My iPhone 3GS Unlocking Endeavor!

After some Googling, found this link which seems to work for many: http://www.blogsdna.com/5468/how-to-unlock-iphone-3g3gs-3-1-2-os-using-blacksn0w.htm

My phone wasn't jailbroken before, so the first thing I did, according to the website was to download the Blackra1n software here: http://www.blogsdna.com/5465/download-blackra1n-rc3-to-jailbreak-unlock-iphone-3g3gs-3-1-2.htm

Now this application looks pretty shady - just one button in the interface:

WTF!

Anyway, went ahead and clicked on the make it ra1n button. Following are the screen shots of what happened next:

As soon as this was over, iTunes popped up a message saying:
I for a second thought this was a message from the Blackra1n and I went ahead to do the restore. I think this was unnecessary. What I actually should have done is to disable the iTunes helper from the background processes. This was what I found after doing some more reading on the net! Anyway, my iTunes is restoring my iPhone now. Waiting for it to get back!

Once done, I restored the phone to the latest backup which I had done before going ahead with this unlocking act of mine!

Repeated the Blackra1n again.. Now my iPhone is restarting as mentioned in the website. After the restart, you'll find that there's an App in the phone called blackra1n. Open it, and there are three packages as shown below:

Check all of them, and tap install on the top right. iPhone will now download the packages and install them.

If everything goes fine, I'm just one step away from unlocking my phone - restart! Hope it works!

Now installed packages, but it got stuck at "Unpacking Sn0w". No idea why. So I exit the app. Opened it again, and installed Sn0w again. This time, it downloaded, installed and gave me a message saying iPhone is unlocked and comm services restarted. No need to reboot.

It was only now that I removed my AT&T sim and inserted my AIRCEL local sim. It took a while to acquire network, but it worked! Restarted my phone just to confirm - Aircel it is, and I'm able to make calls! Yoyo!!

And by the way, the blackra1n app installs Cydia - an appstore for thirdy party applications, and Rock - haven't quite figured out what that is!

Now testing other functionalities -

Wifi - Oops doesn't work! No problem, just reset network settings from Settings - General - Reset. Once this is done, it works fine!

Safari - Works

Mail - Works

Facebook - Works

Cydia - Works

Rock - Works

Phone - Works

SMS - Works

iTunes Syncing - Works

All other apps - Work as they are supposed to.

Speed - No difference from how it was previously. But now, I have an entire range of third party (some even cooler than what's available on App Store) to try out from.

Restarted phone. Connects back fine to Aircel as well as my Wifi network. So far so good! Kudos to Blackra1n and the developer! Good job George Hotz!

Summarizing steps for a perfect unlock:

1. Back up and Restore your phone to OS 3.1.2.

2. Once you've restored you phone, you're done with iTunes. So exit the program. Force Quit (Mac) or End Process (Windows) the iTunes Helper process.

3. Download and run the Blackra1n RC3 from the above mentioned link. I suggest you also go through the website for a better understanding of the Backra1n "features".

4. Let Blackra1n do its job, and wait for the iPhone to restart.

5. Locate and run the Blackra1n app, and install all the three packages.

6. Insert your new sim, and enjoy!

I've mentioned some of the problem I faced while unlocking; so if you happen to face similar issues, you know what to do!

The Return Policy!!

I love this system of use and return here in the US.. Let's me try out all the expensive stuff without fearing about "what if I don't like it" scenarios! If I don't I can always go and give it back at the stores!! 
That's basically how I bought my first MacBook Pro.. And I fell in love with it! I'll have to write a special post on that love affair, but for now it's enough to say that I decided not to retun it! Next was a 1 TB harddisk for use with a Hitachi ethernet hub which let's me share the harddisk over my WiFi network. Nah, wasn't too great. I'd instead go for an Apple Time Capsule! So returned it!
My latest enthu is with headphones.. Noise cancelling ones. Wanted active noise cancelling ones mainly, but came across the Dr Dre with Monster Beats audio cable at Best Buy. I've heard quite a bit about this one so bought it! Initial evaluation - good bass! And then you listen to it more carefully you'll understand that the bass is too much that it actually masks off the huger frequency voice and other instruments' music. Obviously I didn't wanna keep it any more. So the next obvious choice when it comes to audio equipment, and in particular active noise cancelling ones - Bose baby! After that it's a no brainer.. Sped through traffic to get my Bose Acoustic Noise Cancelling QC 15 headphones. And I'm loving this one! 
Typical Bose sound clarity combined with absolutely moving bass reproduction moves your soul, not just your ear drums! Talk about 'feeling music'! Absolutely amazing pair of headphones. Will definitely have it for a while. 
Time will tell if it's worth te $300 I spent on it (excluding taxes that is!)! Wow, life rocks! ;)
 

A kutti dedication!

Wow! Can't believe it's been over a year since I last posted!
So much has happened in this short while.. so many places visited, so many friends made, some special relationships gained that I will cherish for the rest of my life, and some broken may be for good. Things I expected, and many I didn't! So many cool stuff and enriching experiences that I'd always be proud of having been a part of. Stuff I learnt about myself, good, bad, interesting, boring.. It's been such a wonderful and exciting journey this past one year. Thanks to everyone for having made it happen!

Dedicated to Aakriti, Sharvil, Gaurav, Sasidhar, Sowmya, Anjum, Raghu, Shipra, Terror, Rahul, Angad, Harini, and of-course my family! :)

Singapore with Selp and Murali!

Pics..



Ice skating video!

Pulao Ubin

A beautiful island near singapore covered with forests, around a centrally located quarry area. This trip happened a long time back! Here's a video of all of us having lunch..

Wall E!!

At the end of Phase I, this is what our custom Scrap Wall E looks like!

CHYK Camp

A really lovely song, for reasons beyond explanation! ;)

Mere Khayalon Ki Malika

Mere Khayalon Ki Malika

Chaaron Taraf Teri Chhaiyyan Re

Thaam Le Aa Ke Bainyya

Chaaron Taraf Teri Chhaiyyan Re

Chhaiyyan...



Aayi, Phoolon Ke Ras Mein Naha Ke

Layi, Bheeni Si Khushboo Chura Ke

Teri Aankhon Mein Hai, Halka Sa Nasha

Tera Roop Meri, Nazron Mein Basa

Mere Khayalon Ki Malika ...



Jadoo, Chhaya Hai Tera Jadoo

Kaabu, Dil Pe Nahin Hai Kaabu

Sapnon Ki Pari, Itna To Bata

Rehti Hai Kahan, Tera Naam Hai Kya

Mere Khayalon Ki Malika ...

The kids room!!

Yeah.. That's our room!!

Palmtop time!!

Third house in three months!!

Wow!! What a stay it's been so far! We are in the third house in the three months! Nice family.. a husband,wife and three kids! Looks like these guys have really taken singapore government's encouragement for having three kids per family, seriously!! Me and sharvil thought we were gonna have a tough time without internet.. But these three kids kept us more than busy for the past couple of days.. We learnt so much stuff from them, that we're just not able to believe how these three days went so fast! Pokemon cards, Pokemon games (really weird ones!!), playing tennis with basket ball, playing volley ball with a soft ball!! Truly, it was really difficult to put up with these guys' enthu! It was fun though!! Akash, Varunesh and Thanush.. ages are like 9, 7 and 5 years!! Each one pulls you from each direction first.. you'll really need to try hard and unite their interests, and then things move on smoothly for a while, till after a short while, the same thing repeats! So the best thing to do: praise varunesh's artistic skills.. he goes to the room, takes a paper and pencil, starts drawing mickey mouse! One down, the remaining two can be tackled on a two-on-two basis!! :P It isn't that bad actually! Just exaggerating stuff! Nevertheless, these guys are great fun!! Thanks to them that we didn't get bored for the past few days!!
Next, coming to the IT fair that's been going on for the past few days.. I haven't seen so much crownd at any other place in singapore. For the first time I see people rubbing against each other as they walk! Four floors of stalls, all kinds of electronics at prices that'll tempt you into buying them at the first site! And lovely looking girls presenting some of the items there, that if you aren't focussing on the product, she's definitely gonna lure you into buying it!! ;)
We've been window shopping in the fair for the past few days.. going around and checking out the various costs, and ultimately ended up collecting a hundred plus pamphlets.. amazingly colourfully illustrated, with all attractive costs! Nothing much to be mentioned about the first two days.. So I'll directly come to today, Saturday.
Sharvil was gonna buy a camera and a hard disk from what we'd seen in the past few days. I was planning to buy a digital photo frame.. Sony was the best that I'd seen there for a 199SGD. Actually not worth so much, I checked in other shops, I could get better features at lesser costs. That made me land up on the only other option I had.. The ASUS palmtop PC. For a sexy 398SGD, we get a mini laptop extremely portable and powerful, cool looking, performing really good! Well, I got this not for me, but for my girl friend's mom! But now am really considering giving my laptop to her and retaining this baby with me!! It's really an awesome piece of engineering, both in terms of cost and features - the best deal, I would say, in the entire fair, was this!
With a tinee tiny 7 inch screen, I had some reservations about it, but its GUI turned out to be classic! It runs linux - i was really thinking about putting XP on my own later - but now i really think that would be a very very bad choice! Coz this one, inspite of running Linux, has the best of both worlds to offer! No more clumsy linux software installation crap, and no more of XPs slow booting or programs loading irritation. It's fast, and doesn't hang, typical of Linux, and its user interface is so well organized, that you really have what you need at your finger tips! Six tabs is all it takes to organize your entire stuff, and cool big icons for software launch make it very convenient for using them.
Coming to the hardware part - a Mac book type, full size QWERT keyboard, 3 USB ports, built in WiFi adapter supporting 802.11G, an inbuilt SD card reader, ethernet port, projector/external monitor connector, built in mic and webcam, a cool and well performing touch pad, a 7 inch LCD screen, and hi definition audio output speakers, an 8GB solid state hard disk, Intel Mobile Processor, and a very comfortable 1GB of RAM, all packed into a very cute and under 1Kg package!! Talk about the ideal business man's companion - here it is!! 8GB is not much, but pretty much to manage word documents, audio files and a few videos, just the kind of stuff that my mom in law's job profile demands!! :P
And how do I know about its performance? Well, this whole blog is being composed on the cutee!!
Coming to composing this blog - what about the internet?! Well, we got a Linksys wireless router from Cisco, that we configured with our owner's modem and PC, and broke our heads over the net not connecting coz we were entering the wrong password every time (which we found out after reinstalling twice, and spending a whopping 2 hours on the problem!!), and finally got it fixed!! And wifi on the ASUS EEE PC (now I reveal the name!) is damn good!
If you want this to sound more like a product review, well I'd conclude by giving it a 9.5/10, or a 4.5 stars on 5, the remaining 0.5 in both cases deducted coz of the small size of hard disk, which could have been slightly bigger. Coming to that, the ASUS has just over 5GB for use, rest taken by the OS and other software stuff.. But if you're looking for the best deal for your small budget, ASUS EEE PC would be the ideal one!
Pics on the new house and the ASUS baby coming up soon.. keep checking!!

The Others? Really?

I talk about it.. a lot. I say people don't do anything about it. While I was reading a blog about how someone felt about it, I thought "What's the use? Is there anything you are doing about it? Why even talk?".
I think about it many times.. just say to myself that I'll do something about it, and simply and conveniently forget about it.
What about those who've dedicated their lives serving the poor? How much have they sacrificed in their lives? And why did they or do they do it? It's not always that all of them have the heart to help. Some do it to profit themselves, be it in terms of respect in the society, or monetary. But the question to be asked is not "Why are they doing it?", rather, it is "Why am I not doing it?".
I think of reasons, many very convenient to write, absolutely logical to believe, seemingly true to just ignore the fact that all of us, as humans are bound to do something about them. I'm obviously not gonna put them in here to convince myself that what I'm doing is right, or justify my inability to do anything. No matter how much I don't want to think about it, it's there, within, around, everywhere.
How much I'd like to say "There's something I'll definitely do about it in the future", which is just a lame excuse to get away from it, I'd rather just put it after I've done it.

The second house in two months!

St john and kusu.. the photo blog.

@ St Johns and Kusu Islands!

Sentosa Fun!

Sentosa.. A must visit place if you come here! Don't miss the fun!

The fun we had at Sentosa!


Check out these videos of a part of the fountain show!

A very cute video!

Tried a lot to get this video, which i'd seen in eashwar's iPod for the first time. I found it real cute. After that have been trying to get it, but never did. Until a couple of days back when i found it as a status message of someone in my list!
got the video on youtube. here it is!

Cheers!

Me, gaurav trying a bottoms up with a beer @ Simlim square.. it's come out real cool! Thanks to sharvil for this brilliant video!

The illegal pictures! (Cam not allowed in office!)

Infineon in GoogleMaps

Infineon in close up. (A photostitch, 6 photos together form this one)

My Cubicle!

Waiting for bus to Kallang MRT!

Near our house.. tried a new way. Found some nice places!

Simplifying Things!

Well, it's not that I don't have time to crap here. Nor is it entirely that I'm too lazy to write! Just that I thought, after receiving some constructive criticism from my blog readers (wow! that's sounds cool!), that I'd make things easy for them, by putting in a lot less text (essay, some may call my prev. blogs, not realizing that they're the ones who are either jealous or lazy!). So here's the try... Picture blogs! I really don't like the way they appear here. But it's okay for now! If anyone knows any site where i can blog pictures as well as text (like blogspot- should be fine) do let me know!

The professionals returning home!

Can you believe that's a cat!

HDB apartments (a four second exposure pic!)

Outside Block 71 (our block)

Infineon's VoIP chip.. Inca. I took the pic! cool right?

Chopsticks expert tutorials on how to eat Chicken Noodles with soya sauce and an awesome soup!

By the way... this is the dish.

What remains after the session. Pretty clean uh?!

Cheers! Nice dinner!

Chinese and the romantic pier

Well, as promised yesterday, here are some snaps i got from the net...

The hawkers (food courts) near our place

Thats' ECP again... Whoever took that picture-you rock!

An aparment looking exactly like ours, with clothes hanging out in the Singapore drying style!

And ya.. about today.. since this has become our usual routine, i wouldn't stress much on our uselessness!! Got up at 0921hrs for a visit that we were to give to the ministry of manpower for our visa, and for an appointment that sharvil had with his supervisor at 1000hrs! This time we didn't panic, coz we now know precisely what's to be done! We tried calling the supervisor, but we didn't have the number. So called the secretary instead, and asked her to inform him! 

Took bath (which was compulsory as we didn't take bath the prev day inspite of a really sweaty day!) and left to MOM by taxi (ya, company's refund still holds!). Got the visa thing done, and came to office. We were told that the meeting with the supervisor was at 1500 hrs. So went to the cubicle and got stuff ready to submit to the HR. Submitted, and went to the bank to open an account. This bank is called the POSB. Excellent service here.. within 15 mins we had the account ready, pass book and ATM card at hand! That was really cool!

Came back to office, had lunch (which was really good.. mutton, fish, rice n all..), came back to cubicle. While sharvil was trying to fix his comp with help from the IT helpline here, i was browsing and mailing ppl, coz my supervisor was on leave today!

After that there's nothing much to add.. slept for a while, woke up and took the company bus to MRT and came home. 

The evening me and sharvil went jogging to the beach, about 3-4 kms., and jumped into the water! Had a great time there.. running along the shoreline, writing names on the sea shore, and see them get washed away by water.. all this at 1930 hrs! Then half naked, we took a shower there, and went to the pier and started chatting for a while with the wind blowing at out face! 

Wow! I should be here with my girl friend man! I miss her so much, more so when i see other couples here... which is everywhere and all the time, except the office!! I so wish she was here. Seriously, for those who read this blog, and plan to come to singapore, you should do so with your girl friend or boy friend.. it's gonna be the best thing you've ever done in life! And remember to pay a visit in your 20s itself, and not after you get married with family n all. Of course you could come then, but that should be after you've made your 20s trip! And for those who are in their 30 plus, better later than never! :)

We had an awesome dinner today... Coming back from the pier, we stopped at a hawkers' and ordered some chinese stuff.. What follows may be skipped by pure vegetarians.. non veggies read on! 

First we ordered this ham-mushroom soup. First it tasted pretty weird, but with a bit more of salt and pepper, it was good.. mmm! Then arrived our noodle dish: Alio-e-Olio! These were the ingredients... Noodles, prawns, fish (all boiled, and with very l'll masala), and for the best part... the part that made us try it... the oyster, also boiled (couldn't find any masala on it though!) But it tasted pretty good. I mean, we liked the taste. But am sure most wouldn't like the taste! Probably we wouldn't have too, had we not been hungry and in the enthu to taste something different! But nevertheless, the stuff was good.. And here's a hint on how to eat chinese food stuff.. Don't try experiment or open (if possible) to see what's inside a particular stuff you've been served! Seriously, if you'd seen the oyster, you'd definitely, if not puke for in the worst case, atleast loose your appetite for sure! But I was determined to! So i saw it, and inspite of that had it! But it tastes fine! Much like meat... But you can feel the parts inside! Yuck? But it was indeed a 'wow' dish!!

So after that lovely dinner, we had a coke, got some really huge plums in a nearby fruit store, and came home. The plums were just absolutely tasty man! Never tasted plums like those before!

Had a long chat with jini, and my wingies selp and terror, who are planning to come here this october. Let's hope it works out fine!

And 0134 now... I don't wanna think about tomorrow! All I know is that neither of us is feeling sleepy at the moment! And that I, though not in a mood to blog just a few minutes ago, am in a don't stop typing mood now! 

Some more pics... 

An MRT Station

The Esplanade - Theatres on the bay

Some more pier stuff...

Google Map - Pier Close up.

Google Maps - The pier, long shot

That pic must have been taken at sometime in the morning... imagine that at 1900 hrs... truly a a place you'll wanna take your love to!