Wow, people get really upset when they talk about an iPhone Killer. I recently read this article on TheNextWeb about how Windows Phone 7 is THE iPhone Killer. This is my response.

I disagree that Windows Phone 7 will kill the iPhone. For 7 Reasons.

So if you know Geohot then you know he brought many Jailbreaks to the iPhone one of which was blackra1n. He has gotten tired of the current state of the iPhone Jailbreak community and has decided to leave without any indication of whether it was permanent or just temporarily. In his parting words he did say that he was sorry he didn’t make a proper “Goodbye” which many speculate means he may release one last Jailbreak tool for all idevices running iOS 4 and that is possibly including the iPhone 4.

Geohot: “Sorry, this post was probably a bad idea. Next time I won’t say anything. I miss when this blog was actually about technical things(I’ve been reacting too much to the feedback, which led it to the place it’s in now). I didn’t fully realize most of the current scene don’t care unless they are getting something. Now I do. It’s late tonight, I’ll think about what to do about this in the morning. The real reason behind no release isn’t technical. It’s just that it will never stop, after blackra1n, people demand unlock, after blacksn0w, people demand untethered. I miss the days when jailbreaking and unlocking were difficult, it attracted a much higher caliber crowd.”

He had claimed to have jailbroken iOS 4 before he left, only he knows this for sure. He closed his twitter account and switched his blog to invite only, but before he left he told everyone to follow @mikecohenn on twitter. I’m sure many people have started following, myself included, although no one knows if the comment was meant as a joke or maybe a way to get his friend a huge twitter following? However the internet is a buzz when Mike recently left this message “What’s a good time to make it ra1n?”

Twitter Message

I guess we’ll all just have to wait and see, I’m not getting too excited until there is something more substantial but it does add mystery and intrigue to the scene. There is also the comex jailbreak which is rumored to be dropping soon. There was a tweet from @comex “I’m not waiting for 4.1 so I hope everyone has SHSH blobs saved. :p”, comex brought us the ultra fast Spirit jailbreak and it’s not known if this will be an update to Spirit or a totally new jailbreak tool. There is also Sn0wbreeze v 2.o from iH8Sn0w, although there has been no release date on that tool it is another option that might come out soon.

I have quite a few friends who decided to buy iPhone 4s from the US & they are biting their nails waiting for a tool to hit primetime. Sound off in the comments are you in Canada with an iPhone 4 bought in the US? are you on an iPhone 4 dying to jailbreak?

Is your Wifi network safe? well it may not be for long. In about seven days a security researcher is promising to release an exploit into the wild at the Black Hat 2010 Conference that will rain on your router’s security parade.

The Black Hat conference is a gathering of people interested in information security, and is attended by representatives of federal agencies and corporations as well as hackers. Now this year Seismic’s Craig Heffner claims he has a tool that will hack “millions” of routers by taking advantage of the DNS rebinding vulnerability. In his testing more than half of the thirty different models were vulnerable to the tool, including the popular and old Linksys WRT54G router. The tool was also effective on routers running DD-WRT and OpenWRT Linux-based firmware.

So if you’ve got an old router, especially the WRT45G mentioned now might be a good time to consider upgrading the router. You probably want one that wasn’t affected by the tool(see the table below), although that doesn’t guarantee that it will be safe from attack once the exploit is released into the wild. You should also search the manufacturer site for a firmware upgrade for your router if there is one. It certainly goes without saying, although I will say it, please change the default password on the router as well as the network name.

Well last Friday at the iPhone 4 press conference Canadians got some welcomed news. The iPhone 4 would be arriving in Canada on July 30th, the last possible day for Apple to have kept their promise of a July launch. I have been checking the Apple Canada, Rogers & Fido sites for information on pre-order date and pricing. There has been no change and the 30th is only 1 week and 2 days away! Well perhaps I’m just anxious, I know I’m impatient but this morning after I updated my iTunes I connected my iPhone and there was a carrier update available. So are the carriers getting ready for iPhone 4? FaceTime?

As of now the Bell Mobility site still says coming July 30th, a touch better than Rogers and Fido which still say coming soon. Well the countdown begins and hopefully the sites will update with some more information because I’m itching to get it and I know I’m not the only one!

Bell Canada site

So everyone knows about the iPhone 4, and everyone knows about the long standing rivalry between Apple and Microsoft especially by users. Well the first batch of Windows 7 phones made by LG and Samsung are in the hands of developers. This is so the developers can test their apps on the phone rather than on emulators, so the units are running a Technical Preview version of Windows Phone 7. The picture speaks for itself the phone is pretty sweet looking in my opinion, and I will be getting one when it comes to Canada. The developers comments and Youtube videos follow read on and sound off in our comments.

“Microsoft is sending out LG and Samsung developer phones loaded with the Windows Phone 7 Technical Preview. I have one for a few weeks and will be putting it through its paces so check out the hardware I will be using.”

“Microsoft walks you through the initial setup of your device that does require a Windows Live ID to take full advantage of the operating system and included services.”

02 Windows Phone 7 startup and initial setup

Windows Phone 7 UI

03 User interface elements of Windows Phone 7

“My name is Frantzy Jean Philippe. I am an applicant for the Microsoft Partners Program at Cornell University. A short demo of Microsoft’s upcoming smartphone OS, Windows Phone 7 which will provide great services such as Office Mobile, Zune, and Xbox Live…”

04 Windows Phone 7 the future of smartphones (HD)

Now the final question is did the manufacturer’s test the antennae? don’t want another death grip scandal on their hands?!?

In the months after I got my iPad Apple was sold out of their iPad Case which folded to prop the ipad in landscape mode for easier typing. Well I was finally able to get one last week so here is what I think of it so far. I love it, not because my iPad is too heavy to hold or too hard to type on. The weekend I got my iPad I bought a silicon case and screen protector to make sure it was protected right away. I have been holding it and using it on my 1 hour trip each way to and from work each day.

So lets start from the beginning, I got back to work from the Apple store with the iPad case. There is an opening and the iPad slides inside it into a surrounding frame that holds it. It was a tight fit so it took a small bit of force to slide it into the case so it took me quite a while since I never like to force things it just doesn’t feel right. Well once I got it into the case all the ports are fully accessible except ofcourse for the microSIM tray which I don’t need access to often anyway. There is a cover over the screen with an Apple logo on the front, it then folds to the back and slides into a cutout on the back to form the slanted stand making it easier to type.

I like the cover at the front because when it is closed and in my bag I can grab it and take it out, when I had a silicone case this wasn’t possible without leaving big ugly finger smudges on the screen. I like typing on the iPad when while on the train when it’s in the folded raised mode. It is just much easier to put it on my lap and use hand gestures for swiping and typing while browsing and tweeting etc. The cost of the case is $50 Canadian before tax, which might seem expensive compared to silicone cases which are in the $30 range. However the Incase version with the folding stand was $64 dollars before tax, now the cost doesn’t seem that bad after all.

I didn’t like that they didn’t have a cutout where the Home button is located. This makes it a little more difficult when trying to hit the home button, which is the most functional button on the iPad. I couldn’t figure out why there wasn’t a cutout since cheaper silicone cases have them. The other problem I had was using the rotation lock switch on the side of the iPad to lock the rotation. Since the case is very useful for typing on the iPad with it in Landscape orientation, not being able to lock the rotation is very irritating since moving the iPad causes the screen to shift around between landscape and portrait orientation.

These were very minor annoyances and I wouldn’t have passed up the case because of them. I think this is a great case that makes the iPad even easier to use. The price is great when compared to the other brands of the exact same case. I give this case a 3 Star T3kd rating, it would have gotten the higher more coveted Editor’s choice except for the minor annoyances I listed.

3 Star rating

Now for some pictures of the case in action

Pros
Easier typing when folded into a stand
Front cover over the screen protects while held or carried
Easy access to most connections, buttons and speakers

Cons
No cutout at the home button location makes it a bit harder to press
Harder to access the rotation lock switch

If you missed something this week. That’s okay. We’re here for you with this week’s top rated posts.

1. Maybe Apple Was Telling the Truth

2. Apple’s iPhone 4 Press Conference Recap

3. Transparency Still Not Happening in the ACTA Discussions