Abby and Win’s Blog

iJailbreak.com recently released a new version of iJailbreak for the iPod Touch. This now includes the iPhone apps (Mail, Notes, Stocks, Weather, and Maps. I did an upgrade from the previous version of iJailbreak via Installer app on the Touch. It went well except the iPhone apps, except Weather crashed every time I accessed it. So I ended up restoring my iPod and reinstalling the new version of iJailbreak. Now the iPhone apps work. The Maps is great.

You can purchase music using the iTunes installed on the Touch. I wanted to try this out but didn’t want to spend any money or credits on the experiment. So I decided to get the current free Single of the Week. Unfortunately, there is no display on the Touch for this, unlike in iTunes on my Mac. You have search for it. Also, you can’t display the shopping cart or any other things I was accustomed to seeing on the desktop version of iTunes. What you will see on the Touch is the top songs from each genre or hot singles. I didn’t really like that since I don’t usually pay attention to it. But the search feature is great. As you type the search criteria, you will be seeing results. The results will lessen as you type more letters.

The shopping cart on the Touch is different from the shopping cart on the iTunes on your desktop. So you will not see items you have in the shopping cart unless it was added using the Touch. This was interesting since the account you’re using is the same for both Touch and iTunes desktop.

So I purchased the free song. The download was fast, as fast as my desktop - I was using my wifi network at home so there shouldn’t be a big difference, if any. Once done, it added a new playlist labeled Purchased just as it does on the desktop. Then I synced it to my desktop. It automatically saved a copy on my desktop and it created a new playlist labeled Purchased on win’s iPod Touch. Very convenient process. Now I can buy music on my Touch as long as there’s a wifi signal and not have to worry about syncing issues with my desktop.

I just want to let you know the experience I had with upgrade to Leopard from Tiger. The upgrade went smooth on my PowerMac G5. It took about 48 minutes. All my apps seem to still be compatible.

Then I started to upgrade my MacBook Pro. Things looked normal. The trouble started after my laptop restarted once the upgrade process completed. It was stuck in the all too familiar blue screen of death (Apple version). I felt like I was back in Windows again. Apparently, it’s giving many people problems as well - http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1195031&tstart=0.

I left it on that screen over night and woke up this morning still in the same screen. There are 2 possible solutions that I’ve read so far in that long list of discussion.

Option 1: Archive and Install. This is the route I took and so far it seems to work. There are reported issues with Mail crashing when doing this method though. I don’t use Mail much so it is not a concern. This will require more hard drive space, I believe an extra 4GB is needed.

Option 2: Restart in Single User mode and enter some commands. I would’ve tried this by the time I read the post, I was already doing the Archive and Install. There is a chance that your administrator rights will be removed.

So far:

- Time Machine lives up to the hype. You are still able to use the selected external hard drive as a regular storage drive along with using it with Time Machine.
- Browsing other computers on the network have never been easier.
- Spotlight will be indexing your files after the install/upgrade. Depending on how much data you have, will determine how long it takes. On my G5 it took about 30. It will not prevent you from doing other things. It runs quietly in the background.
- Quick Look is great and fast. Viewing files from Windows displays the “blue screen of death” as the icon.

Hope this helps you guys. Even though I had problems upgrading my laptop, I still feel it’s worth the upgrade. Just make sure to back up.

And finally, I am glad I got to experience an Apple release event. There were about 200 people in line as they started to sell Leopard. It’s interesting that even though there are not many Apple users as Windows users; whenever Apple has something new to offer, majority of its users respond.

UPDATE: My MBP was affected by the admin bug. I was worried for a moment and I didn’t feel like doing a clean install tonight. Here’s what I did:

1. Shutdown
2. Turn on the computer and hold down Apple + S to get in to single user mode
3. Type: /sbin/mount -uw /
4. Type: passwd
5. Enter your new password for root
6. Confirm it by retyping it again
7. Type: reboot
8. Once your back in, go to System Preference and edit your user accounts. When it asks for the admin’s username and password, enter root and the new password
9. Logoff and log back in and your set

Hope that helps some of you.

I recently watched the guided tour of OS X Leopard and am more excited than ever. There are so many things I’ve been waiting for aside from a new OS like Time Machine, Spaces, Quick Look, and the new Finder. I’ll probably renew my .Mac account so I can use Back to My Mac feature. I can’t wait. I’m gonna be preparing my G5 at home for the new install. I don’t usually do the upgrade method. I prefer the clean install. So tonight, I will be busy backing up files and iPhoto and iTunes library files.

I heard people will start to line up at 6am tomorrow. That’s outrageous but I hope I can leave work early enough and get a copy.

Using iJailbreak I am now able to install 3rd party applications on my iPod Touch. The hack is based on niacin and dre’s hack for the iPhone which uses an exploit found in the Safari browser. I nervously did it this morning and 10 minutes later I was able to download a long lists of free 3rd party applications. Now I just gotta figure out how to get ssh and sftp on there so I can get some NES roms installed. Here’s some pics I took.