Jailbreak it. I know, it’s not very legal now is it? Or at least it’s a gray zone. However, it enables you to fully enjoy your phone the way it should be. No limitations, and all the benefits of jailbreak tweaks and applications. Be aware though, you will break your warranty by doing this, and it seems Apple have started finding new ways to block jailbreakers from enjoying their phones (ref: The 3.1.3 update).

Also, it seems they have started blocking users to the app store that are running jailbroken software (ref: Apple Bans iPhone hackers). Note: This might be users that are running pirated app store apps, not jailbroken apps, which is what I will present here.

Step 2:

Ok, so you’ve jailbroken your phone, now what? I’ll tell you what. Here’s a small list of tweaks and applications that is in no way available through the regular Apple ways.

- Android lock: (Free) Yeah, someone has made an effort and made an lock screen more similar to the one Android uses. This will make it harder for your buddies to tamper with your phone and surf on your pay-pr-kilobyte connection for for large non-iPhone supported sites.

- SBsettings: (Free) Tired of having to go into settings to enable and disable the wifi, Bluetooth or airplane mode all the time? With sbsettings you simply swipe across the topbar, and you have instant access to all settings you would ever need.

- qTweeter: (About 1$) If your an avid Twitter user, then you want your tweets out as fast as possible. This app is another swipe-to-access app, where you slide your finger down from the top bar. This produces a window for instant tweets (and Facebook updates).

- Backgrounder/Kirikae: (Free) This is a combo suggestion, as both apps really work well together. Backgrounder enables you to do exactly that, place running applications in the background. This way you can run your last.fm/spotify in the background, while surfing the web or reading your mail. Kirikae enables you to quickly do switches between your running apps by a simple tap on the specified button (in my case i double click the home button).

Backgrounder doesn’t really have something to take a screenshot of, but works by simply holding the home button. You then get a message saying the app has been backgrounded, and you can change to and from with Kirikae.

Step 3:

Have fun! With these additions to your iPhone, you might feel it’s worth keeping for a little while longer. And if not, enjoy your next gadget!

After some time using it, I must say it’s working very well! Every time I’ve woke up with it, I’ve been feeling more awake then when using my regular alarm. All tough this might be my subconscious tricking me, I don’t really care. It feels better to wake up, and I get graphs of my sleeping patterns, which are always great fun.

Below you will see a collection of graphs with the sleep statistics from 27 December until today. These represent how I have slept during this time,  and  according to the latest statistics on my phone, I sleep an average of 6 hours and 46 minutes every night.

I can highly recommend anyone with an iPhone having problems feeling tired and agitated when getting up in the morning,  to try this app. Just remember, you have to use it for at least 3 days for the app to properly register your sleeping patterns and wake you up at the best possible time. In the beginning it will wake you up precisely at the set hour, but after the initial registrations, it will start waking you up earlier.

With all this time, and not much to do then to sit and wait to get from A to B, I had to find something that helped time go by faster, so I decided it was time to start reading books again.
I remember when I was working at Ringnes E.C. Dahls Bryggeri A/S, I used to listen to audio books a lot, and I really miss that, so after searching around a bit I found an application for my iPhone that suited my needs called Stanza. Seeing as I have my hands free at the bus and train, I figured I could save storage space and time by reading eBooks instead of audio books, and for this Stanza is perfect.

So far I h ave managed to get through some books already, so here’s a short review of what I think about them:

Dan Brown – The Lost Symbol

No doubt a very intriguing book, and reading it made time just fly by in seconds, but during the entire book, one thing kept bothering me. Dan Brown is mocking every conspiracy theorist that disagrees with what he means is correct, through his character Robert Langdon. Why does he do that? Sure, he might disagree with them, but to openly mock people thinking that the Freemasons where something more then just a society of great men really bothers me. In example, there are people that believe Freemasons where satanic worshippers, and they are in their liberty to believe that. Not to be told that they are stupid to think like this by a character in a book.
The story itself was very good though, very typical Dan Brown-esque, with crime, action, mysteries and a touch of romance. Just the way we like it.

The graveyard book

I have been wanting to read this book ever since it came out, and Alina have the book, but I usually never get around to picking up a book when I get home, and I hate lugging books around with me when I’m out, so getting this book as an eBook right away was kind of predestined. The book is classified as a children’s book, but it should really be classified as “for all ages”, because this book is just as entertaining and fun for an adult as a child.

That’s the books I have been reading so far, and right now I’m currently reading this book:

World of Warcraft: Arthas: Rise of the Lich King

I have really not read much of this yet, but the first chapter seems promising. I have a feeling that I’m going to read through this book in no time, as I love the Warcraft lore.

Also on my list of books-to-read are these (in no particular order):

Stephen King – The stand
Neil Gaiman – Anansi boys
Max Brooks – World war Z
Mel Odom – Hellgate London
Terry Brooks – The Landover series
Robert Jordan – Wheel of time series
Grahame-Smith Seth – Pride and Prejudice and zombies
Yann Martel – Life of Pi
Terry Pratchett – The colour of magic
Brent Weeks – The way of shadows
Orson Scott Card – Enders game

There are more as well, but these should keep me busy for quite a lot of work days.

For the lock screen I stripped away all the clutter, and ended up with a very clean look. On the springboard I decided to use my cute little penguin wallpaper, and sorted my icons to not get in the way of him. Also, I added an app that displays the current weather over his head.

Here are a couple of shots showing how it ended up looking:

I also came across an workout schedule app for the iPhone at around the same time, which was just what we were looking for.

So here’s my recommended list of apps if you wish to get in better shape:

(All icons link directly to the iTunes app site. Titles link to the apps web page)

#1 C25K (Couch to 5K)

This is the app I came over that made us start working out.

Description by the developer:

“C25K, is a fantastic program that’s been designed to get just about anyone from the couch to running 5 kilometres or 30 minutes in just 9 weeks.”

So we bought some jogging shoes, put on our training trousers and head out, with a goal. We were going to finish this routine, no matter what.

So far we have managed to get through Week 3, day 2, and we will be doing the final day of week 3 on Sunday. We have worked out every second day since we started, and we have not skipped a single day yet.

Results: We feel we are doing better and better. In the beginning we did a run which consisted of 60 seconds of running, and 90 seconds of walking, for a total of 20 minutes. After the first run we were totally beat, now, we can do a 3 minute interval run without much problems (Alina is having some problems with her feet acting up, but it’s getting better).

#2 Runkeeper Pro

Before we started the C25K app, I started “working out” with this app. By working out, I mean I used it for tracking my walks from town and home (which can be a bit of a workout with those steep slopes to our apartment). Basically it’s just made for tracking your run on google maps, but the latest update also added support for setting up your own interval runs.

Conclusion: One of the best tracking applications out there! It gives you audible notifications, average pace,  current speed, distance you’ve ran and so on. Here’s a sample of a run Alina and I did 04.08.2009:

As you can see, it shows speed, distance and elevation on the bottom, and marks of every kilometre on the map. You also get quite a list of neat stats on the top, which are also shown on the app itself when you’re out running.

#3 Two Hundred Situps

Seeing as we wanted to get in shape, not only by jogging, but also by building some muscles, we found this app. There’s a series for these, but we decided to only go for two of them.

The app itself is very simple. You start it up, and it asks how many situps you are able to do. It then sets up a routine for you based upon what you put in. We started at one, seeing as we’re both in horrible shape. After each day, the number of sit-ups you are supposed to do increases.

Current progress: We are in a routine now which involves an interval training with between 10 and 14 sit-ups per interval. It’s hard, but we get through it.

#4 Two Hundred Squats

This is another one we just wanted to go with, as squats are fairly easy to do. It’s got the same interface as the Two Hundred Sit ups app, but with a graph as well, showing your progress.

Current progress: No problem. Squats are fairly easy, and this early in the program we’re just going through it at a steady pace. We are currently at week 2, day 1, which consists of intervals of between 6 and 10 squats. Reason for it being so easy, is because we started this one a bit later, and we’re still on the “easy” levels of the game ;)

That’s my little list of apps. Now install them, and start working out! The first, third and fourth app also works perfectly on the iPod touch, so there’s no excuse to not start if you don’t have an iPhone.

This game is just amazing. It’s got mind-blowing graphics (especially for being on a phone), and it’s actually got a pretty decent storyline.

What’s really fun though is the way this game is controlled. You tilt your phone left, right, up and down to aim with the crosshair, right side is for shooting, left for dodging fireballs, plasma balls and whatnot, and you change weapon and reload with the top left and right controls.

Here are some screen-caps and a video showing how the game-play works.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t67QravCrbE[/youtube]

I can highly recommend you spend the few kroners it costs for this app and play it through. I’ve been playing for several hours in total, and from what I understand of the storyline, there’s still quite a bit to go.

Today Ive slept long, realized Ive actually got twice my paycheck due to an bank error (http://www.vg.no/iphone/article.php?artid=559888), head into town and bought myself a pair of new, black Converse, met people in the shopping street carrying big signs saying FREE HUGS!, and hugged them both. Ive also had a caffe chock at Dromedar and read today’s newspaper, for free.

Now I’m at the bus stop, writing this using the wordpress app for iPhone, which or course could use an overhaul, but works like a charm when writing simple updates :)

I wish I had more time to update here to be honest. I have so much to write about, yet I really lack the motivation. I’m considering starting a separate blog for all my posts regarding gadgets, projects and whatnot, and just leave this place for my personal updates.

Many of the posts here contain stuff which really doesnt interest that many, which in turn means people dont come back for reading new updates.
Well see what happens. Until then, enjoy the nice weather!

The procedure:

1. First off you have to download the redsn0w application from one of the following links:

Torrent:

Windows- http://torrents.thepiratebay.org/4965140/redsn0w-win_0.7.1.zip.4965140.TPB.torrent

MacOS X – http://torrents.thepiratebay.org/4965042/redsn0w-mac_0.7.zip.4965042.TPB.torrent

Jumpingmushroom.com Mirrors:

Windows – [download id="1"]

Mac OS X – [download id="2"]

2. After you got this, you will either have to download the latest IPSW file from the net (in. ex. here for ipod touch/iphone classic or here for iPhone 3G, or find your own copy after you did your first upgrade in “C:\Documents and Settings\YOUR-USER-NAME\Application Data\Apple Computer\iTunes\iPhone Software Updates\”

3. Place this file in the same folder as redsn0w, and lets get crackin’!

(I’ll do this guide for windows users only, but I’m guessing it works similar with Mac OS X)

4. First off, start up a command prompt. That’s Start button – run – cmd.

5. In the command prompt you go to the folder where redsn0w resides. I’d probably suggest that you extracted the folder directly to c:\, so there won’t be any problems with spaces in folder names.

Once there, run the following command:

redsn0w.exe iPhone1,2_3.0_7A341_Restore.ipsw

This will start the jailbreaking. Just follow the instructions exactly as listed, and you should be done in no time!

I myself had some problems getting my phone into DFU mode, but this video helped me out:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rb_ss0bljHY

After the jailbreak is complete, make sure you start up cydia and do a full update of the core apps (you will be asked about this after the second time you start Cydia).

If you need your phone unlocked, make sure you keep refreshing http://blog.iphone-dev.org/, as this is where the developers for redsn0w/yellowsn0w update with the latest news.

Hope this guide helped out a bit, and good luck!

Note that these are just applications that are of use to me personally, and you might think they’re not applications you would have any use of But then again, that’s not what this list is for.

1. Twitfire

Twitfire is a very simplistic Twitter client. It’s made just for posting tweets, and that’s it! I figured, instead of having 3 or for twitter clients that does an ok job, reading and posting. I’d have one client that does one thing, and does it well.

With this app you can post pictures that get automatically shortened with in.ex twitpic, update your twitter location data, and add a link to your current location in google maps, and you can also post the usual @replies,  URL links, hash tags and so on.

2. Facebook

Can’t go wrong with a good Facebook client. This client does exactly what it’s supposed to. You can read latest updates, update your status, brows profiles and upload pictures. All within the app.

3. Runkeeper Pro/Free

Well, now for some non-social related apps. This app is by far one of the best runtracking apps available at the moment. It’s simplistic, low battery consumption, supports playing music while used and uploads statistics to the net for your own personal statistics.

So far I’ve used it about 3 times, as I’ve really wanted to get in better shape. And every time I’ve received a perfect placement on the google maps for where I walked, how fast I walked, how many calories I’ve burned and so on.

On this page http://bit.ly/13yogv you can find a trek and see how it looks after a walk from down town and home.

4. SHOUTcast

This little app enables you to stream any radion from the shoutcast directory, directly to your phone. Either through WI-Fi, or 3G (probably also on Edge, but it’s not recommended). The quality is superb, and the selection of music is very good.

5. Bussorakelet

Now here’s an app that probably isn’t for that many of you, but it’s very useful for us living in Trondheim. It’s an app that enables you to query the time tables for the local bus transit called the bus oracle. This simply asks the busoracle on http://www.team-trafikk.no and gives you the results directly in the app. It lacks several features in my opinion, like for example the possibility of having pre-defined questions, but it’s good for when you’re in town and wonder when the bus will be leaving.

I’d say it also beats having that big wad of paper with you with all the different buss routes.

I will probably make more of these posts as I come across apps that I find useful. There will no doubt be changes to this list, once the push notification system for the iPhone OS 3.0 is up and running with all the new updated apps that are coming out.

(P.S: All the logos are links that go directly to the iTunes application.)