What is this Jailbreak you speak of?

Ever since I got my iPod Touch I have had it Jailbroken.  People always ask me about it so I thought I would put up a post on what exactly it is and why you should do it.

Jailbreak is the term given to the act of "hacking" your iPhone or iPod Touch. By using the word "hacking" I have given it a negative connotation, when in reality Jailbreaking your iPhone or iPod Touch is simply giving you control over the device you have already paid for.  Apple may have a problem with it, but contrary to what you may have heard - it is not illegal.


So...what is this Jailbreak you speak of?  

The technical answer is the act of Jailbreaking your device gives you access to the actual system and the file system of the device.  The iPhone and iPod Touch run a type of Mac OSX/Unix Operating system and Jailbreaking your device gives you access to this.
The easy to understand answer is that: Jailbreaking your device allows you to install 3rd party applications that are not available on the Apple App Store; the ability to change the appearance of your icons, wallpaper, dock etc (themes); and the ability to have more control over settings and functionality that already exist on the device.

So, now that you technically know what Jailbreaking is, the question I get all the time is why?  Why should I do it?  Why risk voiding my warranty?

A Google search will return more than a million hits for the simple question of "Why jailbreak?"  Here is a link to the best list of reasons I have found from Big Boss.

What about "bricking" my iPhone/iPod Touch?

It is nearly impossible to damage your device by Jailbreaking it.  The worst you should ever see is the Jailbreak is lost (either from a failed attempt, or a firmware upgrade) or you may be forced to restore your device to factory default.  Neither scenario is destructive to the device itself.  Apple included a nice recovery mode in the event anything ever goes wrong with the device.  This allows you to "recover" your device.  If you feel you have completely "bricked" your device and it will simply not function anymore, Apple has included one more mode which will recover your device for you - DFU (Device Firmware Upgrade) mode.  As you can see, Apple has made it very safe for us to Jailbreak.  :) 

Will I lose the existing functionality if I Jailbreak?

No.  You will still be able to purchase apps from the Apple App Store, you will still be able to purchase music from iTunes and you will still be able to do everything that you did before.  iTunes will still work the same as it did before you did the Jailbreak.  The only thing that will change is the ability to enhance the device - make it better.  The iPhone and iPod Touch are such powerful devices - wouldn't it be nice to use them to their fullest potential?

I am not going to go into a great amount of detail since I would basically be repeating what has already been written so many times before.  Suffice it to say that not jailbreaking your device is like not being able to paint or renovate your house.  Everything is functional, but it doesn't look as nice as it could, and it would sure be nice to put a jacuzzi tub in the master bath!


One of the nicer things I have seen recently is the ability to "skin" your iPhone and iPod Touch to look like the recently announced iPad.  I have personally gone through and implemented some of the changes and I am quite happy with the results.

Once you have gone through all the information that is available, you can then decide if it makes sense for you to Jailbreak your device or not.  The actual process is not that difficult and I will make a new post in a few days to describe that process.  If after jailbreaking you are not convinced that it's for you, you can always return your device to factory default.  There is literally no risk to you.

NOTE:

If you ARE planning to Jailbreak your device, do not upgrade your firmware to the newly released 3.1.3.  Doing so will prevent you from being able to jailbreak at this time.  If you have already Jailbroken your device, upgrading to the newest firmware will also undo the jailbreak.  If this has happened to your device, you will need to wait for a new Jailbreak to become available.

MegaFPS

This past weekend was a busy one for me - I was at a LAN Party!  :)  For those of you who don't know what a LAN party is - Google is your friend!  LOL

The guys at MegaFPS put on another LAN this weekend - JanLAN.  Somewhere around 20 - 30 people came together in the GoldBar Community Hall for a weekend of GAMING!  I arrived around 7:30pm on Friday and quickly setup and got down to some gaming.  We played some L4D2 (Left for Dead 2), some Flatout and some more L4D2.  The next thing I know it is 3:30am.  I decide to go home and get some sleep.  Some people elect to stay and sleep at the LAN, but seeing as I was only a 15min drive from home I felt I would sleep better in my own bed.

I drag my ass back Saturday at about noon ready for another marathon session of gaming.  Armed with some coffee and pop I get down to the serious business of zombie killing.  My wife and I were supposed to go to a wedding Saturday night so I left the Lan about 4pm to go get ready.  About 1 minute after I leave, she calls me to say she is not feeling well and that we wouldn't be going to the wedding.  I promptly turn around and head back. 

After about 4 more hours of gaming, interrupted only for a pizza break (thanks Geoff and Adam!), I decide to head home for a shower and to replenish my supplies.  Back at the Lan about 9:30 I settle in for the long haul armed with some typical geek Lan food - snacks and energy drinks.  Seeing as I am not as young as I once was, I brought some water to keep myself hydrated, which is a good idea at any age.

Between the L4D, TF2, Flatout and some Trackmania, I decide to call it quits - at 3:30am.  As things tend to end rather early on Sunday, I decided to pack up and head home, rather than come back for an hour on Sunday.  This was a first for me as I always come back, if for no other reason than to help clean up.  I guess I really am getting old!  LOL

JanLAN was a great time.  If I knew in advance that I wasn't going to the wedding, I would have brought my comfortable chair, and my RockBand.  As a result of the crappy chair I spent the weekend on, my back is killing me!  As a result of not bringing the RockBand, I didn't get to rock out!  LOL  Next time...

Sunday afternoon some of the Fragapalooza staff got together for a meeting to decide if we are going to put on another Frag this year.  You heard it here first - yes we are!  We don't have a venue or date set yet, so the official announcement will wait a bit.  However, now that we have decided, the planning can begin.

One thing I should mention...we had our meeting at Red Robins.  Gil had informed me of the pre-fill of fries, and I thought I would share it with you.  As you get free refills on your fries at Red Robins, why not order a PRE-fill of fries instead of paying for an appetizer?  The fries are really good and it will save you some money.  :)  When the waitress asks what you want, simply request the prefill.

I think I have bored you enough now...until next time, remember to get your geek on whenever possible!

Whew! Made it through the holidays!

So...here we are in 2010.  Now...is that twenty-ten, or two thousand-ten?  I am torn actually...I mean I did say two-thousand-nine, so it stands to reason that I would say two-thousand-ten right?  Well...the argument will come out about 1999 for instance.  We said nineteen-ninety-nine, so we should say twenty-ten right?  Food for thought...

Anyway...back to the topic of this post...  I made it through the holidays in one piece.  Santa was good to me this year.  Between gift cards and some cash I managed to snag myself a nice entry level Netbook.  Thanks to Best Buy for having one on sale just in time for me to get one!  :)

I spent xmas morning/afternoon with my side of the family and did a nice lunch.  Spent some time with my son, his gf and her son (my grandson - still really hard to say that!!!) and it was a lot of fun.  Opened gifts, ate great food and contrary to a previous Blog post, the day was not as uncomfortable as I expected.  LOL


We then made the trip up to Grande Prairie to spend some time with my wife's parents.  The roads were pretty decent on the trip up and with next to no traffic out on xmas day we made good time.  We spent the next 5 days in GP before coming home on the 30th.  It was nice to get away for a bit, had a good time, but it was also nice to come home again.  The drive home was a little different.  The roads were pretty slick and we saw a bunch of cars in the ditch, and even a big semi trailer/truck.  I drove slower to avoid any problems and made it in one piece.

New Years Eve was relatively quiet.  I watched hockey until about 9:30, went to my friends house (wife had to work) and rang in the new year nice and quiet like.  Home just after 1am and the best part of a quiet new years - no hangover the next day!  LOL

Throughout the holidays I have been watching a TON of hockey.  From the Oilers games, to the Spengler Cup (Canada didn't win this year) and best of all, the World Juniors.  My wife is getting tired of all the hockey, but hey...it's only once a year right?  (except with the Olympics this year...and I think there is the World Cup of hockey in the spring...)

So here I am after 10 days off and I am back to work.  It was REALLY hard to get up this morning, but I managed to make it into work.  With all the B.S. that has been going on at work with the re-org and the outsourcing I only have 1 new years resolution - stay employed this year.  Wish me luck!

The Holiday Season brought out the worst in me this year...

So...there I was minding my own business one day when I sneezed. Of course the auto-response for most people is to say "bless you". This got me to thinking...what right do you have to bless me? What if I don't want to be blessed? What if I am NOT religious? Saying that to me might offend me.

Then, my cousin joins a Facebook group called "put Christ back into schools". I have serious problems with this. With all the different religions and beliefs in the world, what right does anyone have to teach "Christ" in the school? A Catholic school is different because you have the choice to send your kids there. I elected to comment on this group saying what I just said above. This opened a big can of worms.

I already had a bee in my bonnet, so I decided to stir the big can of worms I already opened. I joined a Facebook group called "take god out of the Canadian National Anthem". Again, what right does anyone have to impress their religious beliefs on someone else? Simply change the word "god" to "please" in the anthem and all will be well.

Boy was that the wrong thing to do. PLENTY of discussion occurred with the religious nuts coming out and basically telling me that I was doomed. The worst part - one of them was my Mother. Now our relationship is strained because I was "mocking her belief". OMFG.

It is perfectly OK for her to "like" the fact that my cousin joined that group, but it is not OK for me to voice my opinion. It is OK for people to say "god bless you", but it is not OK for me to voice my opinion. It is OK for people to say "so you have no direction in your life?" when you don't believe in god? See where I am looking? That is the direction I am going in my life.

Not only is my Mom disappointed in the fact that I am not a good christian, but now I have my Dad trying to fix things by including my brothers, my daughter and my wife in this discussion. Even after I said "let it go and never talk of it again". Boy our family get-together tomorrow is going to be fun!!!

I guess what annoys me the most about this whole situation, is the fact that the bible is supposed to teach tolerance and forgiveness, yet those people who claim to be Christians are the most intolerant people I know. It is fine if you believe what they believe, but don't attempt to have your own opinion. It is perfectly OK for people to come to my door and push the Watchtower in my face, perfectly OK for people to say "god bless you", perfectly OK for people to pray for me, but apparently it is NOT OK for me to voice my opinion.

I'm sure I could rant about this for pages upon pages, but where will it get me? I will offend someone because I don't agree with their beliefs. It is a losing battle. Feel free to comment if you can handle a rational, logical discussion.

a Night of Sin

So we went to Grande Prairie to attend a Murder Mystery. This was going to be our first time so we were not sure what to expect.

We got our character profiles and I was to play a US Senator, while Michelle was to play a high class Las Vegas call girl.

We were encouraged to dress up so I wore a shirt and tie, while Michelle went all out. Short skirt, tall boots, fishnet stockings and a pink feather boa. Needless to say she looked smokin hot!! She also won for best dressed.

When we got to the party we were given a set of tasks to complete before the murder. Basically just to introduce yourself to everyone and get to know all the characters. There was also some setup for the rest of the night.

After the lights went out, someone was murdered!! The hunt for the killer was on. Each of us got another list of tasks and objectives to accomplish in our pursuit of the killer.

Everyone from the senator and his wife, to his mistress, to the casino owner are suspects. I am not going to ruin it for anyone who is going to do one of these so I won't tell you who did it!! Lol.

It was a fun time and I would love to do another one someday. I think it would have been better if everyone knew each other as we didn't know some of the participants and they didn't know us. However, we had a great time.

Photos are up on Facebook and I will also be putting them on my Shutterfly site in the next day or so. Http://hollandsphotos.shutterfly.com

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPod touch]

Where's my cane sonny?

So...there I was minding my own business on a Saturday evening. Tracey (sister-in-law) bought a new house so we were helping them break it in when I get a text message. I check and it is from my son saying that he has some news. You can imagine my shock and surprise when he tells me that he and his girlfriend are pregnant. That's right...you heard me. BubbaMike is going to be a Grandpa for real!

After I got over my initial shock - oh wait...I still haven't. It's not that I am upset or anything, but I worry about Rob and wish nothing but the best for him. He is only 17 which is WAY too young to be fathering a child. I was 21 when I became a father and that was too young. I remember well the challenges I went through, so I can only hope for the best for Robin and Storm.

Now that I have completely blown your mind...on to other thoughts.

Umm...

Ahh...

Right now, at this point in time, nothing I can say would come even close to topping my latest news. Maybe I will come up with something later...

Fragapalooza 2009

So, Fragapalooza 2009 is over and we have a break before we need to start worrying about next year. Of course, that is assuming we have a next year.

I wish I was kidding about that. The staff put up with so much BS before the event this year that some of us are questioning our committment to doing another event.

We had to change venues at the last minute as there were not enough paid registrations to actually make a go of it. It was to the point where we almost cancelled the event. However we found a venue that would take us out in Fort Saskatchewan - the Dow Centennial Center. It would mean a longer commute for some people but it was the best that we could do.

The event was a huge success by the time it was over but the complaining we had to put up with before the event left a bad taste in our mouth.

I am not going to go into great detail about the complaints but suffice it to say we were not impressed. As a result, Fragapalooza 2010 is up in the air.

Thanks to all the participants who supported us by coming, thanks to all the great volunteers and staff, and a special thanks to the staff at the Dow Center for going out of their way for us. I hope to see you all next year.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPod touch]