daem0n.org

Just got linked to this by my friend Giuliano, and its probably one of the coolest, innovative ideas I've seen since surface and multi touch computing became a big hit. A whole new approach to computing and ui for our aged desktop model, as opposed to the already saturated list of mobile innovations we've already seen.

This concept proposes a multitouch interaction system that does not require a multitouch screen (and thus does not have to deal with all the problems such a screen causes), but instead uses a multitouch area near the keyboard. The proposed graphical user interface makes full use of this multitouch area.

Click the link to watch the video and learn more: http://ignorethecode.net/blog/2009/10/13/10_gui/

Today, I woke up to a nice little surprise thanks to Mr. George Hotz, or more widely known as @geohot. Geohot has graciously blessed the whole iPhone jailbreaking community with his latest method for liberating our devices, blackra1n. 

So, what is blackra1n? blackra1n is a 30 second ALL device 3.1.2 jailbreak ... blackra1n doesn't hacktivate.

Now, I've been eager to upgrade my iPhone 3GS for a while now, it has been happily jailbroken at 3.0.1 for a while now using redsn0w, and even recently I posted about the dev teams latest pwn tool. However, after reading the massive number of comments on their blog with people having issues, I decided to play it safe and just wait a bit longer. I am so glad I did.

The jailbreak using blackra1n was amazingly simple and super fast, probably even faster than the purplera1n jailbreak from a few months ago. On top of that, using aptbackup (a convenient little cydia app backup tool) I was able to upgrade my firmware, jailbreak using blackra1n, and restore all of my cydia apps and settings without so much as a hitch. I am now running my iPhone 3GS with 3.1.2 firmware, on ATT, with functional MMS and all of my apps and settings, both cydia and the hacked ipa's from appulo.us all back to how it was. Joy.

If you're looking for blackra1n, simply visit www.blackra1n.com, (click the windows icon to download) and dont forget to drop a few bucks over to geohot via donate link to help support his efforts and keep our fancy little iphones in our control and not Apple's ;)

It's nice to see our friends at the iphone dev team finally updated their PwnageTool to allow 3GS iphones to be unlocked/jailbroken. There are alot of careful precautions you must take, but it does seem possible now. Here is what is said on the dev team's blog post:

The iPhone 3GS is now supported in PwnageTool 3.1.3, assuming the phone was pwned at 3.0 or 3.0.1 - PwnageTool does not support the 3GS out of the box. If your iPhone 3GS has 3.1 preinstalled and is not Pwned then there is no tested jailbreak solution at the moment.

GOLDEN RULE: If you are using a iPhone 3G or iPhone 3G(S) with ultrasn0w and rely on ultrasn0w to obtain cellular service then you should only update your device with an .ipsw that is made with the new PwnageTool. There are no second chances with this. You need to remember that PwnageTool will provide an upgrade path to newer versions of the iPhone software in the future.

I guess I fit the bill since I do currently have a iPhone 3GS jailbroken and unlocked with 3.0.1, so I will be giving it a go later today. I'll post back and let you guys know how it goes... I'll also provide a link for downloading the 3GS 3.1 firmware already patched and jailbroken for use with PwnageTool.

It's so funny, I was just having a conversation about this topic a few days ago with my girlfriend, and today I stumble upon this article that solidified my views.

Communication skills, not coding skills, are a developer's greatest asset in a bear economy

This is so true. It is so important to be able to communicate effectively with your employer, co-workers, clients, etc. You would not believe the countless stories I hear about the issues of poor communication in the IT and Development field.

Today's developers must be equally effective in the conference room as in their cubicles. They must be fully engaged, not merely in the software design and implementation process but in the business itself. For many programmers, that means learning not just a language but a whole new set of skills.

Unfortunately, this is also true, most programmers these days are horrible in the social environment, and I truly believe that is what separates the average code monkey from the successful IT industry leaders.

Software development doesn't need more typists, secretaries, intermediaries, or middle managers. What it needs are more skilled, engaged, communicative, responsive, assertive developer-analysts -- the kind who can understand, influence, and guide development efforts, rather than simply taking dictation. The shrinking economy makes this need ever more acute -- so for those who can fill the bill, the opportunity has never been greater. For those of you who are still trying to decide which language to learn next, on the other hand, I don't envy you.

Couldn't have put it better myself.

Read the full article: http://www.infoworld.com/d/developer-world/coder-your-days-are-numbered-849

Well, for those of you that don't know, I recently was lucky enough to get a new MacBook when my Dell XPS M1330 died due to a motherboard failure. I've been thinking of getting a mac for my primary laptop ever since they went with Intel processors and you can now run those necessary windows applications on them via VM or in a dual boot setup. (I personally use Fusion 2 by VMWare, and I might explain why in a later post)

It now turns out that this may have been a great move for me, not only am I very pleased with the great quality and performance of my new Aluminum unibody Macbook, but I just learned that these days Mac developers are more sought after and are paid more than windows developers. Now, provided I am a WEB developer primarily, I do like to test my hand in some standard application development. There is quite a plethora of wonderful applications already out for OS X and already, I can see there's just so much more intuitive and creative approaches to standard computing tasks on OS X apps. I guess this is a great time to start learning more about OS X application development, and what the heck, I might as well grab the iPhone SDK and start fucking with that as well ;)