Blakei21.com

Hey guys,

Sorry for the lack of posts/articles/updates lately. I’ve been quite busy, and not much interesting news is popping up in the iPhone world. I should have a couple of posts up this week coming. Once again, sorry for not updating it as much as I should.

written by blakei21

From Hackulous:

WARNING: READ THIS ENTIRE POST BEFORE YOU REPLY TO IT. IF IT’S OBVIOUS THAT YOU DIDN’T, YOUR ACCOUNT GETS MUTED. Sorry to be a Prick, but the number of people making the same terrible suggestions over and over without reading my replies on why they won’t work are MORE than crazy.

So.. Hi I’m Kyek, I wrote and maintain Appulous, and there’s been a massive outcry about this troll bridge. A lot of you love it, but just as many of you hate it. So I’m making this post to address what some of the hater-crowd has been saying. Hopefully it will clear up any confusion . So, with no further delay:

“The Installous Troll Bridge…”
If you’ve ever said this, you’re exactly who I’m trying to block from Appulous before we move to our new servers. Installous downloads and installs IPA files. That nice display that lets you browse apps and screenshots? That’s all Appulo.us. It’s a website. You get the EXACT SAME THING if you load http://appulo.us from Safari on your iPhone/iPod. All Installous does is loads the site in a self-contained browser for your convenience. So the troll bridge has NOTHING to do with Installous. The apps you get are NOT provided by Installous. Installous is just the name of the program you’re using to install them. Appulous is where you’re typing the passwords, and it’s what’s giving you the apps.

Now that we’ve made this clarification, read on.

“You should just shut Appulous down instead of doing this troll bridge crap”
So you don’t know the troll bridge password, so you want it shut down entirely? How does that change your Appulous experience? You can’t get in, and so the solution is to … not let you in?

Most of the people in this camp are just pissed at the people who are on all the popular password-sharing sites and holding the password over people’s heads. So the real solution to that problem is to not hang out on those websites . The Appulous “inner circle” knows the answer nearly every single time, and they’re the ones responsible for OVER NINETY PERCENT of the links posted to the site. So I can completely shut the site down and there will be nothing new for you to look at once it gets moved… or I can keep doing this, and you’ll have pages of new apps when it returns. The benefits to keeping it up are pretty obvious.

“Why not only allow members in?”
The Troll Bridge is the simplest webcode there is. Almost NOTHING needs to happen on the server side. It checks if your submission is equal to the answer, it sets a cookie if it is. At no point does it touch the database server, the cache server, the PHP compiler, or any text files. The whole thing is served from and is entirely contained by a miniscule block of RAM. That page can handle millions and millions and millions of simultaneous users.

If I were to force a log-in to get into the site, NONE of that would be true. Everyone would be trying to log in (including those who don’t have accounts, since the first person to guess Kyek’s password would be king) and suddenly there would be absolutely no benefit to the restriction at all. The server would be pounded just as much. Not to mention the FLOOD of requests I’d be buried in, whining “please please please just let ME make an account! You don’t have to open it to everyone else!”

“Why not restrict it to just donators?”
Legally and morally, I will not charge for access to Appulous no matter what words you use to spin it. Aside from that, though, the above answer still applies. Checking for donator status is just as heavy as anything else.

“OMG The troll bridge isn’t even working because every time I get the password it’s just slow again”
Correct. That’s because every time you get the password, you’re getting it from a website with at least half a million viewers. You know what’s hilarious? Check the Appulous RSS feed when the question is so hard that no one knows the answers. Almost EVERY TIME we’ve gone awhile without the general public knowing the password, that’s when the grand majority of apps get posted to Appulous. People are getting in, it’s fast for them, and it’s working. They’re just smart enough not to end it by posting the password.

The site is nice and fast for those who have been with it since the beginning and those that contribute, and right now, that’s the goal. I’m sorry if this is insulting, but if you fall into this category, the entire point of the troll bridge is to not let YOU, yes, specifically YOU into the site so that it stays fast for those who know the password without needing to constantly refresh some webpage. So if you’re whining because you can’t get in, THE TROLL BRIDGE IS WORKING.

“Come to this website we have the answers the fastest!” or “Follow this twitter account, I post the answers immediately!” or “Subscribe to this youtube video! I post all the answers as annotations!” or “Join my facebook group for Appulous questions!!1!!”
You’re a douchebag.

“Do you seriously think this is helping anyway? You have 800,000 people pounding the troll bridge trying to figure out the answer when you could have much fewer than that actually using the website.”
If 1.5 million people pounded the troll bridge, it would still be less load than 200,000 people using the site normally. Look two paragraphs up.

“When will this finally be over?!?!”
I don’t have a date yet — as soon as I do, I will post it. It could be as early as tomorrow, it could be a few more weeks. The host I’m counting on right now is working on upgrading his server cluster’s software so that it can run Appulous, since Appulous uses some bleeding-edge stuff. You’ll get the details when I do.

“OMG This is so unfair I’m moving to another site!”
…Ok? If you can’t get past the troll bridge and you’re really looking to try out some apps, then by all means, look somewhere else. But one last time, let me impress upon this one fact: You, yes YOU, are acting like the troll bridge will be up forever. It will be taken down as soon as we move to our new server cluster, which could be as early as this week.

“Where am I supposed to get apps now?!”
Apple has this cool thing called the iTunes App Store. You should check it out! Sure, it’s nice being able to test out apps before you buy them, but there are many apps by reputable companies/developers that should be pretty safe without testing first. What’s that you say? You don’t ever want to pay for anything, ever? Well then Appulous doesn’t cater to you anyway, so you really don’t have any space to complain. No, I’m not looking to lock Appulous down so that pure pirates can’t use it (that would be impossible anyway), but I can tell you to shut your trap because the try-before-you-buy crowd is my first priority.

“I paid for an AppScene account and because of this troll bridge I can’t use it!”
I understand your plight, because this is definitely frustrating. I totally get that, and it sucks. But here’s the issue: what would you do if I took the troll bridge down? The site would come to a screeching halt like it did in the days before I put up the bridge, and you wouldn’t be able to get into a single page anyway. WITH the troll bridge, at least a percentage of you can use your AppScene accounts. Either way, though, I do apologize. The situation kind of blows. The up-side is that you’ll have a bunch of new apps to grab with your account as soon as the move is finished .

“I don’t even speak English, what am I supposed to do?” <– some other language
Sorry — I don’t mean to discriminate based on language, but the group of people I’m trying to keep Appulous fast for DO all speak English, and so that’s going to be the language that I post in. As I said above, look on the bright side: the people who are getting in before the general public are cracking and posting apps so that you’ll have some new stuff whenever the troll bridge is taken down.

“What about a text-only site? Can’t you cut down Appulous any more to handle all the traffic just temporarily?”
Not really, sorry :-/. Images aren’t really what’s slowing us down. I could rip out the entire user system which generates a decent amount of load, but then no apps could be posted. I’d rather restrict the site and have lots of new apps ready for after the move than go for an undetermined amount of time with zero new submissions. But I’ll continue playing with these ideas.

“I have servers! Use mine!”
I already have servers — they’re being set up and configured. What’s more, they can withstand the constant barrage of legal threats that get sent to them. If you’ve not gone back and read my posts about the legal issues that surround Appulous’ hosts and datacenters, you need to do that before you start offering your services. Very, very few people are in a position to stand up to Apple’s lawyers.

“There’s got to be some other way to limit traffic. There’s got to be.”
Sure there is. I could split up traffic by IP address and only let certain addresses in for an hour every day. But the troll bridge is WAY more fun, and the people I want to have access to the site have unfettered access all day long with it. Maybe I’ll take down the troll bridge and change to IP-based filtering if the servers take longer than expected, but for now we’re doing well

“Sure, Appulous might be faster, but Hackulous is slow as balls now.”
Yeah, that was a really shitty side-effect that I should have seen coming. I made some optimizations to the server and TDDebug has worked a good bit of magic to speed things up too, and we’ll keep working on it. People who say this, though, tend to think that both Hackulous and Appulous are my websites. So for the sake of correctness, please understand this: Appulous and Hackulous have similar names because the owner of Appulous (me) and the owner of Hackulous (Genius) are friends and thought it would be hilarious to name all the good iPhone resources something *ulous. The sites are ENTIRELY separate and the only link between them is that Genius offers Appulous Support forums so that I have an easy way to communicate with my users. Appulous belongs no more to Hackulous than it does to xSellize or ifortner or any other forum. In fact, the entire reason it’s Appulous and not Hackulo.us/appdb is because when I developed it, I *wanted* it to be a completely separate database that all forums could use.

“Even after reading all that I’m going to flame you because you’re an asshole for doing this.”
Look, here’s the bottom line: Without the troll bridge, Appulous is down. You couldn’t use it anyway, because the page wasn’t even loading anymore before I put it up. If you can’t get in with the troll bridge up, you can’t get in with it down either. Appulous is a free service and you are absolutely in NO WAY entitled to be able to use it. I’m going to work as hard as I can to restore full access as soon as possible, and you’re going to have to be ok with that. If you’re not… hey, leave. You’re a leech, and your presence here doesn’t improve the quality of the site anyway.

So that’s that! As I said, if you come back with some argument that I’ve already responded to here, you WILL be muted. I have very little patience for people who want answers but don’t want to take the time to read them.

Cheers!
Kyek

written by blakei21

02, the official iPhone carrier in the United Kingdom, is now unlocking customers iPhones for free. Customers that already have an iPhone contract with O2 can get their iPhones unlocked now, so the phone can be used on any GSM network in the world. Customers on the O2 network that wish to unlock their iPhone must still honour any remaining time in their iPhone contract.

iPhone unlock explained in detail:

iPhones contain a second computer, which is seperate from the main CPU. The second CPU (called the Baseband) handles access to the Internet over the cell network, calls and text messages. The baseband has its own firmware which restricts the phones use to certain carriers in the world, such as AT&T and Rogers Wireless. Since the iPhone was first released, there have been people that can’t stand being tied to one carrier in their country. To fix this iPhone unlocks were made.

Geohot, a 20 year old iPhone hacker, released the first iPhone unlock. This unlock was somewhat risky though, as it required the user to phisically open their iPhone. Since then, software unlocks have been used. Blacksn0w is geohot’s latest unlock.

Software unlocks are a lot easier for the end user, as opposed to hardware unlocks. But when a new firmware ships from apple, the unlock is broken. Hackers must find another way to acheive a software unlock.

written by blakei21

A hacker going by the name of iKee, has released what he called the first iPhone virus. The virus will change the users wallpaper to a picture of the 80’s pop star Rick Astley. Text will be displayed on the screen saying ‘ikee will never give you up’.

The worm is attacking iPhones that are jailbroken and have SSH installed with the default password still in place. Ikee only attacks iPhones in Australia, so if you don’t live upside down then don’t worry about getting it : ) I highly recommend that you change the default password. If you wish to do so, follow the steps at the very bottom of this post.

Details:
This worm infects an iPhone, and then scans specific IP address ranges on cell networks. Vulnerable iPhones are detected and infected with the worm. This whole process repeats again and again.

How to change the default password:

1. Install the MobileTerminal package from Cydia.
2. Open the terminal application from the homescreen, and type su. Then press enter.
3. Now type alpine and press enter.
4. Type passwd (yes, it is spelt correctly) and type in the password of your choice. The password will not be displayed.
5. Once the password is entered, press enter. You will be asked to enter the password again. Enter it and press enter again.
Done! Just remember to use this password when you log in to your iPhone with SSH.

written by blakei21

Gigabyte has released a bios upgrade to users of the P55 chipsets. As you may know already, iPhone syncing with iTunes was broken with Windows 7 and the Intel P55.

While gigabyte has released an update to fix this issue, Asus and MSI still have yet to release something to fix it. Since the fix from Gigabyte comes in the form of a bios upgrade, your computer will have to be flashed. I recommend that if you don’t have an iPhone or iPod touch to sync, then you don’t upgrade the bios. The fix won’t include anything else that is useful for anyone but iPhone users.

written by blakei21

Verizon’s new TV ad shows a map, comparing the 3G signal coverage of AT&T and Verizon, stating that Verizon had 5 times the 3G coverage of AT&T. Once AT&T saw the ad, they immediately took action. AT&T was claiming that the advertisement would make people think that AT&T did not have any cell phone coverage outside of the coverage area zone. Verizon responded to this by adding small print to the ad explaining this to viewers. AT&T were still not happy with this. Since Verizon’s whole network is 3G only, it covers more places in America. If an AT&T customers go outside the 3G network coverage zone, AT&T’s 2G network will take over and the customer will still be able to make calls and text messages. The only downside to EDGE/GPRS networks is that data transfer is considerably slower.

written by blakei21

With the new unlock out called Blacksn0w, there are multiple ways to install it. This guide is for the people that have already jailbroken their iPhone 3G/3GS on the 3.1.2 firmware.

1. Open Cydia and wait for it to load.
2. Tap on the Manage tab. Then tap Sources, then the edit button in the top right, and finally the add button in the top left.
3.The following screen will appear. Enter the same source that is pictured in the screenshot.

Once you have entered the source and tapped add, Cydia will refresh.

4. Once Cydia has finished refreshing, tap on the Search tab and search for Blacksn0w (The o in Blacksn0w is a zero)

6. Before you tap on the package and install it, make sure your T-Mobile (or other unofficial carrier) SIM card is inserted already.

7. Once it is in the phone, install the package.

NOTE: T-MOBILE USERS – DISABLE 3G NETWORKING IN THE SETTINGS APPLICATION OR YOUR PHONE MIGHT NOT CONNECT TO THE NETWORK, AND JUST CONTINUE TO SAY SEARCHING.

written by blakei21

Since the iPhone has been released in China and distributed by China Unicom, only about 5,000 iPhone’s have actually been sold. From what I’ve been hearing, there are two main reasons for this.

1. The iPhone is way to expensive in China, and since it has only just been released it won’t have a price drop for quite a while unless China Unicom changes its mind (I suggest it does so, fast!).
2. The iPhone 3GS’s that are being shipped to China have had their WiFi capabilities disabled. Only 3G, EDGE or GPRS networks can be used to get internet and data to the phone.

I’m not sure why these units are shipping without WiFi, but there are already (even before the release) imported iPhone’s in China that still have the WiFi capabilities, and they are also probably cheaper than when they are sold by the carrier. To be specific, about 2 million unlocked/imported iPhone’s have been sold in China without carrier contracts, and before the release date.

If Apple wants to get the sales up, it should hurry. People might start just buying the imported iPhone’s instead.

written by blakei21

Hey guys,

This post is totally non iPhone releated.

I just visited a pretty cool fireworks display, check it by clicking here. Just select my latest video to watch it.

written by blakei21

Adobe has gotten sick of Apple’s developer agreement that contains restrictions disallowing applications like Flash player. If Apple is ever to get things like Java and Flash working, it will have to remove these restrictions. Of course, they could work directly with the companies to develop a one off application that does violate the contract.

written by blakei21