Tag Archives: Windows

[iPhone] GeoHot Releases Jailbreak for 3.x Called BlackRa1n

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Today notorious GeoHot released a standing new jailbreak tool called BlackRa1n. BlackRa1n is currently only available for Microsoft Windows. It is supposed to jailbreak any 3.x based iPhone or iPod touch. No matter if you’ve jailbroken before or not.

BlackRa1n is fairly self explaining and straight forward designed. It’ll bring your iPhone or iPod Touch automatically into Recovery Mode.

Sadly currently BlackRa1n does not hacktivate your iPhone. So you still need a valid subscription with an Apple licensed carrier or a factory unlocked iPhone.

Kudos fly out to GeoHot. Standing work again.

» Download BlackRa1n here…

[Windows] Recommended Apps: Really Slick Screensavers

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Abtract

Have you also been trying to find a really nice screensaver for your Windows machine. There are so many nice screensavers for the Mac, but for the Windows world you can’t find them.

What we found

While searching for nice screensavers we came accross this collection of free of charge and open source screensavers called “Really Slick Screensavers”. Check them out. The screensavers included are named:

  • Cyclone
  • Euphoria
  • FieldLines
  • Flocks
  • Flux
  • Helios (YouTube video below)
  • Hyperspace
  • Lattice
  • Plasma (YouTube video below)
  • Skyrocket
  • SolarWinds (YouTube video below)

Download

» Really Slick Screensavers…

By the way: some of the screensavers have also been ported to Mac OS and Linux.

Demo Videos

[iPhone] GeoHot releases iPhone 3Gs Jailbreak (Upd.)

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Update July 5th, 2009: GeoHot now also provides a Mac OS X version of the jailbreak tool. Windows and Mac versions ready for download at purplera1n.com…

That’s it with the 3.0 firmware and the iPhone jailbreaks. Apple has been beaten again. This time by GeoHot. Although the iPhone Dev Team seems to have their programs already prepared they preferred to wait with the release of an updated PwnageTool. GeoHot did not wanna wait and decided to release a Windows based jailbreak tool for the iPhone 3Gs called PurpleRa1n.

Status

mrpurplera1n.png

All three iPhone generations can now be activated, jailbroken and unlocked with the current firmware 3.0. Currently for the iPhone 3Gs there is only a Windows version available that is under strong beta testing. Anyway you can give it a try. The security whole that gets exploited in the iPhone 3Gs is well known as the 24k bug that has been found in january in the iPod Touch 2nd generations.

After jailbreaking, the iPhone Dev Team’s UltraSn0w should unlock your baseband.

Our recommendations

By now you know we are the conservative ones. We recommend: wait a couple of days. PurpleRa1n is still beta. But can hacks ever become stable? ;-)

More information to be found here:
» GeoHot accounces jailbreak for iPhone 3Gs…
» iPhone Dev Team confirm unlock of iPhone 3Gs…
» Get iPhone 3Gs jailbreak tool (PurpleRa1n.exe) here…

iPhone 3GS Unlock Demonstration from planetbeing on Vimeo.

[Games] GTA 4 for PC – Release in December

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Rockstar Games eventually releases Grand Theft Auto 4 for the PC gaming community. December 2nd, 2008 will be the day when people will raid over gaming stores all over the world. It is for sure that this game will be the megaseller in december as it has proved for the console gamers in may.

In contrast to the console version the PC version requires online activation – but Rockstar learned from the Spore desaster and lets you activate your copy of GTA4 as often as you like and once activated it simply runs, no annoying re-activations required.

As a bonus feature for the PC community Rockstar included a video editor (see video below). Using the video editor you can record and convert videos of your most stunning stunts and actions scenes. Anyway we never missed it when playing the PS3 version.

Requirements
Operating System Microsoft Windows Vista or Windows XP
CPU Intel Core 2 Duo 1.8GHz

AMD Athlon X2 64 2.4GHz
Memory Running Vista: 1.5GB

Running XP: 1GB
Graphics Nvidia 7900 (min 256MB) or better

ATI X1900 (min 256MB) or better
Harddisk 16 GB free space

The video is courtesy of Golem.de…

[MultiPlatform] TrueCrypt 6.1 Released

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The open source encryption program TrueCrypt 6.1 has been released. It now features:

  • Encrypt a non-system partion without losing existing data (Windows)
  • Support for security tokens and smart cards
  • TrueCrypt bootloader can be configured to not show texts
  • Encrypted Windows system partitions can now be mounted by Linux or MacOS X

» Download TrueCrypt 6.1 here…

[iPhone] HowTo Activate and Unlock using QuickPwn 2.1

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I. Abstract

This is a short HowTo since all of you by now know how to use QuickPwn, don’t you? in short: QuickPwn is an Après-Tool. Means: you let iTunes 8 do the update process and use QuickPwn afterwards to “open” your device. Note:

  • 2G iPhones can be jailbroken and unlocked
  • 3G iPhones can be jailbroken, but not unlocked
  • iPod Touch 1st generation can be jailbroken
  • iPod Touch 2nd generation can not be jailbroken

Our article will not cover the iPod Touch, but the iPhone.

II. Requirements

III. Warning

Jailbreaking and unlocking is illegal to be performed with iPhone devices that are part of a current agreement (mostly 12 or 24 months). You would violate your contract by jailbreaking and unlocking! Don’t do it.

  • If you’re updating: all your Cydia and Installer.app based applications will be lost and need to be installed again!
  • Make sure you make a backup of your data!

IV. Update iPhone firmware

  • connect your iPhone with your PC
  • start iTunes 8
  • choose your iPhone (under devices)
    itunes-01.jpg
  • hold the shift-key (on your keyboard) and do a mouse-click on the Update Button – a file-open window will pop up like this:
    itunes-02.jpg
  • locate the downloaded firmware 2.1 (named: iPhone1,1_2.1_5F136_Restore.ipsw) and open it
  • iTunes will begin to update your iPhone automatically
    itunes-03.jpg

    itunes-04.jpg

    itunes-05.jpg

    itunes-06.jpg

    itunes-07.jpg

    itunes-08.jpg
  • After having updated the iPhone will reboot. If you are using an already Pwned iPhone it will remain activated and unlocked, you only need to jailbreak.

IV. QuickPwning it :-)

  • Let your iPhone plugged to your computer
  • Close iTunes
  • Start QuickPwn 2.1-1
  • You will be greeted with the Device Detection screen, click the right-arrow to proceed:
    quickpwn-01.jpg
  • on the next window, click the Browse button to locate your iPhone1,1_2.1_5F136_Restore.ipsw firmware:
    quickpwn-02.jpg

    quickpwn-03.jpg
  • QuickPwn will check if the firmware matches the version currently running on your iPhone and will allow you to proceed (click the right-arrow):
    quickpwn-04.jpg
  • the next windows allows you to select, what you want to install. We recommend to install both Cydia and Installer.app. If your iPhone has not been unlocked until now, here you can also choose to simunlock it. As we are quite conservative: we never change the boot logos, but this seems to be a matter of taste. After having selected, click the right-arrow button to proceed.
    quickpwn-05.jpg
  • For safety reasons, QuickPwn will remind you to leave your iPhone plugged to your computer, click the right-arrow button to proceed
    quickpwn-06.jpg
  • Read and follow the instruction on this window very carefully! QuickPwn will help you counting!
    quickpwn-07.jpg
  • After that, QuickPwn will take control and perform the following actions automatically:
    quickpwn-08.jpg

    quickpwn-09.jpg

    quickpwn-10.jpg
  • When all the tasks have been completed, QuickPwn has finished.
    quickpwn-11.jpg
  • Your iPhone will perform some more actions for the next few minutes. It will show it is changing the NOR and so on and will reboot then.

After having rebooted your iPhone will be perfectly jailbroken and unlocked

V. Final words

Guys, we hope we could clarify some more things here than others did. We appreciate your comments on this. Kudos to all of you and remember to consider our sponsors, they really got the coolest offers ;-) Kudos fly out to the iPhone Dev Team! Live long and prosper, guys.

[MacOS] Using CrossOver to run UltraEdit

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I. Abstract

Many of us are nowadays using different operating systems almost at the same time. At work most of us use Windows machines, at home we use a Mac, coexisting with a Windows Laptop. Although we really like the Mac eco system, from time to time we find out we’re missing something from the Windows world very desperately. Many of us coders who recently switched to a Mac soon find out, we miss one thing for sure: UltraEdit. UltraEdit is one (if not even the) editor for the Windows environment. And once you get used to a workflow you will not want to miss it, no matter if you switched completely or not. This is were the emulators or the virtual machines come into play. As long term users of UltraEdit we’re gonna show you in the following article how to get UltraEdit (almost natively) installed on MacOS using the WINE based CrossOver by CodeWeavers. Enjoy…

II. What you need

  • Intel Mac (or a Hackintosh with EFI-X) running MacOS X 10.5 Leopard
  • CrossOver Mac 7.0.1 installed. Get a CrossOver trial version here (we recommend to get the “Professional Version” as it also includes CrossOver Games, but for running UltraEdit only, CrossOver Standard Version will be sufficient.)
  • UltraEdit 14.10 installer. Get an UltraEdit trial version here. In case the downloaded file is .zipped, please unpack before proceeding.

III. Prepping CrossOver

  1. Start CrossOver. The welcome screen will ask you what to do. Click the “CrossOver Software Installer” link:
    picture-2.png
  2. An Installer window will pop up. Choose “Install Unsupported Software“:
    picture-3.png
  3. Click “Continue” after having read this reminder:
    picture-4.png
  4. Choose to “Install into... New bottle” and click “Create Bottle and Continue“:
    picture-5.png
  5. Enter the “New bottle name:” (like UltraEdit, for example) and choose “New bottle type” as “winxp” (yes, means Windows XP compatibility mode). And hit the “Create” button:
    picture-6.png

    The bottle is being created then. This process may take some minutes on older machines.

IV. Installing UltraEdit

  1. After bottle creation, CrossOver like to install. So “Choose Installer File...” and click “Install“…
    picture-7.png
  2. Locate the installer file. It will be called something like “ue_english.msi“. Click “Use this installer“:
    picture-9.png
  3. CrossOver will prepare to install (no interaction of yours required here!)
    picture-11.png
  4. Et voilà, the well known Windows installer will be loaded. Click “Next”
    picture-12.png
  5. We expect, you know how to install Windows software, so we’re not gonna comment the following screenies:
    picture-13.png

    picture-14.png

    picture-15.png

    picture-16.png

    picture-17.png
  6. We did not install UltraCompare, but you may give it a try…
    picture-18.png
  7. Uncheck the “Lauch UltraEdit” box and click “Finish“.
    picture-19.png

V. Final preparations

  1. After installation, Crossover will do a virtual reboot of its Windows XP bottle, where you installed UltraEdit into (no interaction of yours required here!)
    picture-21.png
  2. After virtual reboot, it will create the program links. You may now double click the “UltraEdit” program link to start it.
    picture-22.png
  3. Feeling home already?
    picture-23.png
  4. Don’t hesitate to type some lines
    picture-24.png

    picture-25.png
  5. Yes, you’re done…

VI. Final words

We hope you had some fun, following this tiny HowTo to get UltraEdit back to our new environment. Although the FTP feature did not work for us, as it crashs UltraEdit, by being able to run UltraEdit we can use our trained workflow for coding and editing. Anyway there are native editing solutions on a Mac, which we will have a closer view on within next time.

[Windows] Recommended Apps: Lauchy

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Abstract

Are you tired of searching thru your installed applications on your Windows machine? There is no need to search anymore. You may simply find from the first moment using a key stroke launcher – like Launchy.

How does it work

After typing the first few letters, Launchy suggests the program you might want to start. As Launchy uses quite an interesting statisticial approach here, it determines the program you want to start almost exactly. No time consuming training is required. Launchy learns by the way in your everyday use of it.

launchy.jpg

After installation Launchy sets up a database that includes all executable and lauchable programs you previously installed on your computer. Launchy is set up as a service running in the background. At any time you may invoke it using predefined shortcuts (like CTRL + SPACE or ALT + SPACE). Configuration is fairly easy.

launchy2.jpg

Alternatives

Another program for the Windows platform is known called Executor. It basically offers the same features, sadly it does not contain a statistical heuristic for the programs you run the most, but other options like fast command line execution. Anyway Launchy is intended for the average computer and we feel it does its job very good. Moreover it is open source software.

Download

» download Launchy here…

[Windows] Kaspersky Internet Security Kills Vista 64

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An update that has been distributed yesterday is likely to be the cause for sudden blue screens on Windows Vista 64bit. The yesterday update forces the user to restart, but after restarting, Windows Vista64 customers report that their system would not boot anymore. Instead a blue screen of death was shown.

Although the problem should be fixed now, many users still cannot boot. What you can do, if your system still hangs:

  • boot into Safe Mode (hit F8 when Window begins to boot after the BIOS messages)
  • click Start -> all Programs -> Kaspersky Internet Security
    bsod_kaspersky1.png

  • right click on Kaspersky Internet Security 2009 to Run As Administrator
    bsod_kaspersky2.png
  • Click Update and choose to Rollback to previous Databases
    bsod_kaspersky3.png
  • Wait some secs to some minutes for the rollback to perform
  • you may change the Update mode (from automatically to manually). But we’ve heard everything is under control again. So this step is not necessary.
    bsod_kaspersky4.png
  • Reboot your system

Enjoy…

[MacOS] VMWare Fusion 2.0 beta to include McAfee Antivirus

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VMWare has released VMWare Fusion 2.0 beta for MacOS X. Fusion will integrate McAfee Antivirus solution with an upgrade and update plan for 12 months. Moreover Fusion 2.0 will be available as a free update for Fusion 1.0 customers.

Further features:

  • Application sharing: link filetypes from MacOS X to run a specific Windows program (on your guest) and vice versa, link filetypes within your virtual machine to run a specific MacOS program (on your host)
  • McAfee VirusScan Plus Subscription for 12 months
  • Language Support: Exptended Spanish and Italian Language support
  • Folder Mirroring: Link your documents, pictures etc. folders from within your Windows VM to your host’s documents, pictures folder.
  • Automattic Snapshots for further protection against viruses
  • Keyboard and Mouse shortcut mapping: link special Windows commands like “insert” “print screen”  to unused F-Keys like “F13″, F14” and so on
  • Improved DirectX integration thru hardware accelerated 3D graphics: even running 720p or 1080p videos smoother

Downloading the beta version as demo requires registration on VMWare site (go here). A free beta serial key is provided aswell.

See official VMWare trailer here: