Just about every morning I call several Apple Stores and ask about their current inventory and availability of iPad 2 models. Up until this week, stores generally had nothing in stock by the time they opened, and the store reps continue to tell me they have lines in the mornings. This has eased up slightly for the Verizon iPad 2 models, but the GSM and WiFi versions continue to be extremely difficult to find.

If you’re like me and you didn’t bother to order an iPad 2 online (silly, it would have been delivered by now), you’re left checking stock at resellers and generally crossing your fingers as you hope to get lucky in the midst of countless others doing the exact same thing.

Enter the iPad 2 Inventory Scanner, which is bound to improve your chances. All you need to do is enter your zip code and the model you are looking for, and the utility will check all nearby Target stores for any inventory of the model you specified. Yes, you read that right, it only checks Target stores inventory, but it is still very useful and one of my friends used this tool to track down an elusive iPad 2 today.

Check out the iPad Scanner at ChristianRadu.com

The web app is based off the finder links that appeared on MacRumors forums some time ago, but the interface is much more user friendly for quick searches. So if you’re trying to track down an iPad 2, check this out.

IMEI stands for International Mobile Equipment Identity, you can think of IMEI like a serial number in that every iPhone, or other mobile phone for that matter, has a unique IMEI number used to identify it with carriers, manufacturers, and providers. There are several reasons you’d want to know your IMEI, and we’ll get into those in a moment, but before that let’s find the number. We’ll show you four different ways to get this info, either directly on the device itself, or with iTunes.

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The Finder window sidebar makes navigation in Mac OS X easier, with quick access points to various aspects of a users home directory, as well as throughout the file system.

Users can choose to show the Finder sidebar, or to hide the Finder sidebar, depending on their individual preferences.

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Mac OS X Lion Dev Preview 2 has readded the Graphite appearance option, which was initially greyed out and set on “Blue” by default. The first Developer Preview disabled the ability to adjust the window appearance colors, which led some to believe an entirely new UI would appear at the Lion public debut.

Along the same lines, several Mac sites are reporting that Lion is moving away from Aqua in favor of a more modern finish to windows, scollbars, and buttons. If you’ve seen any screenshots of Mac OS X Lion, this probably won’t be of news to you though.

A questionable sounding permanent iPhone unlock has appeared on the scene, the service claims to offer a permanent unlock solution for iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, and iPhone 3G, without the need for jailbreaking.

How would this be possible? The $169 service apparently whitelists your iPhone IMEI number by manually adding them to Apple’s databases. How exactly they are doing that is in question, and that is precisely why this sounds like a questionable service. The potentially illicit method of unlocking your phone brings the legality into question, and we don’t recommend using it. Outside of the legal ambiguity, BGR notes that if someone is able to add an IMEI to a database, it would be just as easy to delete it and relock your iPhone. Furthermore, there is the looming question on how the service is accessing and editing Apple’s own databases.

If you’re unfamiliar, an iPhone unlock frees the device from the cellular carrier it was intended to be used on. Unlocking is a bit of a cat and mouse game, with holes being patched by Apple and the unlock community finding new methods around the carrier locks. Recently iOS 4.3.1 was unlocked with ultrasn0w 1.2.1 but it requires a user to jailbreak an iPhone with iOS 4.3.1 while preserving old baseband that remains compatible with prior versions of ultrasn0w. It’s not a particularly complex process, but it can be confusing to users who are less technically savvy.

If all of this sounds too complicated, the other alternative is to just buy an iPhone that comes unlocked to begin with, from a country like Canada. You’ll pay more upfront, but buying an unlocked phone prevents you from having to use software jailbreaks, carrier unlocks, or the (possibly unscrupulous) methods like CutYourSim’s offering. If you’re curious how the iPad fits into all of this, you’ll find the iPad 2 is sold unlocked as long as you purchase the 3G GSM model.

CutYourSim‘s service was verified to work by BGR, but again, we do not recommend using this service at this time. If more information comes available and the service is found to be legal, it may be a viable alternative to the jailbreak/ultrasnow method.

Using the powerful ‘networksetup’ utility, we can connect to wireless networks directly from the command line of Mac OS X. The syntax you’ll want to use to accomplish joining a network is as follows:

networksetup -setairportnetwork [interface] [router SSID] [password]

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This video may provide a good look at how 3D graphics will first make an appearance on the iPad and iPhone. The best part? No funky glasses are required.

When first watching the video, I assumed it was based on the accelerometer like some 3d jailbreak UI tweaks, but instead it’s tracking movement with the iPad 2’s front facing camera. The video and 3D demo was created by the EHCI Research Group at Grenoble Informatics Laboratory, who further describes the technology:
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When I first saw these iPad paintings from UK artist Kyle Lambert, I found it hard to believe they were created entirely on an iPad using the Brushes app (App Store link) and just a finger as the input method. It’s pretty crazy to watch these paintings come together, here’s a video showing the creation of the above Toy Story 3 image:
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If you’d prefer to use a web browser other than Safari as the default on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, you can do so with a simple utility called BrowserChanger. The tweak lets you set any of the alternate web browsers as the iOS default, allowing any link to launch directly in something like SkyFire rather than copying and pasting the URL manually.

Now before everyone gets too excited, notice that BrowserChanger requires a jailbreak to install. Jailbreaks are easy to perform and just as easy to undo, but it does add an additional layer of complexity for the average user.

BrowserChanger is a free download from Cydia, search for it in the ModMyi repository. You’ll find there are also options to apply the default browser change to Google Maps and YouTube.
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More fun with SSH! We showed you how to setup SSH config files and use tab completion for SSH aliases, but setting up bash aliases is even easier if you are connecting to the same server over and over again.

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PwnageTool 4.3 provides an untethered jailbreak for iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 GSM, iPod Touch 4G, iPod touch 3G, iPad, and Apple TV 2, all running iOS 4.3.1.

This guide is geared towards jailbreaking iOS 4.3.1 on iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS because PwnageTool is able to preserve baseband for iPhone carrier unlocks. If you are simply looking for a jailbreak and do not need to use an unlock, you will find jailbreaking iOS 4.3.1 using redsn0w is easier.

How to Jailbreak iOS 4.3.1 using PwnageTool

PwnageTool 4.3 allows you to jailbreak iOS 4.3.1 while preserving unlocked iPhone baseband. This guide assumes you have not upgraded the iPhone to iOS 4.3.1 yet:

1. Download PwnageTool 4.3
2. Download iOS 4.3.1 firmware
3. Launch PwnageTool 4.3
4. Select the “Expert mode” button at the top
5. Select “iPhone” from the PwnageTool menu
6. Click the Next button, then browse and select the iOS 4.3.1 firmware you downloaded earlier, click Next again
7. Click on “General”
8. Important for unlockers: Check “Activate the phone” if you rely on iPhone unlock, this is not necessary for official carrier use
9. For now, ignore the Cydia package installations and click next
10. From “Custom package settings” select to install “Cydia” by checking it, click next, then click “Build” to create a custom IPSW file
11. Save this custom IPSW file to your desktop or another place you can easily find it, this is what you will restore to for jailbreaking your iPhone
12. After the custom IPSW is built, you will be asked to connect your iPhone to the computer to enter into DFU mode
13. Plug in your iPhone and follow the instructions for DFU mode: Hold Power + Home for 10 seconds, release power but continue to hold Home for 10 seconds. PwnageTool will notify you when it has detected your iPhone in DFU mode
14. Now launch iTunes
15. iTunes will notify you that it has detected an iPhone in recovery mode. Option click on the “Restore” button within iTunes to bring up the firmware restoration option
16. Select the custom IPSW file that you created with PwnageTool
17. iTunes will now restore the iPhone to the PwnageTool jailbroken IPSW firmware, this may take a few minutes

When iTunes is finished, the iPhone will boot into a jailbroken iOS 4.3.1. You can verify the jailbreak worked by looking the Cydia icon on your iOS homescreen.

If you completed the jailbreak properly, your baseband will also have been preserved allowing you to unlock iPhone 4 or 3GS running iOS 4.3.1 using ultrasn0w 1.2.1. Installing the ultrasn0w carrier unlock is simple, but you must have iPhone 4 or iPhone 3GS on baseband 01.59.00, 04.26.08, 05.11.07, 05.12.01, 05.13.04, and 06.15.00 in order to work.

A new version of the Ultrasn0w iPhone carrier unlock utility has been released with iOS 4.3.1 support.

Note ultrasn0w 1.2.1 is not a new unlock and it will not unlock new baseband, but it does allow you to maintain your carrier unlock while upgrading to jailbroken iOS 4.3.1 using PwnageTool or Sn0wbreeze to preserve baseband.

UltraSn0w 1.2.1 will unlock iPhone 3GS or iPhone 4 on baseband 01.59.00, 04.26.08, 05.11.07, 05.12.01, 05.13.04, and 06.15.00, you can check your iPhone baseband from Settings > General > About. Any baseband outside of these versions is not currently unlockable.

Download & Install Ultrasn0w Unlock for iOS 4.3.1

Mac users will need to download PwnageTool 4.3.1, iOS 4.3.1 firmware, and jailbreak the iPhone iOS 4.3.1 using PwnageTool to preserve their existing baseband. Windows users can do this with Sn0wbreeze.

After you have upgraded to iOS 4.3.1 with preserved baseband, here’s how to download and install ultrasn0w 1.2.1:

• Launch Cydia
• Tap on “Manage”
• Tap on “Sources”
• Tap “Edit”
• Select “Add”
• Enter the following repository: http://repo666.ultrasn0w.com
• Tap on “Add Source”
• Cydia will add the source repo, now search for “ultrasn0w 1.2.1” and download and install the unlock
• After ultrasn0w 1.2.1 has been installed, restart your iPhone

Your iPhone 4 or iPhone 3GS with preserved baseband will now be unlocked with iOS 4.3.1.

You can quickly launch a new styled Terminal window through the apps Mac OS X Dock icon. Just right-click (two-finger click for trackpad users) on the Terminal app, navigate to “New Window” select a preconfigured style.
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Using curl and pbcopy, we can quickly grab and copy HTML and CSS code from any URL via the command line. This should be a helpful tip for the web developers out there, but for anyone looking to check the source of a web page through this can be an invaluable little trick.
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Redsn0w 0.9.6rc12 jailbreak tool has been released for download by the Dev Team. RC12 is a minor release that aims to fix any remaining issues with optional boot animations.

Like the past few releases, Redsnow RC12 jailbreaks iOS 4.3.1 on iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 GSM, iPad 1, iPod touch 3rd gen, iPod touch 4th gen, and Apple TV 2. For a walkthrough, read how to jailbreak iOS 4.3.1 using redsn0w, the guide remains the same for all redsn0w 4.3.1 jailbreaks.

Download Redsn0w 0.9.6rc12

Click link to start the download:

• Download Now (Mac)
• Download Now (Windows)

You can also download iOS 4.3.1 if you need it.

Users of ultrasn0w carrier unlocks should continue to avoid redsn0w and wait until a new compatible version is released. The iPhone 4 CDMA model and iPad 2 continue to be unsupported by this release, but a jailbreak for those devices is under works.

If you want to change the universal equalizer in iTunes for your entire music library and all songs in it, the incredibly adjustable iTunes Equalizer Settings can be accessed quickly in one of two ways:

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Here’s a nice Mac setup that features a MacBook Pro 15″ with a matte display connected to an Apple Cinema Display. To the left you’ll see an iPhone and a MacBook Air 11″ tucked into a BookArc stand. Personally, I’d have the MacBook Air open too and use the extra real estate while sharing the keyboard and mouse, you can do this with two apps; Teleport or Synergy.

Picture from Flickr

Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Developer Previews 1 and 2 currently do not install on older Macs with unsupported Core Duo and Core Solo hardware, but by performing a simple hack you can get these machines to boot Lion.

Apparently the only thing preventing Lion from working on these 32-bit Macs is a single file that is easily removed, located here in a Lion installation:

/System/Library/CoreServices/PlatformSupport.plist

The file is hidden, but you can show hidden files with a defaults write command or just the Terminal with “ls -a” command.

All you have to do is install Mac OS X Lion on a Core 2 Duo machine and move the installation to a Core Duo or Core Solo machine, then delete the PlatformSupport.plist file. This at least works with the first Developer Preview, although some MacRumors forum members note problems booting with Dev Preview 2.
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