If you have any desire to be at +10 level cool with your geeky tech lovin’ friends, its time to get you an MLT-optimized jailbroken iPhone. Advantages include but are not limited to:

• ability to install most pay apps for free wirelessly – friends don’t let friends pay $99 for turn-by-turn TomTom navigation OR even $2.99 to sing like T-Pain!!!
• MMS before AT&T officially supports it (you’re a bad ass–now send photos in your text messages like one, damnit!)
• customized look-and-feel of your device with different “themes”
• iPhone can be used as a thumbdrive
• a portable hacking machine in your pocket
• music downloadable wirelessly for free
• VoIP over 3G and wifi – who needs that 1400 minute family plan?!
• the realization that you have dug your way out of Steve Job’s prison with a rusty ol’ rock hammer, Shawshank-style:
  
  

Let’s be frankenberries on this one, there is little risk and plenty of reward! Stop being a wuss and do it…

PRIMER:

Though Apple keeps the firmware aligned with each phone model (latest being firmware 3.1 on all of them), the actual .ipsw firmware files are different and should not be used interchangeably. At the time of writing this, you can jailbreak all iPhones on the latest firmware except for the new 3GS..suckas! My prediction though is that the capability to jailbreak this model of the iPhone will also be available within the week.

JAILBROKEN FIRMWARE:

Traditionally, the easiest method to jailbreak the firmware was to wait for the iPhone Dev Team to release a software application like QuickPWN, PwnageTool, or redsn0w on their website. All these tools basically do the same thing which is to modify [aka jailbreak] the same .ipsw file that is downloaded to your machine when you go through the regular process to update your iPhone in iTunes (in my case for v3.1, the file from Apple is called iPhone1,2_3.1_7C144_Restore.ipsw). You can get links to versions of the original files here if you need them. Its the modified version of this file that you want to get loaded on your phone instead of these files though (in my case, the modified file is called iPhone1,2_3.1_7C144_Custom_Restore.ipsw). This is the file that will allow you to do many of the things I listed above. The only software available [at time of writing this] of the three tools mentioned to do this necessary modification is PwnageTool. It runs on mac osx and according to the Dev Team’s site is available at these fine locations:

Official Bittorrent Releases -

* PwnageTool_3.1.dmg.5089960.TPB.torrent
* SHA1 = ccc1e5db026362fc7eb9a40c76322b1fdcc90332

Unofficial Mirrors

* http://downloads2.touch-mania.com/PwnageTool_3.1.dmg
* http://bentkowski.com.pl/PwnageTool_3.1.dmg
* http://www.iemanduitnederland.nl/PwnageTool_3.1.dmg
* http://miphone.ca/iphone-dev/PwnageTool_3.1.dmg
* http://dehek.us/PwnageTool_3.1.dmg

If you don’t have a mac or a mac osx hackint0sh vmware setup [like ahem...cough...someone], there is another option available to you. You can download the already jailbroken .ipsw created by someone else and install that in DFU mode. Give these a whirl:

* (iPod Touch 1st generation): http://rapidshare.com/users/16YYZ8
* (iPhone 1st generation): http://rapidshare.com/users/UX7Q20
* (iPhone 3G): http://rapidshare.com/users/L5RXK2

Google is your friend–if these links die surely others will replace them.

DFU MODE:

You must now prepare your phone to load your recently acquired custom .ipsw firmware. This is done by getting the phone into the Device Firmware Upgrade (DFU) mode which is different than Restore mode, which you may accidently see a few times before getting it right.

1. Attach the phone to your pc/mac
2. Turn the phone off
3. Hold power and home together for *exactly* 10 seconds
4. Release power but keep holding home until the computer recognizes the USB device
5. At no point will the iPhone’s display come on. Now your restore should work.

If you see the picture of the disc and the cable displayed on your screen, you don’t have it. Try again until the screen is black. The video/tutorial on the following site may help you:

http://www.iclarified.com/entry/index.php?enid=1034

LET ITUNES DO THE JAILBREAKING FOR YOU:

Once in DFU mode you can just pop into iTunes like your normally would, click on your iPhone, and hold down the SHIFT key while you click Restore (option key on a mac). You can then just select your custom .ipsw file and poof, iTunes installs your jailbroken firmware. Look at you! You are such a success story! Don’t let Jeff from accounting tell you otherwise.

MMS:

As promised, you may be interested in MMS functionality because who the hell knows when AT&T will really deploy it….late summer, my ass! As far as I can tell, you do not need a jailbroken iPhone to install this, but still you’re a million times cooler if you do.

You can follow the guide here:

http://www.krillr.com/blog/N72ZCXJH/tutorial-mms-on-iphone-os-31-att

WIRELESS CRACKED APP INSTALLATION:

Use Cydia (the jailbroken equivalent to the App Store) to install Installous. You must first add a source. Go to Manager->Sources in the app and then add: http://cydia.hackulo.us/

Because the 12 yr olds are hax0ring your computer as we speak anyways, why not watch a video of one explaining how to install and use installous:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4C9biZRcf64

Don’t say I never did nothin’ for ya….

Doo doo doo dooo dooo dooo dooo doooooo dooo:
the little ones - morning tide

Weekends generally arrive preallocated with visitors coming into town and/or acquisition of targeted goods and services [but totally in an urban MAN vs WILD kinda way--stand in our path as the wife and I traipse to CRATE & BARREL for new glassware and without a doubt you will be lying face-first on the sewer grate with a dull pocket knife jabbed half-way into your abdomen, a fire pit a yard away, and your right leg setup rotisserie style, Donner Family chillin' at the bus stop]. These here are rough streets in hard times, folks.

AND that’s why its a real treat to have a hot minute for more creative pursuits [not that carnivorous slaughter of sidewalk fodder isn't creative--I ALWAYS give credit where its due]. This weekend, I was putzin’ around with the latest incarnation of Adobe PhotoShop and with the help of HOOKED ON PHONICS I read me up on a couple online tutorials. What’s great about others doing all the hard work is that it leaves only the basic challenges for the graphic design simpletons such as myself. I can generally overcome the small hurdles and usually do the basic reverse engineering for what goes unsaid in the guides. There’s always the part of the tutorial where it says, “…and here are the super sexy results I got from that last step” and it leaves out around 40 key pieces of information for you to do exactly the same.

I started with my rendition of the sky island, which seems to be pretty common on deviantART in the last year or so (click image to see larger version – wallpaper size here):

Then moved on to a watercolor piece dedicated to my wife (click image to see larger version – wallpaper size here):

Last but not least, the soundtrack for this post:
annuals - around your neck