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.

via strcat

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.

—- 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.

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.

What really gets on my nerves is the fact that my 3g became slow. And I mean sometimes really slow. Beside that my alarm didn’t go off 3 times this week. Since this is my only alarm it has to work and it always did with 3.1.3.

I also have a funny problem with my exchange connection. Sometimes my iPhone shows the same appointment twice. No reason why. In the web interface the appointment only appears once. This was nothing from the first minute. It took 2 or 3 weeks till it happened and no matter what I try it won’t stop.

As long as there is no fix for the alarm issue and maybe a bit less overhead so my iPhone will feel snippy again I’ll stick with 3.1.3. The 3 features that turned out to be useful for me aren’t enough for me to stick with 4.0

what happened? nothing spectacular but since I forgot to chown WordPress could not read the template files and hopelesscom was just a blank page. yeah. Noob. I know,…

#update 06-16-2010

Ich hasse Trackbacks – die Dinger funktionieren nie wenn es drauf ankommt.

#update 2

fail! 56 von 55 -.-

#update 3

never ever play with your SQL table and time settings – besonders nicht, wenn in deinen URLs auch das Datum der Posts auftaucht

Ausgehend vom Updates des Posts und des Kommentars des Admins haben Sie die 55 Leute. Aber es gibt noch eine Chance zu gewinnen, also brav weiter machen

#update 4

w00d! hat doch noch gereicht! win!

I was looking forward to the announcement and keynote for one reason. To know if I’ll stay with T-Mobile or get a carrier that also sucks but costs less. If I’d be interested in the iPhone 4 I think I’d stay with T-Mobile just to get my hands on one first.

iPhone 4

I love new toys. Hell I am a geek, how couldn’t I love new, shiny stuff? The iPhone 4 focuses on video calls, multitasking and improved media support. Do you remember what I said what I don’t need on a phone? Right. Everything the iPhone 4 has.

It is okay for me. I see the advantages of the great display and I love the new design. But this isn’t enough for me to get one. My 3g works fine and with iOS4 I get all features I want.

I also understand why Apple put so much effort in video calls and better camera support. Because it is what nearly everyone wants. It was a wise decision and I believe they did a awesome job. iMovie for iPhone really has potential.

iOS4

PDF support! WIN!oneELEVEN!

The global Inbox also is pretty cool

What will I do?

As I said. I’ll get a new contract from another provider that also sucks but costs less. On 12 July I’ll be able to unlock my iPhone “the legal way”.

I want a 3g flat and I want unlimited talk time to all carriers. Currently I pay nearly 110€ a month for my contract. (a little company discount included)

With our company contract and o2 I’ll pay 30.50€ a month for the same features. Plus I can use tethering without an additional fee and – this is an important and – I get a free second SIM card I can use in my notebook or iPad the same time – yes I do not have to turn my iPhone off! – to surf the web.

I save 80€ / month. This makes 960€ / year. Buying an unlocked iPhone 4.x will be something around 1000€ -1200€. Talking about a 2 year contract I’ll save a lot of money if I see the need to upgrade to a current model. Maybe the 2011 iPhone will have something new I like or the next generation iPhone OS will just not work on my 3g. This is what I’d consider a reason to upgrade my iPhone.

So time to say good bye to T-Mobile. We didn’t have a great run and I’ll never miss you.

More posts please

Yes I know. My posting schedule is far away from regular. But the last year was crazy. I moved in a new apartment, I moved my office and I had a lot of work. Running a company is nothing you do between two blog posts in 4 hours a day.

The good news are that things are back to normal. Now I can keep up with a regular posting schedule and even get some projects done.

Theme / URL changes

Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa.

I tried running my own blog software and content management system written in Django. Writing a CMS and seeing how it goes in production and powering my site was great. But there were two things I didn’t think of.

1. Maintaining software that depends on a third party framework can really suck
2. If there is a error or bug you should be able to fix it in time

One pissed me of, two broke my neck. That’s the whole story.

I just didn’t have the time to maintain my CMS. And through software changes my themes changed a lot.

I tried to keep my URLs working. It looks like it didn’t always work. Again. Mea culpa. I try to fix it so you won’t see many broken links from external sites.

You will see a new theme in near future. I’m working on it but due to non existing Photoshop skills development slowed down.

You’ll also get my old posting with comments back. Even if I’m not sure how I’ll do it, I’ll find a way

More reviews

I don’t really like writing reviews. First of I have a strict rule in buying gadgets.

Only buy them if you really want and need them

I don’t know how much stuff I had in my basement or just gave it away as present because I never used it. Most gadgets are not worth the money. And since I really feel tired of playing with useless stuff (hardware, software – you name it. Nearly everything related to computers) I won’t write reviews in near future.

If you really want me to review a gadget send it to me. Don’t expect to get it back if I like it. Send it on your own risk!

iPhone OS 4 / iPad

I didn’t write much about the iPhone OS 4 because I am not interested.

It doesn’t provide any features I’m looking forward to. I don’t need multitasking on my iPhone. Maybe on the iPad. But not on the iPhone. And that’s it.

As long as my 3g runs well, as long as I can Twitter, call people and write mails I have nearly everything I need. As I said in my previous post I’m sick of all that 2.0 stuff and I won’t upgrade my hardware just to run more IM clients and Twitter in background.

Maybe I’ll get the new iPhone because I can extend my contract. It would be pretty dumb not getting the new iPhone for free.

iPad? Yeah. Got one. Nice little toy. Only got it because I’ll get some work related applications and because I think it is a nice presentation device while in a client meeting.

I am still not used to writing on the iPad, even if it isn’t troublesome I prefer a real keyboard. Beside that it integrates well in my day. Reading news, writing one or two emails while not on my computer,… no big deal. It saves some time, it gets out of your way but it doesn’t replace a computer, laptop or iPhone. You have decide on your own if it fits in your day or not.

Really sick of 2.0?

Yes.

I think I answered everything that was asked several times and wasn’t private.

As I said: if you have suggestions or comments just drop me a line.