starcam: 2011

iOS 5.0.1 Untethered Jailbreak for pre-A5 devices released: RedSn0w

If you have been following the development on the iOS jailbreak community, you would probably know by now that the untethered jailbreak has been released for iOS 5.0.1 for all iDevices (except for iPhone 4s and iPad 2). Few hours right after the release announcement, I jumped in immediately to restore my iPhone 4 (which was on iOS 4.3.2) and jailbreak it. Dev-team has release the latest RedSn0w tool (version 0.9.10b2) that includes the exploit to jailbreak the iOS 5.0.1.

There are some pre-requisites before you try and jailbreak your iDevice. Click on for more...

I'm sure many people use capital letters when typing messages on their smart phones. And iOS (iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad) does a good job at automatically capping your first words right after the last fullstop. It will also capitalize certain words automatically like, ASAP, FYI and also all the first letters of names or days, like Michael, John, Monday, Tuesday, etc... You get the drag. But besides that, when and if you want to type a whole word in capital letters for whatever reasons (for example, trying to show that you are shouting, gasping or just want to stress a certain word in your sentence), many would repeatedly type in the "SHIFT" key repeatedly for every letter being typed. There is an easier way...

Popcap has just released a new version of Bejeweled Blitz for the iOS (no Android version reported yet). Unlike the Bejeweled 2 (which also have Blitz mode included), it is a purely only Blitz mode. What is the Blitz mode? Its a 1-minute game play mode that you try and score as many points as you can and you will able to compare scores with your online friends (on Facebook and Google+). If you have played it on Facebook (FB) or Google+ (G+) and also on your iDevice, you should know that many of the features that you are able to play on FB and G+ are not available on the Bejeweled 2 Blitz (B2B) app previously.

Arriving this coming March 2012 is the collaboration between Capcom and Namco for their long standing stranglehold titles, Street Fighter franchise (henceforth regarded as SF) and the Tekken franchise. Aptly named "Street Fighter x Tekken", it is a crossover fighting game of characters from both the franchise. It will be developed by Capcom and adopts the 2D fighting platform which we know and are familiar with on the SF series. This game was first announced during the 2010 Comic-con International even at San Diego and looks like it is nearing release, targeted somewhere early March 2012. It is said that Namco is also developing a "Tekken x Street Fighter" game which will base on their Tekken's 3D fighting platform. But that has no release date yet and it is also for another blog post ;)

Maxis today just put up in their iPhone website the availability of the iPhone 4s in Malaysia. Although it is not specified on the site when exactly it will be available, I presume it won't be too long because its already all over the world except for Malaysia. Of course it is already available in other mobile phone suppliers, but Maxis, DiGi and Celcom would be their official distribution network.

The Dark Truth About Angry Birds

This is hilarious! Found this on a blog and thought it is appropriate that I share this.

I wonder if the makers of Angry Birds really did get their inspiration from Sesame Street... Angry Birds has been such a big success that not only kids love them, even adults go ga-ga over them. Not only are their games successful, they have had a movie made as a tribute to them (Rio), they have sold millions of soft-toys (and other toys) and they have all other kinds of accessories for anything you can think of made in their image!

Advertise here

1112 Ep. 1 - Free on Appstore for Thanksgiving

One of my favorite games on the iPhone is 1112. This game has an engrossing storyline and will keep those who like mystery and who-dunit games happy and content. The gameplay is mostly of puzzles and only solving the puzzles will allow you to progress in the game. Its graphics is made mostly of static images but they are beautifully drawn and definitely sets the mood for the game. The sound department is also very befitting.

The year end is near and no doubt many of you are looking for 2012 Calendar templates for whatever purpose you have. I have created an Adobe Illustrator wall template for year 2012. This wall template contains a space for you to put your own picture. You can edit the sizes as you see fit, but the font type is already fixed (all fonts have been outlined). The weekend dates are colored, but if you don't like it, you can modify to your own preference.

There are many GPS apps available for our smart phones nowadays. Just to name a few is Tomtom, Papago, Sygic, Navigon, PapaGo, Garmin, etc... the list goes on. But how many are free? Its safe to say they are mostly quite costly, Tomtom for example, sells for at least US$49.90, Sygic at least US$19.90 and Navigon around US$29.90. And to top it off, they are sold separately for each region. So if you have Tomtom USA and wants to go Singapore and use it, you'll have to buy a separate app at US$69.90! Same goes for the other GPS apps, they are all sold separately according to region.

The Groupon app has been available for a very long time now but it wasn't available for Malaysia before. Maybe because Groupon wasn't in Malaysia yet. Groupon is now tied up with Malaysian website Groupsmore and it was only a matter of time before their app is updated to support Malaysia as well. The latest update of the app, version 1.5.5, now lets you view deals available in Malaysia and that is good news for bargain hunters here!

I have recently made a transition from iOS 4.x to iOS 5 on my iPhone 3GS and I can say it wasn't a particularly smooth sailing journey. Of course we're talking about jailbreaking it as well. My plan was to do this:

Sync & backup iPhone 3GS with iTunes
Fully restore iPhone to iOS 5
Jailbreak iOS 5 with redsn0w
Install AppSync 5.0+ from Cydia
Restore from backup to iPhone with iTunes.

Sounds easy right? Wrong! Now usually when after I sync and backup the iPhone before an upgrade of the firmware, I will do a backup of the backup first so I can do it again if I screw it up. I have written an article on how to do this before and you can see it here: [Restoring from a backup for iPhone, jailbreak or not!]

Blackberry's BBM service may be popular, but it is limited to BB-to-BB messaging. iMessage maybe supported by a monstrous Apple, but again limited to iOS-to-iOS messaging. In our imperfect world of multiple mobile OS platforms, you can't seriously expect everyone to own multiple devices just so they can send free messages to all their friends, can you? Well, maybe some will answer, yes you can, but not all of us are so fortunate. That is where apps like eBuddy XMS and WhatsApp comes and save the day. Of course there are a thousand more apps out there that does similar functions, like Pingchat, Facebook Messenger, TextPlus, etc, but these are my 2 favourites. I also wrote a review on Viber, that has also added text messaging functions, but its more popular for its free VoIP calls service. Check out that review here: [LINK]

But today, I'm going to compare just XMS (ver 2.0.1) and WhatsApp (ver 2.6.7) on the iPhone iOS (that's the only one i own)... jump in!

It's been a long time since, but Symbian and Meego can finally bow out. Symbian can be proud it has survived this long but it's waned popularity does little for it to bow out in more dignity than Nokia would have liked. But they knew last year that they had to do something drastic to save their stranglehold as the once indisputable king in the 90s and early 2000s. The likes of RIM, Apple and Android have taken a big chunk of their OS market and most definitely affected the sales of their phones.

If you haven't already heard, Google Plus is now open to public. Still in beta though. So if you have been waiting and waiting for the opportunity to try it out or if you are finally sick of Facebook and want to migrate, the chance is finally here. Am I excited? Well, lets see if enough of my friends move over and abandon Facebook. Facebook has got the stranglehold for more than 5 years and its subscriber base definitely won't die off the way Friendster, Hi5 and Multiply died. Odds are, people will still keep going to Facebook as they have invested too much in it in terms of time, building their friends list, photo uploads, etc.

Steve Jobs of Apple Inc. just announced that he is relinquishing his post as CEO of the company and will remain only as chairman and employee. This has been a long term speculated many months back when he first took a long leave of absence and many have suggested that it may be for health reason (as can be seen from his significant lost in weight). Today, this news came through and you might say the rumor mill may have its truth in it. But even with this news, Apple's stock has not suffered any disastrous effect. In fact, it went up a few dollars during trading hours.

This I believe may be because he still remains in Apple Inc. as chairman and still significant enough to lead the company. And even as chairman, I believe no one will deny the fact that he will hold considerable influence in what steps the company takes next. Jobs have single-handedly brought Apple back from the brink of death with the first release of the new generation iPod (new then) and then the iPhone. Of course the rest as they say, is history. Not only is Apple Inc. back to life, but it is today the most valuable tech company in the USA (if not the world!). The release of the iPad only propelled it to further unimaginable heights.

It's probably been at least 25 years since I watched the Thundercats. It is one of our favorite action cartoons amongst the likes of Transformers, Silverhawks, He-Man, Voltron and the list goes on. In those days, my siblings and I would religiously watch it every time it was on TV. Thundercats definitely ranks high in my fav list.

So can you imagine my excitement when I recently found out that the Thundercats has been remade? Well, Malaysia is a country which is probably slower in terms of getting new western series, more so with cartoons. So I had to use other means to get a hold of the new Thundercats 2011 series.... It wasn't hard to find.

The Norway Terrorists Gets To Live Here...

Talk about a 'prolonged' holiday getaway abode. Norway has the perfect getaway, for FREE! You just have to commit a crime or two. The more serious of crimes you get into, the longer your getaway is. The recent killings of around 90 victims by a Norwegian terrorist have outraged most people in the world. Well, wait till see where this guy (and most of the Norway criminals) gets to hangout if he is found guilty.

Here is the room in which he will be living in:

Pretty cool huh? It comes with its own LCD TV and also a mini-fridge!

A Robotic Flying Bird, Intriguing!

Ted.com talk recently showcase this amazing invention. Well, its not so much an invention but more of a near perfect simulation. It is a robotic flying bird which imitates a real bird's fluid flying movements through some simple yet intriguing mechanical engineering. This robotic bird flies effortlessly like a real bird and can do all the swoops and dives that a real bird can. Amazing tech...

Advertise here

Now, can we apply this into a real life Angry Birds game? That would be loads of fun! Lol...

Viber, now on Android!

Good news for Android users (and iPhone users too!), Viber has launched their Android app which will certainly be a welcome for the iPhone users alike. iPhone users can now also call their friends who are on Android phones far far away in another continent, for FREE!

Read my previous review of Viber for iPhone version 1 here and version 2 here. I don't have an Android phone, so I couldn't possibly give an accurate enough review of this new app for Android. But I'm sure it will work great and save for some bugs (its new on Android, so give them some slack).

It was the Apple's WorldWide Developer Conference (WWDC) yesterday. There were no new consumer hardware introduced as some have expected, but there were 3 main things. No iPhone 4S or iPhone 5 that was rumored to be announced. The 3 things were the OSX Lion, iOS5 and iCloud. I'm not going to talk about OSX Lion as I do not own a Mac (but I am surprised at the $29 upgrade price!). I'm going to talk mainly about the new iOS 5 and some of its main new features that they have added.

Previously I have posted an entry about trying to download a Calendar template for Adobe Illustrator CS2. I have found that many of them are either not suitable for starting out your own design from scratch or it is for higher versions of Adobe Illustrator. I know that many like me are searching for calendar templates for their new projects and probably do not have the latest Illustrator versions to open the available templates out there.

Advertise here

Here's a myth that most people believe, "You cannot backup or restore a jailbroken iPhone". The fact is, you can. And yours truly have done it a million times (over exaggerated of course). I personally do not use AptBackup, PKGBackup or any Cydia apps to help me backup my apps' settings and data. iTunes can do all that for you. What does that mean? It means that not only are you able to backup your iPhone's settings, the legitimate apps and its data (and settings), but you will be able to also backup your Cydia apps' settings. I will tell you how...

Recently there has been news that says the white iPhone 4 will be out by end of April. Well, we have been hearing its "intended" release dates ever since the black iPhone 4 was released. Seriously though, what is the big fuss about the release of a white colored iPhone??

The white iPhone 4 has been delayed time and time again and the speculations on the Internet over its release has sprout like mushrooms on every tech sites you can imagine. So what if the white iPhone 4 is being released? I certainly won't care. Definitely not when we're close to a new iPhone 5 being released. Would you get the white iPhone 4 knowing that iPhone 5 may likely be released in 3 or 4 more months later?

Once again Angry Birds series has proven as addictive and as playable (very much if I may say) in the new title Angry Birds Rio. It has again topped the bestsellers in Apple's Appstore, unsurprisingly. With this new title, there is again the prospect of finishing each and every level with 3-Stars. With even more levels promised within the next year, we will see new obstacles and new achievements to be obtained. This will certainly help to quench the thirst of all Angry Birds fans.

I have personally finished all the levels in the first two themes (Smuggler's Den & Jungle Escape) and to tell you the truth, the levels are not that difficult to obtain the 3-Stars. You just have to keep on trying and keep going back until you hit that sweet spot. Walkthroughs are here to guide you on where to hit and how to hit them, but there are definitely many other ways in order to strike the 3-Stars. As before, I would advise that you try each levels yourselves first before seeking the walkthroughs.

Here are the walkthroughs...

iPhonography

It's been a while since I last posted some photos taken from my iPhone. The last time I posted, it was from my 3GS. This time it's from and iPhone 4. Comments please....

Edited using Photoshop Express app

I'm always asked this question by my friends, "Hey dude, is the iPhone iOS 4.3.1 jailbreak out yet?" ever since iOS 4.3 was released. Finally, the Dev-team have released the latest jailbreak for the iOS 4.3.1. What more.... it is an untethered jailbreak. The tethered jailbreak was released earlier but I would always refrain people from using it. Imagine you are out and either your battery drained or you need to reboot your iPhone after a Cydia app installation or you have a non-responding phone which needed a hard boot? With a tethered jailbreak, you'll be running around like a headless chicken.

Viber 2.01 has recently been released and it brings about a few enhancements. I have previously written about my views of Viber 1.x, mostly about how it compares to its competitions and why you would want it. You can read my previous post here:
Review: Viber for iPhone, free calls anywhere...
Well, the Viber team has upped the ante and bring some new features to Viber 2.01 that makes this app even more functional than it already is. Here is an excerpt from Viber's update log:

"What’s New?

At the end of February 2011, we were treated to a preview of this new game which gave us a vague view of what is to come. Gone are the pigs that use to terrorize our birds and its offsprings (eggs). Gone are the snorting of the filthy little pigs that once laughed and taunt our birds from their hideous wodden castles.

Angry Birds fans will surely reqoice with the release of Angry Birds Rio. The new nemesis, humans apparently! Birds have been captured and shipped to the faraway land of Rio de Janeiro (hence the name Rio). Our birds have travelled along to save their comrades. They are caged and stored in shipping warehouses in which we will see hundreds and hundred of crates and chains use to stack the cages. The objective is to free the captured birds from their cages.

A new Angry Birds game is coming! For the avid fans of Angry Birds who has finished all the available Angry Birds games now will be happy to know that their agony of looking for pigs to kill will be over soon. Apparently Rovio has joined forces with 20th Century Fox to create a brand new Angry Birds game called "Angry Birds Rio". No specific dates to its release yet but this is what they have written on their Youtube channel:

"Rovio and 20th Century Fox join forces to create a new game, Angry Birds Rio! The game will launch with 45 dedicated levels based on the highly-anticipated motion picture, with regular updates lined up for the future. The game will be available for download on smart phones and tablets worldwide."

Well, for now, they have a very cute trailer available.

Jump in to see the trailer:

Yesterday I was just talking about Maxis' iValue-Lite offer and today it looks like DiGi has made a counter offer which is so much more delicious to swallow. I cannot find any other information from their website accept from their Facebook page. What is the offer?

Advertise here

Well, according to their Facebook page, you can now buy two iPhone4s but only obliged to sign one contract. This is only for new subscriptions. So if you are a Maxis (or any other network) subscriber and looking to switch to DiGi or get a new iPhone4, now is the best time!

Like I said, no information on their website as of writing. Maybe it is there, I just cannot find it.

Maxis iValue Lite - a new way to Lite up your iLife?

Maxis just launched a new iPhone package in addition to its available iValue packages to entice new subscribers to its network. I cannot see the rationale over this iValue package though because it involves the most data intensive smartphone in the market. Obviously this package is aimed at countering DiGi's cheap plans but still I cannot see why one would prefer this package over its iValue 1 package.

Few considerations if you want to get an iPhone 4 iValue-Lite now:

At long last! My home is now connected to UniFi. I was quite skeptical about the installation process at first as I have had friends who told me that they signed up and when the contractors went to their home to pull the cables, he was told his area had to wait for a month more before his are to be activated. So he had to wait for almost a month before he was finally able to use the service. So naturally, in my area which was only recently that I saw them pulling the underground cables to service, I was wondering if I had to wait another month after they installed in my home before my account was activated.

To my relief, the line was activated immediately after the contractors were done pulling in the cable and installing all the equipment. And right away, I opened up the speedtest.net application on my iPhone to test the connection speed. I first tested a Kuala Lumpur server, which was the nearest, and no surprise that I got something around 4.8Mbps download speed. This was expected as it is only local servers. Here are the rest of my results:

What took me so long to discover this gem?? Well, suffice to say, I was actually a bit sceptical at first to switch from the in-built Safari browser and the Opera browser. Safari was still preferred at first due to its nativity to the iPhone. It ran at blazing speed. Of course when i visit any sites that have tonnes of Flash video content (especially those that ran predominantly Flash videos), Safari just simply does not work. At least not until all website decide to adopt the HTML5 format, then we will see richer content on our iPhone Safari.

My use of Opera was because back in the good old days when I was using a Nokia phone, Opera was the best browser available compared their Nokia's pathetic browser. I use it still purely because of sentimental sentiments. Also, it is good to see some Flash (static-ized) adverts here and there on some website that makes the site looks a little more complete and not handicapped. Of course, Opera also offers a very intuitive tab system that lets you switch between pages easily (unlike Safari, which is quite cumbersome).

I haven't paid much attention to "Cut The Rope" for a long time since I uploaded the walkthrough for the Cardboard theme. My Bad. For those of you that have not heard or tried this game yet, you should! It's available on the Appstore and its a good bargain for a great game. Simple mechanics and very cutesy graphics.

Unless you don't intend to get all 3-stars, you do not need a guide to get through the game. If you do want to get 3-stars, be prepared to be very patient (as well as speedy at the same time). This game requires a little bit of thinking for some levels and a great deal of logic as well. Could become frustrating (thats where you have to apply your patience).

It seems that Airasia is waging another war on MAS (Malaysian Airlines) again during its MATF (Malaysian Airlines Travel Fair). Coincidence you say? I think not. And although MAS flights offer in-flight service (individual movies, gaming, food, drinks, etc), I'm sure many will be willing to forgo those perks in exchange for significantly lower no-frills prices.

Finally, if any of you that have been camping out waiting for an untethered jailbreak for your iPhone on iOS 4.2.1, the wait is finally over. The iPhone 3GS with new bootroms and the iPhone 4 only had a tethered jailbreak using the RedSn0w tool up until now. I have since been using RedSn0w 0.9.6 RC8 and have been in tethered hell. Every reboot whenever without any PCs (or Mac) around would be devastating! Any updating of Cydia apps that requires a reboot and you better have RedSn0w at hand... But Greenpois0n RC5 has finally been released and it is an untethered jailbreak solution.

Jump in for more...

Angry Birds has been the best iTunes app store best-seller for many many months since its launch in December 2009. Its available for the iPhone/iPad (iOS), Symbian and Android platform and has one of the simplest gameplay mechanism but yet addictive gameplay. Ever since I was introduced to this game and since I have introduced it to others, people just can't get enough of it!

And as many people who has been playing this game, I'm sure many would have first finished the game without getting all 3-stars scores for every level. But in order to obtain a full set of the Golder eggs available in the game, you would have tried from scratch again to obtain 3-star scores for all levels. Although there are many sources available on the internet for tips on getting the 3-stars, I will take the courtesy to include here all the videos I can find to make it a one stop shop for your Angry Birds need (you're welcome)!

With the new updates, it seems Rovio's generosity keeps on coming! We have newer levels and for the Angry Birds fans, that is good news (and more fun and frustrating gaming hours!).

Theme 12
Levels 1-5 (12-1, 12-2, 12-3, 12-4, 12-5)

Jump in for the rest...

Well not exactly me but my son. The Sony Playstation 2 (or the PS2 as it has been belovedly known) was the last "next-gen" gaming console that I had invested in 10 years ago. And I can truly say it has been a worthy investment of entertainment. It is surprising to know that it has been already been 11 years since it's launch.

As always, whenever travelling, my advise is to not use your home country's mobile/cellphone international roaming services. Unless money isn't an issue for you, international roaming charges are absurd and even more so when combined with data roaming usage. Not only will you get charged whenever you make a phone call while roaming, but receiving calls is also as expensive. And if you are using a smartphone and forget turn of international data roaming (and happily receiving your push notifications!), then you're in for a big surprise when you return home.

My wife recently travelled to the Philippines for work and I quickly went and do a search on the internet for advice and tips regarding mobile/cell services available in the Philippines. There are basically 4 big/popular service providers and they are Globe Telecom, Smart Communications, Sun Cellular and CURE (Cure's website not working, no idea why?).

I use to be able to use my iPhone 3GS until the battery runs dry and I get the battery running out popup message starting at 20% remaining and below. At that time, using the iPhone was a really enjoyable save for the bad battery life. Then came iOS4.01 and I hesitantly upgraded to it. I say hesitantly because if given a choice, I would not have upgraded it. My upgrade was made because of the increasing number of apps that do not support iOS3.x and most of them wouldn't even let you install it if you do not have iOS4.x. You can see my blog entry on Why I think iOS4.01 firmware sucks.

My iOS4.01 experience was still ok until I upgraded to iOS4.1 the moment the greenpois0n and limera1n jailbreaks were released for it and oh my... did I regret it. All other displeasures aside, the most horrible thing about it was that my iPhone started to shut down randomly whenever it is under intense use. By intense I mean by playing a game (e.g. Angry birds, FIFA 11 or even Bejeweled 2), or typing constantly on Whatsapp, using Safari or even taking a video. The shut downs usually happens when the battery is down to between 80% to 40% and it is totally random. If I leave it and not do anything except for receive and making calls, then I'm safe (or at least I think I am).

Read on...

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