grinthock.com – A World Of Opinionation

IPhone 2.0.1 – More security than repair?

Posted on August 6th, 2008 by grinthock.
Categories: Apple, iPhone.

Ok Apple, you have made your point, you are a little sorry you sent out a shit product on day 1.  So you try to fix it, we get it, but for god sakes TAKE YOUR TIME!

So far we have been hearing about a mryiad of problems, Bluetooth is apparently (not tested by us) working with various cars now, UConnect for one, however apparently the BT and WiFi is being disabled after upgrade for some – we are also hearing about bricking during the upgrade but with no details this could be some schmuck who modified the hell out of his phone.

The 2.0.1 does make things snappier, it also kills the jailbreak.   I’m sure the Apple Dev Team will infact fix that problem, give them some time.  Apparently there have been some “unknown” baseband changes as well, Dev Team is saying this could prevent unlocking – but they don’t know yet.

It seems that 2.0.1 was more of a fix for the jailbreak, and some small slowdowns.  2.1 is really what we are waiting for, but considering it’s already been seeded to developers, the final modifications for 2.1 are probably already complete no?  More details as they become available to us….

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NetShare Situation, a few days later…

Posted on August 5th, 2008 by grinthock.
Categories: Apple, Toy Box, iPhone.

Why didn’t we report on it?  Everyone else did.  We just stood back.

So, 50,000 foot view here,  NetShare,  Iphone App, Proxy Server, allowed “hidden” tethering over WiFi.   Shows up on ITMS App Store, disappears, reappears, no information from Apple, for DAYS, NullRiver the dev of the project hears squat from Apple.  Meanwhile many have already purchased the $9.99 app, and installed it.

All the information seems to be flowing right off of NullRiver’s website, but everyone else is super quiet on the issue, so we shall see how it develops.

It appears some of the pirates have also released this on torrent sites, not sure how, but we have one of our other partner sites in europe looking into that.

Looks like NullRiver has finally got communication with Apple working now, and has issued this statement

We’ve finally gotten in contact with Apple. Looks like the lack of communication was due to automated e-mail systems being employed on both ends, which resulted in e-mails being lost in transit. We’re working with Apple to get NetShare back up on the AppStore.

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iPhone 2.0.1 is released, let the babies be eaten…..

Posted on August 4th, 2008 by grinthock.
Categories: Apple, iPhone.

Did you honestly think we would just sit at home and not report on it?  Well, we might as well, I mean all the ususal suspects have this thing wrapped up as usual, and we don’t just report the ususal junk.   So let’s just wrap the coverage.

1)  It’s out

2)  It’s not tested enough to have any sort of opinion that’s intelligent (but you know that we will)

3) Apple is still eating babies.

So 250MB’s of goodness is heading our way, let’s see what this breaks.  As long as it fixes the slow backup problem we will be more than happy, other things would be nice.

Poking around a few news sites and the various forums people are reporting

– Faster Keyboard use

– Faster Contacts

– Fixed backup experience (we will see!)

There are some reports of people with issues doing the upgrade, possible USB problems, also restore issues.  Based on our testing, and the fact we restored our iPhone here in the lab 6 times in 3 days, we found stability seemed to be better when we did not RESTORE the phone, but re-sync’d the phone.  Restore doesn’t really save you much, only things like U/P in Facebook, Jott, Mail settings.  Everything else is sync’d anyway.

So as this writes, the file is downloading, done in apparently 10 mintues, so once that completes I shall start the upgrade procedure, and then goto bed while it restores and re-synch’s all my content.

Update!

PWNAGE tool doesn’t work on 2.0.1 as is… Ugh, newsflash! Did you really think that Apple would release an update WITHOUT killing off Pwnage? I’m sure it will get Pwnd again soon enough, but interestingly enough, i’m wondering what this baseband update is that 2.0.1 bring, perhaps some sort of battery management fix? Repairs to our signal loss issues?

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AVBrand AVCar Mobile Computing Solution…. Video Released on YouTube

Posted on August 3rd, 2008 by grinthock.
Categories: Uncategorized.

AVBrand has released a video of a mobile computing solution.

Something that grinthock.com and AVBrand.com have been working on for a few months.  Grinthock.com has been providing automotive electronics, mechanical and fabrication services.

Here are a few photos of the setup.   Head over to THIS LINK for all the details, here are a few snapshots.

A long list of parts has been used – this is only the first batch.

Front display setup, very clean looking…

A new video has been released on YouTube with a quick review, recently Audio Recognition and an LED sign have been added to the project.  More details as they are available.

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Utopia Restaurant – Tex-Mex, Californian Eats, Nice Prices…

Posted on August 2nd, 2008 by grinthock.
Categories: Department of Good Eats.

With all of the fuel prices soaring these days it is costing many of us more of our hard earned green on a friday night to park and drive than it is to have a meal.   Utopia Restaurant in Toronto (586 College St) is inadvertently trying to change that.  With a menu of new and interesting Tex-Mex, Californian and “Normal” food (you never know when the dork in your group simply does not have an interesting pallet) they bring a nice twist to the normal Tex-Mex style food and change it up with their own custom sauces, burritos, appetizers and flair.  The Menu is large enough that you can find something you will like, but this “cafe” clearly has direction.

With a nice open window to the street on a nice day and a patio in the back, we found the restaurant VERY well priced, and exceptionally clean.  An open air patio in the back with table side service is also nice when the weather is warm.   The staff were very helpful, ensured our drinks were never empty (even water), and offered helpful advice with menu items.   Food arrived quickly, but not so quick that you can tell someone slapped it togeather, or just yanked something out of the freezer and tossed it in a deep fat fryer.

I ordered a Steak burrito, it has a very nice tangy zip sauce made on site, I don’t say “Wow” too often during the first bite, I did here.  The rice was pretty typical of a tex-mex place, but was clearly made on site and not some tex rice that was brought in.  Menu offered an option for Salad or Slaw, I chose the Seseme Slaw, but ran out of room to finish it — it was however quite delightful.

Utopia get’s 4/5 stars, I will return.  Our entire bill came to $27 for 2 people including soft drinks (no appetizers)  which is quite reasonable considering the food quality that we received.   There is something on the menu for everyone.   I am told this place fills up quite quickly at dinner hour, especially on the weekends, so go early if you are hungry.

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iPhone App Store cripped for Canadians — Workaround found….

Posted on July 31st, 2008 by grinthock.
Categories: Apple, iPhone.

So you have purchased a wonderful new idevice…  Plan to put many iApps, and have some iPlay time.  But you find out that you cannot download some basic apps like “GOOGLE Mobile”  which apparently kicks serious butt — along with a few other US only applications.

Well a solution has been found – thanks to the people over at http://www.howardforums.com  this is now possible.

So we take no credit – only credit for showing you that it exists…

So here’s how it works….

1)  Click HERE and get a redemtion code for a “free song”

2)  Copy that code.

3)  Open your iTunes, open the iTunes Store,  click on your account name in the top right corner just below the search window, and select SIGN OUT

4)  Now scroll all the way to the bottom, very bottom, in the centre there’s a thing that lets you select which store you are in — pick United States

5)  Scroll back up once it’s changed — click REDEEM

6)  Follow the steps to redeem, when it asks for your iTunes account — DO NOT ENTER IT — select CREATE, and now create an account, once you get to billing address just put in any valid BS address you want, under billing type — put none.  This won’t allow you to buy stuff, but we are only here for the free stuff.

7)  Once it’s done — you are now logged in as your “US” account and can download those apps at will.

8)  Sync — sign back out — sign back in as your canadian store, and you are happy!

Warning — if this bricks your phone, erases your computer, causes physical harm to you, or anyone you know — don’t look at us — we warned you.

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Event ID 4226, Delayed Write Failures and uTorrent?

Posted on July 30th, 2008 by grinthock.
Categories: Department of WTF, Software.

If you are like me you probably use uTorrent or Azereus alot to download the latest creative commons works and linux distros.

Recently I have been experiencing an error on the machine I use for uTorrent.  I dedicate one of my machines for this, because I just don’t like it running on a production machine.  The storage in that machine is minimal, so all of  the actual data is stored off on our NAS box.

Occasionally i’ve had this problem, but in the last 2 days, it simply will not stop.   The uTorrent machine loses its connection with the NAS, as a result we get this error that i’m sure many people have seen before.

At the same time uTorrent decides, well, I cannot write, puts all the torrents into an “ERROR” state and just sits there forever.   If you simply re-start the torrent file, it will run again, for awhile, until we get another delayed write failure.

Having seen this error occasionally, but now more frequently, I decided it was time to look into this BS.    Having visited the event log I found a bunch of errors…

I did find the delayed write error like this….

Event Type:    Warning
Event Source:    MRxSmb
Event Category:    None
Event ID:    50
Date:        7/29/2008
Time:        6:10:07 PM
User:        N/A
Computer:    torrentbox
Description:
{Delayed Write Failed} Windows was unable to save all the data for the file \Device\LanmanRedirector. The data has been lost. This error may be caused by a failure of your computer hardware or network connection. Please try to save this file elsewhere.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
Data:
0000: 04 00 04 00 02 00 56 00   ……V.
0008: 00 00 00 00 32 00 04 80   ….2..?
0010: 00 00 00 00 0c 02 00 c0   …….À
0018: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ……..
0020: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ……..
0028: 0c 02 00 c0               …À

But I also found this error IMMEDIATELY before the delayed write failure messages.

Event Type:    Warning
Event Source:    Tcpip
Event Category:    None
Event ID:    4226
Date:        7/29/2008
Time:        6:01:48 PM
User:        N/A
Computer:    torrentbox

Description:
TCP/IP has reached the security limit imposed on the number of concurrent TCP connect attempts.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
Data:
0000: 00 00 00 00 01 00 54 00   ……T.
0008: 00 00 00 00 82 10 00 80   ….?..?
0010: 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ……..
0018: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ……..
0020: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ……..

I’m sorry, did I read this right?  Microsoft is imposing a connection limit?   So upon doing some research here’s what I found.  Microsoft limits the number of concurrent TCP Connection attempts to 10 as of Windows XP SP2, this is a “security” feature to stop worms from spreading like wildfire.  Personally, I think it’s a good idea, we need software to help all the stupid helpeless users out there who don’t know better, but we need to KNOW These things!

Luckily as I searched I was also able to find this website LVLLord’s Event 4226 Patcher  this guy wrote a tool that can patch the TCPIP.SYS file to change the limit.  The old limit was 65535, but I changed mine to 250.  This had immediate performance effects, my Torrent’s started up faster, connections were quicker, it allowed the entire machine to work cleaner.

While I understand the requirement to limit, 10 limits power users who run applications that open A LOT of TCP/IP connections, like network scan tools, network administration tools, all sorts of software would be limited by this.  Just a warning for you, once you patch it, keep your eye on it, Microsoft likes to update the TCPIP.SYS file fairly often, so obviously when there’s an update, your change will go away.

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iPhone Bluetooth Compatibility issues, 2.0.1 possibly on the horizon, App Request!

Posted on July 25th, 2008 by grinthock.
Categories: Apple, iPhone.

We are getting scattered reports about bluetooth compatibility issues.  Various headset, many complaints from Chrysler / Dodge owners (I’m assuming this would probably affect Mercedes Benz as well) that their existing U-Connect Bluetooth systems (built in Factory Bluetoot) is not working with the new iPhone 3G.

One of our correspondants drives a Chrysler 300C, and upon testing the phone simply refused to pair with the car, we have tested with 3 other headsets as well as the bluetooth in a Lexus without a problem, so it appears to be some sort of compatibility issue.    Some users have reported that turning off the Wi-Fi fixes the problem, however it didn’t seem to help our U-Connect.

Did the big fruit change the Bluetooth chipset and not bother to perform additional testing?  Can this be fixed in a new revision?  How long will people need to wait for the iPhone 2.0.1 software to launch?

We can confirm from viewing our website logs that iPhone 2.0.1 is out there in the wild, so it’s in testing, the question is, with all these bugs being reported now, and 2.0.1 already seeding, will these issues be fixed in 2.0.1?  Did apple know about these issues already, launch a buggy product just to get it out the door and then knowingly fix those issues in 2.0.1?

Many questions to be answered in the coming days.

Phil, buddy, we all like you, but can we PLEASE get some fixes here?  Things are getting quite difficult.

Also — APPLICATON REQUEST!   3 of our correspondants are now walking around with this…. Thing… and we all have the same request, there was an application available in installer that allowed you to VERY quickly turn on/off the various radio’s in the device to save power — somebody write one of these for the App Store (or at this point, even a jailbroke 2.0 app).  It would really help us.

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Pwnage allows jailbreak – Apps nowhere to be found!

Posted on July 24th, 2008 by grinthock.
Categories: Apple, iPhone.

So we jailbroke our 3G iPhone that we are testing here….

Unfortunately it’s even less interesting than the photo above, but the bottom line is,  there’s zero apps.  Seems like there is a large developer platform, lots of dev tools, unix tools and a new package manager replacing the previous “installer”  but other than the NES emulator and one other game, there isn’t much.

Right now most of the previous apps won’t run on 2.0, due to changes by Apple, so much re-writing must be done.  How many dev’s will now simply go through the App store now that they have a possible revenue stream?    I want my ORB CLIENT BACK!

So for now, we suggest staying away from the jailbreak, there isn’t much to gain, once customize comes out we will be VERY happy, louder email sounds are a reason alone to jailbreak this thing.

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Apple removes FIREWIRE charging support from iPod 3G – Breaks accessories.

Posted on July 23rd, 2008 by grinthock.
Categories: Apple, Department of rant services., iPhone.

Here we go again…

In a previous entry I had written about how the new iPhone 3G does not charge with existing accessories.  This includes the very expensive BOSE systems, the Apple HiFi system, and many incar systems made by various manufacturer’s one of which being the DiCE electronics unit I have.

So why is this?

Yep that’s right, back to the firewire days.   Apparently many of these charging devices still use the older and depriciated “FIREWIRE” pin’s on the 30 pin iPod connector to charge the phones.   The iPhone and iPod Touch both supported this charging method, and I havn’t seen any REASON in the 3G for them to remove the support, but the bottom line is — they have yanked it.

So Apple now is only supporting power through the USB interface on the device.  Even the iPod Touch which cannot be sync’d via FireWire can still be charged via it.  Personally here I put the blame on 2 people, first, the manufacturers of the devices they should have been supporting the new standard — and infact both USB and Firewire standards to provide both backward and forward compatibility.  This day was inevitable, so why they waited till now, we have no idea.

The bottom line people have hundres of dollars in charging accessories that simply don’t work now, whats the solution?  There isn’t one currently.

What needs to happen is, pins 19 and 20 have 12V, that’s the old firewire method of charging.   That needs to be reduced using some sort of regulator, 7805 or something similar, and then inserted into pins +23 and Ground on 16.

This could be accomplished by a simple Male/Female Apple dock connector with the electronics inside to complete the task, but nobody makes such an animal.  While I’m not electronics GURU, i’m tempted to build something except that stupid Apple proprietary cable is a pain in the ass, i’m not really willing to cut one right now being that they are quite expensive, and i’d need a dock connector as well which means sacrificing a $20 cable and $30 dock.  Ouch.

Bottom line?  This is stupid, Apple never should have done this, even if he had, he should have explained why.   Bullshit, that’s what I say.

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