internet kaspersky security: Mobile Me

Mobile Me - Or is it?
Mobile Me - good in practice, not so sure about the execution.

My wife has been without email for 3 days now, missing out on business-critical communications. No useful explanation has been provided by Apple, Support is virtually impossible to contact and to claim that only 1% of users are affected seems disingenuous given the vast numbers of irate posts on Apple Support!

The theory is great but a better tagline might be "Exchange For (Some Of) The Rest of Us"!

Apple may well become a victim of their own success, I think. Undecided

Checking your mobile data usage online is not easy: a Telecom New Zealand tale

Yesterday I posted about Telecom New Zealand's lack of a "meter" for their mobile data. Here is something that I thought would illustrate the issue well...

Let's say you rent a car on a monthly basis, for work. You agree to pay $49.95 a month if you drive up to 1,000 km per billing cycle, and $1 per km after this.

You decided on 1,000 km because you thought this could cover your average daily usage multiplied by the number of days in the month.

You get the car and notice there is no meter in it, but the rental agency tells you it's ok, they are monitoring it within their system, remotely.

You drive away. During 30 days you have no exact idea of how many kms you've done. You have to keep calling the company to find out how many kms you have driven so far, and calculate to see if you are still within the expected average.

Then you receive the monthly bill. You look through five pages for something that says "kms driven this month", but instead you find "times you started the car this month". And a charge for the rental.

Does it make sense?

No. Neither does Telecom New Zealand's "data sessions" line in the bill. They don't tell us how many megabytes or gigabytes we used during the month, only how many times we used it during the period.

Telecom, are you going to fix your systems?

So it goes on...
The saga of the Mobile Me debacle continues.

Now over 7 days since my wife had access to her mail. I would imagine that Apple could have totally replaced any servers affected many times over within seven days. The average corporate IT dept can fix things in 24 hrs - I am sure the problem is bigger, but then so are the resources Apple has available to deploy!

Worst of all is the fact that there just seems to be no comment coming from Apple about the nature of the issue and when they expect to have things up and running.

On top of that it has still barely stopped raining....!

We did go and see Dark Knight today. IMHO one of the better Batman films to date. The late Heath Ledger is, I think, an excellent Joker - a memorable Swansong performance from an actor who had much potential. If you like that kind of thing, it's a great film with lots of action. We are in danger of trying to explore 'the reason why' a bit too much though - Batman is because Batman is! We need not be troubled with his navel gazing when we have so many of our own issues to resolve, I feel.

Well, have a good weekend, Dear Reader!

bnetTV.com Talks to CA, Inc. About Their Guarantee If Your ID Is ... - MarketWatch

Endpoint Security Manager from Comodo Saves Time, Money - Free Press Release Center (press release)

Trend Micro Internet Security Pro v2 - PC Magazine

Intelligent Assistance for Desktop User Tasks. Google Video.
I have been watching this a few times as so much of it makes scene. I like how he displays a learning system, that with time/more samples it get better.

I found this inspiring in regards to some concepts I have been learning, regarding the design of expert systems for (tag cloud)/categorisation development of forums.

Jailbreaking iPod touch 2.0 with WinPwn
It took a while, but I'm finally at it - iPod touch 2.0 now jailbroken for me, using WinPwn.

You'll need:

WinPwn (2.0.0.3 is what I used, since some bugs were apparently fixed)
Your iPod 2.0 restore file (please note that it must be 5A347)
iTunes 7.7
Some patience

Step 1

Open up WinPwn.

Click "Browse .ipsw" and find your original iPod touch 2.0 restore file.

Step 2

Click "IPSW Builder"

You don't really have to do anything here, but you can select "Install Cydia" if you want it.

Step 3

Click "Build .ipsw", save to a location, and wait a while.

Step 4

Once the whole process is complete, click "iPwner" and click OK to the confirmation message.

Step 5

Open up iTunes, and put your iPod into DFU mode.

I tried to do this a few times, but having a counter on hand is best.

Connect iPod to PC
Turn off while connected to PC
Press Sleep/Wake and Home buttons for exactly 10 seconds. Leave iPod connected.
After the 10 seconds, release the Sleep/Wake button. Continue to hold the Home button. Leave iPod connected.
Windows will now see the "new hardware", and iTunes will give a message that it has found an iPod in recovery mode.
Click OK.

Step 6

In iTunes, hold Shift while pressing "Restore".

Find your custom restore file and Restore. And wait for an extremely long time.

Step 7

Afterwards, iTunes may prompt for a backup restore.

It worked for me, but I'm not 100% sure if this affects anything, but if you don't mind, you can set it up completely from scratch.

The restore took around 25 minutes. Maybe it's because of my apps, but expect to wait.

... and now you should have a jailbroken iPod touch with Software 2.0!

There was one problem - Cydia always hangs when downloading or installing software. A hard reset is required. (Hold Sleep/Wake and Home buttons until it shuts down, then start up normally)