Joe Zawodny

I Jailbroke my iPod Touch yesterday and wanted to pass along some observations of the rationale, process, and results. I’ve had my iPod Touch for a couple of months now. I waited quite some time for a 64GB version to come out since that was the capacity I needed. Otherwise I would have bought one of the early models long ago. While waiting for a 64GB model, I kept up to date on both the technology and the culture surrounding it. Jailbreaking is something I have watched mature into a simple 5 second process following a simple download.

For those not familiar with the term Jailbreak, it is a process that opens up the iPod Touch or iPhone and allows the user to install software from sources other than Apple’s iTunes Store. While there really is “an App for that” for just about anything you can think of there are certain things that Apple does not want you to do with YOUR iPod. My interests in Jailbreaking are an equal mix of curiosity, entitlement, and necessity. I wanted to experience the process of Jaibreaking and explore the innards of the iPod Touch OS. I wanted to do this because I could even though Apple probably did not want me to do so. I also needed to fix at least one problem I encountered with an App I bought (GeoDefense Swarm – a great game BTW).

Custom Background and Digital Battery Charge (Click for full size image)

A quick Google search reveals that the latest version of the OS (3.1.2) can be Jailbroken. A program called BlackRain, available for both OS X and Windows, is easily found, downloaded, and run. The actual Jailbreak takes about 5 seconds. After downloading the program, you plug in your iPod Touch or iPhone, upgrade to v3.1.2 of the OS if you have not already done so, shutdown iTunes, and run BlackRain. During the process, iTunes will probably try to convince you to restore the OS on your iPhone. If/when presented with what appears to be a requirement to Restore your Touch/iPhone – Do Not! Rerun BlackRain instead. Afterward, the device usually reboots on its own. If the device does not reboot, you will have to reboot it manually. Once you get to the point that the Touch reconnects to iTunes without iTunes requesting a restore, you are pretty much home free.

Custom Unlock Screen

If all goes well after the device the reboots, you will have a new App on the SpringBoard called BlackRain. You need to run the BlackRain App once to select and install an App Loader, I chose Cydia. With Cydia you can search for, download, and install all sorts of Apps. I wanted to customize the look of my Touch, so I installed WinterBoard. With WinterBoard I was able to set a background for the SpringBoard, make the Status and Task bars transparent, and change some fonts. You can also download a Theme from a large set of user developed themes, or create your own. I like Pandora, but want to do other things while listening to a stream of music, so I installed Backgrounder. Backgrounder allows the user to switch a running program to run in background. It is essentially an App that lets you run multiple Apps simultaneously. Apple only allows a few of their Apps to run in background, mail, safari, and a few others. Memory is limited on these devices, so this is probably not a bad idea. Only one App can be in the foreground, so you certainly need a way to switch between running Apps. mQuickDo does that and more. It is also an useful App that speeds up access to your most frequently used programs. Using gestures, mQuickDo allows you to manage the running Apps as well as provide a way to access apps more easily. It even allows the user to put a short list of 5 Apps on the unlock screen so you can unlock the screen and go directly to one of your most frequently used Apps with a single tap.

GeoDefense Swarm Screenshot

I wanted to snoop around the device, so I installed Open SSH, changed the default password for root, and can now mount the iPod Touch filesystem on my Mac with MacFuse/MacFusion. I was most interested in trying to fix a “problem” with one of my Apps – GeoDefense Swarm (GDS). This is a great Tower Defense game. The only problem is that the author has decided to irreversibly link the game to Open Feint (OF). OF is a site that keeps track of your high scores for the various levels, shares that information with your friends, and a few other things. I had no idea what OF was when I first bought GDS and so I activated it. Since I really do not have any friends who play a lot of games and would be interested in this sort of social interaction, I have no use for OF. The problem is that once activated there is no way to turn it off. During the game it will try to connect to OF after completing each level or when you switch between Easy, Medium, & Hard. It breaks the flow of the game for me. The real problem for most folks is that if they are using an iPhone, GDS connecting to OF will cost them something each time. This is especially bad if you are out of the country where the cost of cell phone networking often is extremely expensive. Basically, the author needs to put an ON/OFF switch for OF in the game, but has yet to do so (and may never do so). In my attempts to fix the problem I deleted the App from the Touch and iTunes, bought it again (Apple is good about keeping track of what you have already purchased, so this did not actually cost me anything the second time), and reinstalled it. OF was still turned on and had all of my account info. I suspected that there was some cruft left over in the file system that deleting the App did not clean up. It turns out I was correct. Mounting the file system on my Mac and browsing around was enlightening. I found the GDS directory and a GDS-specific .plist file. I browsed that file with the Property List Editor and saw that most of the contents dealt with OF. I also saw that all of my level achievements and high scores were stored in separate files. So I deleted the .plist file and restarted the GDS game. The first screen I was presented with asked if I wanted to use Open Feint – just like when I originally purchased the game! They really try to cram this OF stuff down your throat and there is a little button at the bottom of the screen that allows you to decline the use of OF. Everything else in the game was just the way I left it. Problem Solved.

For me Jailbreaking gives me more control over those things (devices and apps) that I have purchased. Things I believe I have a right to control in more ways than the OS allows by default. Artificial limitations on my access to and use of something I own is intolerable to me. Those walls simply must be brought down. Jailbreaking my iPod Touch does just that.

I’ll be brief. In response to this news article… If you do not pay taxes you should not be able to vote. PERIOD.

OK, I have chilled a bit since the original post. Everyone can vote for the House of Representatives, but only taxpayers, (current and retired) military, and a few other TBD contributory professions can vote for the Senate and President. I’m sorry it has come to this, but we are a hair’s breadth away from the majority non-taxpayers being able to vote themselves any benefit they choose at the expense of the tax-paying minority. That would be inherently unstable and result in the collapse of the system.

Two styles of LED lamps

I’ve been searching for some LED lamps to test since I have been less than impressed by the very short lifetime of Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFLs). The CFLs do not last anywhere near the claimed 5,000, 8,000, or 10,000 hours. I think they might last that long if I turned them on and never turned them off, but that is not exactly my home lifestyle. So, I’ve been watching and waiting for some Suitable LED lamps to test. That day arrived when my wife said she was sick and tired of those CFLs in the kitchen that took 30+ seconds to get bright first thing in the morning. The problem was bad enough that I had switched one CFL back to an incandescent bulb months ago. When you want/need light you pretty much need it now. So I went to LEDtronics.com and bought a couple of R30 and PAR30 lamps.

I bought two completely different styles. One used five high power dimmable LEDs with a narrower 25 degree beam width and a 3000K color temperature. The other uses many lower power LEDs to produce a 5500K beam with a width of 40 degrees and could not to be used with a dimmer. I planned to use the latter in the kitchen where the distance between the lamp and the counter top was about 5′. The high power lamps are going in the ceiling of my family room 16′ above the floor. I selected the specific lamps based on their total lumen of output and their candle rating (includes the effect of varying beam width). My goal was to select a lamp that appeared to result in the same candle rating of the incandescent lamps I was replacing.

LED lamps are very intense, but not all that bright. These lamps in particular have clear lenses and produce a very direct light. The 40 degree spots did not work in the kitchen. We wanted a more diffuse light there. They do, however, work very well in the bedroom and the bath over the spa where they provide a delightful ambiance. Before I installed the high power spots in the ceiling fixtures I ran a quick test by putting them in a work light fixture. They produced a nice bright spot that was easily visible during the brightest part of the day on a wall 25′ away. I have since installed them and am very happy with the intensity of the light when I’m sitting at the computer underneath one of them and very pleased with way the light looks from across the room. It gives the room a completely different look. I’m planning to get two more for the other pair of corners in the family room.

I have to give these a thumbs up so long as they last their predicted lifetimes. The nature of the illumination is quite different from either incandescent or CFLs, so you should not expect that they will perform exactly the same way. In the right situation they perform better. In the wrong one, they can be worse. Given their current cost it will be an expensive experiment.

Here is another timely article on the state of the global economy. This time the subject is deglobalization. It is a good quick read that gets right to the point. Go ahead and read it first. If you still are skeptical about whether this is at all possible – read this too from today’s news (20090914).

Capitalism is broken, perhaps fatally (as is mindless consumerism), and the lack of sufficient quality jobs in the US runs the risk unrest. See my earlier post on the subject of jobs. Globalization has failed mostly due to the inability of the market to raise the standards of living of those countries supplying the workforce and thereby create new markets for US produced goods (exports and the related jobs at home). There are a few exceptions though free trade has, for the most part, made a just few people in those countries very rich. I am a proponent of some of the 11 pillars, but there are a few that (appear to) run too close to neo-socialism (I was going to use neo-communism, but that term has been usurped by the Right to hurl at the Left ever since the term Liberal has lost its impact). Hopefully, if we go this route, we will not end up like France – or worse.

I suspect that as climate change begins to disrupt water and food supplies, degloblization will rapidly take hold. International trade will become more strategic. China is already ahead of the game here as they have been buying up rights to strategic natural resources worldwide for some time now. Whether those rights can be enforced (peacefully) remains to be seen. One thing the article does not address is what deglobalization does to the huge, internationally-held US national debt. If ‘they’ cannot buy/import stuff (like food) and are not allowed to invest in the US, then the debt becomes worthless/uncollectable, the international currency/credit markets collapse (might not be a bad thing in the near-term with a return to something like the gold-standard). International trade will revert to a barter system (goods for goods – not a currency).

No matter how I look at this, the word ’stability’ does not seem to apply. We need to replace the for profit motivation of the capitalists with something more sustainable (and perhaps even moral) for the post-capitalist system that will replace it.

I’ve been wanting to write about the economy again, but just could not get my thoughts together when I had the time to write. A friend at work sent me a link to an excellent article that captured most of what I was thinking. You can find the article here at Business Week. The article missed one of my points though. Without innovation defining new products that drive exports, jobs, and investment in the US, the US will become the economic equivalent of an oil well. The rest of the world will maintain/grow the current trade imbalance and pump money out of the US until we run dry. Then they will abandon us and move on. Rather than legislating band-aids, like health insurance reform, the congress needs to be worried about the education of our people (not foreigners), and investing in long-term fundamental research. Growth, jobs, and economic stability will return eventually.

… as opposed to “moron health.”

I have not really sat down to outline my thoughts on how to make health care affordable. The current debate in congress is primarily about Health Insurance – not Health care. As I have stated previously, we do not need another, bigger government program that gives a special interest direct access to the government coffers. We need legislation that actually addresses the cost of health care. The bills before congress basically set up an expanded Medicare/Medicaid system. It expands the number of participants without doing much, if anything, to address the long-term costs of health care. It is a new liability for taxpayers without any hope of cost containment. What we need is legislation that controls the costs and cost growth of health care services. Making health care affordable is the best way to making health care universal. Since being healthy and living a long life are priceless – they do not respond well to market forces. This is especially true when the system seeks to limit availability of services by artificial means – controlled scarcity.

To that end I suggest that we need to expand the capacity of the existing system by doing some/all of the following:
Electronic records that follow the patient,
Use computer diagnosis – with RN verified symptoms,
Increase the capacity of the medical education system,
Limited liability against lawsuits,
International market for prescriptions,
Zero advertising for pharma,
Greater role for RNs & NPs,
Exclude MDs from owning Med Labs,
All hospitals should be non-profit,
Pay for college and require a 4-year post grad service in the industry – just like what is done for ROTC,
Require specialist MDs to serve 25% as general physicians – forever, and
Treat health care like any other regulated utility by regulating a service fee schedule nationwide.

We need to reinstate compassion for the profit-motivation when it come to health care.

I bought the 5-license upgrade to Snow Leopard and it arrived today. I installed it on two systems (one more to go). The install goes pretty quickly and mine took just over 45 minutes each. On one system I did not install Rosetta. When I tried to start an Office 2004 app, which requires Rosetta, the system told me it needed Rosetta and asked if it should go and find a copy to install. I said OK and it was done in about 4 minutes. On the second system, my main home system which has all of my email, I use Mail. After the install, I was informed that I needed to convert my old Mail account to work with the new Mail app. Again, I said OK, but this time things didn’t go perfectly. Mail fumbled the hand-off of my account settings, specifically the settings for the outgoing SMTP authentication. I had to edit the settings so Mail would use a username and password. Not hard to fix if you know where to find the controls, but I do not understand why Apple missed such a fundamental setting. Other than that, Snow Leopard saved at least 7.5GB of disk space. Unfortunately, only Parallels version 4 works with Snow Leopard. iStat menus also does not work. Those are the only two things I have found that do not work with Snow Leopard.

Young Moon (click for larger size)

I took these images on June 25, 2009 and promptly forgot to include it here. This is a 19-panel mosaic of the Moon with modest Libration (+4). Seeing was not as good as it was predicted to be. I wanted to shoot this at f/10 with a green filter, but had to use a yellow filter and shortened exposure. I’m still experimenting with gamma corrections. More often than not, I end up applying curves in Photoshop instead of simply tweaking the gamma. The Moon is actually a pretty tough subject with its high dynamic range.

Equipment:
Celestron C-11 telescope @ f/10
#8 Yellow filter
DMK31 Web Cam
Stacked best 300 of 1300 in AviStack.
Wavelets and RLD

I’m sorry, but I can’t support Universal Health Care (as currently envisioned). It creates an open ended liability for the taxpayers with no control over future costs/liabilities. I’ve already seen enough of the social abuse of entitlements to know that universal coverage without a REAL DECREASE in the cost of health care is a huge mistake (future cost). We need to decrease the cost of health care by decoupling the market motives behind health care. Being healthy and living forever have infinite value. People will do/pay anything to be healthy and live long (the value is infinite!). The health system needs to be a regulated utility. It needs to become detached from the legal and insurance systems which feed off of it. If we could achieve a true reduction in medical costs, universality would be assured. The best way to provide coverage/availability for all is to make it affordable. Congress is headed down the wrong path and a brief reprieve from the legislative process might result in clarity of thought.

… but I’m not holding my breath.

I’m not sure how congress managed to conceive of and pass legislation that actually makes sense, but the “Cash for Clunkers” program is the one stimulus that seems to work. After bailing out the auto industry and amid high unemployment, the idea of paying consumers much more than their auto trade-ins are worth if they buy a new (hopefully American – whatever that really means) car is simply brilliant. The $3500-$4500 cost to the taxpayer leverages its stimulating effect on the economy by getting the consumer to spend a lot more of their money at a time when an increase in consumer participation in the recovery is needed. The fact that the program went through the (hopefully first) billion dollars in only 5 or 6 days indicated the degree of pent up demand for big ticket items like automobiles. The additional impact the program has on boosting the overall fuel efficiency of the cars on the roads is a further win for the economy since it reduces the demand for foreign oil and lessens the trade deficit.

How can it be that congress managed to pass this into effect? I’m stunned. Perhaps there is hope for us after all.