How to reset an unresponsive iPhone/iPod touch and get it working again!

Sometimes the iPhone can lockup and stop working or just show the Apple symbol and not do anything else. But panic not, normally an app has caused the phone to crash and it needs to be restarted.

Here’s how you do it:

Sometimes just pressing and holding the home button for about 5 seconds, can help. But if not try this:

To reset iPhone, press and hold the Sleep/Wake button and the Home button at the same time for at least 10 seconds, until the Apple logo appears.

If you still have no success with the reset the only other option is to do a restore using iTunes. This will wipe your iPhone but should get it working again.

The iPhone now has a real “Battlefield app”

Channel 4 news are reporting that Raytheon, a company that develops technology for the US military, has written an app for the iPhone.

It will help US soldiers find the enemy and each other, let’s hope it will also stop ‘Friendly Fire’ incidents.

The iPhone hardware will be modified for the battelfield and the device will be able to multi task, one thing that the current iPhone won’t do (Apple restricted it to single tasks to save battery life).

Protect yourself from someone Stealing/Hijacking your domain name

The following blog is my experience with someone trying to get my domain name.

I have my domain name since about 1998 and a few months ago my domain name went offline.

After some checking of the whois record I noticed that the domain was in a “Suspended” state,  and after a few days would be set to “available” meaning anyone could buy it!

I found this out by calling Nominet and was told that they had been contacted by a company querying my domain details.
My problem was that my name in the whois database was my nickname and not a full correct name. I did this way back in 1998 as I didn’t want to advertise my name in the whois record.

I was told by Nominet that not using your full name is against there T&C’s and would result in the domain being released to the public if i didn’t update it. Luckily I managed to update the whois record before the domain was released (after some frantic phone calls and emails to Nominet.)

I asked Nominet why it took so many years to find my name was wrong. The answer is that companies exist that trawl the whois records to find nice domains and that have user records that are against the Nominet T&Cs.
Once they submit their findings, Nominet give about one week for you to change them. If you don’t, then the company gets the domain at a knock down price and you have no way to get it back!

So the moral of the story is KEEP YOUR RECORDS UP TO DATE so any problems and you can be contacted!

The Digital Economy Bill will make you a Copyright criminal in the UK!

Do you download Songs, Video or Software free from the Internet? Or if someone uses your Wifi without your knowing.

Your soooo fcuked if this UK bill is passed.

You may or may not have heard about this new Bill that’s going through the UK parliament at the moment. You might think that politics is boring and nothing ever affects you. Well, most of the time I would agree with you, BUT not this time!

This boring Bill, if approved, will mean that if your internet connection has been shown that you have downloaded any copyrighted material, be it songs,videos or software you will really be in the shit.
Not just a “slapped wrist” in the shit , I mean really “in the shit” so much in the shit that you will be doing jail time and paying a £50,000 type of  “in the shit”.

If that was not bad enough, and doing jail time for most people really is a no no, then the really scary part is that some if this can happen WITHOUT you ever going to court!

So much for UK democracy! But there is still a chance it can be stopped, if many people need to keep this in the news with Blogs, Tweets and emails to your MP’s.

The Bill looks like, if it goes through, will come into effect in two parts.

Three strike policy where your internet connection will be cut off after two warnings. A maximum fine for file sharing of £50,000. It also forces ISP’s to spy on you with a fine of £250,000 for any that don’t cooperate.

The scary part is set to come in, in 2011. This includes the power to disconnect file sharers without judicial review. It would also give the Secretary of State, Lord Mandelson himself the power to change and amend the provisions of Copyright, Designs and Patents Act (1988).

The UK ISP TalkTalk has taken a public stand against this bill with a website and a manifesto making pledges to its customers:

1. Unless we are served with a court order we will not surrender your details to rights holders. We are the only major ISP to have taken this stance and will maintain it.
2. We will continue to fight this draconian legislation as it makes it way through Parliament.
3. If we are instructed to disconnect your account due to alleged copyright infringement we will refuse to do so and tell the rights holders we’ll see them in court.

Please do all you can to keep it in the news, tweet it, write on Facebook, talk to your mates do anything legal. (Don’t climb on the houses of parliament and unfurl a huge banner against  “Mandy’s” bill as that’s a bit extreme, no wait… great idea   do it !

If you only do one thing about this, sign the Number 10 Petition against the Bill
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/dontdisconnectus/

Also You can write to your MP at http://www.writetothem.com
Send them a constructive email explaining that the bill is outrageous and should not be allowed etc

Send Lord “Mandy” Mandelson a message http://threestrikes.openrightsgroup.org

This is why I am leaving my ISP PlusNet ! 187Kbps from a 7000Kbps line, what a joke.

After seeing my web experience grinding to a halt I called Plusnet to ask what the problem was. They assured me that there was no problem and I could use www.speedtester.bt.com to check the speed.

Using BT’s own speed checker my ADSL line got the following result, I responded to my fault ticket and after waiting days for them to get back to me i realised  it’s time to move to a faster ISP.

I have been with Plusnet (formally known as Force9) for years, but the problems all started when they introduced “Traffic Shaping“. This is supposed to slow down Bit Torrent and other file sharing activities and allow their network to function. Also Plusnet have grown from a small ISP to one of the UK’s biggest and always advertise on TV (The weather update after the news in London).

I can only assume that because Plusnet/BT subscriber base now exceeds 4.7 million they are now too big and don’t have enough bandwidth, meaning people like me now suffer with very slow connections.

I would rather pay a little extra and have a smaller ISP that can supply the unfiltered, non-packet shaped connection at a reasonable speed. After checking I have found a small ISP called idnet.net that seem to offer some great unfiltered packages with a good download limit.

Thought about registering www.plusnetsucks.co.uk but too late, it’s gone already

o2 UK now unlocks iPhones for FREE!!

Yes you read it right,  o2 in the uk will now unlock your iPhone for free.

BUT

If you unlock your handset and place a non-O2 sim into it, you will still have to honour the remainder of the minimum term on your contract.

Still not bad, might be something to do with o2 losing the exclusive rights to the device meaning Vodafone and Orange can now offer slightly cheaper deals.

Reasons I can think of why you should do it:

• Add value to your iPhone if you need to sell it
• No more hacking your iPhone it’s totally legit
• Firmware updates no longer have the possibility of killing your phone!
• It’s FREE

It’s a no brainer, do it now before they change their mind.

Read more here

http://shop.o2.co.uk/update/unlockmyiphone.html

New twist to unlocked iPhone wifi problems, It’s Apple fault!

After all the excitement of the 3rd November release of “Blacksn0w“  by Geohot,  some iPhone unlockers reported that they were having problems with Wifi after using the unlock.

A workaround was found but that involved resetting the wireless settings on the device. Geohot tried to find the problem but could not replicate the fault on any of his test iPhones.

After a few days he began to suspect that it was actually Apples own 3.1.2 firmware that was causing the wifi issues and not his Blacksn0w unlock app.

Taking a swipe a Apple Geohot tweeted  “Apple, will you give me 10k if I fix your wifi bug?”  hinting that they can’t fix their own firmware.

I presume the $10k amount was chosen as that was the amount a UK based iPhone scammer called Jody Sanders had offered Geohot.  This was a sad attempt at publicity for Jody trying to get the new baseband unlocked and sell the software on his scam site.  (Geohot refused the offer of the money and released Blacksn0w for free).

Jody’s website now says the found the unlock himself (on exactly the same day as the Blacksn0w release) and awarded himself the £10k !

New Free iPhone unlock might break Network,Youtube and Push Notification

 

 

George Hotz’s  (aka Geohot)  free iphone unlock released yesterday might be causing big problems with newly unlocked iPhones.

It’s been reported that some devices unlocked with Blacksn0w might be experiencing problems with Network connectivity, Youtube and the Push Notification.

Personally I think that no network is a big problem for most,  so I would hold off and wait for a new release.

Below is a quote from George’s blog.

“It appears some users are having wifi issues. Try a “Reset Network Settings”. If someone can come up with a way to replicate wifi issues, I will investigate further as I have not yet seen these issues firsthand.

Push and YouTube issues are caused by hacktivation. The dev team has a fix for YouTube which they are posting on Cydia shortly.”

Brand new iPhone unlock released today

From George’s site:

Today 11/3/09 is a sn0w day.

School is officially cancelled, and all your iPhones will be unlocked. Remember getting those calls? At Noon EST, I will be making it sn0w, and I’m looking to see “#blacksn0w” trending.

Blacksn0w is the unlock for the latest 05.11.07 baseband, and will also enable official tethering. blackra1n, a jailbreak for 3.1.2, has been updated to RC3, with hacktivation support, 15 second speed improvement, Tiger+PPC support, and installation of the latest blackra1n.app.

Read more at http://iphonejtag.blogspot.com/2009/11/sn0wday.html

FREE iPhone 3GS unlock found, but others sell it

Jody Sanders is up to his old tricks again. This scammer is now passing off the new FREE iPhone unlock as his own work and charging for it (again). The one a only real iPhone unlockers are George Hotz and the collective known as The iPhone Dev team.

Please spread the word that Jody and other like him are scammers and ripping people off as the iPhone unlock is FREE and available from George and The iPhone Dev team. Another trusted free iPhone info site is www.iclarified.com.

 

From George’s site..

Sunday, November 1, 2009

An Information Campaign

I have an unlock for 05.11.07. I will be releasing on 11/04/09, for $0.00

First off, Jody Sanders, I am declining your $10,000. Why? Because you, and the rest of the iPhone unlock sites out there are scum. You make money selling freeware; that’s not cool, and I am in no way going to legitimize it.
Seriously, the people who really lose here are the customers. These sites are full of blatant lies, claiming to have unlocks for 05.11.07 People buy them, and are told the unlock is in development, and the release date is unknown. Imagine you bought a cup of coffee and were told it’s in development? Recently, many of these sites sent out e-mails saying they made major breakthroughs and the unlock will be ready 11/04/09. Coincidence that that’s the release date of blacksn0w?
I’m not going to post all these scam sites here, as I don’t want to give them the pagerank boost. Rather I’ll give you a whitelist, two people make unlocks, me and the dev team. Every iPhone unlock site you see out there is selling our stuff, repackaged in some form or another. Same goes for jailbreaks, although ih8sn0w and chronicdev are legit. Notice what all the legit ones have in common? They are free.
Now despite rumors of the ferocity of my legal team, they actually are pretty poor lawyers. And the scum who run these websites are the type who get off on legal battles. So we have to fight them in another way, and I’m asking for everyones help on this. Our weapon is information. Get the truth out, that all iPhone unlocks and jailbreaks are free, and if you are buying something, you aren’t getting anything a simple google search couldn’t get you, and are probably funding someones crack habit.
This is the first time I have tried to make something simple for the end users, and it enrages me to see people selling it. Let’s shut all these assholes down, and tell the iPhone owning world all they need is at blackra1n.com, including blacksn0w instructions on it’s release date, 11/04/09(yes, will support hacktivation). You do your part, and I’ll do mine making things as simple, reliable, and straightforward as possible.