How to Jailbreak Your iPhone4S or iPad2 With Absinthe

Warning: Backup of your iPhone 4S through iTunes before proceeding, because you may lose Camera Roll during this process.

Untethered Jailbreak iPhone 4S over iOS 5.0.1 with Absinthe

Step-1

Download Absinthe, extract its contents and double click “Absinthe” app icon to launch it

Step-2

Connect your iPhone 4S to computer through USB

Step-3

Click on “Jailbreak” button

Step-4

Absinthe will take you through several steps of the jailbreak process, so don’t worry and just pass those patiently like the Initial data sending, Restoring in progress, iPhone 4S reboot, Wait to finish booting, Preparing jailbreak data, and Sending payload data

Step-5

“Almost done” message will display on Absinthe screen

Step-6

On Homescreen of your iPhone 4S, locate Absinthe icon and tap on that

Step-7

If you find an error message because of server down, then tap on “Settings” app on home screen of your iPhone 4S and turn on VPN

Step-8

Configuration error message will display, but wait for a minute and your iPhone 4S will reboot

“Cydia” will display on your iPhone 4S home screen and done.

Is E-billing Safe For You?

Many companies out there would prefer that their customers switch to e-billing, it cuts down on their paper and postage costs but is it any good for the customer?

The first thing on my mind about this issue is “what happens if you don’t get a bill when it’s expected?” – The company in question is relieved from all responsibility in this case. If you don’t get your bill in time to pay it, it’s your fault for not calling them and finding out how much you should send them. It’s the same situation if you have pre-authorized payment. It’s your job to make sure these companies get paid, you even have to sign a paper to that effect. However if they are slow putting it in the mail, they are responsible for providing you your costs.

The second thing on my mind about this is, “what about if you can’t afford internet anymore?” – Tough luck, you better keep your internet if you plan on having access to your bills. Although they will tell you that you can just head over to your local library and use the computers there, I have to question the security of that. How secure are those computers at the library? How do you know that a key logger (a program that records every keystroke made on the keyboard, including your username and passwords!) hasn’t been installed on the computer by the last person to use the computer? Maybe they come in once a week to pickup all their new passwords, they could even have the computer email them once a week, however that would be more suspicious, it could still be done.

It’s your choice but it’s one more way that corporations are shifting their responsibilities to their customers. BTW, North Bay Hydro is giving away an iPad or $300. It shows how desperate they are to get you to switch over.

What is patch Tuesday?

Patch Tuesday is the day that Microsoft decided that it would send out updates to all of it’s operating systems. However windows XP doesn’t receive these anymore because it’s over 10 years old and Microsoft feels that this is long enough to support an old operating system. Windows 7 is a much better OS in my opinion. It’s faster, prettier, and more logical to use. It’s also much more compatible with older hardware than Windows Vista. Also if you buy the professional or the ultimate version you get a free copy of Windows XP to use within 7. I’ve never found a use for XP mode, however if you need to keep old hardware then XP mode was designed for you.

A lot of people choose to not upgrade their computers because they think that the old stuff works just fine, well they’re mostly right. However hackers and malicious software designers love this mentality. It means that they don’t have to write new programs all the time to keep up with all the new updates that Microsoft puts out to thwart their attempts and stealing your system or causing you to go out and purchase a repair from a technician, who in turn lets you know that you should upgrade your system anyway!

So think a few minutes about how often you upgrade your electronics and consider having a professional put together a system that’s tailored for your needs and budget. Just keep in mind that you get what you pay for in the computer world, if you buy a budget computer you’re going to need to replace it every year. There are a few computers who last but become obsolete quickly after a year. Spend a few more dollars and have a quality system that may cost more in the short term but will outlast even the most expensive computer at those big box stores.

Give us a call or send us an email to get that perfect system for you. You’ll be glad that you did.

Adding the Hackulous Repo and Installing Installous on your iPhone or iPad.

I recently had a customer come in and ask about jailbreaking the iPhone and I really didn’t have a site that I could send them to as jailbreaking is quite simple, as long as you do it correctly. I’ve jailbroken hundreds of times and I’ve also run into almost every problem there is. I’ve spent hours searching on how to fix these problems and compiled a list of common problems and the solutions to these. I won’t be releasing this information, it is freely available on the web however there is a lot of misinformation and mistakes out there too.

Then I though I should charge a small fee and do it myself. So I’m now charging  a $10 fee to jailbreak an iDevice (which includes fixing any problem that may occur) or $50 to teach someone step by step how to do it themselves because it will take about an hour to do so. This will include common ways to unbrick a device that stops working. Also how to check if you should update to the latest version and when a jailbreak will be available for the latest software update.

As for the customer, he asked about trying out software.

Here’s a tutorial on installing Installous and finding LogMeIn Ignition in it, it’s also a sample of what the tutorial would be like that I would run any customer who would like to partake in the jailbreaking course.

First run Cydia (pronounced /sɪˈdi.ə/). (The red circle with the number 2 in it means I have two updates waiting for me in Cydia).

Once open wait until it finishes it’s updating. It’s common for it to take about a minute.

Then touch Manage.

While in Manage touch Sources.

Once in Sources touch Edit.

Now you’re in Edit mode. Touch Add.

Fill in the Cydia source for Hackulous, which is http://cydia.hackulo.us.

Touch Add Source and wait. A little while later Cydia will stop doing things and let you click on the Hackulous Source. Which will bring you to this screen.

Add AppSync for 4.0+, Hackulous Security, and Installous to your install queue.

Once all are queued, enter the queue and start them downloading.

This will aggregate all the changes, click confirm when you are ready.

Cydia will make the changes and then prompt you to either restart or go back to cydia. If it asks you to restart then do so, if not then press the home button and head back to the springboard (Home screen). If all went well, and it should, now you should have an icon that says Installous. Tap that.

I was asked to help someone try out Logmein Ignition. I Love it and have since bought it.To try it out, open Installous and search for Logmein.

So now touch LogMeIn Ignition and then touch download.

Pick the first download on the list.

Click on Regular if it’s fileape, or if it’s filedude they’ll ask you to solve a captcha. If it’s mediafire, all you have to do is click the download now button. Mediafire sometimes sends you to other pages, if this happens just hit back and try again. Usually the second time works.

Once it’s done downloading, you’re done. It’ll install by itself and you can exit Installous and try out your new program. Please don’t abuse this system by not buying the apps. If you find yourself using them support the developers by buying their programs and leaving feedback on their webpages.

Hope that helps!

Accessing a Website Behind a Firewall

I was working on a computer today and the person I was working for had a complaint about their workplace. Apparently these employees aren’t allowed to access certain sites, not because they’re malicious or full of malware. Just because the company didn’t want them wasting time at work while they were waiting for some work to do.

I told this person that they could bypass the firewall that was blocking all these sites. Well this person was quite intrigued and asked me to tell them how.

I thought, I could tell them how but it would be easier to put it in a blog so they could follow the steps right at work or if they couldn’t access the blog from work they could at least print it out and bring it there.

So, I promised I’d write this page for this person and their coworkers.

Here’s how to do it; (You can click on the pictures to make them bigger if you need to)

Open up your browser and hop on over to http://www.proxybrowsing.com/.

Scroll down until your page looks like this.

Click on the options until they are checked like mine.

Enter your URL here.

Enjoy and if ever you need any help with your computers drop me a line so I can come help you out. Check out our website for pricing at http://northbaycomputerrepair.com.

This is for informational purposes only. Please keep in mind that this might be against your work policy. I can’t be held responsible or liable for anything that happens due to the use of this information.

Combine Two Internet Connections on Windows 7

North Bay Computer Repair

I pay for two connections from my ISP, Vianet, and I felt that I should be able to use them both to maximize my bandwidth. The only program that really needs all this bandwidth is Utorrent.

So I set out looking for an easy solution to connect two connections to act as one. I found many forums stating that Linux was the only way to do that. Some people told me that I would need to buy a two WAN router.

Other people said to setup two ethernet cards to one computer and run it bonded, but that would only get me load-balancing on the connection and link redundancy. This isn’t what I wanted.

I finally found the solution. It doesn’t work the way you probably need it to but it maxes out both connections on programs that use more than one connection to the internet, like utorrent, and usenet.

So here’s how I did it.

First I’m using windows 7 (this is what this post is designed for, I’m not sure if it will work with other operating systems)

Second I have two routers connecting to two modems on DSL.

I have the first router configured with an IP of 192.168.1.50.

The second router is 192.168.1.51.

They’re both using PPPoE login.

Here’s where it gets tricky. I played around a bit and found that this works, after weeks of reading.

Open up your adapter properties, then click on IPv4. Open the properties of that. Now go into advanced. In there you should setup two IP addresses. Mine are 192.168.1.2 and 192.168.52. (Don’t forget to open your ports in both routers or your computer won’t be discoverable on the internet)

I set the subnet mask to 255.255.255.0 for both IP’s.

The default gateway needs to be set for both routers as well. One at 192.168.1.50 and the other at 192.168.51.

This will make your ethernet card connect to both routers at the same time, it will provide both load balancing and link redundancy as well as increase your speeds with programs that use multiple connections to the internet.

So click OK a bunch of times and it should be working.

Happy networking!

How To Setup Sympatico Internet On A Linksys Router

1. Open Internet Explorer.

2. Type 192.168.1.1 into the address bar and hit the Enter key. The default IP is 192.168.1.1.

3. You will receive a login prompt. Type in the current password for the router. If it is still in default configuration, the user name will be “root” then type "admin" in the Password field to gain entry. The user name might also need to be kept blank. Try both, see which one works for you.

4. The first screen you should see is the Basic Setup page. Click the down arrow on the Internet Connection Type drop-down list and choose PPPoE.

5. In the username field type in your B1 number in all lower case. (e.g. b1tzkj22)

6. In the password field type in your password to connect to Sympatico.

7. All other settings will remain the same. Click the Save Settings button.

8. The router will now attempt to save these settings and connect to the internet. Click the Continue button that appears.

9. If the connection was completed successfully you should now be able to browse the internet without having to dial in each time you want to browse.

10. Enjoy hassle free browsing, brought to you by Moddin’ Man.