Just a quick note for you iPod Touch/iPhone owners.  Don’t bother buying any iPod video conversion software because the best of the best is free.  Check out MediaCoder iPhone edition for all your video needs!

Important! - Though the below instructions work for the iPod Touch, thank you to “Shade” (and StumbleUpon!) I wanted to alert you all to the fact that Ziphone makes irreversible changes to the iPod and the iPhone’s bootloader.  Look into iLiberty as an alternative! (Thank’s Shade!)

If you’re like me you had to get the new iPod touch.  The mini-wide screen movie player is awesome, the nifty web browser is nice and I can’t complain about the email and notepad features, but I want games, WiFi tools, the works!!

Well, lets do it, lets UNLOCK (also known as “Jailbreaking,” and I haven’t a clue why) the iPod touch!

So I’m going to make this as easy as possible…

PreFlight Stuff…

First off, know that you can COMPLETELY undo these changes.  Yes, that’s right, you can completetly undo anything we do in the next few steps.

So that aside be sure that your iPod can sync with iTunes.  More than likely if you have ever synced music to your iPod this is already done.  So you can jump ahead to the next section.  Just know that if iTunes can’t see your iPod, the stuff below will not work.

The Unlock

So lets download the software you need.  If you are using a PC, you can download the unlocking software directly from this link.  (As of this post, it is a safe download, no virus’ or junk like that.)  If you use a Mac or the link above doesn’t work you can find the original site at http://download.ziphone.org/

When the download finishes go ahead and open the file.  You may see something that “resembles” an error and you can just hit “OK” (see image below)

(If… and ONLY if… you don’t see the next window you will need this software to continue.)

Next you will be asked to unzip the files.  You can change the location if you like, but you can just click Unzip. (see below)

Pretty easy so far right? Right.

Alright, next connect your ipod to your computer.  Just like you do when you’re going to sync it with iTunes.  When you see the window below click “Jailbreak” to start the process.  (Don’t worry about the other junk, it’s for the iPhone.)

That’s it.  In a few minuts you will have a new icon on your iPod touch home screen (AKA: SpringBoard) named “Installer.”  From there you can add and remove new applications!  Have fun!

Pretty much everyone this day in age has a high speed internet connection. Well, here is yet another way to take advantage of it for little or no cost!

Backing up your computer can be an annoying task. Given that if you want to do it “properly” you need to back up often and you need to store the files off site (in case of fire or theft.) No one has time for this. I usually just ask my self “if I can’t open this file tomorrow, how screwed am I?” If the answer doesn’t send me running to the store to buy a pack of blank DVD’s I generally write it off as not a big deal. But disasters do happen and always when you least expect it! So how can you appease the backup gods and still keep your sanity? Online backups!

List of backup services:

• Mozy - Get 2 gigs free or unlimited for $49.50/Year!
• Carbonite - $49.50/Year, Unlimited Space
• iDrive - $49.50/Year, 150GB or 2 gigs free!

These services allow you to store your files online at an off site location. They all run in the background so they don’t interfere with what your doing and most importantly they are AUTOMATED! So you can now sleep easy knowing that if you wake up tomorrow and everything is gone your just a few clicks away from re-downloading all your valuable data.

So I got the Callee RC: 0×80040154 error while using Virtualbox on Fedora 9.  The fix was pretty easy though, just had to remove some files from my /tmp/ directory.

sudo rm -rf /tmp/.vbox*

VirtualBox (AKA: Free version of VMWare [well not really...]) is a piece of open source software available through SunMicrosystems (I think…) that allows you to run another OS on top of your current OS (with a few limitations.)

So lets talk about what you’re going to need.

First you need a Host Operating System.  This is the opperating system you boot into.  Most of you will be using Windows though you will notice that in the screenshot above I’m using Fedora and I’m running Vista in a window.

Next you will need the free VirtualBox software.  Install it!

Lastly you are going to need a Guest Operating System (to install on top of your current OS).  I used Vista and you can use anything you like.  If you are not familiar with Linux I suggest playing around with it.  A great place to start is Ubuntu. Or just pop in an old version of Windows.

This isn’t really a guide, rather it is just a jumping off point for you to burn lots of time (as I did) but if you run into any problems drop me a comment or an email and I’ll try to get you through the install and setup!

Have fun!

Fedora Core 9 is out, and its great!

I’ve migrated 3 people SO FAR to Fedora over Vista…  Microsoft is not the only option, save yourself $700 on MS licensing and try Linux (you can’t beat free!)

Get Fedora!

Does anyone even care what goes on the http://www.mhpcc.hpc.mil/ website? 

Google sees way too much.

AVG AntiVirus is a great free AntiVirus program. They do have a for pay version, but I doubt that many home users will need it. Personally I use the AVG Antivirus Free edition on my on PC (Windows Vista) and it works very well.

You can can find the freedownload at AVG AntiVirus’ website.

Installation is fast and simple. Be sure to remove any other antivirus software you may have on your computer already though.