Now, I do not really advocate going around the official way of doing things, but sometimes it is impossible to do things the official way. For instance, I wanted to get an iPhone contract with O2 when the iPhone first came out last year, but they refused to give me a contract based on my credit score even when i offered to pay off the one year contract from the start, so I bought the iPhone anyway, unlocked it and started using it.

When the 2.0 software came out, as with every other iPhone user, I couldn’t wait to upgrade. Unfortunately, upgrading meant losing my phones unlocked status. So I had to wait for someone to come up with the unlock for the phone. On Sunday, the iphone dev team came up with an update to their pawnage tool which could unlock iPhone 2.0 firmware. However, somewhere along the line, I managed to upgrade the iPhone to the 2.0 firmware, put the phone in restore mode and any attempt to restore the phone will result in a 1604 error. For anyone who might have hurridly upgraded their iPhone 1^st generation and run into this problem, here is what I did to get my phone restored, upgraded and unlocked.

You’ll need these software so you might as well get busy downloading them. Although I use a mac, for some reason I had more success with windows, so the software here are windows based.

iTunes 7.5 (Windows Version)
iPhone Firmware 1.1.4
Kiphone
Ziphone
iTunes 7.7
Pwnage tool (Mac version)

Ok… let’s begin..

First off, if you have iTunes 7.7 already installed, uninstall it and install iTunes 7.5. I had some problems with iTunes 7.5 on my Mac so I used the windows version. Note, you will have to rename the iTunes folder in your my documents music folder before iTunes 7.5 will work. Otherwise it will complain that the library has been created by a newer version of iTunes and will immediately quit.

Once you have iTunes installed, put your iPhone in DFU mode. If like me, you somehow placed you iPhone in restore mode, put off the iPhone by holding down the power and home key until the screen goes black then release it. You have to get the timing right otherwise the iPhone will just restart again. Once you have put off the phone, connect you iPhone to the computer via the usb. If the phone comes on again, turn it off.Hold down the power and home key for 10s then release the power key and hold the home key for an additional 10s, iTunes will start detecting the phone once you have entered DFU mode.

iTunes will now ask you to restore the phone, hold the shift key down (alt on a Mac) and click the restore button and browse to your 1.1.4 firmware. If all goes well, it should restore the iPhone. Once it has finished restoring the iPhone, it will throw up an error and go into restore mode. This is normal. Use Ziphone to kick it out of restore mode (do not activate or unlock it yet). Once it is out of restore mode and it is on the activation screen, use kiphone to downgrade the baseband (check all three boxes). This is because when you upgraded to 2.0, the baseband also got upgraded. Once kiphone has done its work, restore the phone again, it shouldn’t give any errors this time and use ziphone to activate and unlock it using the do it all option.

Upgrade your iTunes to version 7.7 and download the latest firmware (download only do not restore). Using instructions from here, create a custom firmware using pwnage, restore your iPhone using the custom firmware and voila, you have your unlocked and activated iPhone.

Everyone who knows me, knows that I am a complete Apple fan boy (I really do hate that word… fan boy ). While I do not hate Microsoft, I’ve just seen the blue screen and the four rings of death too many times to support them (Windows and Xbox 360) wholeheartedly and I am yet to see any screen or rings of death on any of my non Microsoft products, but that is another story.

Even with all that,  I cannot help but be impressed by the new Microsoft initiative that is Microsoft Surface. Microsoft Surface is basically a table surface that is fully interactive with the environment you are in. For example, imagine you are in a restaurant with your friends and have just finished your meals, your bill can be viewed on the table and if you put your credit cards on the table, you can basically drag your meals to your card and pay for it in that manner. Also, according to a BBC article, you can also flirt, chat and exchange pictures with people in the same restaurant and on different tables. No more awkwardness of walking up to a girl and having the whole restaurant witness your discomfort if she says no . For all you gamblers who need their fix anytime anywhere, there will also be gambling versions.

It’s all well and good… as long as we do not get the Blue Microsoft Screen of Death. Now that will be a scary table to have your meals on.

The iPhone 3G that is. After a year of using a pay as you go sim card with my iPhone, because my Three network sim card won’t work with it, I will finally be able to use my iPhone with my Three sim giving me the best of both worlds in my opinion.

Truth be told, although the new iPhone specs looks really impressive, I would have loved a better camera, real bluetooth (not the disabled one currently in use), video recording and chat facilities. Although with the iPhone SDK as well as the new firmware 2.0 which should be coming out soon, video recording and chatting will be solved pretty quickly.

With Slingbox is bringing out a slingplayer for the iPhone (Thank God!!!) and the quality of games that was on display at the Apple Keynote address, I won’t be suprised if by the end of the year, the iphone will be the only handheld needed for all your mobile entertainment needs…

Lookout DS and PSP, here comes the iPhone…