Hack

Create an iTunes account without a credit card

[digg-me]So you have a spanking new iPhone or iPod Touch and you can't wait to download all these applications from iTunes until you realize you need a Credit Card to have an iTunes account. Or, maybe you do have a Credit Card but the app you want is not available in your country? Don't panic, there is an easy solution to this problem, and best of all, it's totally legit and should take you about 2 minutes to set up.

This tutorial will teach you how to create an iTunes account in any country whether you have a credit card or not. All you need is 2 minutes, an Internet connection and have iTunes already running on your computer.

How to sync your iPhone with multiple computers

[digg-me]If you tried before to sync your iPhone with more than one computer, you probably had an error message saying that your iPhone is already synced with another iTunes library and asking if you want to erase this iPhone.

There is somewhat of an easy hack for this that Andrew Grant explains on his blog. You will need some basic hacking skills for this (I'm no hacker and I was able to do it). Andrew also lists editing tools that you will need to download: UltraEdit for PC, and HexEdit for Mac.

Basically, the process takes 3 steps:

Backup your library Find your iTunes library ID Change your library ID

1. Backing up your library

On the additional computer you want to sync with, backup “iTunes Music Library.xml” and “iTunes Music Library” (you can find these in your iTunes folder in your “My Music” (on XP) or “Music” (on Vista) or in your "Music" directory on Mac) to a safe location. These are the files you will be modifying.

2. Find your iTunes Library ID

On the computer that currently syncs with your iPhone, open “iTunes Music Library.xml” with any text editor and look for the entry between the <string></string> tags, after “Library Persistent ID”. Note that it should be in the first 15 lines of the code. Now copy this entry as you will need it in the next step. You can now close the text editor.

3. Change your library ID

iTunes stores your library info in an XML file and a binary file. You will have to edit both of them. Note that iTunes must be closed. This part is a little tricky so either go to Andrew's blog or follow directions that I copied from him below:

On the machine you want to sync with open “iTunes Music Library.xml” in a text editor. Again, find the entry between the <string></string> tags after “Library Persistent ID” and copy this entry exactly. This time you can use the clipboard if you wish.

When you have a copy, replace this entry with the one you copied in part 1. Make sure you do not change anything else, and the length of the entry is 16 characters/digits. Save this file and close it.

In the Hex Editor, open “iTunes Music Library” (Tunes Music Library.itl on PC).

Select “Find and Replace” from the Edit menu. Make sure “Hex” matching is selected (not ASCII). In “Find” enter the ID you took a note of in Part 1. In Replace, enter the ID you copied at the start of Part 2. Choose Replace All, there should be one match.

Save this file and close it.

That's it! See, it's not that hard.

This is a quick rehash of Andrew's post. For detailed information with pictures, I highly recommend you go visit his blog.

If you know of an easier way to do that, please let us know in the comments.

How to Use an iPhone Without the Data Plan

[digg-me]After playing with my kids iTouch's it became clear to me how much the iTouch is lacking in functionality. Before buying one I considered it just an iPhone without the ability to make calls. The lack of camera was the biggest surprise, because I can't figure out why they left it out. The GPS and Camera would have been really nice to have even if I can't use it as a phone.

So would it still be better to buy an iPhone and use it just like an iTouch but with camera and GPS?  I found a thread on one of the iPhone forums where a guy, who was going to college and couldn't afford the $30.00 a month data plan, but wanted an iPhone anyway.  He was on campus where they had a robust wifi connection all of the time and didn't really need the data plan. He already had an AT&T cell phone (a Razor), and just wanted to get a used iPhone and put his SIM card into it.

After giving the guy a hard time, a good samaritan responded with a way to do just that.  He pointed out a cool service offered by unlockit.  It is an APN Changer for 3G iPhones.  It lets you turn off the Edge and 3G data service on your iPhone.  This lets you use an AT&T SIM card with your iPhone but lets you use it without adding the iPhone data plan.

To use this service do the following:

Put the AT&T Sim card in the already activated iPhone. Make a wifi connection to a local wifi source. Navigate to this page.  Click "Continue To The Next Page". Click Disable Data (Fake APN). The Install Profile window appears. Click Install. Another Install Profile window will popup warning you that authenticity of this profile cannot be verified.  Click Install on this window too. You should now see a message stating "Could not activate Cellular Data Network; You are not subscribed to a cellular data service.

You should now be able to make phone calls and be able to use wifi to access the internet.  When you aren't connected, you should get an error.

To remove the 3G/Edge block, simply go to your Network settings and removed the Fake APN profile.

This thread pointed out a really cool service.

How to replace the iPhone font

[digg-me]Clear, legible, and ordered, Helvetica was developed in 1957 at the Haas Foundry in Munchenstein, Switzerland. It gained immediate, worldwide acceptance among typographers and designer folk. Today it's everywhere. All over London and New York, on storefronts, street signs, subways, planes and trains, income tax forms, postboxes and BMWs, print and television ads, billboards, letterhead, everywhere. And there are no half-measures: designers either love it or hate it.

Helvetica is the default font on the iPhone and it kinda bores me so I chose to replace it with another font. I did some research online to find a way to replace the font on my iPhone and although I thought I would find many sites talking about it, I didn't...

However, I came across James is bored and found a way to replace Helvetica with a font called NeoTech. Note that this will not replace the font called Marker Felt, which is used for the iPhone's Note application (we'll get to this later).

How to replace the default iPhone font with NeoTech:

Download NeoTech Font iPhone 2.0 and extract it to your desktop Connect to the iPhone with iPhoneBrowser or WinSCP Navigate to the following folders on your iPhone and backup the following files, adding .bak at the end (this is just a precautionary measure, you don't ever wanna lose your original files) /System/Library/Fonts/Cache/Helvetica.ttf /System/Library/Fonts/Cache/HelveticaBold.ttf Copy the files you extracted in Step 1 in these same folders Restart your iPhone

This hack doesn't replace the ugly Marker Felt font used for iPhone Notes though. I did a lot of research and didn't find any trick to replace this font. Before the 2.0 firmware, this workaround used to work but it doesn't work on 2.0 or 2.1. There is also another workaround to get Arial for your Notes but it's just a workaround... meaning that it's not a real fix to your problem as you have to manually change the Notes settings every time you create a new note.

Please let me know if any of you guys know how to permanently replace the Notes font. Thanks.

Tap To Unlock slider replacement

I really like the User Interface of the iPhone. It is very simple, intuitive, in other words, it is very user friendly. When I first got my iPhone over a year ago, simple things about the UI were amazing me. One of them was the "slide to unlock" feature. How cool is that that you can access the springboard by the slide of a finger!

Quickly, this "slide to unlock" thing started to annoy me for one single reason: it didn't work all the time. Well, it actually works all the time but sometimes my finger doesn't starts sliding where it should, forcing me to repeat the gesture to get it to work.

I had a good surprise a couple days ago while browsing the apps available in Cydia. I cam across this "Tap To Unlock" application that works with Winterboard. I Installed it and it works great. Now instead of sliding my finger across the screen, I can access the springboard by just taping it.

WinPwn 2.5 preparing for beta release

cmw just posted on his site that he was preparing WinPwn 2.5 for a beta release. Yeahh! I'll let you know when the beta is out and available.

WinPwn 2.5 ( Update 08/28/08 )

Yay! Squpix fixed the 2.0.2 bug and we are now preparing for beta release! Get your iPhone/iTouch's ready it's winpwning time. Thanks again for the support.

In the meanwhile, here is a screenshot of WinPwn 2.5 in action. You may see more here.

T-Zones hack for iPhone

T-Mobile just changed their IP address for T-Zones, causing all hacked iPhones using T-Zones to stop working. BigBoss was on it right away by releasing an update to TZones Hack in a matter of hours.

The upgrade is available in Cydia and only works with iPhone firmware 2.0+. This means if you're still on 1.1.4, well, it's time to upgrade or:

you can fix proxy.pac yourself but editing the file /var/preferences/proxy.pac and changing “10.0.0.0″ to “25.0.0.0″. (The 2.0 version is a bit more flexible allowing addresses from both 10.* and 25.* to both be covered.

For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, T-Mobile has a $6 data plan called T-Zones. You can use this plan if you're on a jailbroken iPhone, instead of paying the usual $20 from AT&T. This is obviously again T-Mobile's TOS so you may do this at your own risks...

How to use T-Zones on your unlocked iPhone?

Subscribe to T-Zones Install TZones Hack available in Cydia Restart your phone If does not work, verify your EDGE settings in Settings > General > Network, EDGE to be APN: wap.voicestream.com. Username and Password should be blank

Thanks Boss