The recently released update to Redsn0w 0.9.12 brings the untethered jailbreak to virtually all iOS 5.1.1 users. The latest version of redsn0w has two paths to the untethered jailbreak and which you use will depend on your iOS device, with A5 hardware being the simplest and other hardware requiring the traditional DFU mode method. Neither is particularly challenging, here they are grouped by device, the instructions below cover both.

Super Easy: iPhone 4S, iPad 2, iPad 3

Moderately Easy DFU Method: iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPod touch 3rd and 4th gen, iPad 1

Note: if you are already jailbroken tethered, launch Cydia to search for and install Rocky Raccoon untether. You do not need to rejailbreak your device.

Jailbreaking iOS 5.1.1 Untethered with Redsn0w

Upgrade to iOS 5.1.1 before beginning, quit iTunes beforehand as well. Depending on hardware you may or may not need to go into DFU mode:

• Download Redsn0w 0.9.12 (direct link for Mac or Windows) and launch redsn0w
• Connect the iOS device to the computer and click “Jailbreak”
• For iPhone 4S, iPad 2, and iPad 3, click “Next” and let redsn0w run the jailbreak
• For iPhone 4 & 3GS, iPod touch 3rd and 4th gen, and iPad 1, put the device into DFU mode: hold Power button for 3 seconds, continue holding Power and now hold the Home button for 5 seconds, release Power button but hold home button for another 15 seconds>
• Let Redsn0w run and install the jailbreak, the device will reboot itself and you will be able to find Cydia on the home screen to verify the device is jailbroken

When finished, you can reboot the device freely without having to connect it to a computer for a tethered boot. The ability to freely reboot is the primary difference between a tethered vs untethered jailbreak.

The popular Redsn0w jailbreak utility has been updated to bring untethered jailbreaks to iOS 5.1.1 on most iDevices. Versioned as redsn0w 0.9.12b1, the tool supports the following hardware on 5.1.1: iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPad, iPad 2, iPad 3, iPod touch 3rd and 4th gen, and Apple TV1 and ATV2. The A5 support is identical to that found in the recently released Absinthe 2 for iOS 5.1.1, which focused on the new iPad and iPhone 4S.

If you are already jailbroken tethered with iOS 5.1.1 you can use Cydia to download the Rocky Raccoon untether, you do not need to re-run Redsn0w. Likewise, if you’ve already installed the rocky-raccoon package to untether a 5.1.1 jailbreak there is no reason to download or use the new redsnow tool.

Download Redsn0w 0.9.12b1

These are direct download links from the iPhoneDevTeam:

• Download for Mac
• Download for Windows

Windows users must run redsn0w in administrator mode.

If you like to follow guides, here is a simple tutorial on using Redsn0w for an untethered iOS 5.1.1 jailbreak.

Setting up SSH bookmarks within Terminal app is an easy way to quickly connect to remote machines. If you haven’t noticed these in Terminal before it’s probably because they aren’t labeled as bookmarks, and therefore the feature gets frequently overlooked by even the most advanced Mac users. Here’s how to create bookmarks within Terminal, and also two quick ways to access any of those bookmarks from just about anywhere in Mac OS X.

Setting SSH Bookmarks in Terminal

This guide is intended for SSH but it would also work for Telnet:

1. Launch Terminal (/Applications/Utilities/ folder)
2. Pull down the “Shell” menu and choose “New Remote Connection”
3. Choose SSH on the left side, then click the [+] plus icon to add a new server bookmark
4. Enter the IP of the server – Important note: if you use a custom port and username enter those in the URL field as the following syntax: “-p port user@host.com”

For example, if I use port 24 and the username “dude” for server3.osxdaily.com, the syntax would be: “-p 24 dude@server3.osxdaily.com”


5. Click “OK” and you’ll find the standard command line syntax for connecting to an SSH server is printed in the connection window
6. Click “Connect” and away you go, using the custom port and username you specified

You’ll notice we ignored the “User” field in this example because we set a custom port. If the server you are connecting to uses the default port 22 (like the OS X SSH server does) you won’t need to do this.

2 Ways to Quickly Access Terminal Bookmarks

Now that a bookmark has been created, quickly access the bookmarks from just about anywhere using these two methods:

• From Terminal, hit Command+Shift+K to open the New Connection window
• From anywhere in Mac OS X, right-click on the Terminal Dock icon and choose “New Remote Connection”

Both of these will bring up the connection window where the bookmarks reside. Connecting to a bookmark will request a password unless you have SSH keys set up for passwordless logins.

If you live and breathe in the command line you’ll likely find that making SSH shortcuts with aliases is a faster method to access any frequently used server, however.

You’ve been downloading tons of apps, books, music, and movies galore, and when you go to download the latest great app you find yourself unable to, confronted with a “Cannot Download – There is not enough available storage” message. What are you supposed to do when your iPhone, iPad, or iPod runs out of disk space?

The simplest and fastest answer is to free up some storage capacity by focusing on apps you no longer use, we’ll show you the fastest way to do this so you can quickly get back to downloading the new apps or content you want.

Read more »

Ever wondered what to do with that dusty old bricked Mac hardware? Rick H. is a Mac consultant from New Jersey who seems to have found the perfect answer for some old PowerMac G4’s; recycle them into saddlebags for his motorcycle!

As you can see, two PowerMac G4’s are mounted aside the seat to function as saddlebags. Each case is arranged so the natural door opens away from the Moto Guzzi, revealing perfectly functional storage compartments to store parts and even Rick’s MacBook Pro while he’s out on service calls. This is by far the most creative yet functional use of old PowerMac tower cases we’ve seen.

Check out more pictures below.
Read more »

Have you ever downloaded a file from the web, and then down the road wished you could retrieve the origin download address? Maybe you want to redownload the file or send the direct download link to a friend. Whatever the reason, you can get the downloaded files URL and copy it to your clipboard easily in Safari.

We’re going to demonstrate this on a Mac with Mac OS but it’s possible in all versions of Safari that are able to download files (Mac OS X, Windows, sorry iOS).

Read more »

This weeks Mac setup comes to us from Ilter C., a computer science student who uses his Apple gear for web and iOS development. Hardware shown includes:

• MacBook Pro 15″ mid-2010 Hi-Res, 8GB RAM, 128GB SSD
• External 500GB hard disk connected to MacBook Pro
• LG Flatron IPS225 21.5″ LED monitor
• iPhone 4S
• iPad 2 Wi-Fi and Wacom Bamboo Stylus
• iPod Classic 160GB & iPod Shuffle 2GB
• Apple Wireless keyboard and Magic Mouse

This is about as good as it gets for a student setup (or any setup really), there’s plenty of the right gear for both work and play.

On a side note, for anyone with a MacBook Pro or Air as their base machine do yourself a favor and get an external display and at least a mouse or trackpad. I know we go on about this often, but the productivity gains from docking to a larger display can’t be overstated.

Send us your Mac and Apple setup shots with some hardware details to osxdailycom@gmail.com, we are super backlogged with awesome setups but we’ll try to post the best of them!

Diablo 3 system requirements are fairly lenient but as many Mac users have discovered, performance on some computers just isn’t that great. Even some of the newest Macs with the best GPU’s are experiencing performance issues. The good news is that Blizzard is on the case and actively working on patches to address many of these graphics issues in Mac OS X, but nobody is quite sure when that patch will be released. Until then, here are some optimization tips to improve the games playability in OS X.

Read more »

Whether you’re a designer, gamer, or you just frequently switch color profiles to use different external displays, you’ll find ProfileMenu useful. As the name implies, ProfileMenu stores all color profiles in an OS X menu bar item that can be accessed from anywhere, allowing you to instantly switch from one profile to the next on the fly. This is much faster than switching profiles yourself through System Preferences, and really it feels like a feature that should be included in the optional Displays menu.

• Get ProfileMenu free from KHI Ltd

Setup is as easy as double-clicking the app, you can select to launch it at login if you’d like otherwise there isn’t much else to it. All in all it’s a simple yet very handy tool for anyone who flips through different color settings with any regularity.

ProfileMenu comes to us from the same developer who created the excellent Consultants Canary tool, while you’re over on the devs site it’s also worth downloading.

Cricket Wireless will become the first carrier in the USA to officially bring the iPhone to the pre-paid plan market. Anyone can already unofficially use an iPhone on a pay-go plan through AT&T, but the Cricket plan is likely a better deal.

Customers will have the choice of the following two iPhone options without a contract, available in either black or white:

• iPhone 4S 16GB – $499
• iPhone 4 8GB – $399

Interestingly, the contract-free prices offered through Cricket are slightly cheaper than the no-contract 4S pricing from Apple, suggesting the devices will be locked to Crickets network to fund the minor subsidization.

The pre-paid plan itself is just $55 a month for unlimited SMS, phone calls, and data, though there’s an artificial transfer cap of 2.3GB per month after which data becomes throttled. That rate is nearly half the cost of an average monthly iPhone plan on the competing cellular networks of Verizon and AT&T, and Cricket estimates the average customer will save about $1000 over the course of two years.

For those interested, the device will be made available on June 22 with pre-orders beginning online on June 15. Be sure to check the Cricket coverage map to see if your area has service.

I recently gave my iPad a pretty serious scratch doing something that I’ve done hundreds of times – sliding the device across a wooden coffee table. I’m not sure exactly what caused it, but the surface of the table probably had a tiny flick of sand or dirt on it, and the sliding motion allowed it to gouge a 3″ mar into the otherwise pristine iPad 3 rear shell. This got me thinking about scratch protection for iOS devices in general, and who needs protectors and who doesn’t.

Who Needs Scratch Protection:

• You want to keep Apple hardware in pristine condition
• You intend to sell the iPad, iPhone, MacBook, within a year or two to stay on the latest and greatest upgrade cycle and want maximum resale value
• You want protection from wear and tear without a bulky case

Who Doesn’t Need Scratch Protection:

• Scratches, scuffs, and wear & tear don’t bother you
• You have no interest in maintaining hardware in pristine condition
• You won’t sell the product and if you do you don’t care about maximum resale value
• You already have a good protective case for the device

Which camp do you belong in? Only you will know, but in hindsight I wish I had put a rear protector on the iPad because I’m one of those people that is obsessive about keeping their hardware in pristine shape. Too late now, but maybe I’ll pick one up for the screen just to be safe.

For some general recommendations, I used to have a ZAGG shield on an iPhone 3GS and it was extremely effective so they generally get my nod of approval (on a sidenote, the old plastic iPhone 3G/3GS cases were actually easier to maintain because you could buff out the scratches with toothpaste), though I don’t have any direct experience with their products for iPad and other aluminum Apple hardware.

If you’re in the camp that does want to use a scratch protective film, the ZAGG invisibleSHIELD and Bodyguardz line are popular and well-rated products, both of which can be bought at a nice discount from Amazon.

If you’ve been following Apple long enough you’re undoubtedly familiar with the late Steve Jobs regular appearances at the annual All Things Digital conferences. Those interviews with Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher have all been extremely interesting, and a few even spawned some funny memes. Now AllThingsD has placed all 6 years of those video interviews onto iTunes for anyone to download and watch. Here’s how they describe the series:

There’s lots of video of the late Steve Jobs, primarily from his famous introductions of Apple products over the years, and his oft-quoted Stanford commencement address. But, by far, the largest trove of video of the legendary innovator candidly answering unrehearsed questions and explaining his views on technology and business comes from his six lengthy appearances at our D: All Things Digital Conference, from 2003 to 2010. As a memorial to a great man, and, in the spirit of sharing a priceless piece of history, we are making all six of these appearances available free, in high quality. We thank Apple for its cooperation in making these videos available for all.

They’re all well worth watching for any Apple or Jobs fan.

• Download and watch them all from iTunes

Don’t miss the Tim Cook AllThingsD interview highlights from this years conference too.

The newer versions of iOS include a fantastic text to speech engine that lets you select any text and have it spoken to you. This basically means you can have an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch read you the content of any web page, notes, text files, or even eBooks and iBooks. Before you can use the text to speech function though, you have to enable it.

Read more »

Whether you just like peace and quiet or you work in an environment that requires audio input and output to be disabled on a computer for security purposes, it’s fairly easy to accomplish in Mac OS X. We’ll cover how to handle turning off audio for both situations, the first uses mute for basic audio silencing and disabling on the Mac, and the second technique is much more secure and completely disables sound in OS X.

Read more »

Apple CEO Tim Cook participated in a lengthy stage discussion with Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher for this years AllThingsD D10 conference. The highlight clip embedded below is about 17 minutes long and touches on a wide range of issues, including the state of Apple, thoughts on iPad and the tablet market, convergence, lessons of Steve Jobs, Apple’s culture, Apple’s overseas manufacturers and their factories, patent wars in the technology realm, Apple TV, upcoming Siri features, Facebook, what Tim Cook does on a daily basis, and of course things he can’t talk about (in other words, future products.

It’s a good collection of highlights and the video is well worth watching for any Apple fans. Grab a seat, wait out the annoying 30 second introduction advertisement, and enjoy. We’ll post the full video when it becomes available too.

If you’re having trouble with the embedded video above, you can also watch it directly on Wall Street Journals’ AllThingsD.

The Bzip archive format is generally more effective at compressing than zip and gzip, and while the default Archive Utility or the excellent all-purpose Unarchiver tool will handle unarchiving bzip2 files with ease, you will have to venture to the command line if you want to create a bzip archive in Mac OS X.

Creating a BZ2 Archive:
bzip2 -z filetocompress

The output of this command is the compressed file, it does not create a compressed copy of the file. To clarify with the example above, you’d see a file named “filetocompress.bz2” within the working directory and the original “filetocompress” would be missing.

Remember that bzip2 does not bundle files, it just compresses them. If you want to add a group of files to a bzip archive you’d want to use tar beforehand. Some versions of tar even support creating bz2 archives natively with the -j flag, but that doesn’t appear to be implemented in Mac OS X.

Of course you can also decompress bz2 archives from the command line with either the bzip2 or bunzip2 commands:

bzip2 -d file.bz2

Or bunzip2:

bunzip2 archivefile.bz2

Or just double-click the bz2 file in the Finder.

So you just grabbed some great looking wallpapers for iOS, but how do you set those images as the background on an iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch? It’s a very quick and simple process on any iOS device once you learn how.

Assuming you have already saved an image from the web or email, which is done by tapping and holding the image, here is how to set that saved picture as the wallpaper:

1. Tap “Photos” and tap on the picture you want to set as the wallpaper
2. Tap the arrow icon in the corner and choose “Use as Wallpaper”



3. Use gestures to size and place the wallpaper as you want it to display on the screen
4. Now select either “Set Lock Screen” or “Set Home Screen” or “Set Both” if you want the image to be set as the background for both



5. Close out of Photos to see the new background

You can also make these changes through the Settings app by tapping on “Brightness & Wallpaper” and choosing from either the default options from Apple or anything in the camera roll, but all in all the Photos app is easier to flip through pictures with and ultimately is less daunting for less technical folks.

This is a surprisingly common question for people who are new to the iPad in particular, I’ve had to show this to numerous friends who are otherwise very geeky individuals. If you already knew this, great, if not, now you do.

Thanks for the question and tip idea Gary!

Have you ever needed to move an entire Outlook contact list to an iPhone without using iTunes to sync the device to a computer, and without deleting the contacts already stored on the iPhone?

No problem, here’s a simple two stage process on how to migrate all contacts from a Windows PC with just about any version of Outlook.

This guide is focused on transferring Outlook contacts from Windows PC to iPhone but it will also work with an iPad or iPod touch too.

Read more »