…" and after a couple of seconds it tells you "This message has not been downloaded from the server".  BUT: If you attempt to do the same thing, with WiFi & EDGE turned OFF, then the Mail application will display the email body immediately, and give you a link to the attachments, that you can click on to download.

Basically it proves that the iPhone does not save attachments on the iPhone, only the email body!

(2) Can you fix this?

Well, this normally happens when you collect your email on your iPhone using the POP protocol!

Most of us download our email onto computers and select the option in Outlook/Outlook Express to "leave the email on the server for x days", typically 5 or 10 (which I do) days. We then setup our iPhones to download the same email, but to LEAVE it on the server – or "Delete from server: Never".

This means that for 10 days your iPhone will be able to access a specific email on the email server, and will be able to download (view) that attachment whenever you want.

BUT: AFTER this 10 day period your computer will remove that specific email from the mail server, and then your iPhone will not be able to retrieve it from the server. Which also means that you will not be able to read any attachments from the mail server.

SO, when your iPhone Mail app tries to download THAT attachment, it will not be able to, and INSTEAD of just displaying the email body, and the attachment link, it displays the error message: "This message has not been downloaded from the server"…

(3) Why does the iPhone NOT just save the attachment on the iPhone?

I have NO idea! Apple should definitely speak out about this and come up with a fix!

(4) Why Apple does NOT save the attachment? (My guess)

Well, if you are constantly re-downloading any attachment that you attempt to view on your iPhone, then you will constantly be downloading data using your EDGE package! AND your Mobile Service Provider CHARGES you a massive rate (per MB) to download data using EDGE! Which means that they (AT&T / MTN / Orange / whatever) are making loads of cash off you re-downloading your email attachments. Is this right?

(5) Quick Fix?

Change the settings on your computer so that it leaves the email on the server for an extended period of time! Change the 3 days, or 10 days to something like 30 days! This means that your iPhone will be able to re-download the attachment for a 30 day period after it has initially downloaded the email.

BUT you are STILL re-downloading the attachment, and while you are waiting, YES, WAITING…. you are still being charged for the data traffic!

The problem here is that some service providers only give you a 10MB email account on their server. This might not be enough for users who receive 100′s of emails on a weekly basis!

(6) Longer Fix?

Change your email account from a POP account to an IMAP account.

Problem #1: Here again is that not all service providers offer IMAP facilities! Also, the emails would reside on your server.

Problem #2: You are still re-downloading all those attachments again! $$$

(7) The REAL solution?

The real solution needs to come from Apple! They need to increase the size of the first partition on the iPhone that you save your emails in. Maybe they need to save attachments in the second (media) partition so that you can always access them? At the moment the first partition on the iPhone is really small, just big enough for the OS and a few applications, never mind 100′s of attached pictures and mp3s, etc that we commonly send around cyberspace!

COME ON APPLE, sort this out!!!!!