Upgrade your iPod touch to 2.0 for Free

The iPhone Software 2.0 update is free for iPhone users, but is $10 for those who have iPod touch. I found out you can get it for free.


Upgrade your iPod Touch to 2.0 for Free
Apple released their newest software update for both iPhone and iPod touch just about a week ago, July 11. It includes bug fixes and the anticipated App Store, which allows you to purchase and download third-party applications right to your iPhone or iPod. The update is free for iPhone users, but is $10 for those who own an iPod touch.

But I recently came across this method of upgrading your iPod to the latest version of the software (firmware, too). It involves tricking iTunes into restoring your iPod to software 2.0. However, it also involves wiping out your music and video collection in your iPod. Hence, the word 'restoring' your iPod. If you don't mind this, or if you have complete backup of your music collection in your PC, then this won't be an issue for you.

For this to work, you need a legitimate iPod Software 2.0 Restore file. Back in July 11 or 12, a link that directly points to an unrestricted Apple Phobos site leaked on the internet. A backdoor to the Apple Software server was available, which allowed the free download (and fast, too, as the file sharing sites give you a measly 5 kbps download rate) of the restore file. However, it's now currenly patched (as well as the link I used to get the file) and locked, and the only way to get the software restore file, iPod1,1_2.0_5A347_Restore.ipsw, is through torrents or file sharing sites. I got one from the Apple server itself, so I'm sure it's legit. I'm not so sure about those circulating in torrents and file sharing sites.

When you plug in your iPod, the little iPod window appears in iTunes. That's where the device info is shown - the iPod model, how much space it has, and how your music, videos, and photos take up that space, shown as a bar at the bottom. You'll also see two buttons - the Check for Updates and the Restore button. We're interested in the Restore button, since the Check for Update only prompts us to buy the update. We don't. We want it free!

If you hold Shift on your keyboard while clicking on Restore, a little window will appear that allows you to select which Restore file iTunes will use to restore your iPod to. Get it now? By selecting the Software 2.0 version (iPod1,1_2.0_5A347_Restore.ipsw) as a restore file, iTunes inadvertently updated your firmware version to version 2.0.

It will take a long time to prep your iPod for the restore, so be patient. There won't be any disk activity or CPU usage for that matter - just a window telling you that it's preparing your iPod for restore. Be patient.

After that, the restore (or upgrade) will happen - your iPod will reboot, and an Apple logo with a spinning throbber will appear. Wait until it's finished, and your done!

Reboot your iPod, and viola! An App Store icon right on the Home screen! Check the firmware version by going to Settings > General > About. Mine says Version 2.0 (5A347). It's only a matter of restoring your music and video files back to the iPod (as well as a restore from a backup) and you're good to go.

If you have an iTunes account, you can now purchase or download free applications for your iPod touch. Just go to the iTunes Store and download those applications.

Great! I just feel bad that Apple is forcing you to buy an upgrade now. Before (think iPod mini and nano), the updates for the firmware is free. And the discrimination between the iPhone and the iPod touch (remember, the update is free for the iPhone, original and the 3G version) is just wrong. But then again, it's just $10.

Apple Quietly Releases iPod Touch Update

If you own an iPod touch that hasn't been updated to version 2.0, Apple quietly released a free iPod touch 1.1.5 update, but we haven't seen much improvement yet.


Apple Quietly Releases iPod Touch 1.1.5 Update

While some forward-thinking individuals were dropping US$10 to purchase the iPod touch 2.0 software update, Apple quietly issued a free iPod touch 1.1.5 update. If you own an iPod touch that hasn't been updated to version 2.0 and would like the update, just plug your iPod touch into your Mac and decline the 2.0 update. iTunes will then inform you that the 1.1.5 update is available for download and installation.

Some across the Internet have suggested that the 1.1.5 update improves the touch's performance. However, applications launched in the same amount of time, Safari pages loaded identically, YouTube videos downloaded and displayed in approximately the same period of time, and stocks and weather between the two versions of the iPod software.

What purpose does this update serve? So far, Apple is mum on the subject as it hasn't issued any technical notes on the update. Therefore, until we hear differently, we'll assume that all changes take place "under the hood."

iPhone Activation Woes Hit Early Buyers

Some of the first people in the U.S. to purchase the iPhone 3G walked out of an Apple Store in New York disappointed Friday when Apple's plan to activate the new devices in stores backfired.


iPhone Activation Woes Hit Early Buyers

Problems with the iTunes server caused some enthusiasts who had waited in line for hours to walk out of the store unable to use their new iPhones, according to the disgruntled customers.

"I've got two phones on me and neither of them work," said Adolfo Peralta, a Brooklyn resident who lined up to purchase the iPhone 3G at 6:30 a.m. local time for the 8 a.m. SoHo store opening. "I have to go find a pay phone to make a phone call."

Apple Store employees deactivated his original iPhone to activate his new one, but the activation could not be completed because they could not connect to iTunes, he reported.

Peralta said he felt cheated by the fact he didn't have a working iPhone when he left the store. "You wait all this time," he said. "I don't think it's worth it."

Still, he said he was "thrilled" to have been one of the first to get the 3G device.

Other enthusiasts reported similar issues as they left the store on Prince Street at around 10:30 a.m.

Anoele Perillo, who got in line at 7 a.m. outside the SoHo store to purchase her iPhone, stood outside around 10:30 a.m. smoking a cigarette while she waited for problems inside the store to be fixed.

"All of the systems are down," Perillo said, adding that she had finished two crossword puzzles while waiting for her iPhone activation to be complete. She said employees were shutting down some computers at the store to try to fix some of the problems with the iTunes network the store was experiencing.

Jason Pinsky, a chief technology officer of a clothing company in New York, also attributed the activation problems he experienced at the SoHo store to the iTunes network.

While he could make phone calls with his new iPhone 3G -- a feature he demonstrated outside the store -- Pinsky couldn't use the iPod functionality because the iTunes part of the activation couldn't be completed in the store due to the network "bailing."

Pinsky had bought the original iPhone last year and said he didn't feel cheated by paying the premium for the original product. "I'm an early adopter," he said. "There's always a price to pay" for being first.

Apple requires customers to activate the iPhone 3G in stores where they were purchased. This was not a requirement for the original iPhone, which was released a little more than a year ago.

Apple did not immediately return requests for comment Friday morning. An Apple Store employee at the SoHo store said no one there was qualified to comment on the problem, but said that to him, things "appeared to be going smoothly."

Some customers did leave the store with their iPhones successfully activated and reported no activation problems, they said.

As customers waited for their iPhones to be activated at the SoHo store, more continued arriving to purchase the phone. The line snaked for several blocks by 11 a.m. local time.

The activation process was also slow at Apple's flagship New York store on Fifth Avenue and at the Apple Store in downtown San Francisco, customers reported.

An environmental activist group called Waiting for Apples, who were the first in line at the Fifth Avenue store -- having camped out for a week to purchase their iPhone 3Gs -- were still awaiting activation at about 11:30 a.m., reported a group member, who asked not to be named.

He added that Apple Store employees were calling the activation problem a "hiccup" and that activation would go smoothly for awhile before another hiccup occurred.

At 7:30 a.m. local time in New York at the flagship store, about 1,000 people were in a line that stretched around the corner on the same block where the famous FAO Schwarz toy store is located.

One person standing in line, who asked not to be named, said the crowd was about half the size of the throng that waited for the first iPhone. One reason for the smaller crowd, noted a few passersby, was that last year the launch was at the end of the day, giving people time to get out of work and check out the scene.

(continued)

iPhone Activation Woes Hit Early Buyers (Part 2)

Some of the first people in the U.S. to purchase the iPhone 3G walked out of an Apple Store in New York disappointed Friday when Apple's plan to activate the new devices in stores backfired.

iPhone Activation Woes Hit Early Buyers

(continued)
The consensus of about a half dozen people standing in line was that most users want the new iPhone mainly for the 3G (third-generation) speed. Several people said they own an iPhone, but want the speed of the new version. That was also the issue at the top of mind for some first-time iPhone buyers.

"It's 3G now, it's faster," said Ryan Tracy, the president of Cheech and Chong dot com, a retail and marketing company and Web site for the Cheech and Chong comedy team. Tracy said he was standing in line for several hours before the store opened.

"There's also a lot of other goodies you can download," Tracy said, referring to the iPhone 2.0 platform that lets users download applications from the iTunes service.

He also agreed with other people in line that the lower price was not the biggest issue. Asked whether the combination of applications, speed and lower price will make the new iPhone into a hot product, Tracy said "It's already a hit product, everyone's talking about it, everyone's here."

Software problems with the network of telecommunications operator O2 at Apple's London flagship store also caused activation delays, where the iPhone 3G also went on sale at 8 a.m. local time. O2 is the exclusive network operator for the iPhone in the U.K.

Problems with activation could affect the number of iPhone 3Gs Apple sells over the weekend if people decide to wait a few days for the problems to be resolved before making their purchases.

RBC Capital Markets projected that Apple may sell more than 1 million phones worldwide over the first weekend to meet pent-up demand, according to a report by analyst Mike Abramsky. The number could be four times more than the 270,000 iPhones that were sold at launch last year, he wrote.

But limited supplies could frustrate buyers as Apple shipped only 1.5 million iPhone 3Gs, Abramsky wrote. As supplies normalize, iPhone 3G is set for long-term success, and the company could ship up to 5.1 million iPhones in the quarter, according to the report.

More than half of current iPhone owners are likely to upgrade to iPhone 3G, according to a study from ChangeWave Research. Around 55 percent of current iPhone buyers said they are likely to upgrade to 3G iPhone, with more than half of them not planning to wait long, according to the research.

Bluetooth, IE to Get Critical Microsoft Patches

Microsoft plans to issue seven sets of security patches next week for Windows.


Bluetooth, IE to Get Critical Microsoft Patches

Microsoft plans to issue seven sets of security patches next week, including critical fixes for DirectX, Internet Explorer and Bluetooth wireless software for Windows.

The updates are due Tuesday, the day Microsoft had previously scheduled to release its security patches. Fixes are also slated for Active Directory, the Windows Internet Name Service (WINS) and the Pragmatic General Multicast (PGM) protocol, used by Windows to stream media to many recipients. These updates are all rated "important."

A seventh update, rated "moderate," is listed as a "Kill Bit" update for Windows. This type of patch will disable code that is known to have a security bug.

"The Kill Bit will more than likely be for a third-party application," said Andrew Storms, director of security operations with security vendor nCircle.

Lately, Microsoft's security group has had to pay more attention to software that runs on top of Windows, as attackers have increasingly looked to products like QuickTime, Adobe's Flash and other media players when devising their attacks.

Last Friday, Microsoft warned that a widely publicized flaw in Apple's Safari browser could be combined with another Microsoft bug to let attackers run unauthorized software on a victim's PC.

It's not clear whether Microsoft plans to patch that bug. The IE update could include a fix, although it's unlikely that Microsoft has had enough time to run this software through its testing process, Storms said.

It is unusual for Microsoft to patch Bluetooth, a protocol used to connect devices like headsets to Windows, but added that "the more interesting question is will this patch and/or the bug extend into Windows mobile where it will more than likely have a greater impact?"

Microsoft announced the planned patches in a note posted to its Web site on Thursday.

Apple Stops Pushing Safari to PCs

A new version of Apple's Update utility lets you choose which components to install and which to ignore.


Apple Stops QuickTime Nagging About Safari

Apple made my pet-peeves list recently with its decision to push Safari out to Windows customers via its QuickTime Update software, and I certainly wasn't the only one. The good news is that Apple seems to have finally relented.

A new version of QuickTime Update, available beginning today, uses a two-pane interface to separate legitimate updates to your currently-installed components from any new applications that Apple would like you to install. Shockingly, that even includes iTunes, for those of us who use our PCs mainly for business. And, though the option isn't easy to find, the new version even lets you opt out of Safari and iTunes downloads completely.

To get it, first run your existing QuickTime Update software. You can find it by opening the QuickTime control panel from your Start menu, selecting the Update tab, then pressing the button marked "Update..." You should see an application called "QuickTime Update 2.1" -- leave the box next to that checked, but uncheck all the others.

Inexplicably, installing the new QuickTime Update requires you to restart your computer. Once you're back up and running, launch QuickTime Update again (the same way you just did) to see the new interface.

By default, all the current updates are checked (including Safari and iTunes), but you might notice that you can now download the latest version of the standalone QuickTime software, without iTunes. Hooray for that.

Here's the kicker, though. With the new division of software, it's relatively painless to opt out of Apple's iTunes and Safari nagging for good. Make sure that you've installed the QuickTime updates that you need, then launch QuickTime Update again. You should now see only the updates that you don't want. Now go to the Tools menu and choose "Ignore Selected Updates." (You can always reset your ignored updates later if you change your mind.)

Voila! You should now have a functioning Apple Software Update that does what it was intended to do -- update your software, not push multi-megabyte applications that you don't really want.

Microsoft Releases Patches

Eleven security updates are released today that fix a number of critical flaws in Microsoft products, including Windows, Office, and Internet Explorer.

Microsoft Releases Massive Set of Security Updates

Robert McMillan, IDG News Service

Microsoft released 11 security updates today that fix critical flaws in its products, including a publicly known ActiveX bug that affects users of the Visual FoxPro database.

In total, 17 individual software flaws were patched in the updates. Microsoft rates six updates as critical, meaning they should be installed as soon as possible, while the remaining five updates are considered "important." Last month was an easier month on IT administrators, when Microsoft released just two updates.

Microsoft surprised some by releasing one less update than expected. Last Thursday the software vendor had said that it was readying a fix for critical VBScript and JScript flaws in Windows 2000, XP, and Windows Server 2003. That update wasn't included in this week's patches, but Microsoft today wouldn't confirm that it had actually dropped the update because "this could put customers at risk," according a spokeswoman for the company's public relations agency.

Security experts said Tuesday that the MS08-010 update, which fixes four bugs in Internet Explorer, should take top priority this week. "There are four vulnerabilities within that particular patch and all of them are remote-code executable," said Jonathan Bitle, director of technical account management with Qualys.

"The way we're looking at it, our prioritization would put MS08-010 at the top followed by MS08-007," said Don Leatham, director of solutions and strategy with Lumension Security.
MS08-010 fixes a publicly disclosed ActiveX bug that affects Visual FoxPro users. Although hackers have already posted code showing how to exploit this vulnerability, the buggy ActiveX control is not included in Internet Explorer 7's default list of controls, so the flaw should not affect most users.

The MS08-007 update fixes a critical flaw in the Windows XP and Vista WebDAV redirector software. WebDAV is a Web-based document sharing protocol. The flaw is rated important for Windows Server 2003 users.

Microsoft's Office products are also a major source of patches this month.
Tuesday's updates include critical fixes for Microsoft Word, Office Publisher and in Office itself.
There is also a critical update for Windows' Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) Automation software.

The remaining updates, rated important, are for Active Directory, the Vista TCP/IP stack, the Microsoft Works file converter and two bugs in the Internet Information Services (IIS) Web server.

The Patch Tuesday updates show that client-side bugs continue to be a much higher risk than server-side vulnerabilities, said Andrew Storms, director of security operations with nCircle. "One would have assumed that the IIS and Active Directory vulnerabilities would have been the most serious because they stand at the core of an enterprise and provide more critical services" he said via instant message. "But with this month's patches, the hacker's best bet is to take advantage of the client-side attacks."

source: PCWorld

IE Crippled By Update

Microsoft is investigating a security update released last week that has crippled Internet Explorer and prevented users from surfing the Web.

Microsoft Update Cripples IE
Microsoft has confirmed that it is investigating reports regarding a security update for Internet Explorer issued last week, crippling some users' ability to get on the web with the said browser.

Users started posting messages on forums and Microsoft support newsgroup after Microsoft released the MS07-069 Security Bulletin on December 11. Most of them are saying that they could not use Internet Explorer to connect to the internet, either because Internet Explorer refused to launch, or because when it did open, it could not open various websites.

"About 60% of the time, I would get an 'Internet Explorer has encountered a problem and must close' dialog," reported Bill Drake on the Windows Update newsgroup. Others echoed those comments on IE-specific forums, noting that both IE6 and IE7 balked at loading, or while loading, some pages, particularly home pages, on both Windows XP and Windows Vista machines.

Harold Decker, operations manager at San Diego-based Gold Peak IndustriesNA Inc., started fielding calls from users last Wednesday morning as soon as people hit the office. "I stopped everyone who hadn't installed the update from installing it, after four PCs out of 14 had the problem," said Decker, who manages a total of 35 Windows XP SP2 machines. "We're a pretty plain shop; all our systems run Windows XP SP2 and IE6," said Decker. "But some kept crashing. It seemed limited to the window that was opened, and changing the home page to something simple, like a blank page, gave a better success rate."

Microsoft said it is currently creating a patch. "Our customer service and support teams are investigating public claims of a deployment issue with Microsoft Security Bulletin MS07-069," Microsoft's Mark Miller, director of security response. "If necessary, Microsoft will update the Knowledge Base article associated with MS07-069 with detailed guidance on how to prevent or address these deployment issues," Miller added.

Other users on the support forums weren't much help, except to suggest uninstalling last Tuesday's security update. That's what Decker did. "We uninstalled [MS07-069] and have had no problems since then," he said.

Office Update Confuses Users

An automatic update for Windows XP and Vista included the massive 200MB Office 2007 SP1, which according to Microsoft, won't be pushed out with Windows Automatic Update

Office Update Installs Automatically
Some Windows users are surprised to know they have gotten the massive Office 2007 SP1 update automatically, even though Microsoft said it would not use Windows Automatic Updates to push out the large upgrade; at least not for several months.

Users running a preview copy of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 will receive the Office 2007 upgrade automatically, as well as those users running Windows XP SP3, which is still in limited beta testing. The update weighs in at almost 220 megabytes.

"As noted to beta customers, if [they] are running Vista SP1 beta software, as part of the beta program, Office 2007 SP1 on pre-release Windows Vista SP1 will automatically install as planned for this beta program," said Bobbie Harder, a senior program manager with the WSUS (Windows Server Update Services) group.

Other users noticed tha automatic download and install of Office 2007 SP 1, and that even if the update was installed manually, Automatic Update later automatically installs, or reinstalls, the service pack.

Microsoft, when it unveiled the service pack, said Automatic Updates would not be used to deliver SP1 for at least three months, and maybe even six months. The corporation also promised to give a 30-day notice before pushing the update out using Automatic Updates.

Harder said that "On Vista in the Windows Update Control Panel Applet, the Office 2007 SP1 will appear as an available update to download and install, but it will NOT automatically download and install, regardless of the automatic settings" However, the update is checked by default, and users can easily miss the update information, countered Bradley. "If you are a bit asleep and just blindly approve all of the patches, you get a very large wait while SP1 for Office 2007 is downloaded," she said.

A Computerworld reader reported exactly that. "I received [Office 2007 SP1] last night Dec 11 as part of Windows Auto-update," said someone identified as 6monthVistaUser in a comment attached to a story about SP1. "Last night was the largest auto-update ever (230 MB download) filled with 11 updates. 1 was for IE v7, 6 were for Vista cumulative patches, 1 was the Office 2007 Service Pack 1, the other one was for Business Contacts Manager SP 1."

Harder defended the process. "For customers who want the benefits of Office 2007 SP1 now, we have made it available," she said. She also noted that users could choose not to pull in the service pack. "Download and installation of the Office 2007 SP1 via the Vista Windows Update control panel applet requires explicit user interaction, just as with the Microsoft Update site," she said. "Once the list of available updates appears, they can de-select or uncheck the box next to Office 2007 SP1 and choose to download and install other updates, or just close the applet."