Mac OS X only: Dashquit is an elegant response to an niggling issue many Mac users have known for years—that the Dashboard widget screen, while awfully convenient sometimes, can also be a memory-sucker. When activated, the Dashquit widget shows you how much memory the Dashboard feature is using at the moment, and offers a big, bold “Stop” button to shut it down (after confirmation). It’s basically a graphical way to perform the terminal commands that shut down Dashboard, which is going to be a lot more convenient for many folks with less memory. Dashquit 3.0 is a free Leopard-only download and uses 50% less memory than it predecessors, but a 10.4-friendly version can also be found at the link.

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written by Jose Castillo

I love that OS X automatically fires up iPhoto when I plug in my digital camera. It’s one of the Mac’s many little touches that make it such a pleasure to use.

But ever since I got an iPhone, I’ve been frustrated that plugging it in opens up iPhoto, too. The combination of iPhoto and iTunes opening and syncing slows my computer to a crawl. And it’s particularly painful when most of the time I just want to sync my address book or music.

Fortunately it’s pretty easy to work around this annoyance. Keep reading to see how you can teach your Mac to open iPhoto when you plug in your camera but not your phone.

I recently stumbled across an option in Image Capture’s preferences that lets you select any application to open when a camera is connected. That gave me an idea: what if I could tell it to open a special application that would check to see which camera I’d plugged in? Then that application could in turn open iPhoto only if I’d plugged in my Digital Rebel.

It turns out you can do all of this using the command line and a little bit of AppleScript. Here’s how:

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written by Jose Castillo

As many have you have emailed to tell us (thanks everyone), hacker teen wonder George Hotz a.k.a. GeoHot, of the hardware iPhone unlock heard ’round the world, has apparently made something unexpected: a software-only unlocking procedure for the iPhone’s 1.1.2 and 1.1.3 firmware versions. With George’s tools in hand (freely downloadable from his website), iPhone owners in non-supported countries should now be able to work their way up to the current release, wiggly icons and all.

It’s worth noting, as Endgadget has already mentioned, that you unlock your phone entirely at your own risk; never mind the fact that a future update may brick you (although we hope not!). If the procedure seems daunting — it involves downgrading to the 1.02 firmware to start — blogger Pinky’s Brain is working on a walkthrough that should simplify things (link via Apple 2.0). The ModMyiPhone boards also indicate that a version of the unlock, runnable on a 1.1.1 jailbroken phone, is packaged and in the repository there.

Is it worth diving into a new unlock tug-of-war with the official SDK (and, presumably, more exploits closed off with updates) in the near future? Guess that depends on how much you like having your iPhone working in the remote corners of the globe.

written by Jose Castillo

Mr. GEOrge HOTz did it again. He just loosed a world of hurt on AT&T with a software unlock for 1.1.3 iPhones. That’s right, the software is said to work on any fresh from the Apple store, shrink-wrapped iPhone sporting the latest 1.1.3 firmware and 4.6 bootloader. Something the AnySim unlock can’t do. GeoHot’s instructions (and dev/elite team smack talk) posted after the break. We haven’t tested yet so as always, take care.

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geohot's 1.1.2 software unlock
yes, this is what you have all been waiting for
now fixed to support 1.1.3

1. Download these:
gunlock and the secpack from http://iphonejtag.blogspot.com/ or the blog 
the 4.02.13 fls from http://george.zjlotto.com/index.php/baseband/

2. Downgrade your phone to 1.0.2. See all the great tutorials online to do this.
Your baseband won't be downgraded, this is normal.
This will probably work on other versions too, but 1.0.2 doesn't lose wifi on bb access.

3. Kill CommCenter and run "gunlock secpack ICE04.02.13_G.fls"

4. Reload CommCenter. For some reason my phone was in brick mode. Use the elite team bricktool to get out.

5. Enjoy your 1.1.2 OTB unlocked iPhone

Now who'd have thought it'd be this easy  

This release is no thanks to elite/dev
I wish they would share like the old days.
I don't believe everyone in the team is like this, but come on guys.

If you want to contribute to me, the person who discovered these exploits and wrote this tool
paypal geohot@gmail.com

written by Jose Castillo

Both Fortune and Marketwatch are saying that all the unlocked iPhones, which make up about a third of the total phones sold, may be costing Apple $300 million in future revenue kickbacks from cellphone providers. And if Apple doesn’t stop the unlocking madness, what’s the incentive for a provider to pony up that revenue sharing in the first place?

[Via Gizmodo]

written by Jose Castillo