GeekTank

I was getting reports of "500 Internal Server Errors" on two of my web servers. And after further investigation it looks like it was related to the following error.

(4)Interrupted system call: FastCGI: comm with server "php-fastcgi.fcgi" aborted: select() failed

After doing some reasearch I stumbled upon the following patch.

http://groups.google.com/group/linux.debian.bugs.dist/browse_thread/thread/3de22bc415d3da02?pli=1

I was working on a server and for some reason lighttpd wouldn't start for some odd reason. Running it via Debian/Ubuntu "invoke-rc.d lighttpd start" or "/etc/init.d/lighttpd start" wouldn't reveal an error message or anything in the log.

I hop'd on irc.freenode.net and put some information about my problem in the channel #lighttpd channel.

If you've ever used Apache2 and .htaccess with the "Options Indexes" value to show the content listing of a directory. You would know that unfortunately Apache2 doesn't show folders that are forbidden or password protected.

It looks as though a company called "Elcomsoft" is using NVIDIA developer tools to create software that cracks Secured Wireless AP's.

I've tried out the nightly snapshots of Firefox Minefield and yes, it is faster than Chrome even with my 12+ plugins.

http://www.linuxhaxor.net/2008/09/28/firefox-minefield-faster-than-chrome/

If you've had an iPhone since the launch of Apples Application Store, then you most likely have bought the app Mobile Chat. I mean who wouldn't, just looking at their features http://mobilech.at/features you'd be silly not to pick the only instant messenger on the iPhone. Granted there are Web App versions, but nothing application wise. Here are some of the features.

MobileChat supports the following protocols:

* AIM/ICQ/.Mac/MobileME
* Windows Live/MSN
* Yahoo Messenger
* GTalk
* Jabber/XMPP

Multiple Accounts

Google has created its own repositories for its linux software applications.

http://www.google.com/linuxrepositories/index.html

At the moment the only software available is Picasa and Google Desktop.

There is now an official iphone-dev.org version of QuickPwn that supports the 2.1 firmware released by Apple on friday.

Some of the popular press and blogs have been backing the opposition. :-)

While criticism and competition is fine it should be reported correctly, with all the facts. and certainly minus the FUD. Do you guys think we are “less and less relevant with each passing day” ? We don’t think so, and we certainly prefer our hacks to theirs. ;-) Though even if the world deems us irrelevant, the iPhone family of devices is still fun to hack!

There is a very manual tutorial up at xpwn.co.uk on how to Jailbreak your iPhone with the 2.1 firmware:

T14:19 <+geeb> http://xpwn.co.uk/2.1JBtut.txt
14:19 <+geeb> 2.1 3g jailbreak tutorial
14:22 < comm> geeb: has it been tested?
14:22 <+geeb> comm
14:22 <+geeb> yes by me
14:22 <+geeb> and others in #xpwn are running it now

The following are the instructions

Download the 2.1 firmware <--http://appldnld.apple.com.edgesuite.net/content.info.apple.com/iPhone/061-5198.20080909.K3294/iPhone1,2_2.1_5F136_Restore.ipsw

There is a full list of changes and fixes in the new iPhone 2.1 firware on Apples site, which you can read here:

http://www.apple.com/iphone/softwareupdate/

I've also included them below:

General Updates

* Decrease in call set-up failures and dropped calls.
* Significantly better battery life for most users.
* Dramatically reduced time to backup to iTunes.
* Improved email reliability, notably fetching email from POP and Exchange accounts.
* Faster installation of 3rd party applications.

Apple has just released iTunes 8 and the iTouch and iPhone firmware 2.1!

You will need to download iTunes 8 in order to get the new firmware. And unfortunately it looks as though iTunes 8 has blocked the Pwnge tool. However the iphone-dev team knows about this and will have a patch

http://blog.iphone-dev.org/post/49689803/countermeasures

Enjoy!

I ran into this article about how you can seamlessly run Windows Applications from within Ubunutu. The author is using VMware, rdesktop (apt-get install rdesktop), and Seamless RDP.

http://hehe2.net/thedarkside/microsoft/run-windows-apps-100-seamlessly-o...

I went to pick up a Wireless Router from a local computer shop http://www.a-power.com in hopes of grabbing a WRT54GL or at least a WRT54GS. The main reason being that I could flash the hardware to run DD-WRT http://www.dd-wrt.com which is a third part open source router firmware.

The iphone-dev.org crew has released QuickPwn for Mac OS X, there is a an official torrent for the release.

Here is the long awaited “QuickPwn” for Mac OS X. You’ll see a similarity to the user-interface of PwnageTool, this is because of the great feedback we’ve had since we moved to that interface with PwnageTool 2.x.

I was just forwarded a link to the blog of Mobile Chat's company Twenty08's. You can view it here - twenty08.

There is some interesting information that was just posted today. Information that a lot of people have been looking for over the last little while after purchasing the Mobile Chat iPhone Application on Apples Application Store.

The two recent posts go in depth into some of the problems with the Mobile Chat Application on the iPhone, a new version being released and how they're trying to fix the problems everyone is experiencing.

Samsung has developed low cost SATAII SSD's. Specifically the SSD's Samsung has been sampling are 30% smaller than 2.5 inch SSD's, and are really cost effective. They come in low density sizes, 8GB, 16GB and 32GB and operate at a speed of 90MB/sec to 70MB/sec.

Read the full article at Engadet

This was on Digg before, however I got a screen capture of the entire page. I don't know why.

If you need a 24 core, 48G linux cluster then you might want to build a Helmer.

This is the story of Helmer. A linux cluster in a IKEA Helmer cabinet.

I was recently having issues with my phone not being able to use 3G, and I thought it might have been a firmware or possibly hardware issue. But after troubleshooting for some time, I found that it was in fact applications crashing or firmware bugs. Hearing more and more reports of network issues with 3G and iPhones, Wired Magazine decided to do a survey of 3G coverage across america.

Not too long after releasing and updated PwnageTool and Quickpwn, the iphone-dev.org team has released an update to QuickPwn.

We’ve had some issues with iPod touch devices and the latest version of PwnageTool for the Mac, in certain conditions incorrect permissions will be used and the keychain doesn’t save passwords. So hold on and wait for the next release, we’ll push out the updated version via Sparkle as soon as it is tested (it is being tested right now).

I haven't been keeping up with my submissions as of late so this one squeaked through. But the http://iphone-dev.org team has updated both their PwnageTool and QuickPwn Tool. There is still however no baseband unlock, just support for new jailbreaking of the new firmware.

Microsoft through the Sysinternals team has released Windows Desktops, which provides Mutiple Desktops within Windows XP and Windows Vista. Sysinternals created quite a few applications and utilities for the Windows Operating System that Microsoft evntually acquired them.

I was browsing through my mail spool on my machine, and I noticed that there were some messages in one of my accounts for a vBulletin forum. After further review, it was some bounce backs that had accumulated from users that didn't have a valid email address.

I then started to do some Google searches for a vBulletin module (vBulletin's search is horrendous and practically useless) and found this module.

That's right, hot off the blog presses QuickPwn has been updated by the iphone-dev.org team and now allows you to Jailbreak your iPhones 2.0.2 firmware. The new 2.0.2 firmware that was released on Monday supposedly fixes some "bugs", however the bugs aren't mentioned anywhere.

Here is the updated QuickPwn for Windows, wrapped by Poorlad’s GUI. It contains our new bundles for 2.0.2 and we’ve added support for version 2.0 devices which means you can QuickPwn and jailbreak the device if it is running 2.0, 2.0.1 or 2.0.2. Remember this is still beta software, so usual rules apply, no complaints ifanything goes wrong and use the tool at at your own risk! Download here! SHA1 = 8e1ed2ce9e7e473d38a9dc7824a384a9ac34d7d0

Read the full article at blog.iphone-dev.org
Download the new QuickPwn 1.2.0 with the new 2.0.2 bundle.

Thanks for another successful Jailbreak!

I just saw this article on Slashdot...

Slashdot | Apple's IPhone 3G Firmware Update Bombs

Yahoo posted the news article...

Apple's iPhone 3G Firmware Update Bombs (NewsFactor) by NewsFactor: Yahoo! Tech

Both articles comment on the 2.0.1 firmware. However if you read the original article, it speaks about the new firmware which is 2.0.2 and was released on the 18th.

NewsFactor Network | Apple Reportedly Plans Another Fix for the iPhone

Either way, I don't have problems with my phone aside from MobileChat crashing and other Applications as well.

If you bought the iPhone when it first came out, you had two choices for Instant Messaging. Twenty08's MobileChat and Alex Schaefer's ApolloIM. Twenty08 has now hired Alex Schaefer to work exclusively on MobileChat

twenty08 would like to formally welcome aboard…Alex Schaefer. Many of you may know him as the founder of the world’s first Native iPhone IM Application, ApolloIM.

ApolloIM was an amazing application and during it’s run, MobileChat and Apollo stood head to head and constantly battled to create the better app. (Friendly war of course!) The best part about it was that no one won! Only our respective users benefited from the friendly competition, and you can’t ask for anything better than that as far as I’m concerned.

Now with Alex working on our side, we believe that MobileChat will be able to rise up and regain its glory as the number one iPhone application that we all know it can be. He is a very talented developer (plus a great guy) who has already brought some great ideas to the table and we’re all very excited to see our new-found relationship grow.

Read the full article on Twenty08's site.
MobileChat's website

The first Google Android Phone has been approved by the FCC. The HTC dream will be the first Android phone.

Today, the news broke that the HTC Dream, the first handset to run Android (aka "the Google Phone") has been approved by the FCC. In the documents provided, it appears that we have now a release date for this highly anticipated phone: November 10th, 2008.

Another challenger appears!

Read the full article at readwriteweb.com

The iphone-dev.org has created a new means of Jail Breaking your iPhone that doesn't require the need to create a modified .ipsw and process a full restore through iTunes. Its called QuickPwn.

News is just out of a new way to jailbreak your iPhone, and this time the tool is specifically designed to work "quickly and easily, without requiring a full restore." Quickpwn has been released as a beta, intended to complement the main PwnageTool.

Intel's Atom processor and AMD's 64 2000+ were pitted against each other. And the results were for once in favor of AMD.

In our Munich lab’s duel of the energy-savers, the AMD Athlon 64 2000+ beats the Intel Atom 230 in energy consumption and processing power. Each of the systems was based on a desktop platform. The Achilles heel of the Intel system is its old system platform with the 945GC chipset, while AMD offers a more modern 780G platform. The energy-saving solution from AMD offers more possibilities: it has three times as many SATA ports, possesses better onboard graphics performance, and can also support two monitors. Unlike the Intel solution, an HD resolution (1920x1200) with high picture quality is possible through DVI/HDMI ports. And early information suggests that the AMD Athlon 64 2000+ should cost close to $90.

Read the full article at tomshardware.com

It has only been a few weeks and Apple has already released an updated firmwave for the iPhone. Could this mean Apple isn't going to sit on bugfixes, are more updates going to be released in the same short time span. A couple of weeks is really short, however a couple of months to improve some iPhone features, fix bugs or release new functionality is something that should be embraced.