Grab the latest version of Itunes before you start and be sure you’re on Iphone 3GS 3.0 software ONLY. I can’t say whether this will work with updates beyond that.

1) go to http://purplera1n.com  Click on the link for your OS, and download either the Windows EXE or the Zipped Mac app.

2) Connect your Iphone 3GS via USB to your computer. Cancel any sync activity.  Launch the appropriate app for your system.

You shoudl see one of these two windows, depending on your OS:

3) Click “Make it rain”, and let the Jailbreak commence…

Your Iphone should go into Recovery Mode at this point, and after a couple minutes, reboot itself. At that point, you’re done. One my phone, it actually got stuck rebooting. I had to perform a reset by holding power and home at the same time.

4) After it reboots, you should have a new app called Freeze. Run it, and it should install Cydia – the jailbreak software repository.

5) Enjoy your new found freedom.

Some cool things you can do with your jailbroken iPhone 3Gs:

• Run background apps
• Hide unwanted app icons (stocks, youtube, weather..)
• Tether
• SSH into (and from) your iphone
• Run unix/bsd command line tools with MobileTerminal
• Customize the look of your iPhone
• Use Qik for live video streaming
• Unlock your iPhone for another carrier

Here’s how I made it work – there may be better ways, but this worked for me, mostly:

Install OSX86 – most of the OSX install is based on this information Try as I might I was only able to get this to 10.5.6. I ran into consistent problems with trying to upgrade to 10.5.7. Maybe you’ll have better luck.

Go out and buy yourself a valid Leopard OSX license.

Find iDeneb 1.3 iso – you know where to look. Download these HP Essential OSX files HERE

Make a USB-bootable thumb drive, from the iDeneb iso, if you don’t have an external DVD drive to burn the Iso to.

You’ll need a mac to do the following:

1. Open up Disk Utility.app in /Applications/Utilites/
2. Select the drive you will be using in the left hand pane.
3. Click the “Erase” tab
4. Under “Volume Format” select Mac OS Extended
5. Click Erase
6. Click the “Restore” tab
7. If you havn’t already, go to your iDeneb.iso and double click it.
8. Back in Disk Utility, you should see the iDeneb.iso in the left pane with another image under it with an apple logo on it.
9. Drag the image to the “Source” location
10. Drag your drive you have erase to the “Destination” location.
11. Click Restore
12. Open up UInstaller and select your newly formatted drive
13. Check the “Install PC_EFI v9 Chameleon Edition 1.0.12”
14. Click Install

Now you can boot with the USB drive. The next part is tricky:

Power off the netbook, and plug in your USB drive.

You’ll need to plug in an external monitor to the VGA port and a USB keyboard and mouse to the other USB port- I used a Mac keyboard, as it has a USB input on it for my mouse.

Now power it up, and quickly press F10. You should get into the BIOS. You can go right ahead and Exit and save changes. This is just to get the USB drive recognized for boot. This time, quickly press F9.  You should see your two boot choices show up on the screen – USB Hard Disk and Notebook hard Drive. Now, before choosing one, you need to switch to the external monitor ONLY. Press the FN key and F2 until the external monitor is on, and the notebook LCD is off.

Now, choose USB Disk and press enter to begin the iDeneb installation. You’ll need the USB keyboard and mouse until the very end.

Everything on your mini is about to be erased.

1. The installer will now begin. Wait at the apple logo until a language selection screen is shown. Select your language and hit next.
2. Go to the top of the screen where it says utilities. From this menu select “Disk Utility”
3. Click on the Mini’s Hard drive in the left pane.

Use the Disk Utility partition manager to create two partitions. Make the first one formatted as free space and the second formatted as Mac OS Extended

After erasing is complete, exit the disk utility
Now click next and select your newly erased hard drive as the destination.

On the next screen you will see an option at the bottom that says “customize”. Click on it and apply the following patches:
a. Expand “fixes” and select: acpi, cpu, and remove firewire
b. Under “patches” expand chipset and select ichx fix
You can now continue with the installation.

First, run the VooDooPS2 Controller package. When prompted, make sure to check that box that says trackpad. Go through all the prompts until it’s installed. Reboot.

Now with working trackpad and keyboard, Open up OSX86 Tools again. Go ahead and reinstall all the kexts in the kext folder.
1. Click on “Install kexts” towards the bottom right
2. Find the kexts folder on your flash drive. Select the first one.
3. Shift+Click the last one to select all.
4. After the installer completes it will ask you reboot. Do it.

To enable Quartz open OSX86 Tools and click the Enable/Disable Quartz GL button. It will tell you the current status. If its disabled, feel free to enable it by clicking the button that says “Enable Quartz GL”.

If you start ActivityMonitor before doing this you will see that OSX only sees 1 processor (press the CPU tab below te process list). To allow it to use the second core do the following:

1) Open Terminal when logged in as an Admin user.
2) Gain root access (“sudo su -” and enter your user password).
3) cd /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration
4) Recommend backing up “com.apple.Boot.plist”. Copy it to your home directory or somewhere else.
5) Edit “com.apple.Boot.plist”. Use vi (ie: vi com.apple.Boot.plist). Move the cursor to the line that has “<string>cpus=1 -f</string>”, then press lowercase d twice to remove it. If there are no other <string> lines between the line with “<key>Kernel Flags</key>” and the next <key> line, then delete the Kernel Flags <key> line as well. Save the file by pressing uppercase Z twice.
6) Reboot
7) Launch ActivityMonitor and confirm OSX now sees both cores.

I could not get the Mini to sleep in OSX 10.5.6. The hard drive would sleep, the screen would go off, but the LED’s stay lit and the fan keeps going.  If anyone gets this to work on the 2140 let me know. The wired ethernet adapter doesn’t work either, and I haven’t tested the SD and Express Card slots.

Now on to installing Windows 7:

I chose, again to do this on a USB drive as opposed to burning the DVD.

Next, download the Windows 7 ISo from Microsoft. Extract the files from the ISO using WinRar to a directory on a windows machine of your choice.

Next, log in to a windows machine with admin privileges.

Open a command prompt.

Type “diskpart” in the command line to enter the Disk Partition command line tool, which lets you format and create partitions on active disks.Type “list disk” to reveal a list of all your active disks, each of which is associated with a number. Make a note of which one is your USB key, based on the capacity.

Next, type the following commands, one at a time:

Select Disk # (Where # is the number of your USB disk. We typed “Select Disk 6”)

Clean (removes any existing partitions from the USB disk, including any hidden sectors)

Create Partition Primary (Creates a new primary partition with default parameters)

Select Partition 1 (Focus on the newly created partition)

Active (Sets the in-focus partition to active, informing the disk firmware that this is a valid system partition)

Format FS=NTFS (Formats the partition with the NTFS file system. This may take several minutes to complete, depending on the size of your USB key.)

Assign (Gives the USB drive a Windows volume and next available drive letter, which you should write down. In our case, drive “L” was assigned.)

Exit (Quits the DiskPart tool)

Go back to your command prompt, running it as an Administrator. Using the “CD” command, find your way to the folder where you extracted the ISO files. Your command line path should look something like “C:\Users\USERNAMEHERE\Desktop\Windows 7 Beta\”.

Type the following commands:

CD Boot (This gets you into the “boot” directory)

Bootsect.exe /nt60 L: (where ‘L’ is the drive letter assigned to your USB key from the previous step)

Bootsect infuses boot manager compatible code into your USB key to make it a bootable device.

Copy all of the extracted ISO files into the USB drive. You don’t need to do this from the command prompt. Just drag and drop the files from the “Windows 7 Beta” folder into the drive using Windows Explorer.

Your USB key is now all ready to go!

Plug it into your HP Mini and make sure you enter the BIOS (F10) to temporarily change the boot order to allow booting from the USB drive.   Boot it up and follow the Windows 7 installation, choose the advanced installation, and use the Free space you allocated above in the OSX Disk utility.

Once the isntallation is complete, you should have a nice working copy of Windows 7 on yoru Hp Mini 2140. But wait, how do you get to OSX?

Once you’re in Windows 7, connect to the internet and download the beta 2.0 of EASYBCD. You can find it here:

http://neosmart.net/forums/showthread.php?t=642

Install it, and run it.

Click Add/Remove Entries. Click the little Mac tab towards the bottom.

For Name, enter whatever you want to identify it as OSX

For Mode, choose EFI, and click Add Entry. Click the Save button. Exit and reboot.

You should now get prompted at boot to choose between Windows 7 and OSX. When you choose OSX, just leave it for a few seconds. You’ll see a couple extra text menus with some countdowns. Just let them go, and in a few seconds, you’re in OSX again.

Good luck!

Overall, this machine performs as you would expect from this popular class of notebooks.  The 1.6Ghz processor is fine at handling most basic tasks, as well as watching standard def video.  The model I got has 2GB RAM installed out of the box, so it takes quite a bit to slow it down.   The 10 inch screen is 1024X576. The colors are bright and pop nicely against the black finish.  The included 3 Cell battery gives 2.5-3 hours of use which is plenty, and keeps the weight down to an acceptable level. The 160GB hard drive left plenty of room to add a couple more operating systems like OSX and Windows 7. (more on that later)

There are a couple features that really make this netbook stand out from the crowd:

1) The keyboard is at least 92 or 93%. Its very comfortable to type on, with full size shift keys in the appropriate places. Nice to see a good size keyboard on a netbook. Very small form factor for such a large keyboard.

2) There’s an express card slot for expansion

3) Drive protection technology from HP – built in accelerometer can disengage hard drive if the computer is dropped.

4) VGA output

The only negative I can see is the tiny little trackpad, which seems to be the biggest problem with netbooks. Its a bit too small vertically to properly traverse the screen. Also the left and right mouse buttons are on the left and right , rather than below the trackpad. This makes on handed navigation next to impossible, without utilizing the trackpad tap-to-click feature. Certainly not a deal breaker, but something to definitely be aware of.

All in all this is a great little netbook. Apparently there’s a newer version out with HD video. I imagine, its much the same, but with a prettier screen and a bit more horsepower.

Accepting an untrusted Exchange server certificate results in storing an exception on a per-hostname basis. On the next visit to an Exchange server contained in the exception list, its certificate is accepted with no prompt and validation. This may lead to the disclosure of credentials or application data. This update addresses the issue through improved handling of untrusted certificate exceptions.

and this interesting one:

A logic issue in the handling of ICMP echo request packets may cause an assertion to be triggered. By sending a maliciously crafted ICMP echo request packet, a remote attacker may be able to cause an unexpected device reset.

So, in case you’re waiting for some reason to update, go ahead and take the plunge and do it. Its my belief, that as users become more mobile and start keeping more of their private information on these devices, the attempts at hacking mobile devices will become more common.

Here’s a link to more info straight from Apple regarding these fixes:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3639

Let’s be safe out there…

According to Trend Micro’s summary:

Two things can be summed up from the events that transpired:

1. As expected, the P2P communications of the Downad/Conficker botnet may have just been used to serve an update, and not via HTTP. The Conficker/Downad P2P communications is now running in full swing!
2. Conficker-Waledac connection? Possible, but we still have to dig deeper into this…

Here’s a link to more information from Trend Micro

Here’s a link to the conficker “eye test” – it’ll let you know if your machine is infected or not.

http://www.talkbiz.com/confickertest/

There are several ways for you to enjoy the Pandora service while away from your computer’s web browser. Here are a few:

1) IPhone application- You can get more info here. Basically, its just like the website. All the major functions available on the web are right there in the application – creating playlists, approving songs, getting info, etc., It’s FREE, of course.

2) Windows Mobile Application – great for your Tilt, BlackJack II, or Fuze.  This WinMo app let’s you listen to your stations, create new ones, view album art, etc., More info here

3) Boxee – Popular media center software Boxee now has a native application available for free download.  Great cover art, station creation, song approval, and slick graphics.

4) Chumby – Raise your hand if you’ve got a Chumby. No, me neither. If you’re one of the two people who has one, you’re in luck, because Chumby officially supports Pandora.  There’s more info on their website

5) Sprint Instinct – Digital Lounge now has Pandora available. Just log in to your Digital Lounge and search for Pandora. Get ready to pay $3 per month, however. ouch.

There are a few other devices out there that will play friendly with Pandora. If you’ve tried them, let us know…

In theory, you should be able to simply set up Internet Sharing on your Windows Mobile device with Bluetooth PAN. Then on your Mac, simply create a BlueTooth PAN connection. The problem with this is that you run the risk of eating up your mobile device’s battery much quicker as its using its 3G connection and its bluetooth connection simultaneouslly. Even though it should work, I never could get it going, anyways. Ideally, we want to plug the phone in via USB, so that it is charging while sharing its connection. OSX won’t support the standard ActiveSync USB Internet Sharing method, so you’ll need to do a little work to get it going.

First download these files

Unzip and Copy all three files to /Library/Modem Scripts

Back on your Windows Mobile device, in the USB connection settings, change USB to mode to MODEM instead of ActiveSync. You may get a warning here that ActiveSync won’t work when Modem is selected.  Remember to change it back later when you are ready to sync up again with a Windows computer. Once you’ve selected modem, plug your device into your Mac via USB.

Now, go to your Network Preferences menu.

On the left side, you should see your list of Network Interfaces.  Click the little “+” sign to add an interface. Click Interface drop down menu, and you should see a choice for “Samsung CDMA Technologies”. Go ahead and choose it, and click CREATE. it should populate itself on the left-hand pane now.

Highlight the new Samsung Entry, and on the right side make the following entries:

Configuration: Default

Telephone Number: wap.cingular

Account Name: WAP@CINGULARGPRS.COM

Password: CINGULAR1

Now click Advanced…

On the Modem Tab, make sure Vendor is Samsung and Model is GPRS (GSM/3G)

On the PPP tab:

For Session, Uncheck “Redial if Busy”

Next to Settings, choose CONFIGURATION and select “Send PPP echo packets” and uncheck: Use TCP header compression.

Apply all these changes and lock the Network Preferences, and you’re ready to test.

Its a good idea when testing to disable your Wi-Fi so you can be sure you’re genuinely using your mobile devices WAN.

Now, highlight the Samsung modem, and on the right side, click CONNECT. If all goes correct, you should see a little meter with your connection strength, and you should now be able to surf the web. Go for it!

Installing XBMC Sirius Script

You’ll need an original Xbox running Xbox Media Center for this. I haven’t tested this on any other XBMC platforms.

• Download the python script here:
• In the Sirius folder, edit RunSirius.py. Look for this snippet of code and enter your Sirius username and password in quotes:

# SET ME!  SET ME!  SET ME!
USERNAME = “USERNAME”
PASSWORD = “PASSWORD”

Save the file.

• If you’ve got Xbox Media Center running on your modded Xbox, I assume you already know how to initiate an FTP connection to your Xbox.  Go ahead and connect and upload the entire Sirius directory to your SCRIPTS directory. On my Xbox this is on the Q: drive.
• Back in the XBMC gui, navigate to Scripts, and run the RunSirius.py script. If you like you can rename this file later to default.py, and then when you click on the Sirius Folder it will run automatically.
• If all goes well, you should be greeted by a list of categories. Work your way through the menu and click on the station you want to stream. You should see the media player kick in and give you a message about caching the content.  Then your sweet digital music should begin to play.

A few notes:

1. You can pay a few Sirius a few bucks more a month and increase your bitrate to 128 mb/s, which sounds as good as the satellite receiver.  Supposedly they are changing this pricing structure in the near future, so its possible this script may break.
2. If the caching is taking too long before your tunes start playing, go into your XBMC center settings and decrease the cache size for “Unknown type Cache – Internet”. You can drop this down to 256K or whatever figure works best for you.
3. Since it’s caching audio and the song title lookup is live, often it will display the next song’s title

Installing SiriusWM5 on Windows Mobile

• Install TCPMP for for your device. Here’s a link to smartphone edition for Windows Mobile 6.1. This works on the BlackJackII. Download the file, transfer it over to your device via ActiveSync.  In file explorer on your mobile device, click on the cab file to install it.
• Download the wmv9 codecs for TCPMP here
• Unzip the files and place both .DLLs and copy them to your /WINDOWS folder on your mobile device via ActiveSync.
• Download and install via ActiveSync SiriusWm5 cab file here
• Open SiriusWM5 on your Windows Mobile Device
• Go to File > Settings.
• Enter your Sirius Account information. Check USE TCPMP and, if its installed to your memory card, choose “TCPMP on MemCard”. Additionally, if you’ve anted up for higher quality stream, select “CD Quality Stream”. (CD Quality works great over Wifi or 3G, but will probably fail on Edge or lower). Save your settings.
• Choose your station, and click Connect. You should be prompted to enter some CAPTCHA info, then TCPMP should start playing your stream.

note: Song Titles won’t display.

1) NMAP - incredibly powerful command line utility. In addition to port scanning, it can perform OS detection and do all kinds of other great. Its great for troubleshooting network services availability.

2) Cain and Abel – Careful with this one. Password “recovery”, ARP poisoning, sniffing…

3) Nessus - #1 Vulnerability scanner. It will check for everything under the sun on your network. You’ll be surprised at what’s running out there.

4) BSA - Straight from MS.  Microsoft’s free security and vulnerability assessment scan tool

5) Wireshark - World-class packet sniffer. Enough said.

6) Netstat – command line for displaying network connections and other net-related info about your PC. Great quick way to figure out What’s running and who’s it talking to, and no installation required!

7) NetStumbler - This is great for doing wireless network assessments. Where are the dead spots? What AP’s are interfering?

9) TCPView - Great tool from SysInternals (MS). Like Netstat on steroids in a gui.

10) Snort - Open Source IDS (Intrusion Detection System) – very powerful, extensible, Lightweight, IDS.

In computing, the iSCSI (for “Internet SCSI“) protocol allows clients (called initiators) to send SCSI commands (CDBs) to SCSI storage devices (targets) on remote servers. It is a popular Storage Area Network (SAN) protocol, allowing organizations to consolidate storage into data center storage arrays while providing hosts (such as database and web servers) with the illusion of locally-attached disks.

There are a number of high-end hardware/software solutions you can use, but if you’ve got a small home or office network that you need to add some storage to and you have a spare PC laying around, you should be able to add quite a bit of storage on the cheap.

I won’t go into all the dirty details of how to set this up, but here’s basically what I did to test this with VMWare:

• First I loaded Vmware ESXi on a spare server with only a very small hard drive and dual GB NICs. Got it up and running and manageable with VMware infrastructure client.
• Next, I found a spare PC with a Gigabit NICand threw an extra IDE hard drive in it. It now had a 30GB and a 80GB hard drive in it. I downloaded OPENFILER and installed it on the 30GB hard drive. OpenFiler allows you to share hard drive space to your network clients in a variety of different ways including NFS, SMB, and for this test – iSCSI.  No problems. It found all my important hardware – NIC, Drives, etc.,
• I decided I would carve the 80GB disk into two “volumes” for this test. 30 GB which I shared via iSCSI. and 50GB which I shared as SMB (Windows).
• There are a few steps to creating the iSCSI target on OPENFILER  which I’ll post some other time. In VMWARE I configured the  iSCSI Software Adapter to point to the OPENFILER address and like magic , the ESX server has 30GB of usable space to build VM’s on. Nice! Windows, Linux, and OSX all have free iSCSI software initiators so I could have just as easily have test with either of them.
• I created another 50GB EXT3 volume in OPENFILER, turned on SMB/CIFS service, configured the SMB share, and then it showed up on my network as \\ipaddress\share.  Sweet!
• I went through the usual steps of installing Windows in the new iSCSI attached space and it worked fine. In the real world, you’d use dedicated NIC’s, perhaps Gigabit switches, redundant hard drives, authentication, etc., but for my test I think the performance was adequate, and I got a good feel for how to configure the different pieces of software.

OpenFiler also supports all kinds of nifty features like replication, snapshots, High Availability, etc., Did I mention it’s FREE?  Go Get OPENFILER….