I could totally see myself loading up my tablet PC with a whole bunch of digital content like this before I got on a plane.

And for all of you that have unibody MacBooks and love the new trackpad, Safari 4 does use the three finger swipe gestures for navigating forward and backward (though not for going to the top and bottom of the page like firefox does).

I’ve been using firefox for a long time and was a huge fan, but I’m finally making the switch and I’m feeling pretty happy about it.

I just jailbroke my phone last night, but the experience was far from smooth.  I jailbroke my phone 3 times, and the first 2 times my phone couldn’t get any service form AT&T.  I’m posting this tutorial thread to help others overcome any of the same issues that I had.

Step 1
Download PwnageTool from the iPhone Dev Team.  Read that post in its entirety before following my tutorial.  They have some special rules/reasons not to use PwnageTool.  Continue at your own risk!

Step 2
Download the latest version of the iPhone 3.0 software through iTunes.  If you upgraded your phone through iTunes you shouldn’ t have to download it again.  You just need to make sure that you’re using the same computer when you run PwnageTool (PwnageTool will automatically find the file for you).

NOTE: If you’re a developer and you’re having issues jailbreaking using the GM seed you should try using the later release 3.0 OS.  If you’ve never actually downloaded the 3.0 firmware through iTunes then plug you phone into iTunes and click Restore.  This should make iTunes start downloading the latest version.  When the application starts downloading just unplug your phone that it doesn’t actually restore it.

Step 3
Run PwnageTool.  You can leave it in beginner mode – it should recognize your 3.0 ipsw file you downloaded from iTunes that way. When PwnageTool asks you if you’ve ever jailbroken your phone before, just say no so that it takes you through the DFU steps.

Step 4
Open iTunes.  iTunes should recognize your phone as a phone in recovery mode.  Alt/option + click the restore button.  This should prompt you with an open file dialog.  Select the ipsw file that you saved from PwnageTool.

Step 5
Wait for everything to finish – you should be golden.

IF YOU’RE NOT GOLDEN/IF SOMETHING DOESN’T WORK:

Did you get an error 1600 or 1604 (or any other error) when you tried to install the custom .ipsw file?  Your phone probably had an issue going into DFU mode.

• Press and hold the power and home buttons for 10 seconds.  Release the buttons.  This turns your phone completely off.
• Wait 5 seconds.  Just to make sure your phone is ready to be turned on again.
• Press the power button again.  This should turn your phone back on in the normal mode.
• Open PwnageTool again and click the “DFU” selection at the top of the app to put your phone into DFU mode again.
• Try installing the ipsw again.

If that still doesn’t work and iTunes gives you an error:

• Rebulid the ipsw file by running PwnageTool again.
• Try installing the ipsw file again.

If your installation of the jailbreak works fine, but then your phone has no reception:

• I’m not sure why this happens, but it happened to me twice.  To fix this I did two things, and I’m not sure which one of them solved my problem: I downloaded the public 3.0 release of the iPhone firmware, and I switched from my unibody MacBook to my old 17″ MacBook.  Things worked fine after this.

If you’re having any problems in general:

• Are you using a unibody MacBook?  These have been said to have issues with DFU mode on the iPhone.  I would try using iTunes on a previous generation MacBook or a different Mac.
• Don’t use the GM seed to jailbreak.

If you have any questions at all please let me know in the comments below!

iPhone OS 3.0 available worldwide June 17th

My weapon of choice this year for the Keynote stream was http://www.macrumorslive.com.  They have a good stream text feed, and an even better streaming pictures feed.  The pictures updated more often than the text, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they caught every slide…  I also listened to the audio stream at http://live.twit.tv.

Without further ado:

iPhone 3GS!

• Same external design, all new internals
• Faster than the 3G.  2.1x faster loading of messaging,  2.4x faster sim city load, 3.6x faster for viewing an excel attachment , 2.9x faster for loading the NYTimes app.
• Brand new Camera: 3 MP, autofocus camera.  Also captures video (finally).  30 fps.  640×480 video.  You can scrub and edit video and send it straight to YouTube, MMS, email, and MobileMe too.  These features are also available for developers to use in their applications.
• Voice dialing
• Digital Compass
• support for Nike+
• Better battery life: 30 hours of music playback, 10 hours of video playback, 12 hours of 2g talk, 5 hours of 3g talk time.
• $199 is the price for the 16Gb.  32Gb $299.  Black and white colors. 3G is still available for $99 dollars!!
• 3GS iPhone is available June 19th.

iPhone OS updates:

• there are 100 new features… Cut/copy/paste/undo (works across all apps), landscape mode in Mail/Notes/Messages, MMS support (send and receive photos/contacts/audio files/locations) in Messages app (29 carriers in 76 countries will support MMS at launch — AT&T not until later this summer), search (mail — even on server, calendars, media, notes), spotlight (search everything in one place — first page of the home screen).
• rent and purchase movies from your iPhone!
• Parental Controls
• Tethering: Share iPhone’s internet connection with your computer (but I’m sure it’s going to be expensive…) Works wired and wireless over bluetooth. Seemless experience.  BUT AT&T DOESN’T SUPPORT IT!!  GARBAGE!
• Javascript is 3x faster.
• Inclusion of right to left languages and others.  Now support more than 30 languages in the iPhone OS.  One of the big advantages of a software keyboard.  They all have portrait and landscape mode keyboards.
• FindMyiPhone.  MobileMe users will be able to log in to MobileMe and find their phone if they lose it!  GPS location and everything!  It’s crazy.  Tons of awesomeness there.  You can play an alert sound from the webpage, and even wipe the data from your phone so that people can’t see the info you’ve got on it.  Then when you find it you can just restore the phone from a backup.
• Peer to peer connectivity over bluetooth!  Available in any application!
• Turn by turn directions and google maps can be integrated into any application.
• Push notification

Updated Laptops: MacBook Pro spec update and the starting price dropped $300.  They also added a 13″ MacBook Pro.

Expose has been updated (the dock at the bottom of the screen): The functionality is more like Windows 7.  You can click and hold an icon in the dock and Expose will show all of the app’s windows.  The same works for dragging things into an application – you can drag items to the dock, have the app’s windows pop up, and the drop it into the correct window.

Exchange 2007 (latest version) is now supported in Mail, iCal, and Address Book!  This is big for all the Mac users that work in large corporate environments that use Exchange. You can even see previews of Microsoft Office documents if you don’t have Office installed.

Managing Humans: Biting and Humorous Tales of a Software Engineering Manager, by Michael Lopp, is a book that derives from Lopp’s personal experience at Apple, Netscape, Symantec, and Borland.  The book is written from the perspective of a fictional character, Rands, who takes you through multiple semi-fictional stories that complement the lessons in the book. Many of the topics in the book also reside in similar form on his blog, Rands In Repose (which you should subscribe to if you haven’t already).  Previously on my blog I posted a book teaser, as well as my first impression of the book after I started reading it.  Now that I’m finished with the book, here is my final verdict…

Entertainment value: 7/10
If I wasn’t learning anything I still would have picked up this book.  The stories are fun to read, even if they are semi-fictional (or maybe especially because they’re semi-fictional).  Lopp takes you through some interesting business situations that are definitely entertaining.  He also introduces some of his own concepts and psychology on subjects such as “NADD” (Nerd Attention Deficit Disorder) and what it means to “be in the zone.”  Both of these topics (and more) were described perfectly – every point he made had me thinking “that’s exactly what I do!”

Learning value: 5-8/10
I’m giving the learning value an interesting score…  somewhere between 5 and 8.  I guess the learning value depends on how much experience you have in the field that Lopp is discussing (the software engineering field).  I personally found this book to be a 7, but I’m young and inexperienced compared to Lopp – I have a lot to learn so it was more valuable to me.

With all of the entertaining, semi-fictional stories that Lopp creates comes a lesson.  The book is split into 34 chapters, or 34 lessons.  Each lesson contains a story or example (or two) and he paints a picture around the reasons why each lesson matters.  The entertainment value keeps you taking each lesson with a little grain of salt – we know that the stories aren’t completely true from the start and we’re expecting a funny situation, so the lesson is very open t.  In my opinion this is better than taking anybody’s advice as law anyway.  I liked that my mind had the freedom to easily adjust the situations in the book to personal situations at my own company.

One place that I feel this book shines is in the Perspective department.  From social situations around the office to building a company and shipping a v1.0 product, Lopp shows his experience in the industry through the light that he sheds on each situation.  I’m the type of person that enjoys understanding a situation from every angle so this book was right up my alley.

Verdict: 8/10
Managing Humans was a great book.  The author, Michael Lopp, made it a fun learning exercise.  I was able to learn and use my imagination at the same time, which too often isn’t the case. The sum of the whole in this case was greater than the sum of its parts.  Instead of finding the book mediocre because he only did so-so in both areas, I found that the combination of entertainment and learning made the book even better.  I recommend this book as a fun and lighthearted learning exercise for anybody in the software development industry.  It definitely shines some light on the perspectives of the different roles in the industry.

Pick it up at Amazon!

It was great meeting Adam Kinney, Scott Barnes, Chris Swenson and Michael Bach for the first time.  Take a look at these guys’ websites.  Smart people worth keeping an eye on if you don’t already.