Aloha Everyone!

More than one friend asked me how to check if they are able to get the iPhone upgrade with discounted offer. If you are a current At&t iPhone customer, there is a easier way to check if your line is eligible or when it will be eligible for an iPhone 4 upgrade, which means you can pay $199 for 16GB or $299 for 32GB iPhone4.

Step 1,  try to call *639# from the phone screen

Step 2, press Dismiss while you waiting for At&t server’s respond

You will get a message reply from At&t in less than 2 mins saying whether you are eligible or not.  The following image shows you are not eligible now, it tell you the date (black out area) when it will be eligible.

Please note that you will be able to pay $200 more for an early upgrade even if you are not eligible at this moment.

Above SIM card info. is for your reference if you are planning to unlock iPhone 4 and use it with another carrier. Currently, T-mobile does not offer Micro-SIM cards which is required by iPhone 4 (also iPad). Even when there is a  solution to unlock iPhone 4 in the near future, you will need to be prepared to cut your SIM card base on the above spec. of Micro-SIM card.  There is proof on the  internet that iPad is able to use the EDGE service from T-mobile while there is no way to use the 3G service due to the different frequency from AT&T

Just in case you still want to do it and you know what your are doing, You can try to use T-mobile EDGE APN Setting as followings.

DISCLAIMER: We have not tested this, so this information may be inaccurate or incomplete. alohaeveryone.com will not be responsible for individuals following the instructions on this page. And users are doing so entirely at their own risk.

As you can see from the screen capture above, iPhone ship date keeps pushing back. If you are planning to get one, order it now. Rumors say, the White iPhone will be available for pre-order before 6/24, however, don’t put too much hope the white one will  ship before 7/14.

Apple pre-order link here.

Needless to say, the most frequently used program on your computer is the Internet Browser. Since this browsing experience is related to user behavior and its pretty hard to change for normal people, you may need to think twice before selecting which browser program to use. I believe most of you are using Internet Explorer while some people using Firefox and maybe its time for a change.

Why I don’t use IE
I kinda stopped using IE in the pass 3-4 years beside at work. IE get attacked by malicious websites easily. Some attack utilizes IE drag-and-drop & ActiveX features to copy executable file to a user’s Startup folder, from which it would execute the next time the user logged on. (That’s one of the major reason your computer gets infected by virus after browsing unsafe websites). In short, IE is tied in so close to the operation system it will have higher security risk than the other browsers.

Why I pick Chrome vs others
Chrome focus on S.S.S. Which means Speed, Simplicity, Security. I am not going into detail to compare the different browser’s performance here but Google Chrome did make it very clear of their goals for you and you can feel it from their latest version 5. Followings are the reason I am using Chrome now.

• Mulitingual Web Surfing
• Cross Plathfrom (Windows, MAC, Linux)
• HTML5 Support
• Bookmark & Preference Sync
• Google Extensions
• Address Bar (Search & Navigate from the same Box)

Other browsers may have similar functions that I mentioned above. However, Google Chrome has them all in one package. Also, I believe Google will take Chrome as the first step of Cloud Computing and we will see a more clearer picture when Chrome OS is released later this year. If you haven’t tried Chrome yet, download from the link here and give it a try. After all, if you don’t like it, you can always uninstall it very easily.

The Story

After my “iPad Jailbreak Software has been released w/Download Link” post was up, friends keep asking me what to do next. Most of them would like to achieve the goal of installing paid apps for free. I am going to post the directions here but I am not responsible for any illegal actions.

The Solution

If you watch the video of my previous post and follow them step by step, you should be able to see Cydia on your iPad. Follow the additional steps to install AppSync 3.2 and your iPad will allow you to install downloaded apps.

1. Open Cydia (it may ask you to update, just accept everything)
2. Click Manage
3. Click Sources
4. Click Edit
5. Click Add
6. type http://cydia.hackulo.us
7. Click Add Source (You can add “http://cydia.xsellize.com” as well in cause Hackulo.us is offline)
8. After Add Source, your Cydia will try to update all the available software list, wait until it is done.
9. Now Click Search and search for AppSync 3.2 (if you are doing this for iPhone, get 3.1)
10. Download it and let the iPad install the software itself.

Now, your iPad is ready to install downloaded apps.

Following is a website which has tons of apps for you to download (Just for your reference). Download the ipa files from your desktop, double click on it and have iTunes install it to your iPad. Remember, If you like the App, you should buy it.

http://apptrackr.org/

Update:  Just in case you would like to install cracked apps directly from internet, search and download “Install0us” from Cydia as well.

The Story
My 4 bay NAS drive (Thecus N4200 Pro) for photo backup had one hard drive failure two weeks ago. While I was trying to pull the data from the NAS, I found the RAID 5 array configuration was missing since there was another hard drive also contained bad sectors. In order to recover one of the most important data (89GB of Photos from the pass 10 years) from the NAS, I ordered 3 new hard drives from Amazon and performed sectors to sectors copy in order to rebuild the RAID array. The whole process took almost 2 weeks to complete even though the hard drives were shipped with 2nd day service.

Usually most of my photos was backed up online at flickr.com while some of my personal photos are not. This incident triggered me to think of a new backup and recovery solution since the current one still has a chance to lose some data.  I am not a person who would like to backup my data on a scheduled bases, the Time Machine backup concept from Apple will be one of the best solutions for me. However, in order to increase the redundancy and achieve the goal of “Setup It Up and Leave It”, I need to think of another solution.

The New Solution
From the above image, you may see the new plan of backup and recovery solution for my home. The key of this new solution is to set up a Mac system as a time machine server, other systems within my network will be backed up to the WD My Book USB drive. The new Mac system includes a shared Photos folder and setup for time machine backup to the WD USB drive as well. One the other hand, the photo folder will also backup to the Thecus N3200 every week.

Conclusion
Maybe you’ll think this is a complicated/overkill/stupid setup, but I just can’t take the risk of losing data. If you are a Mac user looking for peace of mind backup solution, the Time Capsule from Apple would be your best choice and you can get it here for $278 Shipped. If you are a Windows user, a Drobo from Data Robotics will be perfect for you and you can get it here for $297 Shipped

Friend just bought a Canon T2i as a video camcorder and I suggested both items above to him. Image on the left is a Manfrotto 585 ModoSteady 3-in-1 Camera/Camcorder Stabilizer which allow you to get stable video even Canon T2i has a light weight body. Image on the right is a Rode VideoMic Directional Shotgun Mic w/Mount which allow you to capture sound from a further distance and avoid the zoom in / zoom out noise created by the Lens.

You can get the Stabilizer for around $90.00 here and the Shotgun Mic for around $130.00 here