Jeff Benjamin

Jeff has been with iDownloadBlog since 2010, acting as resident video specialist, and tutorial expert. He earned his degree in Computer Network Systems back in 2001, but decided Cisco routers and the like just weren’t for him. Since then, he’s been heavily involved with online writing. He’s written for numerous tech and video game sites since the late 1990′s, and has a knack for explaining things in a simple, clear, and concise manner. Jeff works primarily from the east coast on his Retina Macbook Pro, and shoots video with a Canon DSLR. During downtime he likes to travel the world, visiting the various Apple Stores across the globe. You can email him at jeff [at] idownloadblog.com and follow him on Twitter @JeffBenjam or on Google+.

WeeSearch Pro: Search Google and Create Custom Search Queries Right From Notification Center

When we used the basic version of WeeSearch, we came a way a little less than impressed. While the pro version of WeeSearch isn't perfect, it's a lot better than its predecessor.

With WeeSearch Pro you can search a variety of built-in search engines. If that doesn't suit your fancy, you can even add your own custom search queries.

The great thing about WeeSearch Pro is that you can do all of this without ever leaving the comfortable confines of iOS 5's Notification Center...

How to Create Custom Shortcuts For WiFi Settings, Airplane Mode, and More – No Jailbreak Required

It's going on a month since the iPhone 4S made its initial debut, and we're still without a jailbreak. Not that we're complaining; we never expected a jailbreak for the 4S to be released this soon anyway.

Still, it's hard giving up some of the luxuries that jailbreaking brings to the for — namely SBSettings toggles to quickly enable and disable certain low-level functions like WiFi, Bluetooth, Airplane mode, etc.

Fortunately, there is a compromise. We've briefly touched on it before, but in this article and video walkthrough we'll show you how to create custom shortcuts to your favorite settings; no jailbreak required...

More Lines in Notification Center: Read Entire Messages Directly From Notification Center

By default, Notification Center only displays 4 lines of text in any of your messages. This is okay, but for longer messages like email, it forces you to open the message to read its entire contents.

With More Lines in Notification Center, a jailbreak tweak available on Cydia, you can display up to 12 lines of text at a time, which is usually enough to read the body of an entire (moderately sized) email or text message...

A Quicker Way to Enable iOS’ Hidden Autocorrect Bar

A few days ago we showed you how to enable iOS's built-in but hidden autocorrect bar using a series of simple yet time consuming steps.

If you're still interested in enabling the autocorrect bar, but the manual process turned you off, then we have good news for you.

Autocorrection Bar is a simple to use jailbreak tweak that will easily enable the autocorrect bar if you have a jailbroken iPhone. It even includes an enhancement...

How to Jailbreak iOS 5.0.1 Final With RedSn0w

Apple released iOS 5.0.1 to the public today, and with it comes the need to jailbreak. Fortunately, we've got that need covered using the latest version of RedSn0w 0.9.9b8.

Keep in mind that many are warning those wishing to jailbreak to stay away from iOS 5.0.1 — especially iPhone 4S owners and those who have no way to downgrade firmware back to a prior version.

This is a tethered jailbreak, so those wanting untethered only need not apply. But if you're happy to use tethered to hold you over until then and if you've read all of the warning labels, check out our video tutorial that shows your how to jailbreak iOS 5.0.1 inside...

How to Add Custom Weather Notification Center Themes

Apparently I'm not alone in my thoughts about Apple's stock weather theme for Notification Center — it's a bit lacking in style.

NC weather widgets is a jailbreak tweak that adds custom Notification Center themes to iOS 5 via WinterBoard with just a few steps.

Step right inside to see how the improved weather icons look like on video...

How to Download Deb Files From Cydia

It's easy to venture into Cydia and download your favorite apps and tweaks, but what if you want to save the files that you download for backup or later use?

There are tools like PKGBackup that save the links to the apps and tweaks that you have on your device, but it's not as straightforward to backup and save the actual .deb files responsible for installing the packages that we use.

What to do? In the following video tutorial, I'll show you how to easily download deb files using OpenSSH and a handy FTP client...

How to Install OpenSSH on Your iPhone

If you're a jailbreaker, then you realize how important OpenSSH is to the jailbreak community and you likely use it often.

But if you're new to the world of jailbreaking, you might not see the benefit right off hand.

This video tutorial not only shows you how to install OpenSSH onto your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, but why it's beneficial as well...

IntelliScreenX Adds Quick Reply and Quick Compose Features

IntelliScreenX, the highly anticipated iOS 5 jailbreak app, is coming right along in its development, and the latest build features some exciting new features.

To capitalize on Apple's lack of any sort of quick reply or quick compose for messages, Intelliborn has baked their Messages+ app in directly with IntelliScreenX for a very robust messaging solution.

Now you can quick reply, and/or quick compose from Notification Center, the Lock screen, and from banner message notifications. Check out the full video demonstration inside...

Firebreak: An Easier Way to Enable Panorama Camera Mode in iOS 5

Not five minutes after we posted the plist hack method for enabling panorama mode in iOS 5, the promised jailbreak tweak that does the same thing hit Cydia.

The tweak is titled 'Firebreak' in reference to the plist value, and it's much simpler to use than editing a plist value via iFile.

If you want to use iOS 5's hidden panoramic camera, then this is the definitive way to enable it...

How to Enable Panorama Mode in iOS 5 [Video]

We've created an easy-to-follow video tutorial that shows you how to add the hidden panorama mode to iOS 5's Camera app.

You will need a jailbroken iOS 5 device in order to do it, and you will also need iFile if you want to follow this specific tutorial.

If you meet those prerequisites, step inside to see how to enable panorama mode on iOS 5...

TweetBoard: View Your Twitter Messages From the Lock Screen

In theory, a jailbreak tweak like TweetBoard sounds great. Viewing all of your Twitter information from the comforts of your Lock screen is one of the reasons that IntelliScreen X is so highly anticipated.

But the problem with TweetBoard is that it's half-baked. As it turns out, you can't actually view your timeline from your Lock screen at all, only your particular tweets.

Inside we take a look at this promising, but ultimately disappointing jailbreak tweak for iOS 5...