jailbreaking and unlocking

Posted on September 2, 2010 by Timo Zimmermann

Till last weekend I always refused to jailbreak my iPhone. There was no reason why I should do it. I got every application I need in the AppStore and I was not missing any feature. My contract with T-Mobile ended on 12th July. Today my new SIM card from O2 will arrive. I called T-Mobile, told them my IMEI and asked them to unlock my phone. They agreed and said that it will take 6 to 8 weeks.

Now that I have a contract with data plan again I want to use my iPhone. One month without it showed me that there are many things I am missing. For example Facebook notifications about new messages. So 6 to 8 weeks are not acceptable.

Jailbreaking

Not being an early adopter and sticking to your stuff can sometimes be a win. I can jailbreak my 3G any time :)

Using redsn0w 0.9.5b_5 and an old iOS 4.0 image, it took me 20 minutes to jailbreak my iPhone and install ultrasnow to unlock it. Right after the jailbreak I checked some basic settings like my APN and everything else. Looked good.

Problems inc.

Restoring my backup caused some trouble. I could not change my APN anymore. Searching Google showed 3 ways to fix this. It seems to be a known problem after restoring a backup.

  1. run your jailbreak again – didn’t work
  2. install a new mobile config using benm.at – doesn’t seem to be an option since I don’t have 3.1.3 installed
  3. use the iPhone configuration utility from Apple

The Apple App works great. Create a new Configuration Profile, go to Advanced, enter your APN, select your connected iPhone, click on Configuration Profile and install your profile. That’s it.

You can do a lot more stuff with this little App and I believe it is really useful for smaller companies that want to make sure employees iPhones are safe and a bit restricted.

New features

The first time I flashed it I enabled multi tasking and wallpaper support. The funny thing is that my jail broken 3g with multitasking support is nearly as fast as before. Without those features my 3g feels faster.

Multitasking

Now that I had it I can say for sure that I don’t need it and that I don’t like it on my iPhone.

The way applications are managed are okay compared to everything else you can currently get but it just doesn’t feel really good. I didn’t like using it.

Keep it broken?

No. After my iPhone is officially unlocked I’ll install an unmodified firmware. I just prefer to update my iPhone when there is a new iOS release without panic that nothing will work. Also I don’t really use (read: don’t need) 3rd party software that is not available in the AppStore.

So beside unlocking my iPhone there is still no reason why I should jailbreak it.

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3D Supply

Posted on August 19, 2010 by Timo Zimmermann

Es gibt wieder die Chance auf ein gratis T-Shirt bei 3D Supply – diesmal ein Grab-A-Shirt Gewinnspiel. Nutzt die Chance, so lange ihr sie noch habt.

via strcat

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rm -R /var/www is a viable solution

Posted on July 31, 2010 by Timo Zimmermann

I really cannot describe how much I hate it. Bad programmed PHP – let’s call it, even if it is not true – applications. I wasted 6 hours of my life till I managed to setup everything… 6 hours.

I need about 1 -2 hour for a basic server setup without any major security settings. For my new template I’m currently working on I needed 1-2 hours. Creating a WordPress theme will cost me about one hour. So why did I have to waste 6 hours of my life?

How it began

We just had some major problems in our World of Warcraft guild and after some discussion we renamed the guild, people left, people joined. Since we achieved everything in WotLK we prepare for Cataclysm and just slack around. So it was no big problem to manage everything.

Since we are basically a new guild we needed some basic stuff like a BBS and a Portal system to recruit new people. After some discussion – and by god I did everything I could but I lost – the guild lead decided that we will go with phpBB and EQDKP.

If you don’t know them let me give you a brief explanation.

phpBB

It is a open source bulletin board that is used by many people and sites since it is easy to setup and doesn’t require any special system. Most cheap hosting services will do the job.

Some of use remember phpBB as the biggest security hole you can rip in your server beside phpmyadmin.

EQDKP

EQDKP is a CMS and DKP system used by many guilds and clans in nearly every game. The funny thing is that it is not just sloppy coded it is even more insecure than phpBB. Just read the installation instructions and you’ll get an idea.

Why the…

Why do we use this combination? Short answer: because no one gives a damn shit when I try to explain the alternatives. I have to admit that they would require a bit more effort to get everything running.

Comparing Joomla to phpBB / EQDKP is a joke. Reading a documentation how to post articles vs. “post” – you get my point? So why do we use it?

Because there is a theme that fits our needs, looks great and will only take us minimal effort to change everything we don’t like.

If you want to take a look at the “great looking theme” check out the demo site and select Bad Cataclysm.

Testing everything

I installed everything on a local test machine powered by Debian Lenny and everything worked.

So I didn’t expect much trouble setting everything up on our vServer.

As always I went with my default installation featuring lighttpd, MySQL, PHP5.

I even created a emergency plan since I expect our server to be hacked at least once a month. You just won’t get it secure with those two “applications”.

Setup

Funny stuff. After installing everything I could not log in the new installation. I tried it 4 times, reinstalled the vServer, deleted everything, downloaded the software 2 times,… nothing worked.

After some time I was really pissed and installed a conventional LAMP.

And it worked.

It looks like EQDKP requires some rewrite magic that is active in Apache by default. If you use a DNS name you need Apache if you just use an IP you can use lighttpd. I don’t know why or how it works and I really don’t want to know.

Everything I am now interested in is a drink, something to eat, a great movie and someone who developed this shit to punch him as long and as hard as I can.

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Happy SysAdminDay

Posted on July 31, 2010 by Timo Zimmermann

Okay I know I am one day late. But sadly yesterday the WordPress iPhone App crashed and didn’t want to start again. So I had no chance posting on my blog.

—- original message —-

I wish you all a happy SysAdminDay. Have some drinks and a great party. Enjoy your time, you deserve it.

Let’s sing a little song to celebrate

I wish you a happy SAD,

I wish you a happy SAD,

I wish you a happy SAD,

and no major bugs,…

Just as a side note since I am posting one day late. Our party was great. I am glad I was invited as every year, even if I am no payed administrator anymore.

I even got some great presents. A pack DVD-Rs, a 25€ iTunes gift card and a six pack Guinness.

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Teamspeak3 permissions

Posted on July 28, 2010 by Timo Zimmermann

Just a quick note. If you install TeamSpeak3 and want TsViewer.com to be able to connect to your server you have to give your Guest account permissions to list people in channels.

To do this you need a permission modification power of 100. This is reserved to your Server Query Administrator. Your normal administrator account doesn’t work. This account only got a modification power of 75.

There is a easy way and a ugly, nearly not documented way. Let’s stick to the easy one. Add your administrator account to Server Query Administrator group.

Open your Query Interface in your TeamSpeak3 client and use the following commands.

login serveradmin “password”
use sid=1
servergroupaddclient sgid=2 cldbid=2

Remember that a / for example in your “password” needs to be escaped. If your password is 123/abc you use 123\/abc.

sid is your virtual server ID.

cldbid is the ID of your administrator account.

After this is done just go in your Server Group, browse your Guest account and check b_virtualserver_client_list

Now you are set and everything should work.

Btw. the error message you get if you have to do this is

“Error Code: 2568 insufficient client permissions (failed on clientlist 8474/0x211A)”

If you want to know what permissions you have to set in addition to this one browse the FaQ. b_virtualserver_client_list is the only setting you need Server Query Administrator privileges.

After you have done this I suggest your remove your account from the Server Query Administrator group.

login serveradmin “password”
use sid=1
servergroupdelclient sgid=2 cldbid=2

Have fun with TSViewer. Now you can check if there are too much people that will annoy you before you join TS3.

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