Reza at Sixceed Inc

Recently, the iPhone Dev Team just released a PwnageTool 2.0.1, an update to PwnageTool 2.0 that was released yesterday.  This tool will activate, jailbreak, and unlock your iPhone with iPhone 2.0 firmware.  My first generation iPhone was successfully upgraded to iPhone 2.0 firmware and now running quite smooth.

What Works and What Not

• Currently, PwnageTool will activate, jailbreak and unlock iPhone first generation even though you had used ZiPhone, iJailbreak, or other methods.
• It works on iPod Touch.
• It will activate, and jailbreak iPhone 3G, but it cannot unlock it yet. So, if you’re with carriers that is not in partnership with Apple, you cannot use your iPhone to send/receive calls or messages.
   

The Procedure

PwnageTool 2.0/2.0.1 will create a custom iPhone 2.0 firmware for you to upgrade/restore.  It will read from the original 2.0 firmware from Apple, the 3.9 and 4.6 baseband, and then create a custom firmware.  The new firmware will be located in your Desktop, by default.  Finally, you can use iTunes to restore your iPhone with the firmware that is created by PwnageTool.

Pre-requisites

In order to create a new firmware by PwnageTool, you will need the following:

• iTunes 7.7 or higher
• An original iPhone 2.0 firmware from Apple. You can download them through iTunes.  Choose “Download Only” as opposed to “Download and Install”
• 3.9 and 4.6 baseband files. You can download them here
• Last but not last, the PwageTool itself.

Upgrading Steps:

Make sure you remember where you save your 3.9 and 4.6 baseband files in case the PwnageTool cannot find the file.

• Start PwnageTool
• Choose which iPhone or iPhone touch you have.
• Select which firmware you want to use. By default, your downloaded firmware is located in ~/Library/iTunes/iPhone Software Updates
• Select the baseband files.  If PwnageTool cannot find the files in your computer, it will ask if you want to search on the web. Choose “no”, as it will let you search the files on your computer manually.
• Pwnage Tool will ask whether you are a legit iPhone user.  The difference is, if you choose yes, it will only jailbreak the iPhone.  Choose “no” if you want to activate, jailbreak, and unlock your iPhone.
• PwnageTool will ask you to reset your phone into a DFU mode.
• When your phone is on DFU mode, press “alt” and click on Restore.  Choose the firmware that PwnageTool created. By default, it is on your Desktop.
• When the restoring process finish, your phone will launch BootNeuter automatically.  This will upgrade your baseband to 4.6.  Your iPhone will reboot after it upgrades to 4.6 baseband.
• Voila, you can now happily running iPhone 2.0 firmware.

Conclusion

The Good

The are lots of new features that is added to iPhone 2.0 but I haven’t used all of them.  Apple’s website has a summary of these features.  But one thing that I like a lot is the “AppStore”.  I can download and install alot of iPhone applications and games.  Some other features I like is “Contact Search”. You can now search for your contacts rather than flicking it up and down (if you have lots of contacts on your phone, flicking takes time too).  Oh and their “Email Management” is awesome.  You can select multiple entries to delete/move emails as opposed to deleting/moving them one by one.

The Bad

If you have been on an unlock phone for quite some time, you must have heard about Installer.app.  Well, Installer.app is not compatible with iPhone 2.0 yet.  So there is only Cydia.  Some people might like Cydia, but personally I’m not looking to install Python or OpenSSL and some sorts on my iPhone (command line tools like these are the area where Cydia shines).

The Ugly

Now, this is the first time I’ve used PwnageTool.  Previously, I used iJailbreak to jailbreak and activate my phone.  One thing that really distracts my eyes is they changed the apple logo during boot time to a pineapple.  My first reaction was, “WTF?”.  But then I got a jailbreak 2.0 for free, so I can’t really complain.  I just have to live with a Pineapple’s iPhone, not Apple’s iPhone

Over the years, I have used many web hosting services, and their quality services varied from poor to great. Since I’m from Indonesia, I’ve also tried Indonesian Web Hosting.  

Generally speaking, Indonesian Web Hosting services are average.  If you don’t care about about disk space limitations, or bandwidth usage, they are sufficient enough. Alot of Indonesian Web Hosting services offer less than 1GB disk space and 5GB - 100GB bandwidth usage.

However, I wanted more, not necessary need them though :).  I like to think if I have multiple websites on the same host, I want to be able keep my web hosting plan. Now, I just started my own company (sixceed), and one of our service is building websites.  If clients don’t want to have their own web hosting plan, I want my hosting plan to be able to handle those websites. SSH Access is also a plus for me.  I hate having to fix my codes and then upload them through FTP.  I’d rather fix it on the server using their built-in text editor.  SSH can also be useful when running web applications that involve command line utility such as: Django, Ruby on Rails, and some others.  Control panel is also what I’m looking for in a web host.  I hate cPanel.  I hate it a lot.  I have the functionality of it, I hate the way it works, and I hate the way it looks.  So, my criteria when looking for a web hosting service is flexibility for my sites to expand, ssh access, and a great control panel.

DreamHost

In the past, I have used DreamHost.  Their web hosting service is great.  It offers 500GB disk space, 5TB bandwidth usage, SSH access, and a great control panel.  The price is not too bad either, starting from $5.95/month to $10.95/month depending how long you are willing to pay in advanced.  My only gripe about DreamHost was they refused to setup my account.  I had an account with them a few years back, then I terminated it because I didn’t intend on using it anymore.  I signed up again a few months ago, but they said they couldn’t setup my account, and they refund the money. Pretty weird, huh? So, i searched for other web hosting and never look back.

ANHosting

ANHosting is owned by midPhase, and it has mixed reviews.  It offers 500GB disk space, and 5TG bandwidth usage.  The hosting package supports only 20 domains (DreamHost offers unlimited domains). SSH access is optional, meaning you have to pay more if you want to get the feature.  So is Awstats.  ANHosting’s default package include Webalizer, but you have to pay more to have Awstats installed on your web hosting plan.  The hosting plan costs about $6.95/month.  I also have a coupon code: ANHOST911 for 2 months free or  SAVINGCENTER-93818 for 3 months free if you’re interested in joining ANHosting.  Both of them are valid until December 31, 2008. ANHosting uses cPanel, which I do not like. During my time with ANHosting, it went pretty well, it’s just that whenever I look at the cPanel, it made me want to move to other hosting. And I did.

WebFaction

Currently, I host my domains on WebFaction.  WebFaction offers four web hosting plans for you to choose.  I went with the cheapest one since I had no idea how good they were.  The disk space is a bummer, they only offer 10GB (it’s only about 2% worth of disk space than what DreamHost or WebFaction offer), and 600GB bandwith usage.  positive side of WebFaction are they provide unlimited domains, unlimited MySQL databases, and SSH access.  They even have sets of software collections like WordPress, Ruby on Rails, Django, Turbo Gears, Awstats, and more.  You only need to choose what type of applications you want, and what domain will be using that application, then you’re website is built.  Their screencasts made me signed up with WebFaction.

In summary, these are the advantages and disadvantages of each Web Hosting services I’ve used.

DreamHost

Advantages

• Very Affordable
• Great Control Panel
• Custom Scripts
• Very generous with disk space & bandwidth

Disadvantages

• Support sucks
• Different host for databases; a little slower to fetch data from database.
• Account activation rejected

ANHosting

Advantages

• Cheaper than DreamHost. Especially they have lots of available coupons
• Database relies on the same host
• One free domain for life

Disadvantages

• Limited flexibility (they use cPanel)
• Account activation is a hassle. It took me three days until I had to call them to ask for an account activation.
• Free domain might not be able to be transferred to other registrars.

WebFaction

Advantages

• They use cutting-edge software
• Great Control Panel
• Custom scripts
• Database relies on the same host

Disadvantages

• Disk space is limited
• Quite expensive

In summary, I’m very happy with my current Web Hosting company, WebFaction. I wish they will upgrade our disk space usage in the near future.  Since they support WebDav, the addition of disk space will be beneficial So, where do you host your websites?

Hello,

It took me months to start on blogging again.  After a few months of installing Wordpress, but does not write anything to it, I finally decided to start again.

Nowadays, I don’t really have a lot of free time, so new posts probably won’t be as frequent as I would like for it to happen.

The content of this blog will mostly related to technologies. I hate to talk about personal, as I think I should write them on a notebook instead of publishing on the Internet. Although I can’t blame people who write some kind of “diaries” on their blog. Hey, it’s theirs, not mine.

The theme of this blog is taken from WordPress Template, and they’re free One of the reasons it took so long for me to start blogging again because I thought I would create a custom template for WordPress. But then it took so long to start creating new idea of a template. Besides, most of these free templates available online already suits my needs.

That’s about the little introduction from me. Hopefully there will be more posts soon